Undergraduate Studies Committee

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

12:45 p.m.  On-line via Zoom Platform

Meeting Minutes

Attending Voting Members: F. Weening (AMAT), C. Wetzel (ARCH) Y. Lin (BIOL), P. Troyk (BME), E. Corradi (CAEE), S. Hong (CHBE), R. Guan (CHEM), C. Hood (CS), E. Oruklu (ECE), A. Sandhu (FDSN), E. Hazard (HUM), C. Wark (MMAE),  D. Gidalevitz (PHYS), J. Miller (PSYC), R. Trygstad (ITM), J. Twombly (SSB), P. Ireland (SSCI), B. Barber (SGA).

Also attending: J. Gorzkowski (UGAA), G. Smith (UGAA), M. Lopez (Academic Affairs), A. Matari-Renno (Registrar's Office), N. Novak (Galvin), G. Pulliam (CAC), A. Patelidas (Registrar), M. Jorgenson Sullivan (ELS), J. Rosenberg (SSCI), P. Houser (INTM), Todd Diel (FDSN).

Department with absent voting member: ROTC

Documents for this meeting are available at: <https://www5.iit.edu/~ugsc/documents/2020-2021/>

Meeting chaired by Kathryn Spink.

Minutes recorded by Greg Pulliam

Quorum declared at: 12:45 pm

Adjourn at: 1:58 pm

1. Approval of the minutes for October 13, 2020. 

         The minutes were approved 11-0.

2.  Follow-up discussion on possible changes to the add/drop period were postponed as the requested new information was not available.

3.  Vote on course credit for language exams. (Spink, Pulliam) The following was approved by a vote of 13-0: 

         "The Undergraduate Studies Committee recommends that credit for upper-level humanities (H) courses not

         be granted on the basis of language proficiency exams or language placement exams."

4.  Item from Town Hall meeting (Spink): Do we want to restrict the so-called "swing" course any further than in the following language, which passed in the previous meeting? There was a suggestion that a COM course taken to fulfill this requirement be limited to 300-level courses or higher.

     The remaining course in this module must be selected from any Humanities (H) course, any Social or Behavioral Science (S) course, or any COM course except COM 101 or COM 111.

There was not enough interest in the suggested restriction to generate a motion to that effect.

5.  Provost Award for Online Teaching (Spink): the chair shared the link to the document which describes this award. That link is: https://www5.iit.edu/~ugsc/documents/2020-2021/ProvostAwardforOnlineTeaching.html.

The chair will ask a faculty member with significant experience teaching online (Alan Glodowski) to lead the group which will review the nominees.

6.  Student proposal (Tyagi): The SGA proposes that students get additional class days off during the spring term to compensate for the elimination of spring break in 2021. The chair will report this request to the UFC. The UGSC does not have the authority to change the academic calendar. The discussion was generally not favorable to the proposal.

7. Discussion: How to get faculty feedback on technology issues with online teaching (Spink)?

8.  Discussion of core curriculum letter designations for courses: S for Social/Behavioral Sciences; H for Humanities; N for Natural Sciences and/or Engineering.

Is it acceptable for a course to receive more than one of these designators?

         There was no support for this.

Can courses offered by outside departments where these letter designations are normally found receive these designations?

This already occurs with a few courses, so the answer is a qualified "yes." Generally speaking, N courses should be offered by science and engineering departments, S courses by the departments of Social Sciences, Psychology and the Business School, and H courses by the Humanities department.

What is the procedure for letter designations if and when the two-person team does not reach the same conclusion about a particular course?

The two-person team should work with the instructor/department to revise the course and reach consensus.

Adjourn.