CAS Meeting
Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2006
Rose Parlor
Recorder of Minutes: Linda Moniz
Moderator: Mary Lynn Rampolla
A correction was made to the minutes of April 27, 2006, to the first line, to read the following: “CAS Moderator will be elected by a vote of the members. The Agenda Committee will be composed of the CAS Moderator, two faculty members, and the CAS Dean, ex-officio.” The change was approved and the minutes were passed.
Laura Irwin spoke about academic probation. When on academic probation or academic watch, after receiving a letter from Academic Support, the student must arrange a meeting with Laura in order to complete a contract-like agreement to improve study skills and habits. Specific to the ½ hour meeting are:
- Completion of the academic probation agreement
- Discussion of credits and current enrollment (supposed to be £ 12 hours)
- Calculation of GPA showing quality points, and planning to improve GPA to greater than 2.0
- Time management plan/activity schedule, and incorporation of explicit study time into the student’s schedule.
The academic probation agreement stipulates that the students must meet with all current instructors outside class within one week of the meeting. A copy of the probation agreement is sent to the academic advisor, and the student is encouraged to take advantage of tutoring and the writing center.
The following questions were asked:
1. Is IQ web not able to pick up registrations for greater than 12 hours? This was supposed to be keyed into the system.
Reply: many students wait until the last minute to register and the flags are created post-facto. Shelley Tomkin: the system needs to catch the over-registrations. Sue Blanshan indicated that the IQ web system is new and we are still learning how to take advantage of its capabilities. It still is not operating at maximum functionality. We might be able to flag the over-registrations at a later date, but it is not in the system now. She suggested input from professors and advisors on this issue.
Of the 225 students flagged for academic probation, Laura has currently seen 1/3 as of the date of the meeting. Of those 225, not all are in CAS. Laura also speaks with those students who are on academic probation and do not register to determine who is not returning.
Anne Henderson brought up several issues concerning Spring 2007 scheduling.
She introduced Ginger Broaddus, new assistant VP/ academic affairs.
Anne stressed the fact that the entering class is very large. There was also little time for review and revision of the schedule, which was due by Friday, Sept. 19. There were some concerns with policies and models which were ignored because of time constraints. She encouraged feedback on improvements for the scheduling model.
Because of the large entering class, it is necessary to makes sure there are appropriate numbers of sections of FLC/Introductory classes. Additional sessions this spring will be added.
Anne stressed the need for appropriate time slots (day) for CAS classes. Apparently there have been problems with CAS students’ taking evening/weekend classes. The policy is that CAS students should take day courses. Exceptions to the policy may be granted via the form for approval by both the CAS and SPS dean. The analysis of the current enrollments is that 40 requests were approved with the proper procedure, but the enrollment report shows CAS students in SPS courses was > 180. It was repeated that this is a policy issue - CAS should be able to provide enough courses during the day to fulfill requirements. It is also an equity issue – 40 students went through the proper channels and over 100 did not. Everyone must go through the process. There is also a scheduling issue – it is not possible to make an accurate prediction of enrollment with unauthorized CAS/SPS cross registration. Other issues are that CAS student should not crowd out SPS students for slots. This also creates financial distortion when CAS scholarship students enroll in SPS courses. In some cases, the students should switch to SPS. There is also a problem with student welfare – some SPS courses are insufficient to fulfill CAS requirements.
Proposed solutions include the following:
- There should be sufficient numbers and types of CAS courses for the day students to fulfill requirements in a timely fashion.
- We need to work with Technology services on improving the registration blocking capabilities. Advisors should be the final line of defense – be careful that students don’t sneak SPS courses in – if advisors don’t receive a request for approval, talk to the students and submit the request if it is justified.
Comments were the following :
- Carlota Ocampo indicated that some courses with low enrollement need to run in order for students to fulfill requirements in the major. Anne Henderson indicated she is committed to running small enrollment courses for majors. Sue Blanshan also committed to running low enrollment courses when necessary. Also, the SPS/CAS line can be crossed in some cases when there is no reasonable alternative.
Sr. Mary Hayes indicated that advising students is sometimes difficult – the students need a clear explanation of policies. The point that many students work 20-40 hours per week was also mentioned. Many of these were too young to originally apply to SPS. Anne Henderson mentioned that students are confused and they think that it is OK to enroll in SPS courses if they fit the schedule better.
Lori mentioned that when handling this issue we need to make sure juniors and seniors do not get a “bait and switch” - i.e. that policies are not changed in the middle of their course work.
Sharon Shafer made a request for data – how many FLC courses are needed? Is there a way to get this requirement? We do need to do a course rotation, but for preliminary guesses we need new data. Anne will try to compile data to see.
Mary Lynn Rampolla indicated that we will have further opportunity to discuss the issue of time slots for fall 2007 during the spring meeting.
3. Sue Blanshan, VP for Academic Affairs.
Sue discussed the winter and may term courses. She brought up several key points:
- The winter/may term courses have evolved from initial SPS courses migrated to CAS. This is a useful model for everyone, and there are good reasons for both SPS and CAS courses.
- The mini-course model does not lend itself to foundational competence learning.
- The mini-courses, even though they share a name/number with some regular term courses, should not be “shrink-to-fit” versions of the full-term courses.
- For the future, (not this year) we should consider renaming/renumbering courses to reflect their mini-term nature – make them unique to avoid confusion.
- Mini term courses should not be used in January and May to fulfill graduation requirements– the grade submission deadlines are too late. Although this is the policy, exceptions could be made student-by-student. Winter courses could be used for May graduation fulfillment, but not unless the student is very strong – the courses are too intense.
Some discussion points were mentioned:
a. We need to scrutinize the curriculum
b. Consider Winter A/ Winter B
c. What is the future for the format of these courses?
Liza Child asked if data suggest that students are still interested in the May term. She asked how many courses are useful in winter vs. spring.
Sue responded that this is part of the discussion. May courses may not be in demand.
Carlota Ocampo indicated that FLC seminar II courses are often well-suited for May and Winter term, and also mentioned that although mini-term courses have the same name/number as full-term courses, there are still different and under intensive scrutiny. Historically they were team taught in order to meet the “innovative requirement.”
Jonathan Segal suggested that we obtain data on how many mini courses were offered, were held and were cancelled. Anne will obtain information from CAS in Spring 2007 and SPS will come from Cynthia Chase for the Winter/May SPS terms.
Lori indicated that having Winter A and B is a good idea and that a mixture of adults (SPS) and CAS students is a good idea in the mini-term.
The NSSE surveys from last year (Feb 2006) gave us some helpful numbers to springboard into a discussion about curricular reform. The survey indicates:
- Our students are significantly more likely to participate in class discussions, significantly more likely to prepare for class, and significantly more likely to work harder than they thought they could to reach instructional expectations.
- They were also more likely to discuss ideas out of class, and more likely to change their understanding of issues from class.
The process of curricular reform was outlined by Anne as follows and closely parallels the working groups from the faculty planning day: The first year curricular structure; learning communities; advising; assessment; and faculty development. CAS CAP will convene a series of meetings with the working groups to develop proposals and present them to the full faculty. By the end of the year, we would like to finalize components of the curriculum for introduction in the fall of 2007.
Sr. Mary Hayes suggested that before CAS CAP brings a proposal, we should have some brown-bag meetings. That way, ideas can be shared as part of the process.
At 4:30 pm a motion was made to adjourn the meeting, It was seconded and the motion was passed.