ILLINOIS TECH UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE

Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

12:45pm

Online via Zoom and In-person in PS-152

Attending Voting Members: Fred Weening (AMAT), Ishaan Goel (SGA),  Keigo Kawaji (BME), Patrick Ireland (SSCI), Ben Zion (CHEM), John Twombly (SSB), Yuting Lin (Bio), Matthew Bauer (CS), Murat Vural (MMAE), Mary Jorgenson Sullivan (ELS), Victor Perez-Luna (CHBE), Nicole Legate (PSYC), Emily Leiner (PHYS), Eva Kultermann (ARCH), Stephen Kleps (CAEE),  Erdal Oruklu (ECE), Erin Hazard (HUM)

Chairing Meeting: Kathir Krishnamurthy (FDSN)

Also Attending:  Diane Fifles (Univ Accred), Pam Houser (INTM), Mary Hanes (UGAA), Jeff Wereszczynski (UFC), Joe Gorzkowski (UGAA), Kevin Cassel (VP Acad Affairs), Taylor Rojas (UGAA), Kathy Nagle (ARCH), Kyle Hawkins (AMP), Jesse Mosqueda (UGAA),  Jamshid Mohammadi (VP Faculty Affairs), Zipporah Robinson (Academic Success), Gabrielle Smith (UGAA), Kindon Mills (ARCH), Melisa Lopez (Student Success & Retention), Nick Menhart (CCAC), Ayesha Qamer (Registrar), Nichole Novak (Libraries), Khalilah Guyton-Hamlin (Registrar),  Gabriel Martinez (Armour Academy), Georgia Papavasiliou (Armour), Abby McGrath (Enrollment Services), Melanie Jones (Armour Academy),

Christopher Lee (Registrar), Norma I Scagnoli (VP Learning Initiatives)

Quorum was reached and the meeting was started at 12:49pm

1. Approval of September 24, 2024 minutes. Eva Kultermann made a motion to approve the minutes which was seconded by Keigo Kawaji. The minutes were approved by unanimous consent.

2. Approval of Meeting Agenda. Kathir Krishnamurthy displayed the proposed agenda and noted that there was one change to the agenda that had previously been distributed by email; namely an item concerning a proposal to make changes to the BS in Applied Physics. Kevin Cassel asked if the item on discussion and voting on the University Honors Program Proposal be tabled. He indicated that an assessment plan for the program is in the process of being developed and he expects that everything will be ready for a discussion and vote at the next UGSC meeting. With these changes, the agenda was approved without objection.

3. Kathir Krishnamurthy announced that Stephen Kleps of the Civil and Architectural Environmental Engineering department has volunteered to be the vice-chair of UGSC. A motion to elect Stephen was made and seconded. The motion passed unanimously and Kathir thanked and welcomed Stephen.

4. Kathir Krishnamurthy also announced that he would like to appoint Ben Zion of the Chemistry department to chair the N-designation subcommittee. He indicated that Ben had been contacted by email by Fred Weening regarding this, and asked if his acceptance of the appointment could be confirmed. Ben indicated his acceptance.

5. Kathir announced that Fred Weenig has volunteered to chair the standard-operating-procedures of the UGSC subcommittee discussed at the September 10 meeting. The rest of the committee will be composed of other former chairs of UGSC. Kathir indicated that he hopes that a report from the subcommittee will be finished by the end of the fall semester and will be voted on at the start of the spring semester.

6. The next item on the agenda was a proposal to revise the BS Applied Physics program. Emily Leiner, who is the new UGSC representative from Physics, presented the proposed changes. She shared her screen and showed the proposal while summarizing the proposed changes. The proposal involves a decrease in the number of required credits from 133 to 125 and in addition will rename the name of the program from BS in Applied Physics to BS in Engineering Physics. The program will have 41 credits in core Physics courses and 15 credits of core Engineering courses. In addition, students will need to select 9 credits of Engineering electives from a defined list of about 20 courses which she displayed, and 6 credits of technical electives which can be chosen from the 20 courses previously indicated or from 400 level Physics courses. Emily displayed a sample curriculum for the program and then asked for questions.

• Matt Bauer asked if it has been checked that all the prerequisites for the 20 listed Engineering courses would have been met by other courses already required in the program. Emily responded that, yes, this has been considered. There maybe some courses in which students will need to get consent of the instructor in order to allow a comparable physics course to replace an engineering course prerequisites. Matt followed-up by asking if they had checked if some of these 20 courses are only offered in the spring or the fall. He suggested that  it would be helpful to indicate this information to students in the list of courses. Emily indicated that she will check into this.
• Nick Menhart asked if the new assessment plan for the program had been loaded up into CIM. Emily indicated that there is not yet a new assessment plan. Nick then asked if the proposal we are looking at is in CIM yet, to which Emily said no. Nick responded that both the proposal and the assessment plan need to be in CIM before UGSC can vote on the proposal, and that his office can help with developing an assessment plan. Abby McGrath reiterated the necessity of having the proposal with an assessment plan in CIM prior to UGSC voting on the proposal. She stressed that voting on something not already in CIM creates an administrative nightmare.
• Fred Weening asked if there are any students currently in the BS in Applied Physics plan, and Emily indicated that there was one. This student would have the option to meet the requirements of the new proposal.
• Murat Vural indicated that one of the 20 courses listed is MMAE 365, and that this course is not going to be offered in the future. He suggested removing this course from the list.
• Jeff Wereszczynski mentioned that he had been involved in some of the development of the proposal and that there has been extensive discussions with the Engineering departments regarding which courses to list as Engineering electives.
• Georgia Papavasiliou added that Armour College has reviewed this proposal through all Engineering departments. Armour would like that the proposal be implemented by next Fall.
• Erdal Oruklu asked if there had been discussion about also including an option in the program for a specialization in an engineering discipline (which was a requirement in the Applied Physics program). Students might want to be able to have a specialization listed on their degree. Emily indicated that she will bring this suggestion back to the Physics department.

7. Other business:

• Kathir Krishnamurthy mentioned that so far this year there have not been many agenda items submitted to UGSC, but that he knows that many programs are undergoing changes. He asked that departments not wait on submitting agenda items until it might be too late to get these changes approved and ready for the next academic year.
• Eva Kultermann asked if there is any update regarding the work being done on making changes to the Core curriculum. Kevin Cassel indicated that he could address this:

Right now the Core Curriculum committee is in the process of meeting with all departments or their undergraduate studies committees to get feedback on the committee’s ideas. It will still take quite a bit of time before a formal proposal of changes comes to UGSC for approval.  It is likely that there may be a proposal for a pilot plan to be implemented in Fall 2025. Later this semester the committee may be able to give a status report presentation to UGSC.

Kindon Mills asked how students might be selected for a pilot plan and expressed concern for Architecture students since they have very heavy schedules in their first couple of semesters. Kevin responded that a lot of details concerning a pilot plan need to be worked out, but that the committee is aware that these changes may be more impactful on certain departments, like Architecture, and that is part of the reason that they are currently reaching out to departments for input. One change that is being considered is the elimination of the ITP requirement, and that this will free-up a bit of time during a students’ first year.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:21pm