ILLINOIS TECH UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE

Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

12:45pm

Online via Zoom and In-person in PS-152

(pdf version available here)

Attending Voting Members: Yuting Lin (BIO), Victor Perez-Luna (CHBE), Erdal Oruklu (ECE),  Murat Vural (MMAE),  Fred Weening (AMAT), Patrick Ireland (SSCI), Nicole Legate (PSYC), Stephen Kleps (CAEE), Ishaan Goel (SGA), Braja Mandal (CHEM), Keigo Kawaji (BME), Erin Hazard (HUM), Matthew Bauer (CS), James Mann (INTM), Emily Leiner (PHYS), John Twombly (SSB)

Chairing Meeting: Kathir Krishnamurthy (FDSN)

Also Attending: Joe Gorzkowski (UGAA), Natalia Gallardo (Registrar), Katie Spink (Pre-Med), Kevin Cassel (VP Acad Affairs), Ayesha Qamer (Registrar), Kyle Hawkins (AMP), Gabriel Martinez (Armour Academy), Georgia Papavasiliou (Armour), Zipporah Robinson (Academic Success), Mary Haynes (UGAA), Robert Ellis (AMAT), Kiah Ong (AMAT), Nichole Novak (Libraries), Mary Jorgenson Sullivan (ELS), Abby McGrath (Enrollment Services), Gabrielle Smith (UGAA), Taylor Rojas (UGAA), Melisa Lopez (Student Success & Retention), Norma I Scagnoli (VP Learning Initiatives), Keith Alexander (UGAA), Nick Menhart (VP Assessment and Accreditation), Rich Klein (SSB), Carly Kocurek (Lewis), Melanie Jones (Armour), Pam Houser (INTM), Diane Fifles (Univ Accreditation), Jeff Wereszczynski (UFC)

Quorum was reached and the meeting was started at 12:46pm

  1. Approval of Meeting minutes. Kathir Krishnamurthy displayed the minutes of the February 11 UGSC meeting and noted that these had been distributed previously. Matt Bauer moved that the minutes be accepted and this motion was seconded by Victor Perez-Luna. The motion to accept the minutes was passed without opposition or abstention.

  1. Approval of the proposed meeting agenda.  Kathir displayed the proposed agenda and noted that this agenda included some minor changes from what had been distributed earlier: the order of some items had been changed and some documents were updated. A motion to approve the agenda was made by Fred Weening and seconded by Victor Perez-Luna. The motion passed without opposition or abstention.  

  1. The next item was a proposal regarding the university’s policy on minors. The presentation was made by Mary Hanes and Gabe Smith. Mary described the nine proposed rules that are listed in the proposal and indicated that these are an update to the current policies that are being followed but are not well-documented. The first proposed rule states that a student can earn at most a total of four majors and minors. This rule was proposed, in part, because in recent years some students have been getting a large number of minors that have a lot of overlapping courses.

The question was raised as to whether this proposal needed to be voted on or not. Nick Menhart indicated that he felt strongly that this must be voted on since it will have effects on the undergraduate curriculum and as such should be decided by faculty. Jeff Wereszczynski agreed with Nick and added that this should be something that representatives bring back to their departments for discussion prior to a vote being taken.

A considerable amount of discussion ensued. Some of the questions raised included:

Gabe pointed out that some of the concerns could be addressed by allowing students to petition their major department for exceptions — if the department agrees to the petition the registrar’s office would grant the exception.

In the interest of time, it was decided to move on to the next agenda item and to continue the discussion of this item at a later time.

  1. The next item was the second reading of a proposal regarding the Bachelor’s of Science in Humanities.  Kathir asked Erin Hazard if there were any updates to the proposal. Erin indicated that, based on feedback from the last meeting, this proposal has now been entered into CIM as a revision of the existing BS in Humanities program rather than as a new program. Also the practical experience course which was originally proposed as being from 0 to 3 credits is now listed as a 3 credit course. Other than those changes, the proposal is the same as was presented 2 weeks ago. Matt Bauer moved to approve the proposal and this motion was seconded by Fred Weening. The motion passed without opposition or abstention.

 

  1. The next item concerned three proposals from the Mathematics department to reduce the required credits of programs in the department to the new 120 minimum. Fred Weening and Rob Ellis made the presentation. Fred described the proposed changes for the

Rob describe the proposed changes for the

These changes were viewed as minor changes and so the proposals could be voted on at this meeting. Matt Bauer moved that all three proposals be approved and John Twombly seconded the motion. The motion passed without objection or abstention.

  1. The next item concerned proposals to eliminate three minors:

and to make changes to the minor in Public Policy. Patrick Ireland explained that there have not been any students interested in the three minors that are being proposed to be eliminated. While the changes to the minor in Public Policy are to align the minor with the revised Public Policy degree. Fred Weening moved that we approve the elimination of the three minors and the changes to the minor in Public Policy. John Twombly seconded the motion. The motion passed without opposition or abstention.

  1. The next item was an informational item presented by Matt Bauer. He indicated that he has requested that the registrar put an attribute —(COMP)— on the courses which students can take to meet the computing requirement of the Core Curriculum. Until now there has not been an attribute listed, but as the number of courses that meet this requirement grows and includes courses from departments outside of CS, the CS department thought it would be a good idea to make it easier to identify these courses. Matt said he would work to make sure that all courses meeting the computing requirement get listed as such in the upcoming bulletins.

  1. The next item concerned designating the two courses

as satisfying the Core Curriculum computing requirements. Matt Bauer indicated that a committee consisting of himself and Steve Rubinow from ITM reviewed the course syllabi and course materials. They are recommending that these courses receive the computing requirement designation and they are confident that these courses will be able to provide artifacts needed for assessment of the computing learning outcomes. Although this item is informational, Kathir asked that a vote be held for record keeping purposes. Fred Weening moved that these courses be given the designation designation and this motion was seconded by John Twombly. The motion passed without objection or abstention.

  1. The next item concerned a proposal to revise the Bachelor of Science in Computer and Cybersecurity Engineering degree.  Erdal Oruklu made the presentation. He indicated that this program is fairly new; it was created in 2019. At the time it was created ABET criteria was still under development, and so there are some improvements proposed that will also better align the program with ABET criteria. The changes proposed include

These changes were viewed as minor changes to the program, and so they could be voted on at this meeting. John Twombly moved and Matt Bauer seconded a motion to approve the proposal. The motion passed without opposition or abstention.

  1. Next on the agenda was proposed elimination of four programs:

and a proposal to revise the

Carly Kocurek made the presentation. She indicated that all four of the programs proposed for elimination are currently in hiatus status. Only two of these programs, General Communication and Digital Humanities, currently have students enrolled and there are teach out plans for these students. There will be a new program coming next year that will essentially be a replacement of these four programs. Patrick Ireland moved to approve the proposals to eliminate these four programs and this motion was seconded by Erin Hazard. The motion passed without opposition or abstention.

Next, Carly described the proposed changes to the BS in Game Design and Experiential Media. She explained that the course ID410 is currently a required course, but it isn’t being offered frequently enough. So the proposal is to remove this requirement, increase the number of technical electives from 12 credits to 15 credits, and add ID410 to the list of allowed courses for the technical electives. This proposed change was viewed as a minor change and as such could be voted on at this meeting. Fred Weening moved to approve the proposal and Patrick Ireland seconded the motion. The motion passed without opposition or abstention.

  1. The next item concern proposed changes to the

Stephen Kleps described the proposed changes.

He started with the Minor in Sustainability. One change was to remove a notation that had indicated the course ENV201 would be offered in the future, since it is now being offered. The other change is to add two courses CAE462 and ENVE423 to the list of courses from which students must choose two.

The changes to the BS in Architectural Engineering as well as to the BS in Civil Engineering are

These changes were viewed as minor changes, and so could be voted on at this meeting. Matt Bauer moved to approve the proposals and Stephen Kleps seconded the motion. The motion passed without opposition or abstention.

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There was still approximately 10 minutes left for the meeting, so the committee resumed the discussion of item 3 — the university policy on minors. Matt Bauer suggested that Academic Affairs could identify the departments that required a minor within their department to determine if these should instead be called specializations. He stated that his view is that if only students within the major have the necessary prerequisites to take the courses for the minor, then it should be called a specialization. He also requested that we get some statistics as to how many students are “piling on” the minors: the number of students getting exactly 1 minor, the number getting exactly 2 minors, etc..

Kevin Cassel gave his view on the distinction of minors and specializations as a specialization should be a much more prescribed list of courses a student needs to take within their major than what would constitute a minor. Nick Menhart said that he views minors as an introduction, or smaller version, of the major; hence the name. He was in favor of getting precise definitions of specializations, tracks, and minors written down.

Kevin requested that when representatives get feedback from their departments on this topic, they send the feedback to Gabe as soon as possible. In this way a revised proposal can be brought to the next UGSC meeting.

Nick brought up a somewhat related issue that he has encountered recently: namely when a course can be double counted toward a major and a minor does, or doesn’t, the student have to take an additional course to compensate for the double counting. He has seen the “rules” applied inconsistently and this has also been noticed by students which has caused some dissatisfaction. This is especially important when a minor, such as pre-med, requires a very large number of courses. A rule for this does not seem to be written in the bulletin.

  1. Other business. Nikki Legate asked if anyone knew why the Early Warning emails were not being sent out to faculty this semester. Kevin Cassel thanked Nikki for the question as he had wanted to update the faculty on this. He indicated that essentially the system is currently “broke” and that they are working on getting a more robust system through Navigate which will also have more features available.  The plan is to get something working and out to faculty prior to spring break, and then based on feedback from faculty make some refinements.

        

The meeting adjourned at 1:46 pm.