Note taker: Valene Mathews

Attendees: Preston Allen, Maria Arvizu-Rodriguez, Philip Bailey, Martin Bragg, Navjit Brar, Denise Campbell, David Conn (co-chair), Linda Dalton, Robert Detweiler, Jessica Gibbons, Joseph Grimes, David Hannings, Kimi Ikeda, Cindy Jelinek, Tylor Middlestadt, Kent Morrison, Cornel Morton (co-chair), Patricia Ponce, David Ross, Adam Serafin, Mary Whiteford

Distributed:

• Student Affairs Newsletter
• Resolution on Course Syllabi
• Total Unit Requirements at Cal Poly (November 2005)
• List of Current Initiatives

1. Announcements

Cornel Morton thanked Kimi Ikeda for giving a very informative and thorough presentation to the Parents Council this past weekend. Kimi was asked to speak on Registration, Scheduling and other issues and did an extraordinary job. Cornel expressed his appreciation on behalf of Student Affairs for her many contributions to Student Success.

2. Resolution on Access to Course Syllabi

David asked the Council for their comments regarding the resolution from the Instruction Committee on Course Syllabi, that is currently in its first reading at the Academic Senate. The Instruction Committee wanted to strengthen what is currently written in the catalog for a number of reasons.

Kimi Ikeda stated that recently the university had a Public Records Act request for textbook information and when the university provides text in print, the university is obligated to provide it to anyone who requests it. The dilemma is that when we place text information on the syllabus, requests from agencies or entities want all information on our courses, we are obligated to provide them with this information. They would pay for the duplication costs, but we would have to provide the information. This is not a reason to not place text information on the syllabus, but everyone should be aware of the requirements.

Dave Hannings stated that he felt everyone agreed that there should be a written syllabus which explains how the grades are figured, it was just what the syllabus should contain and the intellectual property rights issues that were in question..

Tylor Middlestadt stated that when ASI reviewed the guidelines for the Course Syllabus, there was a lot of support for placing the GE, USCP and GWR requirement information on the syllabus. The information is available elsewhere, but if it’s available on the course syllabi then the students would know immediately if they were meeting that requirement or not.

Kimi Ikeda stated that this kind of information would take additional resources in order to be maintained to provide accurate and current information. With the new system, when the student is enrolling or registering for a class, they will know what requirement it does meet, because there will be tags associated with every course. The information will be more accessible than it is currently. Kimi stated she would be concerned if we were giving out bad information because we cannot afford the resources to keep this information up to date.

Phil Bailey agreed that everyone should have a syllabus, but worries about having a hard and fast framework for them. Phil suggested that some of these things could be accomplished through mentoring. For example, cheating and plagiarism policies are not something that should be placed on a syllabus. They are too negative and imply that the instructor doesn’t trust the student. Everyone knows that they should not cheat or plagiarize. Faculty who are new and who have not developed their classroom management skills have a tendency to place a lot of rules on their syllabi. With some good mentoring, the faculty will realize that the syllabus is something that should be a positive and informative way of communicating with their students. Phil stated that when faculty have requested to place this type of information in their syllabus, he has suggested they title it an “Honesty Policy” to place it in a positive light, rather than focusing on the negative.

Robert Detweiler suggested a web address be provided that students can be referred to instead of placing the cheating and plagiarism policies on the syllabi.

Maria Arvizu-Rodriguez suggested that in order to give students an opportunity to see the policy, they should be asked to sign into the portal and sign off on reading the policy one time only, rather than having to see the policy repeatedly on each syllabus.

Kimi stated that some of the things that are recommended for inclusion on the syllabus, cross the line from a syllabus to an advising tool. Are we using this to advise on prerequisites and GE requirements and to distribute policies? At this point, it becomes more than just a course syllabus.

David Conn explained that we currently do not have a mechanism to track the course content submitted for approval on the course proposal to the actual course offered. If there is a clear policy that a syllabus should be available, this could be a mechanism for verifying course content.

Joe Grimes stated that, in the Center for Teaching and Learning, they recommend the development of a syllabus and they assist in that process. Joe suggested that we provide an associated document on the web that helps faculty develop their syllabus. If we are going to do this completely, there should be an “other items for consideration” category, such as “Lab Safety”.

David Conn asked the Council if there was a general agreement on the main thrust of the resolution?

Tylor Middlestadt stated that the discussion has been really helpful in guiding how the ASI resolution will be framed in support of the resolution. The bottom line of providing a printed syllabus to students is fundamental. In a program review and equity review and transfer, the information should be available. If a student wants to check their progress at the sixth week, they need to be able to check the syllabus instead of having to go to an office hour. Having a paper syllabus with the fundamental information, mainly attendance and grading policies, instructor information and learning outcomes should be required.

Kent Morrison stated that the logistics at the department level of keeping track of 150 syllabi each quarter would be rather daunting. Mathematics has about 80 courses in which they do expanded course outlines. They are offered on the web and are updated once a year. The maintenance of those alone is difficult to do.

Robert Detweiler suggested that if the Council members had specific thoughts on the proposed resolution for Course Syllabi to provide them in writing to their Academic Senators prior to the Tuesday Senate meeting, or attend the Senate meeting and submit them there.

3. First Year Experience Initiative

Cornel announced that there will be an Assessment Training and Development Workshop held on campus, Thursday, April 28. Dr. Rashani from Texas A&M University, who is a noted authority, writer and scholar on Assessment in Higher Education will be attending. This is a joint effort with the Center for Teaching and Learning, the Assessment Council and the Student Affairs Division. This will be an effort to make the FYE a more measurable program.

4. 22 Points for Facilitating Graduation

David Conn announced to the Council that he had requested feedback or thoughts from the Council regarding the 22 points for Facilitating Graduation and hadn’t heard from anyone. Tylor Middlestadt suggested that considering the sheer volume of items to address for Facilitating Graduation, that a sub-group be formed to work on them and provide oversight.

David Conn invited the Council members to volunteer for a sub-group by emailing Valene Mathews at vmathews@calpoly.edu.

5. 180 Unit Requirement

The Chancellor’s office is placing a fair amount of pressure to go to 180 units or have a good justification as to why not. Cal Poly has a fair number of programs that exceed the 180 units; they are, almost without exception accredited professional programs. They have all provided a justification that the Curriculum Committee and the Office of Academic Programs have reviewed. Some of these will be reviewed again and may decrease over time. One thing the Trustees are paying attention to is numbers of Free Electives. This puts us in a crunch, because one of the ways used, to get to the 180 units was to reduce and in some cases eliminate Free Electives. The Trustees are now taking a new interest in whether we are providing enough flexibility in Free Electives. This is a change that will be incremental over time.

6. Impaction of GE Courses

Robert Detweiler suggested that we focus on what courses are actually impacted and resolve this problem.

7. Status of Evaluations Staffing

Kimi Ikeda informed the Council that in the Evaluations Unit they had lost four staff members in a very short period of time, for various reasons, and have since replaced them. The training and getting them up to speed will take some time. The things that were not getting done in the Evaluations Unit was a resource issue, in the sense of not having enough people to get the work done. Evaluations doesn’t have the luxury of having three people to backfill a position. There are eight people to serve 7 Colleges and there is not a lot of cross-training and backfill to support the unit.

8. List of Current Initiatives (not exhaustive; discussion will continue at the next meeting)

1. Continuing fine tuning of GE requirements
2. Strengthening of first year experience
3. Continuing use of academic progress review to identify and remove opportunities and obstacles to timely graduation
4. Identification and removal of bottleneck courses
5. Pilot expansion of study sessions
6. Possible re-establishment of "learning center"
7. Review of policy on course repetitions
8. Review of desirability, means, and feasibility of strengthening advising in majors
9. Continuing efforts to speed up delivery of complete and accurate degree audits
10. Review by CSU academic peers
11. "To Do" list for entering students. (Not to be confused with PeopleSoft "To Do" list for students)
12. On-line advising for entering students
13. Adjustment of enrollment targets to assist change-of-major
14. Possible pilot application of "full-cost" fees to discourage excessive units
15. Possible renewed emphasis on use of instructional technology, including use of distributed learning to increase course availability
16. Review of scheduling templates from student success perspective
17. Review of system of assigning priorities in registration
18. Access to course syllabi (Senate resolution)