CAS Meeting Minutes

December 12, 2005

Rose Parlor

 

 

 

The meeting was called to order at 12:05 pm.

 

I. Approval of Minutes:   The approval of minutes was postponed until the next CAS meeting in January 2006.

 

 

II. Open House Programs for Prospective Students:  R. Orlick, Director of Admissions thanked the faculty for their participation and emphasized the importance of the continued support of CAS in reaching out to students and sharing information about our programs and the university. 

 

A question was raised about the appropriateness of publications.  M. Hayes raised the issue that some of them were misleading to prospective students.

 

III. CAS Organizational Processes and Procedures Update:  Hayes reminded the faculty of the changes to the committee.  

 

IV. Foreign Language Working Team Update:  S. Falcon and S. Farnsworth spoke about the work of small task force consisting of P. Portillo, M. Rampolla, J. Padgett and R. McGuire.  They stated that the process of learning a language sharpens mode of thinking and reasoning, promotes fluency in writing, and increases understanding of other cultures.

 

The task force offered two recommendations for next year:

 

1.      Offer French through adjunct instruction.

2.      Offer Arabic, which is of interest to the ICC and would prepare students for the current global conditions. They proposed that this be offered in 3-credit intensive formats.  

 

These courses would be offered in coordination with the International Affairs program. Other languages of interest include, but are not limited to, Farsi, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

 

 

 

V. First Year Experience/First Year Seminar Roundtable Discussions:  M. Rampolla opened the discussion and asked that we focus on the following 4 questions:

 

1.      What is the knowledge base that our first year students need to acquire?

2.      What are the skills (writing, critical reading, numeracy etc.) that our students need?

3.      How can we best ensure that students acquire this knowledge base and skill set?

4.      What role might a first year seminar play in furthering these objectives?

 

VI: Reports from Roundtable Discussions

 

Table 1:   Participants envisioned 2 separate needs for the first year experience that were focused on skill-driven aspects of the curriculum and building community.  Classes need to encourage interest in education. They raised the following issue: How to hold the students’ interest and encourage them to thrive as intellectuals.

 

 

Table 2:  For the first year experience, some skills that are needed center around building skills in the area of reading, writing, and information literacy.   A comprehensive program is needed for all 1st year students that require English, Math, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science. Honor students could test out of some of these requirements.  The first year seminar is currently not able to deliver those elements.

 

 

Table 3:  Knowledge base needs to include important components of informed citizenship. Students need more predictability, more structure, such as two 6-credit courses.  These components would include:

·        Teaching critical skills. Integrate these skills that would carry through the 1st year program into their 100- and 200-level courses.

·        Include a first year seminar that could extend for the first two years of their matriculation.

·        How will we measure if we have accomplished what we set out to do?

·        Possible shift to a trimester system or other term system, taking 2-3 courses instead of 5 in a 2-semester format.

·        Divide courses into smaller segments. Such arrangements would enhance student success.

 

Table 4:  Acculturation – developing student responsibility for their academic life.  Students need to learn how to balance work-life arrangements and other priorities.

Participants stated that that orientation period needed to be extended beyond a week or 2 to a semester long engagement.

 

In terms of knowledge base, students need to know how to study, master the English language (including vocabulary and pronunciation), and how to manage classroom protocol.   Other skills include information literacy, computer literacy, reference literacy, basic reading and critical reading skills, framing an argument, drawing conclusions.

 

 

Table 5: Skills include reading, following directions, vocabulary, syllabi comprehension.

 

Participants discussed the effect of re-shaping the orientation program in terms of assessment.  They also discussed foreign language as a necessary competency, information literacy, and library familiarity.  Other essential skills included learning how to deliver effective public presentation and how to construct well-written outlines. 

 

How do we ensure they acquire this knowledge?  A possible approach is to change the orientation structure to a semester long 1-2 credit course in which issues of time management, information literacy, reading, writing, and other critical skills would be addressed.

 

Participants suggested that the June and August orientations be re-formatted to reflect a clear and more substantive academic focus, as opposed to the current strong social components.

 

Involvement of profit and non-profit organizations – participation of employees of these organizations could work in conjunction with the orientation program to provide the students with a view of prospective employers’ expectations.   First year students would have the opportunity to view the professional world realistically and align their academic and professional goals accordingly. 

 

After the roundtable reports, the large group convened for discussion.

 

M. Rampolla suggested that a summer program be offered for severely challenged students who would be required to spend the summer preparing for the academic year.  She noted that she thought about ¼ or 1/5 of our incoming students would be able to attend.

 

M. Hayes reiterated the importance of addressing the needs of our non-native speakers.   She stated that the way to address this is to get an evaluation of the approach taken this year and pursue it.

 

R. Goldberg stated that more co-curricular coordination was needed, as Hayes’ suggestions could be built into the infrastructure that supports other academic endeavors.  

 

She also spoke of the need for a realistic timeline in which to pursue our discussion. How can we process this new information?  Will the INT be included in the Fall 2006 schedule?

 

Oyewole confirmed that yes, INT is a part of our curriculum and encouraged CAS to continue to discuss how to integrate these new ideas so as to meet the upcoming year without a “band aid” approach.

 

R. Goldberg discussed a skill-based course that could be coordinated with another courses and built in across the semester or a shorter period of time, e.g. critical reading, library information classes.

 

M. San Juan stated that some of these are currently offered to Future Focus students. Some take about 3 of these courses in their first semester.

 

S. Blanshan addressed the question about the availability of the data that informed us about the success of these classes.  She stated that they were available in the Middle States Report.

 

Hayes clarified that Future Focus are INT-descendants of the 1st INT courses that were taught in the 1990s.  She stated that we needed to look seriously at whether we wanted to separate skill course for our students.  We need data about the Future Focus student activities.

 

C. Chance proposed that as a way to pilot a different program, 6 persons from 6 different programs could offer a 100-level course and agree to use shared rubrics and other shared materials in the fall and beyond. 

 

S. Oyewole stated that we needed to take time and reflect on the content of the courses and our current conversations, and plan accordingly.

 

Moayedi stated that rather than changing drastically that we think about a total structure and be more patient in our proceedings.

 

VII. Agenda for Spring 2006 CAS meetings

 

S. Shafer opened the floor to discuss how we use the meeting time for the next semester.

 

Announcement: January 12, 2006 at 10a.m. – 12 p.m. – Next Faculty Assembly.

 

Hayes proposed that our next meeting could involve a report from the discussion with some questions from the data that M. Rampolla and D. Forbes provided.

 

E. Child suggested that we process the data from President McGuire, especially the data that relate to CAS faculty offerings in SPS.

 

Blanshan stated that her office will provide the information about the course offerings and will present a systematic and concrete approach to the delivery so CAS will have the necessary information. The next issue will be to attend to the FLC offerings and the expectations for faculty course offerings in the 1st two years. She encouraged the CAS faculty to move the substance and momentum of our discussion and to remain open to possibilities.

 

Goldberg suggested that a task force be established from the contributing proposals to set goals for Dec. 06 to vote on concrete action steps that would address concerns raised in this meeting.

 

Hayes stated that what we discussed previously constituted a major revision to the curriculum and would require approval from the Board of Trustees. Their meetings were held in October, February, and May each year.

 

Rampolla stated they she would submit the summary to everyone before Christmas.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 1:50 p.m.

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Diane A. Forbes Berthoud