WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

ACADEMIC COORDINATING COMMISSION MINUTES

Regular Meeting (Spring Quarter)

October 5, 2004

Chair Tom Downing called the meeting of the Academic Coordinating Commission to order on October 5, 2004 in OM340 at 4:01 p.m.   There were fifteen (15) members present, the Registrar (1), recorder (1), and one (1) guest, for a total of eighteen (18).  (See attached roster).

Approval of ACC minutes

Members approved the minutes of May 25, 2004 with one correction.

 Appointments to ACC Standing Committees

Teacher Curricula and Certification Council:

Commissioners moved to approve revisions to the charge of the Teacher Curricula and Certification Council following review of a letter from Dean Salzman of Woodring College which limned the proposed changes.  Commissioners approved the new membership which now stipulates two faculty from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and two from the College of Science and Technology, as well as two from the College of Fine and Performing Arts.  No reps from Huxley and Fairhaven are required since very little TCCC business relates to these two colleges.  Changes can be viewed on the Faculty Senate website.

Admissions Committee:

Scott Stevens, English; Janice Lapsansky, Biology; Susan Mancuso, EducLeadership

International Programs Advisory Committee:

Bo Nielsen, Management

 Announcements and Reports

ACC Chair Appointed as Permanent Member of the Senate Executive Council

Chair Downing referred to a recent action by the Senate (and described it as illegal because the changes required approval by the faculty at large) which appointed chairs of the ACC and the University Planning Council to the Senate Executive Council as non-voting members.  Some discussion ensued on the pros and cons of what Downing construed as a burden to him and to future ACC chairs, in part because the Senate Executive Committee rarely discusses matters of direct interest to the ACC.  Jeff Newcomer spoke in favor of the motion and explained the importance to the Legislative Liaison since a further motion in the Senate disbanded the present Senate Legislative Committee.  The legislative liaison now has a more direct line of communication with issues emerging in the Standing Committees.  Newcomer emphasized that the motion was merely to revise Handbook language and was not set in stone, and that all faculty are now voting on the matter..

 Freshmen Interest Groups (FIGs)

Chair Downing distributed copies of a motion passed by the Senate (text follows):

Freshmen Interest Groups (FIGs) - MOTION

“A faculty member suggested that the Senate might like to familiarize itself with various aspects of the FIGs program, prior to the upcoming discussion in ACC.   . . . the Senate “directs the ACC to review and evaluate the Freshman Interest Groups known as the FIGs program.”  The motion passed.  Senators suggested consideration of the following questions: 

o        When are hiring plans made for FIGs and how do they fit into departmental schedules? 

o        What is the problem that FIGs is solving? 

o        Are there other methods of solving the problem that have not been considered? 

o        If FIGs is a pilot program, what is their future as a pilot program? 

o        When does the “pilot” part end and when does it move on to something else? 

o        Will the FIGs be required of every student prior to or as part of a first-year seminar?”

(Senate minutes 11/24/03)

Chair Downing regarding FIGs:  “We were unable to get to this last year because of the demands imposed on us by GUR ‘reform.’ We must decide how we wish to proceed. Should we appoint a small committee similar to the General Studies Major Committee to do most of the work, or should the ACC take on the task directly?  There are reasons for preferring a small committee, particularly in the light of the success of the General Studies Major Committee. We will return to this matter soon.

Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the General Studies (GS) Major

The Chair recommended full reading of the report by the members, and congratulated the committee members for producing an excellent document which will doubtless prove very useful to the Commission in making substantive improvements in the major.

Commissioners commented on several conclusions from the report:

§         It seems clear that more advising is required.  There is concern that GS majors are default majors that just “happen” without any real guidance.  More guidance requires more planning.  One of the reasons we established this major was that there are a number of students who found late in their careers that for one reason or another that they were unable to complete a traditional major, and the GS major was cobbled out of courses they had already taken along with a few more to bring them up to a 60 credit major.  This conflicts with the idea that majors should provide students with a deeper acquaintance of an area of study organized in a coherent way.

§         Many General Studies majors complain that they are unable to gain access to courses in their GS major because those courses are also requirements in a traditional major and such courses are often restricted to students enrolled in that traditional major.

§         One of the principal discussion points is that students cannot get into or complete a traditional major because of  GPA requirements, or they cannot get through an upper-division requirement, such as statistics, and they are “stuck” with most of the courses for a major but no real likelihood of completing that major.  The GS major is supposed to facilitate the timely completion of their undergraduate career with a degree.   Some students also have life situation changes; they get a job offer or they default into this major since they already have lots of hours. These purposes are in tension with the desire to require more structure and planning for the major well in advance of completing most of the courses in it.

§         For many students the most common cause of the problem is the 3^rd course in the statistics sequence in psychology.  The problem is exacerbated by the fact that students cannot get in this course until the 3^rd quarter of their junior year. Finding out that they have a problem with such a course would be less of a barrier to them if they were able to make this discovery earlier in their career at Western, but this implies questions about resources.

A review of the report will appear on the agenda next meeting.

AGENDA ITEMS

Action Items

APPROVAL OF THE 2004-2006 ACC HANDBOOK

Jeff Purdue made a motion, seconded by Marie Eaton, which Commissioners passed, to approve the 2004-2006 version of the Academic Coordinating Commission Handbook.  The Handbook was prepared by the Senate office and incorporates changes passed by ACC in the past two years.  Members thanked Rose Marie Norton, Senate Administrative Assistant, for a job well done.  Members discussed the revised GUR requirements, which were passed by motion of ACC on April 27, 2004 for Fall 2005 implementation (ACC Handbook, page 9).  Several changes were suggested, and Chair Downing proposed writing a prose version of the GURS which could be distributed throughout the year as additional changes are incorporated prior to implementation. 

Reading of College Curricular Committee Minutes.

The following Curricular Committee Minutes came before the Commissioners:

College of Humanities and Social Sciences, 5/201/04.  Postponed.  Questions arose regarding the revised Communication Sciences and Disorders major. The major requires a minor in Audiology that is restricted to students in the CSD major. This is not the way majors are ordinarily tied to minors, and the Commissioners were unable to see how the major is not in fact just the described major plus the courses in the required and restricted minor. The Chair of CSD will be invited to the next ACC meeting.

College of Sciences and Technology, 4/20/04, 5/3/04, 6/4/0.  Accepted.

Graduate Council, 4/27/04, 5/4/04.  Accepted

International Programs,  4/29/04, 6/3/04.  Accepted

Adjournment

Commissioners adjourned at 5:017pm.

Rose Marie Norton-Nader, Recorder,  October 5, 2004

ACADEMIC COORDINATING COMMISSION 2004-2005 ROSTER