ILLINOIS TECH UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE

Meeting Minutes

Tuesday April 28, 2026

12:45pm

Online via Zoom

(pdf version available here)

Attending Voting Members: Kindon Mills (ARCH), Murat Vural (MMAE), Promila Dhar (BME),  Erdal Oruklu (ECE), Victor Perez-Luna (CHBE), Fred Weening (AMAT), John Twombly (SSB), Jeremy Hajek (ITM), Nicole Legate (PSYC), Matthew Bauer (CS), Andy Howard (BIOL), Stephen Kleps (CAEE)

Chairing Meeting: Kathir Krishnamurthy

Also Attending: Taylor Rojas (UGAA), Nicole Beebe (Dean COC), Zipporah Robinson (Academic Success),  Melisa Lopez (Student Success & Retention), Kiah Ong (AMAT), Pam Houser (INTM), Abby McGrath (Enrollment Services),  Mary Jorgenson Sullivan (ELS), Nick Menhart (VP Assessment and Accreditation), Jeff Wereszczynski (VP Acad Affairs), Joe Gorzkowski (UGAA), Gabrielle Smith (UGAA), Michael Arnaudo (Armour Acad Advisor), Rich Klein (SSB), Kevin Cassel (VP Acad Transformation), Melanie Jones (Armour Acad Advisor), Gabriel Martinez (Armour), Nicole Novak (Libraries), Diane Fifles (Univ Accred), Ayesha Qamer (Registrar),  Katie Spink (Pre-Med), Keith Alexander (UGAA), Carrie Hall (Armour), Kathy Nagle (ARCH)

A quorum was reached and the meeting started at 12:46 pm.

  1. Approval of the proposed meeting agenda. Kathir Krishnamurthy shared the proposed agenda which had been previously distributed. Jeremy Hajek moved to accept the agenda and Matt Bauer seconded the motion. The motion to accept the agenda as presented passed without objection or abstention.

  1. Approval of Meeting minutes. The minutes for the UGSC meeting on April 14, 2026 had previously been made available on the UGSC website. Matt Bauer moved to accept the minutes and this was seconded by John Twombly. The motion passed without objection or abstention.

  1. The next item was a follow-up to the call for nominations for officers for UGSC for the 26-27 academic year made at the April 14, 2026 UGSC meeting.  Kathir briefly reminded everyone of the roles and responsibilities of the officers of the UGSC. He indicated that he had received one self nomination for each of the three positions chair (Katie Spink), vice-chair (Andy Howard), and secretary (Jeremy Hajek). He asked if there were any other nominations for these positions. There were none. He asked for a motion to approve this slate of candidates for these positions. John Twomby moved to accept these candidates for the positions. The motion was seconded by Stephen Kleps. The motion passed without objection of abstention. Kathir indicated that the UGSC will recommend to the UFC that Katie Spink be appointed to be the UGSC chair by the chair of UFC. The positions of vice-chair and secretary are internal to UGSC and are elected by UGSC not appointed by UFC.

  1. The next agenda item was the second reading of the proposal to eliminate the Bachelor of Science in Information Communication & Data Visualization program. There were no updates to this proposal since the last UGSC meeting. Fred Weening moved to accept the proposal and John Twombly seconded the motion. The motion passed without objection or abstention.

  1. The next item was the second reading of a proposal to update the Standard Operating Procedure document of UGSC. Fred Weening made the presentation.

He displayed the proposal and indicated that there were only minor changes to the draft that was shown at the last meeting. In the new draft, the text was properly colored so that it could easily be seen as to what was being removed and what was being added to the existing SOP document. He scrolled through the document and briefly summarized the changes being proposed.

Jeff Wereczszynski remarked that what is listed as a quote from the faculty handbook on page 1 of the UGSC SOP document has been changed. The faculty handbook no longer lists specific titles of university positions as ex-officio members of UGSC. The faculty handbook now says that at their discretion, the UFC or the UGSC may determine ongoing or ad hoc ex-officio members of their committees including university administrators or undergraduate student representatives, these shall be non-voting members. Fred indicated that he will change the SOP to reflect the change in the faculty handbook that Jeff mentioned.

Kindon Mills moved to accept the changes to the UGSC SOP that are presented in the proposal. Jeremy Hajek seconded the motion. The motion passed without objection or abstention.

  1. The next item was an update on the CCAC assessment of C-designation and pilot courses. Mary Sullivan made the presentation.

She indicated that the Core Curriculum Assessment Committee was charged with assessing the C-designation courses at the 100 to 200 levels that are writing intensive this semester. This includes COM 101, 111 and the HUM 200 courses. The CCAC is also assassing the pilot courses: HUM 200 Designing Your Life and COM 201 Digital Writing. Additionally, we're gathering assessment data from the design pilot, which is the IPRO397 Techniques and Creative Practice, as well as data from modules in the IPRO sequence based on earlier reports.

She indicated that so far this semester the CCAC has

She mentioned that the reason the CCAC did the latter bullet point was because we’ve noticed in the past that sometimes it’s challenging to find an assessment that actually aligns with the learning objectives; this was something the CCAC tried to improve upon this semester.

She indicated that at this point, the CCAC is waiting for the submission of student artifacts. The final date for these submissions is May 14. They are hoping to get these soon, so that they can begin aggregating and analyzing data from them. They have a common sample recommended rubric that was developed by Hannah Ringler,  Mary Sullivan, and Brian Casario. One thing that they also tried to do this semester was to get some information about how instructors were ensuring that the written material provided by their students is authentic: written by the student or written with assistance of AI.

Once they get the artifacts, they’'ll develop a report on student achievement of the learning objectives. Also they’re going to request faculty feedback on the learning objectives for both the C-designated and the pilot courses. One of the things that they’ve discovered through the assessment of the higher-level C-designated courses in the spring was that some of the learning objectives appeared to not universally apply; and so they want to get faculty feedback.

They are also looking for faculty feedback on how well the learning objectives are being achieved in those foundational communications courses. The CCAC will make recommendations for the Fall 2026 iterations of those courses, and the courses will be run again with some tweaks based on the recommendations. Then they’ll do an additional cycle or the assessment process.

They’re probably looking at no sooner than the end of May before they will have the first round of information on how students are doing with respect to the learning objectives of the communications classes.

  1. The next agenda item was on the N letter designation of the core curriculum. Nick Menhart indicated that there is some question as to how we are implementing the N designation to courses with respect to what is listed in the bulletin. He deferred to Jeff Wereczsynski who made a presentation with a proposal to update the language in the bulletin.

Jeff explained that at Academic Affairs they get questions from time to time about implementation of the core curriculum and especially about the N component of the core. Recently John Twombly asked a question of Academic Affairs that sent Jeff down a bit of a rabbit hole:

The full name of this area of the core is called the Natural Science and Engineering component of the core. He displayed a document with the current language of the core:

Natural Science or Engineering: 10-11 credit hours
This component may be satisfied by courses in engineering, biology, chemistry, physics, or courses in architecture, food safety and technology, and psychology marked with an (N). These courses must be distributed as follows:

  1. Two sequential natural science or engineering courses in a single field. (CHEM 124 with MS 201 satisfies this requirement. FDSN can be considered in the same field as BIOL.)
  2. At least one natural science or engineering course in a second field.

He indicated that for many programs on campus, meeting these requirements happens automatically because of the major requirements of the programs. But for other programs this is not the case.

The question becomes: “what actually does the wording of this requirement mean?” Does it mean that only classes with the N letter designation satisfy the requirement, or do all Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Engineering classes satisfy the requirement and additional courses from architecture, etc.. with an N designation also satisfy the requirement.

Jeff indicated that he’s done a thorough review of previous bulletins to determine how this requirement has evolved historically. From this review it is apparent that for at least the last 30-odd years, this has been interpreted to mean that all courses within Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Engineering count toward satisfying the N component of the core in addition to those courses in other departments that explicitly have the N letter designation. This is also how Academic Affairs has been applying the rules for at least the last 20 years. The one exception is that Academic Affairs has not been allowing courses that are specifically designed as ITP courses to also count as satisfying the N requirement.

Jeff indicated that the proposal that he is putting forward today is to make this current state just described as the explicit policy that is written in the upcoming bulletin. The proposal would also specifically codify the fact that the courses in Engineering Graphics EG 225, EG 325, and EG 425 would count towards the N requirement of the core.  

Katie Spink indicated that she thought Braja Mandel was leading a committee that was reviewing all N classes. Jeff replied that yes there was a report from the committee Braja led in 2025 that made a recommendation for a bunch of specific Biology, Chemistry, and Physics courses to get the N letter designation attached to them. The recommendations of that committee however (1) never made it into the catalog and (2) are inherently redundant with the current language in the catalog. He indicated that what needs to be done next semester is to change the language in the catalog so as to not indicate that all Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Engineering courses count for N, and then we can put the N designation on courses within Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Engineering that do count.

Katie followed up with a comment. She indicated that she is not so concerned with the history of how we’ve interpreted which courses count for the N area of the core in the past. She is more concerned that currently we have a list of learning objectives that courses which count for the N area of the core are supposed to satisfy, and not all courses within Biology, Chemistry, and Physics do in fact satisfy these learning objectives. Jeff responded that if we were to make the change that Katie is indicating today, then this would have significant implications for all the students that have and are currently registering for courses in the Fall. Katie responded that she thought the deadline for making changes that go into effect into the Fall had already passed; Jeff responded that that is just for program changes because they have to get board of trustee approval.

Matt Bauer asked for clarification on the definition of what “two sequential natural science” courses requirement meant in the current language and also in the proposal. Matt said that to him the courses Physics 1 and Physics 2 are an example of two sequential natural sciences courses, but Astronomy and Mechanics are not an example (even though they are in the same department). Matt indicated that in the Mumbai initiative they are pushing that Astronomy and Mechanics would count as two sequential science courses. Jeff asked Joe Gorzkowski to comment on how this part of the requirement is being implemented. Joe responded that Academic Affairs looks for two courses in the same department.

John Twombly commented that two courses such as Phys 200 and Phys 120 are hardly a two course sequence. He then mentioned that the issue that he raised with Academic Affairs a few weeks ago was that when students are looking for courses to take to satisfy the N requirement and they do an advanced search all they get as a result is a couple of Biology courses and a couple of other courses. He asked if it would be so difficult to code into the system all of the courses that actually would count. Because telling the students to read the catalog doesn’t make the situation clear to the students. Jeff indicated that we can look into this and that Abby McGrath thinks there may be a different labelling way that we can address this in the search system.

Fred Weening commented that he understands both Jeff’s and Katie’s perspectives. He said that he feels the changes that Katie indicated should be made early in the Fall semester of 2026 so that they can go into effect before students select courses for the Spring of 2027. His question was whether the proposal that Jeff is making now is really necessary or if we can just wait until the Fall and fix things right at that time. Jeff responded that he felt it was important for transparency to have the catalog reflect the current implementation of the requirement accurately in the upcoming release of the catalog.

Kiah Ong followed up on the point that Matt raised. In practice Academic Affairs does not look for a two course sequence, but the requirement listed in the catalog says it should be a two course sequence. This is causing confusion and should be clarified for the future.

Pam Houser commented that she doesn’t see the need to rush for making a change today. The current language has been in the bulletin for 30 years and there are concerns about what should be changed by multiple parties. She felt that it would be better to take our time and make a well thought out change in the Fall. She had a specific concern for students that she advises which are typically students who transfer in from a community college. They typically will transfer in courses that count for the N part of the core and frequently are advised to take courses that count for the engineering graphics courses. She is concerned that the Transferology program (TESS) will not equate the courses that they take at a community college with our Engineering graphics courses.

The question was raised as to whether the current proposal should be viewed as a major or minor change. It was decided to put that question to a vote. Fred Weening moved to interpret the proposal as a major change. This motion was seconded by Kindon Mills. The motion passed without objection. Andy Howard did indicate that he would like to abstain from voting on the motion since he came to the discussion late. As the current proposal is being viewed as a major change, it will not be voted on until the next UGSC meeting which will be in the Fall.

  1. The next item was an announcement from Nick Menhart regarding feedback from the mock site review and preparation for the actual HLC site visit in the Fall.

Nick indicated that we all should have received an email from the Provost that provides links to four on-line meetings in the upcoming week (final’s week) which will provide feedback from the mock site visit in the four criteria that HLC will be using for its evaluation of our university. These meetings will help faculty understand the criteria better and help faculty to be able better to respond to questions from HLC in these areas.

These online meetings will be recorded and slides and other information presented will be made available. Everyone is aware that final’s week is a busy time, but it would be best if faculty can attend as many of these meetings live as their schedules allow.

Nick reviewed the time-line for the HLC visit in the Fall. Our “lock-date” is September 21 and the actual site visit is October 19 and 20. He mentioned that it is important for the accreditors to know that the re-organization plans that are being talked about and implemented won’t change the fact that we can offer a quality student educational experience.

He also mentioned that the draft argument that the university is making to HLC is linked in the Provost’s email. It is a very long document and he suggested that people view it as a resource to help answer any questions that you might have concerning university operations and each of our individual roles.

  1. The next item was a reminder from Kathir about the procedure for submitting agenda items for UGSC meetings. According to our standard operating procedures, items that require CIM approval can only come to UGSC once they have made their way through the CIM workflow to the UGSC chair’s CIM queue. To expedite things, we have been making exceptions to this rule, but this does create difficulties for the UFC and adds some confusion to the whole process in general. It is best to get proposals into CIM early and adhere to the aforementioned rule.

  1. The last item was other business.

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Katie Spink wanted to thank Kathir and Fred for the service to UGSC.

Jeff Wereczszynski echoed Katie’s remark and then asked about the proposals that were made at the last UGSC meeting regarding the reduced credit Bachelor’s proposals:

Weren’t we supposed to have a vote on those proposals at this meeting?

Kathir responded that he never received a proposal in the area of Business.

Kathir asked all voting members to raise their hands to see if a quorum was still present. There were only 7 voting members present which is less than the 9 needed for quorum. It was decided to hold an electronic vote (i.e. email vote) on the general reduced credit Bachelor’s proposal policy and the specific proposal of such a program in the Health Sciences.

Andy Howard moved to adjourn the meeting and this was seconded by Kindon Mills. There were no objections or abstentions.

The meeting was adjourned at 2pm.