Present: Michael Christoffers, Robert Harrold, Kate Haugen, RaNelle Ingalls, Sudhir Mehta, Char Myhre, Larry Peterson, Doug Rymph, Orven Swenson, Kevin Teigen, Kristi Wold-McCormick.

The meeting was called to order at 8:30 by Larry Peterson. Karen Bjellum served as recorder for the meeting. The next meeting will be held on Thursday, November 18, in the Meadow Lark Rooms, Memorial Union, at 8:30 a.m.

1. L. Peterson introduced the new recorder, Kären Bjellum. She will take minutes for the remainder of the semester.
2. The committee members introduced themselves.
3. Mehta/Haugen moved to approve the minutes for the October 21, 2004, meeting. Minutes were approved as emailed.
4. The proposed vertical writing requirement from the University Senate action on October 11, 2004 was discussed. Implementation of both options was discussed more thoroughly. Larry Peterson asked K. Wold-McCormick to attend the next meeting of the Executive Committee of the University Senate.

Student Petitions

Student 1 - requested that one credit in the Humanities and Fine Arts category be waived because he took credits under the quarter system. The Committee has granted similar requests in the past. A motion (Harrold/Teigen) to approve the petition was passed.

Student 2 - requested that University 189 be waived. She is serving as a mentor for one of the classes. Motion (Rymph/Mehta) to approve the petition was passed.

Student 3 - requested approval for a Latin III course from Concordia be considered to meet the global perspectives requirement. The motion to approve (Mehta/Rymph) was passed.

Student 4 - requested that his global perspectives requirement be waived. The missing requirement was not noted in his graduation audit. His advisor provided a letter of explanation that the requirement was not noted during academic advising. A motion (Mehta/Haugen) to waive the global perspectives requirement was passed.

Student 5 and Student 6 - separately requested to be allowed to substitute STAT 331 in the Science and Technology requirement because it was on a previous curriculum guide in the Business major. Minutes from meetings of September 5, 2003 and October 9, 2003 were cited as instances where similar petitions had been approved. A motion (Mehta/Haugen) to approve this petition was passed. Mehta/Rymph moved to provide flexibility to the Office of Registration and Records in dealing with comparable cases. The motion was passed.

Subcommittee Reports

Humanities, Fine Arts, and Communication

• The proposed questions for student on-line assessment of outcomes 1 and 6 that were emailed to committee members on November 1, 2004 were discussed. After extensive discussion, Mehta suggested making the questions shorter, and using open-ended questions. Peterson asked Mehta to develop an example and distribute it by e-mail. Swenson will assist in the development of an example format.

• Peterson suggested that the format should be consistent for all outcomes.

Science & Technology

• This subcommittee will continue to work on questions for Outcomes 2 and 5.

Social and Behavioral Sciences, Quantitative Reasoning, and Wellness

• Peterson indicated that productivity for this group could be aided by an additional member from the present General Education Committee who had an institutional role in General Education (Clark Johnson, Haugen, Wold-McCormick) to provide long-term leadership for this subcommittee.

University 189 Committee

• Peterson reported that 9 people attended the first meeting and they were generally very positive about the course, especially the practical transferable knowledge and the emotional bonding among students and between instructors and students.
• Ingalls said 10 people showed up for the second open meeting and that positive feedback was received.
• Both groups were excited about including more intellectually stimulating material, but one concern voiced was fear of losing the nurturing part of the course.
• Both groups felt that older students were not particularly well served by many aspects of the present course.
• Haugen reported that the student focus groups will be November 16 and 17 in the GDC.
• The Committee discussed the possibility of a two-part course in which the second part would focus on socialization into the major and might be taken separately by students at any time and the first part would provide both intellectual stimulation and some of the most important survival skills.
• Rymph advocated instructor flexibility to focus the individual section toward the current major of the students.

Unfinished Business (To be carried forward to November 18, 2004)

• Discussion on revised General Education Application Guidelines for New Courses distributed on 10/21/04 and Five-Year Reviews distributed 11/03/04.
• Update on process for reviewing integrated general education and capstone reviews.
• Discussion on draft survey for faculty feedback about WEBFAT implementation (emailed 11/03/04).

Reminder: There is no meeting on Thursday, November 11, 2004, it is Veteran's Day.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:00 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Kären Bjellum