ILLINOIS TECH UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE

Meeting Minutes

Tuesday September 23, 2025

12:45pm

Online via Zoom

(pdf version available here)

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

Chairing Meeting: Kathir Krishnamurthy (FDSN)

Also Attending: Taylor Rojas (UGAA), Carrie Hall (Armour), Kyle Hawkins (AMP), Diane Fifles (Univ Accred), Kelly Roark (CLI), Mary Haynes (UGAA), Yasmin Rodriguez-Escutia (Armour Acad Advisor), Abby McGrath (Enrollment Services), Nicole Novak (Libraries), Joe Gorzkowski (UGAA), Michael Arnaudo (Armour Acad Advisor), Melanie Jones (Armour Acad Advisor), Gabrielle Smith (UGAA), Katherine Quiroa (UGAA), Keigo Kawaji (Armour), Mary Jorgenson Sullivan (ELS), Keith Alexander (UGAA), Jennifer deWinter (LCSL), Samah Choudhury (HUM), Ayesha Qamer (Registrar), Pam Houser (INTM), Melisa Lopez (Student Success & Retention), Rich Klein (SSB), Kathy Nagle (ARCH)

Quorum was reached and the meeting was started at 12:46pm

1. Approval of the proposed meeting agenda. Kathir Krishnamurthy shared the proposed agenda which had been previously distributed. Kindon Mills moved to accept the agenda and this was seconded by John Twombly. He asked if there were any additional items or other changes to be made. Fred Weening indicated that in the item he was presenting he wanted to get some clarification and so did not expect that we would vote on that item at this meeting.

2. Approval of Meeting minutes. Kathir Krishnamurthy indicated that the minutes for the UGSC meeting on September 9, 2025 were not yet available. He indicated that they would be distributed soon and voted on electronically.

3. Cancellation of the October 14 meeting. Kathir indicated that the October 14 meeting coincides with this semester's Fall break day and some UGSC members had let him know that they would not be able to attend the meeting. He proposed that we cancel the October 14 meeting and suggested that if needed we could add an extra meeting this semester. Fred Weening moved to accept Kathir’s proposal. The motion was seconded by Victor Perez-Luna. Kathir also mentioned that items at today’s meeting which will need to be voted on at the next UGSC meeting can be voted on electronically during the week of October 14. The motion passed without opposition.

4. The next item was the second reading of the proposal from the Stuart School of Business, discussed in the September 9 meeting, to place four BS Tech programs

1. Economics and Cybersecurity
2. Economics and Business Analytics
3. Economics and Data Science
4. Economics and Policy

on hiatus, and to create a new program: BS in Business Analytics.

Kathir asked John Twombly if there were any updates to the proposals. John indicated that there were no changes since the last meeting. He also mentioned that the new program essentially replaces (b) and another new program which will be proposed today would essentially replace (a). There was no further discussion. John moved that the proposal be approved and this was seconded by Fred Weening. The motion passed without objection or abstention.

5. The next item was a proposal from Stuart School of Business to

1. revise the existing BS in Financial Economics program, and
2. create a new program: BS in Business and Cybersecurity.

John Twombly explained that the BS in Financial Economics program was one of the recently approved Tech+ programs that SSB considered placing on hiatus. However, upon further review it was decided to keep the program with a few alterations. The changes proposed concern the choices students are given for the 15 credits of Financial Economics courses. The proposal eliminates all of the current choices and replaces them with BUS 454 (Investments) and BUS 455 (Corporate Finance) —there are also 3 other required Financial Economics courses that are not being changed. The program has 13 free elective credits, so students could still take the courses that are being removed from the list of choices as free electives if they want. John indicated that SSB views this as a minor change to the program.

As for the new program, John indicated that this is a reincarnation of the Tech+ program Economics and Cybersecurity that is being placed on hiatus. The program is patterned after the existing Business and Information Technology program. The main difference between that program and the one being proposed is that 6 of the 12 required Information Technology courses are being replaced with 6 required Cybersecurity courses.

Kathir asked if there were any questions for John — there were none. Kathir indicated that we would normally have voted on these proposals at the October 14 meeting, but since that meeting has been cancelled he would instead send out an email for an electronic vote beginning around October 14. This way UGSC representatives will still have time to get feedback from their departments before making a vote.  

6. The next item was a second reading of the proposal, given at the September 9 meeting, to

• eliminate the Bachelor of Information Technology and Management: Transfer program.

Kathir asked Jeremy Hajek if he had any updates. Jeremy mentioned that at the last meeting Nick Menhart pointed out that there was an error in the information listed in CIM (it was listed that there weren’t any students currently in the program). This error has now been corrected. There were no other updates nor questions for Jeremy.

John Twombly moved to accept the proposal and this was seconded by Fred Weening. The motion passed without objection or abstention.

7. The next item concerned the draft document on the Standard Operating Procedures of UGSC. Fred Weening made the presentation. He mentioned that at the last meeting Nick Menhart had suggested that UGSC should no longer treat minors as informational items due to requirements from accrediting bodies. Since this would be a departure from what UGSC has done historically, Fred wanted to get input from UGSC before including this new policy in the SOP document. He asked if there was any objection to making UGSC approve creation of new minors and changes to existing minors. There were no objections.

8. The next item was informational and concerned the new Communications Lab. Samah Choudhury introduced herself as the director of the lab and indicated that she is a new faculty member in Humanities and also the new director of the Communicating across the Curriculum program.  

She explained that the Communications Lab is a revamped, expanded version of what had been the Writing Center. While the Writing center focussed on writing, the Communications lab will also provide students help with preparing and delivering class presentations and really anything else in the realm of communications. The lab is staffed with student peer tutors and also senior tutors who are faculty and instructors at Illinois Tech.

The lab is located in the upper level of Galvin library around the corner from OTS. Students can make appointments or just drop in; virtual tutoring is also available although in person tutoring is preferred.

Samah indicated that today she was looking for help at getting the word out about the Communications Lab. She was hoping to get faculty to include a description of the lab in their Canvas sites, and also offered to make short presentations to students in anyone’s classrooms. She indicated that she could send a description of the lab that could be used as a Canvas announcement or in a course syllabus (she emailed these descriptions as well as a flyer to everyone on the UGSC mailing list after the meeting)

Kindon Mills indicated that this lab will be super helpful and asked what other ways Samah was planning on using to make students aware of the services available. Samah responded that she was making pitches at meetings and in classrooms and having her tutors put up flyers all around campus. Samah asked the committee for other suggestions as to how to let students know what  services are available to them. Kindon indicated that students seem to pay most attention to posts on social media, and Samah said she would make an instagram page. Erin Hazard suggested that reaching out to all instructors of courses with (C) designations would also be helpful.  Samah indicated that she would do this and thanked everyone for their input.

9. Other Business. There was no other business.

The meeting adjourned at 1:20 pm.