Undergraduate Studies Committee
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
12:45 p.m. On-line via Blackboard Collaborate Platform
Meeting Minutes
Attending Voting Members: F. Weening (AMAT), F. Flury (ARCH), K. Spink (BIOL), P. Troyk (BME), E. Corradi (CAEE), S. Hong (CHBE), R. Guan (CHEM), C. Hood (CS), E. Oruklu (ECE), E. Hazard (HUM), C. Wark (MMAE), D. Gidalevitz (PHYS), C. Adams (ROTC), R. Trygstad (SAT), A. Madabhushi (SGA), J. Twombly (SSB), P. Ireland (SSCI)
Also attending: D. Bliss (UFC Secretary), C. Brown (CoS), B. Burton-Freeman (FSN Chair), T. Diel (FSN), F. Estrada (Transfer Articulation), J. Gorzkowski (UGAA), P. Kilpatrick (Provost), A. Lagunas (Registrar), M. Lopez (Student Success and Retention), T. McGee (English Language Services), N. Novak (GL), J. Rosenberg (SSCI), G. Smith (UGAA)
Departments with absent voting members: PSYC
Documents for this meeting are available at: <http://www.iit.edu/~ugsc/documents/2018-2019/>
Meeting chaired by Greg Pulliam
Minutes recorded by Fred Weening
Quorum declared at: 12:46 pm
Adjourn at: 2:06 pm
1. Approval of the minutes for March 10, 2020 and approval of the remote actions minutes for Spring 2020.
There were two corrections indicated to the March 10 minutes:
▪ D. Gildalevitz (PHYS) should have been listed as attending the meeting
▪ The department designation (CHBE) should have been indicated next to S. Hong’s name in the attendance
With these corrections, the minutes for March 10, 2020 were approved unanimously (15-0).
The remote action minutes document (see UGSC website) recording the email vote on March 25/26 extending the I-Course Pilot Program for one year, and an Information item from Biology on April 2 was approved unanimously (15-0).
New Business
2. Impact of COVID-19 crisis on university revenue and how to mitigate this impact (P. Kilpatrick).
Provost Kilpatrick shared that President Cramb sent UFC Chair N. Menhart a letter on March 27 indicating the financial impact of the current crisis on fiscal year 2021. Currently international students cannot get visas, and their non-enrollment this Fall alone would result in a $9 million decrease in revenues. The university has been looking at many ways to address this visa impediment; for example more International Online cohorts of students, new partnerships with schools in China, increasing our India Online presence, and starting a European Online program.
He also indicated that another way to offset the loss in revenue, which may be crucial to our financial health, is to try to increase the number of students transferring to Illinois Tech from Illinois community colleges. The problem that we have in attracting such students is something that has been under discussion by the UGSC and other bodies in recent years: our Core Curriculum is unique in several ways (IPRO, Communication courses, 300+ level Humanities and Social Sciences courses) which makes it very difficult for community college students to transfer from a 2-year program and graduate in a total of 4 years. President Cramb requested, in his letter to the UFC chair, that he’d like the UFC to expeditiously examine how we can join and become a full member of the IAI (Illinois Articulation Initiative) --- which would require us to make 27 credit hours of Illinois community college general education transfer to our core curriculum --- and how, in general, we can make more credit hours transfer for Illinois community college students.
The Provost explained that he believes the best course of action is a transitional approach in which the university approves a temporary plan (such as a proposal put forth by G. Pulliam) which would allow community college students to transfer more credit hours to general education for this Fall’s incoming class. This will allow the university to explore what the financial impact may be if we become a member of the IAI. Furthermore, he requested that UGSC form a committee to start working now and into the Fall (possibly into the Spring) on a more permanent proposal to allow Illinois Tech to be a receiving member of the IAI accepting 27 credit hours from students transferring from a STEM-GECC (see https://itransfer.org/aboutiai/ for more details).
P. Troyk asked the Provost to confirm his understanding of the proposal put forth by G. Pulliam. Namely that for the Fall 2020 – Spring 2021 year, we would allow transfer students to receive credits for courses that are 1-level higher than the course they took; for example, counting a 200-level community college course for a corresponding 300-level course here. The Provost agreed that this was correct, and that he believes this would give Admissions the tool needed to become IAI full members for this coming year and to positively impact our Fall 2020 transfer enrollments.
3. Creation of IAI working group (Spink, Pulliam).
G. Pulliam proposed to form an IAI working group such as was discussed by P. Kilpatrick. The proposal includes that the UGSC chair (namely G. Pulliam until August 2020) will serve as the chair of the working group. K. Spink has already volunteered to be on the working group. Others UGSC members who would like to be members of the group can contact G. Pulliam.
K. Spink moved to have this group formed in this manner, and C. Adams seconded the motion.
A call for discussion and for self-nominations to be on this working group was requested. G. Smith, J. Gorzkowski, and R. Trygstad volunteered.
J. Rosenberg asked how the method of forming this group was determined, and whether you are required to be a UGSC member to serve on this group. G. Pulliam responded that UGSC membership is not required. J. Rosenberg also asked why this group needed to be formed right away, wouldn’t it be better to go to departments first and see who might be interested in being a member of the working group. G. Pulliam indicated that, as the Provost described, there is some urgency to the task at hand. He would like to see the group working through the summer and perhaps have a proposal ready for the middle of the Fall semester. Also membership on this group need not be fully determined today, interested people can contact him in the upcoming days. K. Spink concurred with G. Pulliam, and indicated that J. Miller from PSYC has expressed interest in volunteering as well.
D. Bliss and J. Rosenberg volunteered. Although J. Rosenberg objected to the manner in which the working group was being formed.
P. Troyk interjected that, as an email thread sent out earlier today indicates, this is not a new issue; a subcommittee was formed in 2018 to look at the issue, but unfortunately nothing came out of the subcommittee. Since this is not a new topic of consideration for the UGSC, it is not inappropriate to form a committee today.
D. Bliss indicated that a review of minutes of UGSC and UFC showed that in 2018 the UGSC did approve a “two-for-one” approach in October of 2018. The UFC, however, took no action on this UGSC policy and that seems to have been the end of the story at that time.
A vote was taken on the proposal of forming this working group with composition as described above. The proposal passed unanimously (15-0).
4. Proposal to suspend advisor consent and departmental permission requirements for undergraduates to take online courses. (Pulliam)
G. Pulliam read his proposal to the UGSC:
If the university moves all summer and/or regular (Fall/Spring) term classes online, the advisor consent and departmental permit requirements for undergraduates to register for online courses will be suspended for that semester’s registration period. If the university returns all-at-once to the standard, predominantly in-person mode of course delivery, the advisor consent and departmental permit requirements will go back into place as soon as this decision is announced. If the university more gradually returns from online to in-person delivery of courses, the UGSC will immediately discuss and propose to the UFC an interim policy.
There was considerable discussion on the wording of the proposal and the timing described in the proposal. Ultimately it was decided that the wording should be changed and the proposal should just be only for the Summer of 2020. G. Pulliam read an amended proposal:
The requirement that undergraduate students must get their academic advisor's consent and the permission of the offering department to register for an online course is suspended for the 2020 Summer terms.
This proposal passed by a vote of 16 in favor and 2 opposed.
5. Proposal to allow community college courses to transfer in one level higher than the level at which they were taken (Pulliam, Spink, Trygstad)
G. Pulliam read the proposal (see UGSC website) to the committee. The proposal would allow community college students to transfer in courses at 1-level higher than the level at which they were taken (but not allow a remedial course to get transferred in for UG1 credit).
In-line with the requests from the Provost earlier in the meeting, P. Troyk motioned to amend the proposal so that it only applied to students transferring in the Fall 2020 / Spring 2021 academic year. K. Spink seconded the amendment and discussion followed.
The original intention was to discuss this proposal today, possibly changing its wording, to get a proposal that could be voted on by email on April 22.
J. Rosenberg expressed his reasons for opposition to the proposal: He stated that although he understands the rationale for wanting such a proposal, it puts us on record indicating that schools which cannot offer upper level courses can give a course which will be counted as equivalent to an upper level course at Illinois Tech. This isn’t fair to current Illinois Tech students. Should we allow current IIT students to take community college classes to fulfill upper-level IIT requirements?
R. Trygstad commented that the fact is that we are competing for these transfer students with other 4-year colleges in the area that are offering students a 3 + 1 program (i.e., students take courses for 3 years at a community college and 1 year at the 4-year college, and then the student receives a Bachelor’s degree). We are losing out to these 4-year colleges in competing for students.
Following up on one of J. Rosenberg’s points, G. Smith wanted to know what this proposal would mean for an IIT student who wanted to take a summer course at a community college and transfer the course to get 300 level credit. G. Pulliam said that, as the proposal is currently written, students would have that ability; so we might want to change the wording to not allow that possibility.
D. Bliss wanted to make clear that the current policy (which was re-affirmed by the UGSC in Oct 2018) is that departments can, on a case-by-case basis, make 200-level transfer course count equivalent to 300-level IIT courses.
There was more discussion on the merits of amending (or not amending) the proposal to have a 1 year time limit.
A vote was called on the amendment to the proposal and the amendment was passed by a vote of 14 in favor and 0 opposed.
G. Pulliam asked whether there was interest in having him re-word the now amended proposal to restrict current IIT students from being able to take courses at community colleges and transfer them in as upper level courses. The consensus seemed to be that he should do this, and so he indicated that he would be sending out an email with the revised wording, and that the new proposal would be voted on by email sometime next week.
P. Troyk suggested that it would be better to have a special meeting, via blackboard collaborate, next week to vote on this, because if there was to be any discussion it would be better in that format than by email. G. Pulliam agreed and said he will schedule this meeting at 12:45 next Tuesday (April 21).
6. Elections for chair of UGSC for next year (Pulliam).
G. Pulliam indicated that K. Spink, the current vice-chair, has offered to serve as next year’s chair. He asked for other nominations for chair of the UGSC next year. None were given.
P. Troyk pointed out that technically this committee does not elect its own chair. Rather the UGSC makes a recommendation for its chair to the UFC, and then the UFC decides whether to approve that recommendation.
G. Pulliam indicated that he would like a vote for the recommendation of chair at the next UGSC meeting. He also asked for nominations for next year’s vice-chair and secretary. He indicated that he is willing to serve as secretary next year.
The meeting adjourned at 2:06 pm.