Minutes

University Curriculum and Academic Policy Committee

October 6, 2005

 

Members present:

Carolyn Bocian, Rosemarie Bosler, Cynthia Chance, Bobbie Dorr, Kaye Gapen, Anne Henderson, Suellen Meara, Cristina Parsons (chair), John Volpe

 

The minutes of the September 8 2005 meeting were approved.

 

UCAP welcomed Director of the Library Kaye Gapen to the committee

 

I. Program Assessment and Evaluation

John Volpe requested a meeting between SPS faculty and a UCAP representative to obtain UCAP guidance on the completion of the Business Administration program’s 2nd year undergraduate and 3rd year graduate (MSA) assessment report.  UCAP agreed to send a representative to discuss the procedures and requirements for completing the reports.

 

The Business Administration program requested Cristina Parsons to serve as mentor for their graduate and undergraduate assessments.  The Sociology, Fine Arts, and Chemistry programs requested Anne Henderson to serve as mentor for their assessments.

 

The Biology program turned in its 2nd year report.  Cristina Parsons and Bobbie Dorr will work together on evaluating the report.

 

Cristina Parsons reported that the Office of Academic Affairs intends to consider programs’ performance in satisfying the requirements of the program assessment process as a factor in consideration of faculty hire proposals.  Some UCAP members expressed concern about whether this was an effective method for encouraging programs’ compliance with assessment requirements.

 

II. Protocols

Cristina Parsons and Anne Henderson met with Vice President for Academic Affairs Sue Blanshan to clarify whether the language of the 1st year protocol should be revised to require programs to assess service to specific student constituencies.  Sue Blanshan indicated that the current language of the protocol was already sufficiently specific in this regard.

 

Cristina Parsons will contact Webmaster Timothy Russell to find out how to post the protocols (and any other relevant UCAP materials) on the UCAP web page.  She will also work with Timothy to make the UCAP web page link easier to find and access.

 

III. Workshops

Cristina Parsons reminded UCAP members that the 1st year workshop would be held on October 14th from 10:00 a.m. to noon.  Programs entering the first year, and invited to attend, were: Public Affairs, Physics, Liberal Studies, Human Relations, and Language and Cultural Studies.  Although the Social Sciences program was formally due to enter the 1st year of assessment as well, the program appeared to be dormant.  Bobbie Dorr pointed out that the program was originally set up to serve School of Education students who intended to teach Social Studies, but that this prospect never materialized.  Cristina Parsons announced that she would ask the Director of the Social Studies program to submit a letter to UCAP attesting to the program’s lack of majors and minors, and requesting exemption from the assessment process.

 

Cristina Parsons and Cindy Chance reported on the 2nd year workshop.  Cindy told UCAP members that while programs at the workshop appreciated the narrative comments that UCAP provided in its evaluations of programs’ reports, they resented the rubric scores (“meets standard” or “needs revision”) for the satisfaction of protocol criteria. Programs reportedly found the rubric scores overly prescriptive and intrusive. This prompted a discussion of how to improve the evaluation process to avoid program resistance and resentment.  Some UCAP members opined that making the evaluation rubrics less specific and structured would not be productive, since higher education assessment trends are moving in the direction of greater specificity and rigor.  Other UCAP members argued that rubric-based scoring of programs’ assessment reports put UCAP members (especially junior faculty members) in the untenable position of self-proclaimed experts passing judgment on colleagues’ work.  Various suggestions for improving programs’ compliance with assessment requirements were put forward, including limiting UCAP faculty membership to tenured faculty, and having the Vice President for Academic Affairs enforce compliance.  After considerable discussion, UCAP members concurred on the following measures:

  • Promoting productive dialogue through face-to-face meetings between program and UCAP representatives to review UCAP evaluation reports
  • Ensuring consistency in UCAP feedback to programs by having the same UCAP members provide preliminary and final evaluations to programs.

 

The meeting adjourned at 1:15 p.m.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Anne Henderson