Attending Voting Members: Promila Dhar (BME), Jim Edwards (ROTC), David Gidalevitz (PHYS), Boris Glavic (CS), Erin Hazard (HUM), Steve Kleps (CAEE), Kathiravan Krishnamurthy (FDSN/Vice Chair), Eva Kultermann (ARCH), Nicole Legate (PSYC), Yuting Lin (BIOL), Yuri Mansury (SSCI), David Maslanka (AMAT), Ray Trygstad (ITM/Secretary), John Twombly (SSB), Murat Vural (MMAE), Fred Weening (Chair), Ben Zion (CHEM)

Also Attending: Roland Calia (SSB), Diane Fifles (University Accred), Joseph Gorzkowski (UGAA), Kyle Hawkins (AMP), Mary Haynes (UGAA), Jasmine Johnson (UGAA), Melanie Jones (Armour Academy), Christopher Lee (Registrar), Melisa Lopez (Student Success & Retention), Gabriel Martinez (Armour Academy), Tracey McGee (ELS), Nick Menhart (CCAC), Jamshid Mohammadi (GSC/CLI), Nichole Novak (Libraries), Shamiah Okhai (LCSL), Joseph Orgel (VPAA), Georgia Papavasiliou (Armour), Hannah Ringler (HUM/CAC), Gabrielle Smith (UGAA), Kathryn Spink (Past Chair), Mary Jorgenson Sullivan (ELS), Liad Wagman (SSB/CSL)

1. Approval of minutes from the 9/5/23 meeting, after a brief discussion, was delayed until the 9/26/23 meeting to allow everyone time to review the minutes.
   
   The motion to delay approval of the minutes passed unanimously.

2. Updates from Academic Affairs.

   Joseph Orgel’s remarks in summary:
   Student surveys have been quite a topic for a long time. After extensive discussion, the University Faculty Council (UFC) determined that having only two data points, a 1 to 5 scale of the instructor and the class, was not adequate. So the administration and faculty governance reached a consensus position on the surveys and are now using questions posed by the faculty. I believe it is worth having another round of discussions about our review of instruction and the student experience. The question has been raised as to whether aggregated anonymized data and the surveys could be shared with university leadership. I think that's that's consistent with the agreement, but I want to clarify with UFC before allowing that to happen—but they are the business of the people doing the instruction for the most part. A second question is can we assign a numerical score to the questions? And the answer is that at the moment opinion is sharply divided on on that particular matter. I believe the answer to that is yes, for the final comments, but not for mid term comments, which are between the classroom attendees and the instructor for dynamic feedback. I will take this to UFC, and it will definitely come back here before we move further.

   Questions and Discussion:
   Katie Spink expressed a concern that data collected in classes with low enrollment of with a very low response rate would not be shared with course faculty but might be shared with with department chairs, upper administration. Joseph Orgel replied that he totally agreed.

   There was a concern about seeing the questions on the new survey. Joseph stated that they had been published by UFC 3 times, and Nick Menhart noted that the UFC Archive has serious issues and could we get it some place more accessible. An offer was made in the chat to publish it on the UGSC site and Joseph Orgel indicated he would provide this for such publication.
    
   Joseph Orgel’s remarks in summary (continued):
   Several sectors of the administration would like to request that [current UGSC Agenda] item five be deferred or directly referred as a talking point rather than the the report that's been offered thus far. The terminology asked for was to postpone indefinitely. That doesn't mean censor, block, restrict academic freedom. It just means that there's a broader conversation and a procedural process that several sectors want to be followed.
   
   Questions and Discussion:
   Mary Jorgenson Sullivan stated that we're actually going to be assessing IPRO in this spring and moving on to humanities and COM next year. Those have been moved back due to the questions about the learning objectives. So the Assessment Committee will need to see those before the end of this academic year.
   
   Erin Hazard asked if we might still devote just a few minutes to clarification and talking, and then see what transpires moving forward with these changes to the Core Curriculum. The Chair and Dr. Orgel agreed that the UGSC should continue our discussion.

3. Erin Hazard presented changes to two programs in Humanities on behalf of Carly Kocurek.
   Item 3 is a proposed change to the Bachelor of Science in Game Design and Experiential Media which would replace the current Introduction to the Profession (ITP) course, LCHS 100 Introduction to the Professions with GEM 100 Game Design and Experiential Media Introduction to the Professions. There is no change in credit hours, and the reason is to provide students in this major with an ITP course more relevant to their area of study.

4. Item 4, also presented by Erin Hazard on behalf of Carly Kocurek, is a proposal for a new Minor in Game Design and Experiential Media which will eventually replace the existing Minor in Game Studies and Design.

   There was some discussion as to what constitutes a minor change, which Joseph Orgel noted are properly called “not significant changes.” It was agreed that both proposals from Humanities were, in fact, not significant changes, and Erin Hazard noted that the existing Minor in Game Studies and Design is not being proposed for termination at this time. Nick Menhart expressed a concern about assessment of both the Game Design and Experiential Media degree and the new GEM 100 ITP, and Shamiah Okhai replied that a plan will be filed for assessment of both. Katie Spink expressed concern about a minor that required an ITP course and there were questions as to whether this might count as a students fulfillment of the Core Curriculum ITP requirement rather than the student’s discipline-specific ITP. Academic Affairs has since confirmed that it would not. After determining that there were no objections, the Chair asked for a motion to approve the two humanities proposals together, and the motion was made and seconded.
   
   The motion to approve these the Humanities proposals presented as items 3 and 4 was approved by a vote of 14 to 0.

5. Erin Hazard presented additional material regarding the proposal for changes to the Humanities Core Curriculum. Further discussion of these proposed changes followed.

   Erin Hazard stated that while it appeared that there was an actual increase in the Core Curriculum hours because of the increase of Humanities requirements from 9 to 12, that in fact there was no net increase in course work due to the replacement of both COM 101 and HUM 200 by COM 150 or COM 151. She also presented comparable humanities and communication course requirements at several peer institutions.

   Joseph Orgel noted that while this discussion was valuable, consideration of the proposed changes to the Core Curriculum needed to be discussed in the context of the rest of the curriculum. Erin hazard replied that this is effectively what we are doing and have been doing in the Undergraduate Studies Committee, and that if this proposal were passed, it would then go to the UFC. And that would be another collective meaning for feedback, and then it would go to a Town Hall, and that would be another collective meeting for feedback. She stated that due to this process, she didn’t think there's anything isolationist about what we're proposing to do here.

   Mary Jorgenson Sullivan noted the massive amount of effort and thought it had taken to bring things forward, and how this would better alleviate concerns about the level to which our students are being taught how to communicate in different media. She thanked those involved for all of their efforts. She also notes that it is imperative that we have learning objectives that are approved and measurable, and that we can use for assessment purposes in the next Academic Year due to our impending Higher Learning Commission site visit. The Chair noted that perhaps we should separate out the learning objectives from the rest of this proposal so we can ensure that this requirement is met.

   Boris Glavic passed on concerns from Computer Science Faculty and notes that they all appreciated the reduction in required major department C courses to 6 hours. He also noted that most of their other concerns had been allayed by the Humanities presentation earlier in the meeting.

   Erin Hazard noted that there are many courses on the books that are marked as C, but there is a concern that some of them may not be doing the kind of work in the proposed learning outcomes for a C class that's paired with this proposal.

   Hannah Ringler further noted that the large number of hours of required C courses seems to reflect a philosophy that we have all those hours in the hope that students will learn learn to write better if they just are exposed to it a lot, but the goal of this proposal is to try to revamp these classes to offer intensive communication instruction in a handful of classes to make sure students are getting that instruction really well.

   Katie Spink noted that the idea that increasing the required Humanities courses did not effectively increase the numbers of total hours is false, because the premise is built on the fallacy that students take COM 101, when in fact allowing students to test out of it using the Writing Placement Exam or AP scores means that only a very, very small percentage of undergraduates ever actually take COM 101. She noted that when students do take COM 101 it ends up as a free elective because there is no actual provision for students to normally take the course as part of their degree. She also request that Academic Affairs let us know what percentage of students actually take COM 101. The Chair terminated the discussion at this point as time for the meeting was up.

6. There was no discussion on Agenda item 6, the proposal to change minimum number of credits for an undergraduate degree to 120, as discussion on item 5 continued until time for adjournment.

7. There is no item 7.

The Chair noted that time for the meeting was at an end. It was moved and seconded that the meeting be adjourned and with unanimous approval, the Chair adjourned the meeting at 1:47pm.

NOTE: Due to the miracle of modern technology, a text word-for-word transcript of the meeting as well as the Chat transcript are available. These can be provided upon request by the Secretary to Undergraduate Studies Committee Members only.