COMMITTEE:   Academic Standards Committee      

 

MEETING DATE:   September 18, 2006

 

PERSON PRESIDING:   Linda Wolfe  

 

REGULAR MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:  Bauer, McConnell, Smith-Canter, Richardson, Wolfe, Thomas    

 

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:   Brown, Griffin, Bailey, Sprague

 

OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE:  Mark Taggart, Chair of the Faculty       

 

CALLED TO ORDER:  2:00 PM

 

ACTIONS OF MEETING

 

Agenda Item:    Nominations and election of officers

 

Action Taken:  Linda Wolfe elected Chair, Thomas McConnell elected Vice Chair, Mark Richardson elected Secretary, and William Thomas volunteered to serve as Representative to the Athletics Committee

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Agenda Item:            Decision to be made whether or not to implement the online SOIS survey.

 

Discussion:  The committee will wait to discuss the issue until Mike Poteat provides more information at the 10/23 meeting.

 

Action Taken: Deferred to the next meeting

 

 

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Agenda Item:            Review whether the committee supports the trial use of the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) next year (put off from this year).  Mike Poteat’s comments, as summarized by George Bailey, are as follows:

 

1. First, the CLA is not designed to be a measure of writing across the curriculum or of our specific general education (or foundation) goals.

 

2. The CLA is not a standardized test in the same sense that the ACT, GRE, and SAT are standardized and normed.  I would characterize the CLA as a test in development, and the CLA project as a national research project.  It is in fact being run as a research project under the auspices of the Rand Corporation.

 

3. The results of the CLA will not be publicly released unless the University (ECU) determines that we wish to make the results public.

 

4. Before we administer the CLA, our protocol must be approved by the ECU IRB.

 

Discussion:  The committee needs further information about the CLA and its advantages for use at ECU before further action can be taken.   The committee will wait to discuss the issue until Mike Poteat provides more information at the 10/23 meeting.

 

Action Taken: Deferred to the next meeting

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Agenda Item:  Guidelines need to be prepared for outcomes assessment and a schedule for the assessment of Foundations courses.     

 

 

Discussion: The committee needs further information about the procedure from Mike Poteat in order to request from the Provost and Chair of the Faculty that an assessment committee be formed.  The committee will wait to discuss the issue until Mike Poteat provides more information at the 10/23 meeting.

 

Action Taken: Deferred to the next meeting

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Agenda Item:            The committee will need to revise the Foundations credit proposal form as necessary.

 

Discussion:  The committee agreed that the form, developed by our committee for the better organization of materials submitted by instructors for courses to be evaluated for Foundations credit, will need to be refined as it is used and omissions or clarifications are needed.

 

Action Taken: Deferred until further changes deemed necessary.

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Agenda Item:            Decision by the committee to take further action upon the Student Academic Rights Bill.

 

Discussion:  From deliberations made by our committee at our last meeting, our revisions were offered to Justin Gary Byrd, representative from the Student Government.  He is presenting this revised version to the Student Government.

 

Action Taken: Deferred until a future meeting.

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Agenda Item:  Follow up requested on experimental courses.  Unless an experimental course taught in the Spring 2006 semester has been submitted for review as a regular course and passed by review, it can no longer be taught for Foundations credit.

 

Discussion:  A question was raised regarding whether we should ask those that taught experimental courses to provide us with information on the success of the course (such as SOIS results, etc.).  Each experimental course will now need to be resubmitted for approval from our committee and the UCC to be classified as a Foundations course.

 

Action Taken: Deferred to the next meeting

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Agenda Item:            A review of role of the service learning committee to ensure that it does not conflict with the role of our committee to review curriculum.

 

Discussion:  It was decided that we need a report from a representative of the Service learning committee.  We need assurance that service learning is clearly defined, and though involving volunteer work is distinguished as academically rigorous.

 

Action Taken: Deferred to the next meeting

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Agenda Item:  Review whether a program in entrepreneurship (spearheaded by the UNCGA president with funding from a foundation grant) is desired at ECU       

 

Discussion:  The committee needs further information about the entrepreneurship program and its advantages for use at ECU before further action can be taken

 

Action Taken: Deferred to a future meeting following additional details.

 

Assigned additional duties to:  Michael Brown, Representative of the Chancellor, will attend a meeting and report back with additional details about the program.

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Agenda Item:            Review process of student evaluation in Distance Education courses to assure adherence to academic standards.

 

Discussion:  Questions arose concerning how tests are administered and how standards might be compromised if students are able to cheat or given unfair advantages in testing situations.  The committee will need more information from the Director of Distance Education courses to study and evaluate the assessment process.

 

Action Taken: Deferred to a future meeting

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ADJOURNED:   2:40 p.m. 

  

NEXT MEETING:  The Chair discussed the need to set a meeting date in October (an open date) due to the need to discuss and resolve some agenda items early in the semester.  Bailey stressed the need to bring Mike Poteat, Director of Institutional Effectiveness, to our next meeting to speak about three specific agenda items.  The committee agreed to meet October 23, depending upon Poteat’s availability.  An alternate date was scheduled for October 30.

 

ITEMS TO BE DISCUSSED: Poteat will be invited to speak about three issues on our agenda:  the online SOIS survey, the trial use of the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), and how to begin the outcomes assessment of courses approved for Foundations credit.