Gary Called the Meeting to Order

Guests: Tim Caron (ENG), Ken Green (PSY), Chi-Ah Chun (PSY), Nancy Quam-Wickham (HIST), & Suzanne Wechsler (GEOG)

Gary called the meeting to order.

 Approval of EPCC #3 minutes of October 9, 2012.  Minutes approved.

2. Announcements / Additions to the Agenda  Agenda item 3C moved to time certain 4:30.  Add GE C2 Humanities consideration to new course RGR 100A.

3. New Business A. Psychology Department 1) New Course: PSY 498HP. Senior Thesis – Honors Presentation 1 @ C15  Dave moved, Andy 2nded  Chi-Ah explained 498HP would expand the current psychology honors program to include a third semester. The 1 unit 498H extends the directed research of the Senior Thesis to allow time to complete the thesis and present their research furthering closure of the research project. They will meet once a week and will be graded credit/no credit because of the loose structure.  Gary asked if the class would only be open to honors students. Chi-Ah answered yes.  Kris asked if the course would be required. Chi-Ah answered yes.  Jason commended the next step to their honors program and asked about an apparent contradiction between the requirements of three presentations yet course credit being received for only completing two. Chi-Ah explained the points attributed to each assignment with the rubric would allow a student to miss one competition or complete it unsatisfactorily.  Pravina asked about the C15 designation. What is the academic content? Chi-Ah explained the theses would already be completed and would be the academic content.  Heather asked about redundancy with the presentation in the course description of 498H and the presentation in 498HP. Chi-Ah explained 498H was a defense, but the presentations of 498HP are professional presentations.  Heather asked about changing 498H to a co-req instead of just a pre-req to allow students needing to compress their timeline to participate. Chi-Ah explained the offering of 498H in the fall and the conference schedule in the spring prevented being able to take the two concurrently. Also, research in 498H needs to be completed before presentations in 498HP.  Danny asked what would happen if a student was sick on the one day of the conference. Would they fail the whole class for one day? Chia said they have to think about an alternative venue with similar rigor. Dave suggested the SCUR conference, Mark suggested a faculty colloquium, Ken suggested WPA, & Nancy suggested a number of UC conferences. Danny suggested integrating a policy on excused absences.  Cherie indicated HP isn’t allowed and requiring the course will require a program change form. Cherie also indicated that a C15 course description should indicate 3 hours of activity. Through discussion, Chi-Ah and Ken determined C5 would be a more appropriate classification.  Kris asked how students would be assessed at research conferences. Chi-Ah said she attends the conferences to evaluate the 10-15 students, and in the case that students are scheduled simultaneously their research mentor will be there to evaluate. Students try very hard.  Gary suggested the integration of possible variation for other instructors.  James pointed out that the pre-req’s on the new course form and the SCO do not match. Ken indicated that they mean the same thing since all psych majors will have PSY 301.  APPROVED with revisions.

B. Geography Department 1) Program Change: Masters of Science in Geographic Information Science  James moved, Teri 2nded  Suzanne explained that the masters of science degree requires professional classes. However, the GIS program is looking to be less strict in dictating the specific classes (there are more than 3 possible courses and they aren’t always offered) and to allow them to eventually develop their own courses.  Heather asked about discrepancies between the online catalog and the current text indicated on the program change form. The former indicated consent of instructor whereas the latter indicated advisor approval. Suzanne confirmed the program change form for advisor was preferred. Heather also asked if the previous indication that GISC 607 be completed with a C or better as a pre-req for GISC 608 was intentionally dropped. Suzanne said the pre-req for GISC 608 to stipulate a C or better for GISC 607 should be included.  Gary stated that no current students are in the program so the changes will not be an issue.  APPROVED.

2) Course Change: GEOG 495; request classification change  Danny moved, Pravina 2nded  Suzanne explained that an NSF grant to provide research experience to undergrads should be re-classified as a C-17 to better reflect the workload entailed. Faculty are with students 24/7 conducting intense fieldwork on a remote site.  Mark indicated that the 6 units would make this a very expensive class at C-17. Cherie asked if funding would always come from an outside source. Suzanne pointed out that the course was split between faculty. After some discussion, Mark said if the course was self-support or offered through CCPE, there wasn’t a problem.  Danny asked if the changes would be in effect for this summer. Cherie will add a special start date to the form so that the change will be in effect for this summer’s course from June 11th to 29th.  APPROVED.

C. English Department 1) New Course and General Education Review: 2nd Read for ENGL 387

D. History Department 1) General Education Review: HIST 499, Category Intensive Writing  Andy moved, Dave 2nded  Nancy explained that at Lynn Mahoney’s request they are seeking GE for HIST 499. The course was a mini-senior thesis with a significant writing component in the development of their portfolio demonstrating growth within the major. The 20 to 25 pages satisfy the intent of the Intensive Writing category. The course is only for history majors in a department that is nationally known for being at the forefront of History assessment in peer-reviewed journals.  Teri asked about the number of units and students. Nancy said the course was expensive but necessary.  Teri asked about the grading rubric division between different stages of the thesis. Nancy said this was to meet percentage restrictions on assessment.  Kris agreed that the writing component is significant, but asked how Lynn Mahoney’s request connected to the initiative to end upper division GE. Nancy said the policy is on hold and Lynn had suggested this change before the Board of Trustee’s policy proposal. Gary said all GE is not necessarily on the chopping block, except for with majors with more than 120 units. Nancy said the change in a History 499 class for majors won’t affect them.  Dave indicated that the catalog description does not explain the course as well as the justification on the SCO. Nancy said History majors know what the class is. Dave pointed out language on the demonstration of skills and Nancy said she would tell the curriculum committee.  Gary asked about GWAR. Nancy said HIST 301 would stay GWAR, but History students don’t take HIST 301 as GWAR.  James said the change would mean students would need to take one less capstone. Nancy said History students will take them anyway.  Mark told Nancy that she would need to lay out guidelines for revisions better and discuss the pedagogy of writing in learning objectives. Writing intensive requires a focus on how to teach writing, not just assigning it. Nancy agreed.  APPROVED with revisions.

2) General Education Review: HIST 473, Human Diversity  Pravina moved, Jason 2nded  Nancy explained she re-wrote the SCO with similar content as she wrote the State of CA learning outcomes. It received the equivalent category of HD at Berkeley when she taught it there. It’s not possible to teach the History of California without the class being HD.  Heather requested language acknowledging instructor variation so that additional topics, such as Angel Island, could be integrated. Nancy said they used to do a field trip to Angel Island when she taught the class at Berkeley.  APPROVED.

3) General Education Review: HIST 476, Service Learning  Danny moved, Andy 2nded  Nancy explained that HIST 476 was designed years ago as Service Learning but was not offered until last semester because of staffing concerns.  Heather asked about the GE requirements for Service Learning because the new policy in 7.10.6.2 doesn’t specify it. A stipulation of the number of hours required for service learning should be made. Nancy said instructors vary between 20 to 30 hours. The department has other courses where service-learning is not mandatory.  Teri questioned the partial list of placement sites on the second page. She asked about the inclusion of ethnic and interfaith groups as social movements. Kris concurred; the placements are more service focused than movement-oriented. The list needed placements appropriate for a course on social movements. Nancy explained Jane listed the first few placements she had and one of the educational placements focused on disability in the classroom.  Pravina pointed out an error in pasting on page 4 from another class.  Teri indicated several editing errors in the bibliography.  Heather asked about the course catalog stipulation that students “may take NO MORE THAN ONE Service Learning” course in the definition of Capstone courses. Mark and Nancy indicated that the catalog means you can only count one towards GE, but they can take as many as they want. Nancy said there aren’t enough Service Learning classes on campus.  APPROVED with revisions.

C. English Department 1) New Course and General Education Review: 2nd Read for ENGL 387  Pravina moved, Heather 2nded  Tim explained how he addressed the concerns in the previous meeting, including a memo from Carl Fisher regarding possible course conflict, clarifying assessment, focusing on HD over global factors, and justifying the course.  Teri commended the changes and pointed out a number 2 on page 2 without a number one.  APPROVED (and literature died according to Tim).  A discussion on next steps indicated that GEGC contacts responsible faculty if there are any concerns (which may be able to be addressed via email) but that Tim doesn’t need to forward on the application himself.

E. RGRLL Department 1) New Course: RGR 100A. Uptown/Downtown: The City as Text 3 units @ C2.  Danny moved, Andy 2nded  Markus found scratch paper in the Chair’s office suggesting the department increase visibility of the major. The department relied on entry-level language courses to attract students, but a course like RGR 100A may hope to attract students to enroll in the language learning programs.  Teri offered several copy-editing comments, including class vs. session on page 6, italics on page 9, completing bibliographic information on page 10, capitalizing texts on page 11, and integrating a gender neutral pronoun on page 19.  Markus said the class was a true department effort at a faculty retreat.  Heather asked about the focus on the regions of Europe, Latin America, North Africa, and Canada. Why not the U.S.? U.S. cities may work well to consider as one city over generations. Markus said he could change it, but Latin America was technically not comprehensive either. Agreement with “the Americas” was found.  Heather asked if Comp Lit should be consulted on the class.  Pravina suggested the need to better justify the course through integrating a discussion of textual representations of the city over the sociology of the city. Andy said he found the justification to be clear.  Danny asked about the ability of the faculty to change cities, and Markus said they would still have to cover all the languages. Mark asked if the special topics aspect of the class would be the changes of the city, and that was the reason for the A. Markus said the cities used in the syllabus are representative and the languages will stay the same regardless of the cities addressed. Depending on the success of the course, they may develop a 100B class.  James asked if the course could double-count, and Markus replied not for the major.  Kris suggested the course would be a great 300-level global class. Discussion on the way it would perhaps bring even more students into the major and catalog deadlines led to the decision that class should go forward as a proposed, but future courses might be developed.  Cherie added in consideration for GE C2.  APPROVED.

F. Economics Department 1) Program Change for the following 3 programs to add ECON 341 to the list of courses not accepted to satisfy the elective requirement: a) Bachelor of Arts in Economics b) Option in Mathematical Economics and Economic Theory c) Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics  Even though no representative spoke to the inclusion of ECON 341 on the list of excluded courses, the committee reviewed the proposals.  Heather wondered if there should be a program change form for the Minor in Economics as well since the Major in Economics does not accept HIST 341 but the minor in International Economics encourages the course.  APPROVED.

4. Adjourn. 

EPCC meetings are scheduled the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of each month in MHB-315. Final submission of Fall 2012 proposals to EPCC is Monday, October 15th.