ILLINOIS TECH UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE

Meeting Minutes

Tuesday March 25, 2025

12:45pm

Online via Zoom

(pdf version available here)

Attending Voting Members: Matthew Bauer (CS), Fred Weening (AMAT), Jeremy Hajek (ITM), Keigo Kawaji (BME), Erdal Oruklu (ECE), Erin Hazard (HUM),  Kindon Mills (ARCH), Nicole Legate (PSYC), Braja Mandal (CHEM), Victor Perez-Luna (CHBE), Murat Vural (MMAE), John Twombly (SSB), Yuting Lin (BIO), Patrick Ireland (SSCI), Stephen Kleps (CAEE)

Chairing Meeting: Kathir Krishnamurthy (FDSN)

Also Attending: Nick Menhart (VP Assessment and Accreditation), Kiah Ong (AMAT), Katie Spink (Pre-Med), Jennifer deWinter (Dean LCS), Gurrom Gopal (ITM), Rich Klein (SSB), Edoarda Corradi (IPRO), Jeff Wereszczynski (UFC), Mary Jorgenson Sullivan (ELS), Yasmin Rodriguez-Escutia (Armour Acad Advisor),  Keith Alexander (UGAA), Michael Arnaudo (Armour Acad Advisor), Ray Trygstad (ITM), Joe Gorzkowski (UGAA), Mary Haynes (UGAA), Kyle Hawkins (AMP), Taylor Rojas (UGAA), Nichole Novak (Libraries), Gabrielle Smith (UGAA), Melanie Jones (Armour), Diane Fifles (Univ Accreditation), Abby McGrath (Enrollment Services), Katherine Quiroa (UGAA), Zipporah Robinson (Academic Success), Rama Sashank Madhurapantula (Dean Acad Discipline), Norma I Scagnoli (VP Learning Initiatives)

Quorum was reached and the meeting was started at 12:47pm

1. Approval of Meeting minutes. Kathir Krishnamurthy noted that the meeting minutes were not yet available, so we will have to wait until the next UGSC meeting to approve them.

2. Approval of the proposed meeting agenda.  Kathir displayed the previously distributed proposed agenda. He indicated that there was one change since distributing the agenda: Erin Hazard will present item 5 instead of Hannah Ringler. A motion to approve the agenda was made by Matt Bauer and seconded by Jeremy Hajek. The motion passed without opposition or abstention.  

3. The next item on the agenda was an informational item concerning prerequisites for IPRO. The presentation was made by Edoarda Corradi, Director of IPRO. Edoarda mentioned that IPRO was assessed by the Core Assessment Committee in spring 2024. One of the recommendations based on the data collected was that students complete their first IPRO no earlier than U3. She indicated that starting in Fall 2025, a year 3 standing will be a prerequisite for a student’s first IPRO. She also explained that most students already follow this rule. Since 2022, there have been about 3500 students in IPRO classes and only 4% of those students were in U1 or U2.  

4. The next item was a proposal to reduce the number of credits required in the Bachelor of Information Technology program. Jeremy Hajek made the presentation. Jeremy indicated that when ITM previously had reduced the number of credits for various undergraduate programs, they overlooked a Coursera program corresponding to one of these programs. This proposal will make the Coursera program match the on-campus program.

Ray Trygstad added to the presentation by mentioning that since this degree program is a transfer only program, the process of reducing the required number of credits was particularly simple. The proposal just reduces the number of credits in free or technical electives that a student transfers in from 36 to 29. This makes the total number of credits for the program exactly 120.

This proposal was viewed as a minor change and so a vote on the proposal could be taken at this meeting. Matt Bauer moved to approve the proposal and this was seconded by Kindon Mills. The motion passed without objection or abstention.

5. The next item was a proposal to change to the Bachelor of Science in Information Communication and Data Visualization program. Erin Hazard made the presentation. She explained that this program was approved by UGSC last spring, but as it was making its way through CIM the Intro to the Professions course which the program required was discontinued. So the proposal is to replace that particular ITP course with any ITP class. Matt Bauer moved to accept the proposal and Fred Weening seconded the motion. The motion passed without objection or abstention.

6. The next item was a continuation of the discussion of the proposed official policy on minors from the UGSC meeting on February 25, 2025. Katie Spink began the discussion with a question on item #7 in the proposal:

For majors with a required minor, 1 course for the minor may overlap with 1 major requirement, but missing credits needs to be made up with another major course or free elective. However, if 2 or more classes overlap between major and minor, choose a different minor due to significant overlap

She explained that she oversees the pre-med minor which is the largest minor on campus. If a student is for example a CIS or CS major then their major and minor would require them to take some of the same specific science courses. According to the way this rule is written, it seems that such a student would then have to take additional science classes and she wondered if that really is the intent of the proposal.

Gabe Smith responded that this rule, item 7 in the proposal, is not new. The reason for listing this item is so that we have a complete policy written down. Item 1 in the proposal, limiting the number of minors a student can have, however, is new.  Katie indicated that she thinks the wording of item 7 should be changed as it seems to be open to interpretation. Yuting Lin also indicated that members of her department expressed concern over the wording of item 7.

Nick Menhart commented that his recollection of what UGSC approved previously was that the student getting the minor must take at least 12 credits outside of their course required by their major, not that there could only be one course of overlap between the requirements of the major and the minor. He also mentioned that he has had specific cases of students in recent years for which this type of rule has been applied inconsistently and this has led to considerable dissatisfaction from the students. Gabe asked that Nick provide her with the specific cases for her to look into; she indicated that applying the rules consistently is the goal of UGAA.  

Keigo Kawaji commented that there may need to be some nuances added to the rule which states that a student cannot get a minor in the department of their major due to the accreditation rules for Engineering. Jennifer deWinter followed up on Keigo’s point by indicating that she had previously experienced accreditation body rules affecting whether a major and minor can be from the same department. She said that clearly we don’t want to allow, for example, a Biology major to get a Biology minor. But there are more complicated situations under which we may need to get guidance from HLC on how to formulate our rules.

Gabe commented that this discussion is very helpful and that part of the intent of putting forth the proposal was to get these comments.

Kiah Ong mentioned that the math department has concerns as well with item 7. According to what is written in the item it seems that, for instance, no Statistics major could get any of the CS minors because both the Stats major and all CS minors require two of the same classes. Gabe responded that this is not in practice what happens, the student can get this major and minor by replacing the overlap with additional courses from the major. But she understood the confusion in the way the rule is currently written in the proposal.

There was a considerable amount of further discussion regarding the proposed new rule of not allowing students to get a minor in the department of their major. Murat Vural explained why his department is strongly opposed to such a rule.

Kathir asked that UGAA use the discussion to come up with a reworded proposal and bring this back to a later meeting.

7. Other business. Jeff Wereszczynski noted that the next UGSC meeting is scheduled for April 8 and that this is on the same day and time as the full university faculty meeting. He suggested that we either cancel the April 8 UGSC meeting or reschedule it on a later date. There was some discussion on what to do with several people noting dates with other important commitments. Ultimately Kathir indicated that he will send an email to try to find a time when we could reschedule the April 8 meeting. Jeff also pointed out that one item we need to have at the next meeting is a proposal for the Standard Operating Procedures of the UGSC. Fred Weening indicated that he would have a proposal ready by the next meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 1:37 pm.