Undergraduate Studies Committee
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
12:45 p.m. WH 115
Meeting Minutes
Attending Voting Members: F. Weening (AMAT), K. Spink (BIOL), P. Troyk (BME), E. Corradi (CAEE), R. Guan (CHEM), C. Hood (CS), E. Oruklu (ECE), E. Hazard (HUM), C. Wark (MMAE), J. Miller (PSYC), R. Trygstad (SAT), A. Madabhushi (SGA), J. Twombly (SSB), D. Bliss substituting for P. Ireland (SSCI)
Also attending: J. Alexis (IPRO), J. Gorzkowski (UGAA), C. Himes (LCHS), P. Houser (INTM), M. Lopez (Student Success and Retention), N. Novak (GL), J. Rosenberg (SSCI)
Departments with absent voting members: ARCH, CHBE, PHYS, ROTC
Documents for this meeting are available at: <http://www.iit.edu/~ugsc/documents/2019-2020/>
Meeting chaired by Greg Pulliam
Minutes recorded by Fred Weening
Quorum declared at: 12:47 pm
Adjourn at: 1:40 pm
1. Approval of the minutes for February 11, 2020.
The approval of the minutes passed unanimously.
New Business
2. Information item: change in course repeat procedure and form (Gorzkowski).
J. Gorzkowski indicated that the UGAA web-site now contains an on-line form that students can use to request a course repeat for change in grade (students can still also use Degree Works for this purpose). There are no changes in policy for course repeat.
3. IPRO learning goals (Alexis).
J. Alexis explained that the IPRO committee has updated the learning goals for the IPRO courses and will submit the goals for UFC approval. The goals were displayed on the overhead projector and J. Alexis explained some of the reasoning which lead to the descriptions given. There are four learning goals; the statement of these can be found on the UGSC web-site along with examples of how each of the goals can be met. The examples are not meant to limit how instructors can meet the goals, but rather to clarify the descriptions of the goals.
There was considerable discussion of the wording of the third goal, with some differing opinions on the purpose and need for the phrase “.., when appropriate, ..” in the sentence: “This should included, when appropriate, consideration of the greater impact on the community and society.” Ultimately a compromise was suggested, namely to remove the two commas and the word “when”. J. Alexis indicated that he would take this suggestion back to the IPRO committee. The UGSC committee will vote on whether to endorse the document at our next meeting.
4. Minor change to PSYC BS (Miller).
J. Miller indicated that the PSYC program will be eliminating MATH 119 (Geometry for Architects) as one of the choices for meeting the Mathematics requirement of the core curriculum. The requirement will indicate that any math class numbered 122 or higher will be allowed.
5. Information item: Very minor change to BS in Statistics (Weening).
F. Weening indicated that the BS in Statistics program is changing their sample curriculum. The sample curriculum currently lists students taking MATH 225 (Introduction to Statistics) in the spring semester of their freshman year This will be changed to instead indicate taking MATH 225 in the fall semester of the freshman year. This change is being made because MATH 225 is only being offered in fall semesters.
6. Minor changes to INTM program (Houser).
P. Houser described several minor changes being made to the INTM program. These changes are described in detail in a document found on the UGSC web-site. The changes include eliminating some courses from the program, adding some new courses (one of which replaces one of the eliminated courses), and updating course descriptions and course titles.
7. Minor changes to Artificial Intelligence (CS) Minor (Hood).
C. Hood described some minor changes to the Artificial Intelligence Minor: the class CS 331 (Data Structures and Algorithms) will be removed as a required class and replaced with a choice of two courses that are more relevant to the AI discipline; namely CS 422 (Data Mining) and CS 429 (Information Retrieval).
There was a short discussion regarding these changes in which it was noted that this is a trade-off of a fundamental course for some courses that are more specialized.
8. Information item: Shared course options in BS/CS – MAS/DS co-term (Hood).
C. Hood indicated that in the past the sharing course options in the BS/CS – MAS/DS co-terminal program has been problematic with respect to the approval process. Therefore the CS department is going to use a less proscriptive course sharing option; namely any three 500 level CS courses may be shared in the BS/CS – MAS/DS co-terminal program.
9. Proposed change to Human Sciences Module of Core Curriculum
J. Miller described a proposed change to the Human Sciences Module of the Core Curriculum. The change proposed (see document on UGSC web-site) concerns details of requirement number 2. to the Human Science Module of the Core Curriculum: students must complete at least three Social or Behavioral Science courses (designated by S in the bulletin). More specifically the proposal is to remove requirements 2.(b) “courses from at least two different fields,” and 2.(c) “at least six credit hours from a single field,” and then re-designate requirement 2.(d) to become 2. (b).
An amendment to this proposal was made by J. Miller: to restore requirement 2.(b) and re-designate the proposed 2.(b) to become 2.(c). In other words to, in effect, only remove requirement 2. (c) from the current requirements (and re-designate 2. (d) as 2. (c)).
Discussion included some of the following comments:
· the proposal would not be in line with the requirements of the STEM module
· the provost has asked Lewis College to take the lead on re-vamping the core requirements, so making the changes proposed now may be short lived.
· from an adviser's perspective the proposed changes would eliminate a lot of confusion that students are currently experiencing
A vote was taken on the amendment to the proposal. The amendment passed with a vote of 12 in favor and 1 opposed. The amended proposal will be voted on in the next UGSC meeting.
Adjourn.
The meeting adjourned at 1:40 pm.