Minutes of the Undergraduate Studies Committee

4/26/2016

 

Attending Voting Members: R. Steffenson (SSCI), G. Pulliam (HUM/CAC), G. Popovic (MSED), R. Ellis (AMAT), J. Saniie (ECE), M. Safar (INTM), R. Trygstad (ITM), N. Menhart (BIOL), A. Raina (SGA), R. Wang (CHEM), T. Brasek (ROTC), N. Karuri (CHBE), J. Miller (PSYC), J. Twombly (SSB)

 

Also attending: G. Welter (UGAA), J. Gorzkowski (UGAA), S. Pariseau (Academic Affairs), C. Emmons (Assessment), C. Torres (CoA), S. Spicknall (TechNews), M. MozinA (Career Services/SASDI), P. Zachocki (Registrar), L. Massengale (GL), P. Anderson (ACE), J. Alexis (IPRO/ID).

 

Departments with absent voting members: ARCH, BME, CAEE, CS, MMAE, PHYS.

 

Quorum declared at 12:47

Adjourn at 1:44.

Documents pertaining to this meeting are at:

<http://www.iit.edu/~ugsc/documents/>

Meeting chaired by Kathryn Spink.

Minutes recorded by Pulliam.

  

1) Minutes of the 4/12/2016 meeting are approved by unanimous consent.

 

2) (Spink) Summer UGSC proposal—passes unanimously.

The executive committee of the UGSC may consider summer business where that business is time sensitive.  The outgoing and incoming executive committee will be included in all discussions.  If the committee determines that proposals are minor or uncontroversial and do not require full UGSC approval, proposals will be implemented unless the UGSC reverses that decision at the first UGSC meeting in the Fall semester.

 

3) (Miller) New Minor in Leadership.  Sent back for tweaking.  May return to UGSC executive committee in the summer.

 

4) (Spink/Pulliam) Course feedback proposal.  Minimal section passes 10-1.  Optimal section passes 10-3.  Both will go to UFC, recommended as informational item.

Minimal Standard Feedback

Instructors shall provide all of their students with substantive feedback about their progress and status in courses by, at the latest, 5 full calendar days before the Withdrawal date.

 

Optimal Standard Feedback

A. Instructors are encouraged to provide students with some form of “scorecard” or “tally sheet” in their syllabi or elsewhere, in which students may fill in their scores on various assignments, projects, exams, presentations, etc., and thus keep up with their own progress and status in the course throughout the semester.

 

B. If A is not applicable to a particular course’s nature or structure, instructors are encouraged to devise alternate means of providing students with regular (at least every 3-4 weeks) and substantive feedback that will allow students to assess their own progress and status in the course.

 

5) (Alexix) Discussion:  IPROs as Pass/Fail.  Portfolio system being piloted this term.

 

6) (Menhart) Three BIOL courses to become Pass/Fail:  BIOL 490, 491, 495. Passes by unanimous consent.

 

7) (Pariseau, Spink, Pulliam) Informational items: Online Course Catalog/Bulletin coming via Courseleaf, and paper publication is being phased out.  Paperless UGSC to continue.  Changes to Digital Humanities degree program, deletion of Digital Humanities minor, addition of two new minors in humanities department.

 

8) (Pulliam) UGSC thanks Katie Spink for her two years of service as Chair.

 

Adjourn.