ILLINOIS TECH UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE

Meeting Minutes

Tuesday September 9, 2025

12:45pm

Online via Zoom

(pdf version available here)

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

Chairing Meeting: Kathir Krishnamurthy (FDSN)

Also Attending: Carrie Hall (Armour), Kelly Roark (CLI), Diane Fifles (Univ Accred), Mary Haynes (UGAA), Zipporah Robinson (Academic Success), Pat Johnson-Winston (Enrollment Services), Yasmin Rodriguez-Escutia (Armour Acad Advisor), Nick Menhart(CCAC), Joe Gorzkowski (UGAA), Abby McGrath (Enrollment Services), Michael Arnaudo (Armour Acad Advisor), Mary Jorgenson Sullivan (ELS), Kevin Cassel (VP Acad Affairs), Gabrielle Smith (UGAA), Melanie Jones (Armour Acad Advisor), Katherine Quiroa (UGAA), Ankit Srivastava (UFC),  Keigo Kawaji (Armour),  Ayesha Qamer (Registrar), Katie Spink (Pre-Med), Pam Houser (INTM), Gabriel Martinez (Armour Academy), Keith Alexander (UGAA), Rich Klein (SSB), Kathy Nagle (ARCH), Kyle Hawkins (AMP)

Quorum was reached and the meeting was started at 12:47pm

1. Approval of the proposed meeting agenda. Kathir Krishnamurthy mentioned that there was an addition of one item to the proposed agenda previously distributed. The new proposed agenda includes an item on the elimination of a program from ITM. Andy Howard moved to accept the proposed agenda and this was seconded by Jeremy Hajek. The motion passed without objection.

2. Approval of Meeting minutes. Kathir Krishnamurthy indicated that the minutes for the UGSC meeting on August 26, 2025 were distributed electronically. John Twombly moved to approve the minutes, this was seconded by Jeremy Hajek. Kathir asked if there were any corrections to be made to the minutes and Andy Howard mentioned that Katie Spink’s name was misspelled in one location. The minutes, with this one correction, were approved without objection.

3. The next item was a proposal with several curricular changes from the Stuart School of Business. This had been on the agenda of the August 26 meeting, but time ran out at that meeting before the item was reached. John Twombly presented the item. He indicated that recently SSB began offering seven Tech+ combined degree programs. Of these, two (Business and IT, and Business and Engineering) are doing well but the others are not drawing much enrollment (three or less students in each). The proposal today is to put four of these programs:

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

on hiatus. The students currently in these programs are willing to switch to other programs in SSB. In addition to not getting much student interest in the programs, there is also a problem of staffing the offerings for these programs because the accrediting body, AACSB, requires that they be taught by research qualified faculty.

John next began discussing a proposal for a new program: BS in Business Analytics which can be thought of as a replacement for item (b) above. This program would include the standard business core classes (16 classes, 48 credits) which are required of all business majors, and then require 5 more classes which concern the analytics aspect of the degree.

Fred Weening asked if the plan was to eventually eliminate all the courses that are proposed to be placed on hiatus or if some of these might come back. John indicated that most likely they would be eliminated, but that it depends on what kind of faculty the department can hire in the upcoming years. The issue being faced is one of having qualified faculty to teach in those programs.

Rich Klein added that accreditors pointed out that the university doesn’t offer an economics degree program, so having a degree that combines economics with another discipline is problematic. Kathir indicated that a vote on these proposals would be taken at the next UGSC meeting.

4. The next item is a proposal to eliminate the Bachelor of Information Technology and Management: Transfer program. Jeremy Hajek made the presentation. He gave some of the history of this program along with the non-transfer program. He indicated that currently there is no appreciable difference between the transfer program and the non-transfer program. So the proposal can be viewed as an elimination of redundancy and will make going forward simpler. The students currently in the Transfer program can be switched into the regular program without needing any modifications to their course of study.

Nick Menhart asked for some clarification as to whether there was any difference between the transfer and the non-transfer program and whether there currently were any students in the transfer program — because the CIM document says there are no students in the transfer program. Jeremy responded that there is no difference in the programs and that there are students currently enrolled in the transfer program; the CIM document is in error. Jeremy indicated he would fix the error in the CIM document.

5. The next item concerned information on the UGSC website: https://ugsc.iit.edu/ . Fred Weening made the presentation. He mentioned that he made an update to the website so that it now has a section containing the learning outcomes for each of the core curriculum subject areas. He displayed the website, showed the new section and also summarized where on the website you can go to see old meeting minutes and related documents. Ankit Srivastava, the new UFC chair, mentioned that the website is impressive. He also added that Zack Pino has recently created a sharepoint site which holds all UFC documents and encouraged UGSC to upload its finalized documents to this site.

6. The next item was also presented by Fred Weening. It concerned updates to the standard operating procedures draft document. He indicated that at the previous meeting Katie Spink has suggested that there be two additional sections in the document:

• a section on minors, and
• a section on discussions of university policies on issues affecting undergraduate education.

Fred indicated that he added a section entitled “informational items” since minors historically have been treated as informational items by UGSC. This section also contained a few examples of other informational items. A new section called: “Policies affecting undergraduate education” was also added. Included in this section were examples of discussion topics from previous UGSC meetings and a statement indicating that anyone can request that an agenda item on such items be placed on the agenda. He also mentioned that it was up to the UGSC chair’s discretion as to whether or not to place the item on the agenda.

Nick Menhart had a few comments:

• He indicated that the accrediting body is currently examining sub-degree credentials right now; minors would fall under that category. Officially we are required to assess minors and presumably approve minors in some fashion. Currently the assessment committee is not assessing minors since it focussed on getting the assessment of programs into compliance, but the intention is to eventually assess minors as well. The idea of having “stackable” credentials is a hot-topic right now and something Illinois Tech is interested in.  He suggested that UGSC should include in its standard operating procedures that proposals of minors and credentials require formal UGSC approval going forward.  

• Regarding what items get placed on the UGSC agenda, he said that he believed  items proposed by UGSC members and ex-offico members must be placed on the agenda (i.e., it is not at the discretion of the UGSC chair).

7. The last item on the agenda was other business. Katie Spink recalled that UGSC had extensive discussions on the policies regarding minors which led to calling for a subcommittee to work on drafting a policy. She asked for an update.

Joe Gorzkowski said that he didn’t believe the subcommittee membership had been formed. He offered to serve on the subcommittee and encouraged others to join as well. Kathir indicated that he would send out an email to the membership requesting interested parties to get in contact with Joe.

Seeing no other business, Kathir asked for a motion to adjourn. Andy Howard made the motion which was seconded by Jeremy Hajek. No one was opposed.

The meeting adjourned at 1:19 pm.