June 17, 2019

UUCC
Committee Minutes 6-17-19
Wayne A. Reaud Building Room 202                   

Attending: Michael Saar, Library Services; Judy Smith, Nursing; Janes Armacost, Biology; Serdar Ilban, Fine Arts and Communication;  Zanthia Smith, DSDE; Alberto Marquez, Engineering; Larry Osborne, College of Arts & Sciences;
Via Proxy: Mamta Singh, Education and Human Development; Qin Qian, Engineering;  John McCollough, Business; Millicent Musyoka, Fine Arts and Communications; Stefan Andrei, CID representative;
Absent: Ken Aung, Engineering; Edward Doan, SGA representative; Barbara Hernandez, Health and Kinesiology; Garrick Harden, Faculty Senate Representative; Kami Makki, Arts and Sciences rep;
Ex-Officio: Joe Nordgren, Acting Associate Provost; David Short, Registrar; Aida Lasher, Academic Affairs
Ex-Officio Absent: Craig Escamilla, Acting Exec Dir Student Achievement & Retention; Theresa Hefner-Babb, Exec. Dir. OPA;
Guests: Mark Mengerink, History Department Chair

Presiding: Michael Saar

Call to Order: 3:37 pm

Approval of Minutes: 5-13-19

• D. Troxclair’s name needs to be removed from the last couple of months of minutes as she is no longer on this committee. A replacement was to have been named but so far the president has not received notification of who the replacement is.
• Judy made a motion made to approve with the required revision: Zanthia seconded. Unanimously approved with revisions.                          

Business:
History Degree plans X 3: B.A. History; B.A. History with teacher certificate; and B.A. with teacher Certificate Option 1 Social Studies Composite.

• Based on recommendations from the MATH department non-STEM majors, the Required core course for MATH was changed to MATH 1332
• The additional degree requirements for MATH were edited to include MATH 1342, 2413, 2414, 3311 or 3370 on all three plans
• All hours on each degree plan were accounted for.
• Judy made a motion to approve all three degree plans as written; Zanthia seconded the motion; motion was unanimously approved.

BIOL 4303 Medical Microbiology

• Pre-reqs on face sheet and syllabus do not match.
• There are pre-reqs listed in both the catalog description and also under the objectives that do not match.
• Textbook information is not in APA or Concourse format
• Grading scale does not allow for decimal points
• No max repeat hours filled in on the face sheet. Syllabus states the course could be retaken.
• The course descriptions were very confusing. Was this a Special Topics course that is now being converted to a regularly offered course? There is the catalog description and under objectives is a course description. Neither description in the syllabus match the description of the course on the facesheet. Specific Objectives for the course should be clearly defined in the course objectives section..
• Judy made a motion to return the syllabus to the department for clarifications on these concerns; Larry seconded the motion; approved unanimously.

COMM 4343 Health Communication

• Pre-reqs not listed on the syllabus
• Face sheet designates the course as COMM 4343, but the syllabus course number and title reads CONN 4396
• Course description needs to be clarified.
• Judy made a motion to approve pending the above mentioned revisions; Zanthia seconded; unanimously approved.

COSC 4333 Distributed Systems

• Pre-reqs do not match between the face sheet and on page two of the syllabus.
• Judy made a motion to approve with clarification of the Course numbers for all of the pre-reqs; Zanthia seconded: unanimously approved.

MATH 4361 Combinatorial Design Theory

• Pre-requisites listed on the face sheet and syllabus need to be clarified as to whether the student needs to take all three before taking this course or whether they only have to take one or two of them or not have to take any of the other pre-reqs listed if they received instructor permission to enroll in the course.
• Also the Admin Code and the CIP codes were wrong
• Judy made the motion to approve with the requested clarifications; Serdar seconded; unanimously approved

New Business:

• Michael opened the discussion for trying to determine what will need to be included in submitted syllabi in the future. The checklist was discussed with some identified gaps.
• Accuracy in Pre-requisites between the facesheet and the syllabus seem to be a common problem and should be included on the checklist.
• Grade distributions are also problematic on many syllabi.
• If the course description does not match between the facesheet and the pre-filled course description on concourse, there needs to be a justification was to why there is a difference since the Concourse description cannot be altered until a new description appears in the course catalog.
• Concerns raised regarding departments wanting to make immediate changes in courses and expecting committee approval on short notice. Departments need to understand that there is about a year’s lag time between approvals and being able to get the course catalog descriptions to be better matched between the facesheets and the syllabus.
• It was suggested that on the course addition form: may need to add a disclaimer regarding the potential length of time for full approval and dissemination to the students in order to set realistic expectations for the actual implementation of new courses.
• Michael asked the committee to think about whether there are any other changes that may need to be made in the way we evaluate future syllabi.

• Motion to Adjourn at 4:35 pm by Zanthia; Seconded by Larry and was unanimously approved

Respectfully submitted:

Dr. Judy Smith, Secretary University Undergraduate Committee.