|
|
|
Attendance: Approximately 88
Announced Agenda: 4 items
President Malcolm Gillis called the meeting to order at 3:33 pm in McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall. Alan Chapman served a Parliamentarian. The president welcomed Julie Hollar, a press person representing the Rice Thresher.
1. Minutes: APPROVED as circulated with addition of "with" in the first line of the second paragraph of 2. [thanks for noting the omission, Dan Sherman].
Jane Chance requested that the secretary prepare a more detailed set of Minutes from future faculty meetings for informative archival purposes. Arthur Few inquired about the availability of videotape recordings of the meetings. Previous secretary Linda Driskill stated that she had understood that the videotapes were solely for her use in preparing the Minutes and that no tapes were retained for meetings between 1992 and 1998. Gillis pointed out that this is a faculty matter and that the faculty should decide whether or not to make the videotapes available for posterity. Hightower promised to include a bit more detail about who said what, although this may not always be very useful if the discussion involves considerable repetition. In the absence of instructions to the contrary, he will continue to use the videotapes for preparing the minutes but will not archive them.
2. Mid-year Conferral of MBA Degrees: In the absence of Ron Soligo (Graduate and Research Council), Registrar James Williamson wrote on the board the names of five students who had satisfied the requirements for MBA degrees at midyear:
George R. Brazzel
Jacob R. Haddix
Michael B. Hiney
Jennifer R. Niemeyer
Jennifer Lyn Ostermeyer
There being no exceptions, the faculty unanimously APPROVED the midyear conferral of these degrees, which will be added the approved lists shown in ATTACHMENT A of the minutes from the January 26, 1999 meeting.
3. Curriculum Reform: For the second meeting in a row, the president called on Gerald McKenny (chair, Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum, CUC) to lead the discussion of Curriculum Reform. On 2-26-99 Gerald distributed by "urgent" email a preliminary version of a document titled "The Basic Structure: Current System and Two Alternatives." Most faculty received this document on Monday morning, the day of the meeting. A slightly modified version [ATTACHMENT 1] was distributed at the meeting and served as the basis for the discussion. The document listed the current requirements, proposed two alternatives, and identified a couple of "undecided" issues. CUC is attempting to "triangulate" between what we have now and the proposals of the ad hoc Committee on Curriculum Reform that Minutes of Faculty Meeting March 1, 1999 2/8 had widespread support but were narrowly defeated late last year. Gerald proposed that a "straw vote" be taken after discussion to give the CUC some guidance about how to prepare an acceptable proposal for a final vote at a future date. The main issues of debate concern the Distribution Courses in categories I, II, and III: how many and whether they should be of a broad general nature within each category or selected from a smaller restricted group. Now that the language requirement has been added, should those courses be used to satisfy any of the distribution requirements?
Speaking for colleagues Deborah Harter and John Polking, John Ambler presented a third idea titled "A Two-Tiered Curriculum Proposal" [ATTACHMENT 2]. They proposed retaining the four-course requirement in each of the three groups but requiring that two of the courses come from a "restricted distribution list" to be "established and maintained separately by a committee of faculty in [each] group." Both interdisciplinary and mono-disciplinary courses could qualify for the restricted list. Only language courses above the 100 level would count in the distribution requirement. Alternatively, the number of courses in each group might be decreased to three to offset the language requirement.
The discussion began with a question about the rationale behind the restrictions against taking more than one interdisciplinary course in a particular group for distribution credit. Gerald responded that a person might satisfy one group by taking two language courses and two interdisciplinary courses, thereby missing a thorough introduction to that group. Ewa Thompson asked who would make the determination about which foreign language literature courses could be counted for distribution credit. Jim Thompson proposed that the decisions about distribution courses be handled by "mailout" ballots rather than in a faculty meeting where a few "ringers" could control the vote when only ~30% of the faculty was present. Bill Martin, who was allegedly quoted in the Journal of Higher Education, denied using the word "ringer" but stood by his statement that a few faculty who rarely attend faculty meetings could come out in force to influence a specific vote. Gillis said the issue of mail ballots was not on the agenda but could be considered at a future meeting.
Moshe Vardi asked why could not the entire faculty be involved in selecting courses for distribution, since it is the faculty who must approve individual departmental requirements. Polking responded that the distribution list has tended to become expanded to the point where almost the entire curriculum is eligible. He felt that a smaller group would be in a better position to make a more focussed selection. Alan Grob pointed out that in the pre-Rupp days, there were divisions within groups such that students were required to take a set of courses designed to broaden their exposure rather than allowing them to take all courses in a very small subset of a group. E. Thompson would prefer that students take courses which emphasize "methodology," even in a narrow area, rather than too many "broad" courses that do not give specific ways of using the discipline. Ambler pointed out the difficulty of measuring "breadth." Judith Brown suggested that we take a balanced approach where neither courses that were too broad or too narrow be included in the distribution lists.
Ambler and J. Thompson debated the merits of a constrained set of distribution courses as opposed to one where students can take almost anything (the Brown U. system?). Ambler based his case for some guidance on his experiences with the '84/85 Self Study where he had running battles with department chairs and even deans about why certain courses were not appropriate for the distribution list. Thompson based his proposal for more student freedom on (non-statistical) discussions with students. Tom Haskell expressed his confusion about the basic differences between the three proposals. In his view 18-year olds need some direction, and it would be irresponsible for faculty not to give them the guidance they require. In response to his question, McKenny said that historically it was the deans and provost who make the decisions about distribution course lists. Harter said it appears to her that what we are really arguing about is which courses will be on the distribution lists.
Bob Patten fears that our advising system is not performing optimally. For example, some students take his introductory 211 course as seniors even after they have taken some more advanced courses. We need to focus more on sequencing of courses rather than the exact courses that are on a list. Polking echoed the idea that the faculty must take more responsibility in advising students in a way that will affect their patterns positively. E. Thompson concurred with the view that students needed some guidance.
Grob offered his opinion that a good solution is one in which students must take a couple of introductory courses (with "guidance") in each discipline and then should be able to pick essentially any other course ("freedom") in that group, be it another introductory course or one for which an introductory course is a prerequisite. McKenny countered that statement by saying it was the CUC's opinion that all distribution courses should be at a general level. Dan Sherman asked if the Ambler plan would have, for example, humanities majors taking a couple of the introductory humanities courses. While Ambler's answer was "yes," he did not want to tell any of the groups exactly how they should arrange their courses.
Carol Quillen supports the idea of having all students, regardless of major, take the introductory courses in each discipline. For example, she feels that her introductory history course would be greatly improved if she had humanities students in addition to the usual science/engineering/soci students. McKenny said this kind of non-major-specific mixing was what had been envisioned in the Freshman Seminars. Chance recalled the curriculum issues faculty debated in 1993-94 and found that the very same arguments made now were used then. Her question was, "Do we really want some sort of watered-down form of general education?" She suggested that there should be some other alternatives. For example, maybe each department could specify a set 100- or 200-level courses that would be useful for general education. This would be simple to implement and would put the decision back at the department level. McKenny countered that it would eliminate 300-level courses, some of which might be very appropriate. Moreover, suppose a student had satisfied the foreign language requirement before entering Rice and would like to take some advanced literature courses in the language for distribution credit. That would not be allowed to satisfy the distribution requirement.
Matthias Felleisen raised again the issue of the impact of foreign languages on the number of free electives S/E students would have. McKenny said that the primary difference between proposals A and B is that in B (9-9-9) neither freshman seminars nor "competency" languages would count in the distribution requirements of any group. B would essentially free up space for 2-3 courses (based on current 12-12-12 distribution requirements) that could accommodate a freshman seminar and up to 2 language courses, if needed. Charles Stewart stated that neither proposal will resolve the negative impact of the language requirement on S/E free electives (now 4 in Biosciences, 3 in Chemical Engineering) if up to 4 language courses were required to satisfy the language requirement. Even if languages can be counted in more than Group I, if a student is not adequately prepared, s/he could still be forced to commit up to two free electives to the language requirement. Gillis raised the question about just how many students would be in this category. Brown believes it is "inconceivable" that properly admitted Rice students would be forced to take 4 courses, since all matriculants should have at least 2 years of a foreign language. Moreover, many of our students, especially in S/E, come from homes where more than one language is spoken. With reference to the report of Harvey Yunis in the last faculty meeting, she reminded us that the language requirement is based on competency, not necessarily courses. Polking mentioned the fact that 192 Rice students took the introductory Spanish course last year, to which Brown responded that students often choose to take specific courses for a variety of reasons that are unrelated to their actual knowledge of material in that course. Pat Reiff expressed Minutes of Faculty Meeting March 1, 1999 4/8 concern that in satisfying the language requirement, many S/E students will not receive the breadth of education (e.g. only 1 or 2 courses) in one of the groups. Klaus Weissenberger pointed out that students who receive scores of 4 or 5 in high school AP courses are eligible for 6 hours credit in languages at Rice.
Peter Hartley raised a question about just how "decentralized" the decisions about distribution courses will be made. Will they be decided by the faculty, will students have input, or will it be a "top down" process by deans? He requested that advocates comment on the impact the various proposals would have on making sure the fundamentals were covered and yet leave freedom for the students. Harter believes the Ambler/Harter/Polking proposal would do both: allow some quality control to make sure fundamentals are covered, yet make it possible for students to take a few very specific advanced courses that might satisfy some intense nontraditional interest.
Ed Doughtie called for the straw vote, but Felleisen, Grob, both Thompsons, and David Scott recommended that it be postponed. Invoking privilege of the chair, Gillis then called for a vote on whether or not to postpone the straw vote. The vote to postpone FAILED by 23 for, 43 against.
George Sher suggested that a "clean" way to divide the vote would be to first vote on the distribution issue, followed by a vote on the process (proposal A, proposal B, or the current system). The following definitions were agree upon:
DISTRIBUTION - a single list of courses, smaller than the current list, within each Group I, II, and III from which students could select any 3 (or 4) without restriction
RESTRICTED DISTRIBUTION - two lists, one containing a select list of fundamental courses from which students could select two, and a larger list from which students may select 1 or 2 additional courses in each group
NO DISTRIBUTION - any 3 or 4 courses, without limitation, in Group I, II, and III departments could be taken to satisfy the distribution requirement.
FIRST VOTE: With each person voting only once, the following numbers were counted:
Distribution 15
Restricted Distribution 35 **
No Distribution limit 19
Total 69
SECOND VOTE: Again with one vote/person, the "mechanism" totals were:
Proposal A (12 sem. hrs./Group, incl. languages) 43 **
Proposal B (9 sem. hrs./Group, plus languages) 16
Current rules (12 sem. hrs./Group, languages unspecified) 12
Total 71
4. Adjournment - There being no further matters of business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:10. The next faculty meeting is scheduled for April 14, 1999, 4-5:30 pm, Sewell 301.
Respectfully submitted,
Joe W. Hightower, Secretary of the Faculty
ATTACHMENTS - 2
NOTE: Thanks to Pauline Vinyard, Minutes of all faculty meetings since 1992 will soon be available on the web via the Rice Home Page: academics, Minutes of Faculty Meetings <http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~facsec/facminhtml%20folder/indexfacmin.html>.
ATTACHMENT 1
REPORT FROM COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM, 1/3
URGENT: PLEASE SEND TO ALL RICE UNIVERSITY FACULTY. MATERIALS FOR GENERAL FACULTY MEETING ON MONDAY, MARCH 1.Colleagues,
As you know, the faculty will meet on Monday to hear a report from the Committee on the Undergraduate Curriculum (CUC) regarding reform of the general education curriculum. During the meeting, the faculty will consider two alternatives to our current general education curriculum. These two alternatives, along with the current curriculum, are detailed below. We regret the short notice, but hope that you will have time to familiarize yourselves with the proposals prior to the meeting.
The meeting will consist largely of a discussion of these alternative proposals. Following the discussion, there will be a NONBINDING "STRAW" VOTE. The purpose of the straw vote is to enable the CUC to craft a single proposal for an official vote at a subsequent faculty meeting. My understanding is that any proposal would have to pass two such official readings in order to be adopted.
In recent weeks the CUC has benefited from the many helpful comments made during the January faculty meeting and from those who have offered suggestions in response to our report at that meeting. We anticipate that the discussion on Monday will be equally helpful and thank you for your participation with us in this very important task.
Gerald McKenny, Chair
Committee on the Undergraduate Curriculum [CUC]
THE BASIC STRUCTURE: CURRENT SYSTEM AND TWO ALTERNATIVES, 1/3
Current Requirements:
1. 12 semester hours each in Groups I, II, and III
2. Restricted distribution requirements as follows: ·
Group I Majors: 6 hours designated Group III courses
Group II Majors: 6 hours designated Group III courses
Group III Majors: 6 hrs. designated Group I courses; 3 hrs. Designated Group II courses
Architecture Majors: 6 hrs. Designated Groups I & III; 3 hrs. Designated Group II courses
Cognitive Science majors: 6 hours of designated Group I courses ·
Music majors: 6 hrs. Designated Group I & III courses; 3 hrs. Designated Group II courses[Double majors combining I and III have no restricted distribution requirements; double majors combining architecture or music and another discipline must meet requirements of the distribution group that includes the other discipline]
3. Language Competency Requirement (not yet in effect)
REPORT FROM COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM, 2/3
Alternative A
1. 12 semester hours each Groups I, II and III
2. Language competency requirement [100-level language courses do not count toward the 12 semester hours in any Group; 200 level language courses or their equivalents do count toward the 12 hours in the appropriate Group (usually Group I)]
3. Interdivisional Courses: Approved interdivisional courses may count toward the 12 required hours in any Group; however, no single such course may count toward the 12 hours in more than one Group, and no more than one such course may count toward the 12 hours in any one Group.
4. Freshman Seminars: In 2000-01 the faculty will vote on whether or not to require freshman seminars for the 2001-02 academic year; these seminars count toward the 12 hours in the relevant Group.
Alternative B
1. 9 semester hours in each of Groups I, II and III
2. Language Competency Requirement (courses designated for fulfillment of the language competency requirement do not count toward the 9 hours in any Group)
3. Interdivisional Courses: Approved courses may count toward the 9 required hours in each Group; however, no single course may count toward the 9 required in more than one Group, and no more than one course may count toward the 9 required hours in any Group.
4. Freshman seminars: In 2000-01 the faculty will vote on whether or not to require these for the 2001-02 academic year; these seminars will not count toward the 9 hours in any Group.
REPORT FROM COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM, 3/3
UNDECIDED ISSUESa. Communication-intensive courses: The CUC believes current experiments should continue and that during the 2000-01 academic year the faculty should vote on whether or not to require such courses for the 2001-02 academic year. This requirement should not entail an increase in the total number of general education courses [i.e. communication-intensive courses should count toward the 12-12-12 requirement or the 9-9-9 (plus freshman seminars, if approved) requirement].
b. Distribution system: Alternatives A and B are neutral on the question of whether or not courses which fulfill the 12 or 9 required hours in each Group should be drawn from an approved list of such courses. What follows are a general rationale and Group-specific criteria to help the faculty determine whether or not to continue designating which courses count toward the required hours in each Group.
A distribution system presupposes that every Rice student should receive a broad education along with training in an academic specialty. This goal is achieved by courses that are broad based, accessible to non-majors, and representative of the knowledge, intellectual skills, and habits of thought that are most characteristic of a discipline or of inquiry across disciplines.
Group I: These courses have one or more of the following goals. They develop students' critical and aesthetic understanding of texts and the arts; they lead students to the analytical examination of ideas and values; they introduce students to the variety of approaches and methods with which different disciplines approach intellectual problems; and they engage students with works of culture that have intellectual importance by virtue of the ideas they express, their historical influence, their mode of expression, or their critical engagement with established cultural assumptions and traditions.
Group II: Three types of courses fulfill this requirement. The first are introductory courses which address the problems, methodologies, and substance of different disciplines in the social sciences. The second are departmental courses which draw upon at least two or more disciplines in the societal sciences. The third are interdisciplinary courses team-taught by faculty from two or more disciplines.
Group III: These courses provide explicit exposure to the scientific method or to theorem development, develop analytical thinking skills and emphasize quantitative analysis, and expose students to subject matter in the various disciplines of science and engineering.
ATTACHMENT 2
ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL BY AMBLER, HARTER, AND POLKING
A Two-Tiered Curriculum Proposal, March 1, 1999
John Ambler
Deborah Harter
John PolkingThe following proposal is an attempt to retain some of the positive features of the present curricular requirements, while introducing greater symmetry among the curricular groups. It is "two-tiered" in its effort to allow each group to design and maintain a short list of what they feel are critical introductory or broad based courses, while allowing our students the freedom to take non-introductory, individually selected courses as part of their program in general education.
1. The current graduation requirement of four courses in each of three groups would be retained.
2. All students would be required to select at least two of these courses from each group's "restricted distribution" list. [Note: At present the requirements differ widely depending on the major.]
3. The "restricted distribution" list for each of the three groups would be established and maintained separately by a committee of faculty in that group.
The definition of "restricted distribution" course is up to the faculty in each group. The descriptions of "distribution courses" given in the proposal of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee are adequate descriptions of our "restricted distribution courses." A restricted distribution course could be interdisciplinary, but courses within one discipline could qualify as well.
This proposal could accommodate the language requirement in either of two ways outlined in the proposal made by the Curriculum Committee. Either . . .
*100-level language courses do not count as distribution courses, but 200- level courses do.
or . . .
* The number of courses in each of the three groups can be reduced to three in order to accommodate languages. In this case we propose that students still be required to take two restricted distribution courses in each group.