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Attendance: Approximately 80
Announced Agenda: 3 items
President Malcolm Gillis called the meeting to order at 4:03 pm in McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall. Alan Chapman served a Parliamentarian. No guests were acknowledged.
1. Minutes: APPROVED as circulated with seven corrections, all of which have subsequently been made.
Hightower expressed appreciation to those who read the DRAFTED Minutes so carefully. He noted that it would save time in future Faculty Meetings if faculty would send him email messages in advance noting corrections that need to be made.
2. Auston Resolution: Gillis called on Bill Wilson, Speaker of the Faculty Council, to present the following resolution on behalf of the faculty honoring the departing Provost Auston.
Be It Resolved that:
Whereas David Auston has served Rice University with distinction and excellence as Provost since 1994; and Whereas he has lead the formation of a new Strategic Plan for the University, been instrumental in the revision of our Tenure Policy, helped redefine and improve Fondren Library, brought five new deans of distinction to the University and coordinated our interaction in the founding of a new private research University in Bremen Germany; and Whereas he has provided the kind of leadership and guidance which has brought Rice to a new level of national and international renown; Now therefore do we, the Faculty of Rice University, express our profound thanks and gratitude to David for the selfless dedication, energy and effort which he has expended on our behalf the past five years, and wish him the very best in his future academic career.
The resolution was approved by a prolonged period of hearty applause.
3. Curriculum Proposal: For the fourth consecutive General Faculty Meeting the President called on Gerald McKenny (chair, Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum, CUC) to lead the discussion of the once-approved Curriculum Reform proposal. Following the discussion, the Proposal will be ready for a second (and final) reading that, if the vote is positive, is required to implement the revised curriculum in the fall of 2000.
McKenny summarized statements he made in previous discussions that the proposal
· is simple and coherent (unlike the present policy),
· allows room for innovation and experimentation, and
· "fits Rice."
A copy of the proposal (without the Language Requirement, which has already been APPROVED in two readings) was circulated and is shown in ATTACHMENT A.
John Ambler reviewed the history of the general education programs at Rice during the last three decades. He noted that there have been oscillations between restrictive and more open curricula, and he predicted that whatever we pass at this time will (and should) continue to be debated in future years as we seek a reasonable compromise among the various options. In response to a question from Moshe Vardi, Judith Brown and others affirmed that 100-level language courses will not count towards satisfying the distribution requirement. For clarification, she proposed a friendly amendment to Part Two, 1. by adding a statement at the end. The complete revised sentence would read:
Foreign-language courses at the 200-level and higher or their equivalents (e.g. FLAC courses) will count as distribution courses in the relevant Group; 100-level foreign language courses will not count as distribution courses."
This language is included in ATTACHMENT A. Responding to a question by Spike Gildea, Gillis confirmed that this is not a substantive change and thus will not require another reading.
Alan Grob asked when these changes will go into effect. When McKenny replied "in the fall of 2000," Gale Stokes asked why they can't be implemented earlier, e.g. by sending immediately a note to all freshmen entering in '99 announcing these changes as an option. Gillis suggested that we first vote on the Proposal, then consider separately the issue of implementation date.
Grob observed that there are ambiguities in the Proposal wording that do not precisely identify "distribution courses," e.g. they do not differentiate among upper level vs. introductory courses. McKenny responded that certainly the proposed curriculum would be more "restrictive" in terms of distribution courses than is presently the case. However, since many of the deans who will be making these decisions have also played important roles in development of the proposed curriculum reform, he predicts that they will in fact try very hard to make sure that distribution courses remain more focused than at present but still with some freedom. Unconvinced, Grob believes that the proposed changes will result in the "most restrictive curriculum we've had in 30 years."
John Polking agrees with Grob that this plan is not the best we can do. However, he believes it is a "workable" plan that can and should be adjusted in the future as predicted by Ambler. Stating his intention to vote for the plan, Polking then called the question.
The Curriculum Reform Proposal (as amended) PASSED overwhelmingly on second reading with only 2 votes against. Following the suggestion of Jim Thompson, the faculty roundly applauded McKenny and his CUC colleagues for their fine work.
Considerable discussion ensued about the Stokes issue of the implementation date. It's too late to change the General Announcements for '99-00, which are already in press. Some favored informing all students, including those entering as freshmen in the fall of '99, by mail this summer of the upcoming changes. However, the majority who spoke warned against rushing into this new curriculum too rapidly because of the negative impact it could have on faculty and staff, especially languages personnel and those involved in teaching the general introductory courses. As mentioned by Paula Sanders and John Hutchinson and confirmed by Registrar Jim Williamson, students have traditionally been allowed to graduate under either the rules in force when they arrive or under rules that may be enacted while they are here.
While no vote was taken, it appears that no advance advertising will be made to students but that students should be informed during O-week or early in the fall semester of the upcoming changes. Anyone wishing to qualify under the new rules, to be made official in the 2000-2001 General Announcements, would then have that option regardless of when they matriculated.
4. Other Reports/Announcements: Gillis extended his best wishes to Provost Auston as he assumes the role as President of Case Western Reserve University. The final General Faculty Meeting of the '98-'99 academic year (mainly "ceremonial") will be held at 10:00 am in McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall, on Friday, May 14, 1999. Among other things, the meeting will involve officially approving the candidates for degrees to be confirmed during Commencement the following day, Saturday the 15th.
There being no other business, the meeting was adjourned at 4:47 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Joe W. Hightower, Secretary of the Faculty
ATTACHMENT A
GENERAL EDUCATION CURRICULUM PROPOSAL
(amended 5-5-99; not including Language Requirements)
Part One: (to appear in General Announcements, effective 2000-01)
1. Each student is required to take 12 semester hours of designated distribution courses in each of Groups I, II, and III. The 12 hours in each group must include courses in at least two departments in that Group (divisional or interdisciplinary designations, e.g. HUMA, NSCI, etc., count as departments for this purpose). Interdivisional courses approved for distribution credit may count toward the 12 semester hours in any relevant Group; however, students may not count any one such course toward the 12 required hours in more than one group, and may count no more than one such course toward the 12 required hours in any one 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 social sciences or which cover topics of central importance to a social science discipline. 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.
Part Two
1. Courses designated as distribution courses in each Group will be determined by the dean(s) of the division(s) included in that Group. Foreign-language courses at the 200-level and higher or their equivalents (e.g. FLAC courses) will count as distribution courses in the relevant Group; 100-level foreign language courses will not count as distribution courses.
2. During the fall semester of the 2000-01 academic year, the faculty will vote on whether or not to require freshman seminars beginning with the 2001-02 academic year. These seminars will count toward the 12 hours in the relevant Group.
3. During the fall semester of the 2000-01 academic year, the faculty will vote on whether or not to require communication-intensive courses beginning with the 2001-02 academic year. These courses should be implemented in a way that does not add to the total number of courses students must take in order to fulfill their general education requirements (i.e. they should overlap with freshman seminars, distribution courses and major requirements whenever possible).