Programs Committee- School of Education

The Programs Committee for the School of Ed met on Thursday, May 13th at 11:30 for the last meeting of the session. The agenda was short.

Two courses in the Educational Psychology Department were reviewed.

Ed Psych 540 Intro to Prof. School Psychology was changed from 3 to 2 credits to accommodate the requirement of a 1 credit practicum without overloading on credits.

A new course, Ed Psych 542 The Biological Basis of Behavior, was added to fulfill the need of students in the Ed Psych department who can't access the course offered through the Psychology department.

A course change proposal from the Rehab Psych and Special Ed Department was withdrawn after detailed discussion, it will return at a later meeting.

The prerequisites for Dance 420 Sound Design for the Performing and Visual Arts were changed to make the class more accessible to the entire student body, not just Dance majors.

This meeting was the last of the session.

April 26 Meeting of the Letters & Science Curriculum Committee

We held off on approval of Comp Lit 500 because of concerns regarding it as a "Meets With" course.

Discussion on LAS credit for Dance/Movement Therapy was tabled; we are waiting for additional discussion and support from the Psychology Dept. in relation to the potential certificate program.

Life Science Communication 450 was approved for Z designation L&S Credit.

Discussion regarding the creation of a Liberal Studies degree or major. Professor Emeritus Michael Hinden joined us, as did Vice Provost Aaron Brower, and Christopher Lee presented regarding Majors & L&S Degrees for background knowledge for the committee. Degree programs seem to emphasize focus, gaining depth in something you wouldn't be able to achieve if you spread yourself thinly. There have also been committed efforts to ensure that major coursework doesn't overtake a student's education. This leads to the question of if current majors are doing their job effectively. We have discussed continually who exactly this vague liberal studies major would serve, and thus Professor Hinden is sharing about how the existing Integrated Liberal Studies program could potentially aid in development of this program.

ILS is based loosely on the "Great Books" concept, and offers a way to satisfy breadth requirements with a cohesive structure and it sees itself as working with majors as opposed to being majors. About 1,000 students enroll in ILS courses each semester, with about 30 to 40 graduates each year from the certificate program. It has roots in the Meiklejohn Experimental College, and is very aware of the scale of the program. Students served by ILS come from many different majors and even from outside of L&S. Faculty for ILS are borrowed from other departments, and over the past 5 years, 27 faculty from 10 departments have participated with ILS, and about a dozen have taught repeatedly. It's a rather informal relationship which has been pretty successful.

Prof. Hinden (this is his own opinion, not on behalf of all of ILS because they have not had a discussion about this program yet) said if a Liberal Studies major went ahead without ILS involvement, it could potentially compete with and injure the program, but developing ILS to a degree or major is challenging because it may not be able to maintain a cohesive curriculum and a concern about maintaining the close faculty/student relations with exponentially expanded student numbers; faculty staffing has also been an increasing issue and ILS has a tight budget. He also raised a concern that if it is a liberal studies program, it may not be appropriate to focus solely on western culture as the foundation of a program, which is what ILS does. If there were to be a liberal studies major, it may not be appropriate to focus solely on Western culture and it may likely bring objections from other areas (Int'l Studies/Foreign Languages). He questioned whether or not depth could be satisfied by this new program, and if it philosophically fits into what a major is designed to be. Concern: Could there even be a one-size-fits all option of a liberal studies major? Can a degree in Liberal Studies be conceived without various pathways? Could ILS be one pathway? Or could ILS be a feeder to various pathways using the existing introductory courses? Could this new major use ILS to fulfill breadth requirements? Also which students would this appeal to? ILS began as a program geared toward freshmen and sophomores, then has evolved to being a certificate which provides a broad base as students specialize in another area.

Vice Provost Brower brought up a "General Studies" major at Michigan - 2 groups of students: students who couldn't choose and students who didn't want to choose. He questioned the demand for this course sequence - is there something missing from existing majors which UW offers? He made the point that if we are going to have new courses, and borrow the ILS model, departments cannot always allow faculty to be lent to ILS -- it is expensive. It's not a good model and can lock out smaller departments where there are not sufficient faculty to staff their own courses and ILS-type courses. This wouldn't be a problem if there are no new courses, but that then locks down the model. He would like to see grads who we knew achieved the kinds of liberal education learning outcomes we've described, and isn't convinced this is the route. Can this possibly be done through evolving existing majors? He suggested thinking about how we can help courses (especially intro-level) think about these questions so outcomes are being achieved, pushing departments to help students. Capstones also help include this level of integrative thinking.

We still don't have a clear vision of what this program would be, and are looking to ILS for some type of existing structure or inspiration as we continue to develop this potential program. There was additional consideration regarding senior integrative capstone courses, team teaching, using the FIG idea of linking courses...also how does this all tie in with how faculty are motivated to transcend traditional/existing boundaries even within their own departments.

PACE Coalition - 20 April 2010

The PACE Coalition met for the final time this past Thursday, April 20. It was an occasion to celebrate the accomplishments of the Coalition over the past nine years in addressing the problem of high-risk drinking on campus. Although the PACE Project itself has now come to an end, Coalition members are confident that their work has been incorporated into durable and sustainable institutions that will continue to carry it forward.

University Honors Committee - 15 April 2010

The University Honors Committee met on Thursday, April 15. Tom Reason from the Office of Admissions gave a presentation about current recruitment efforts, admissions trends, and the academic profile of incoming students. This sparked a discussion about how the Committee and Honors programs could better cooperate with Admissions to help recruit high-achieving students. The Committee agreed that developing a stronger partnership with Admissions should be one of our goals for the coming year.

Center for the First Year Experience Committee

Hello World,

So this is, unfortunately, the first and last(and only) post for the Center for the First Year Experience(CFYE) for this academic year. Good thing for you readers everything that has been discussed is all here =) !

CFYE met twice this semester on April 8 & 15th. The first meeting was with the CFYE staff, myself and a few other students and the second one was a repeat of the first but with faculty from across campus. The basic thing that came out of these meetings was discussion of the Orientation Review Project. CFYE was and still is coming up with ways to make their current programming more effective and beneficial for students.

Below is all the literature from the meetings. Do keep in mind that ALL Ideas listed are only IDEAS nothing is final or even in the the process. The goal of these Ideas is to solicit feedback from STUDENTS and faculty alike. (So if you see something awful or something you would really like comment!)
Here it goes!

Current Programming (done by CFYE):
-Freshman SOAR: 2day sessions throughout June/July. Condensed 1day sessions in late August & January. Components on academic Advising, enrollment, "campus life" and building social connections. Concurrent parent/guest program.

-Transfer SOAR: 1day sessions throughout June/July and late August, January. Emphasis on academic advising and enrollment. Little information on resources, "campus life" and social connections. Concurrent parent program.

-Wisconsin Welcome: Large & Small scale events prior to classes through the first month. Events are social informational & welcoming. Attendance is optional.

Philosophical "Big Ideas"
-Removing most discussion of campus life issues from summer programming and emphasizing academics only. Capitalizing on campus life programming that already occurs within University Housing in the fall.
-Development of more online components for pre-orientation, such as Interest Exploration and Academic Information provision.
-Structured Fall/First-week program series themed on the Wisconsin Experience. Large Presentations followed by small-group discussion in residence halls.
- "Welcome " events(Social & WI Experience) occurring primarily during the first week of classes, not several days before.
-Transfer students would participate in targeted programming tracks for fall experiences.
-Summer parent program focused more on parenting and transition issues rather than detailed information(which would still be provided in print and online).

Logistical "Big Ideas"
-Length of the summer program, options include
*Restructured 2day program(noon-noon) that incorporates advising components on both days
*1day(8am-5pm) program focused almost entirely on advising and enrollment
*Distance advising and enrollment
-Summer sessions occur from mid- June through late- August continuously(with short breaks)
-Increase total number of sessions and decrease attendance at each session





Comment away, I will forward all comments to the CFYE Chair and I will send her a link to this also>

CFYE website: http://www.newstudent.wisc.edu/index.html

Good Luck on Finals!
-Jasmine "Jay" Savoy

Dean of Students' Advisory Board April 15th

The April 15th ODOS Advisory Board meeting marked the last meeting of this year. The agenda for our last meeting was a presentation by Wren Singer and Carren Martin from CFYE on the new student orientation, a division name change for the Office of the Dean of Students, and our "year in review".
The presentation by CFYE was to get the advisory boards' opinion on the re-evaluation of SOAR programs. CFYE had plenty of ideas for how they would like to change SOAR in the coming years. One of the ideas was to take away most of the "student life" information from the SOAR dates and move it into the control of University Housing once the students move in. CFYE said they would like to do this to make room for more advising and enrollment help. Because of of the biggest problems with SOAR now is the second day enrollment period, CFYE wants to give students more time to learn about enrollment and classes before they have to actually do it. Also the board gave CFYE the suggestion to add more online pre-enrollment options for students so they can take a look at possible classes and the Student Center before they attend SOAR. Also CFYE would like to make the parents' part of SOAR more about the transition and how to parent their children while they are at college. With all these proposed changes CFYE also suggested offering two options for SOAR; a two day period running from noon the first day to noon the second, and a one day option for those who are traveling a long distance. Another thing CFYE proposed changing was Wisconsin Welcome Week. That first week before classes start has been the worst time for students taken to detox and there are high costs for opening the dorms and other buildings up that early. CFYE would like to move move-in day closer to the start of the school year and transfer Welcome Week activities to the first week of classes. The board warned CFYE that those couple of days before school starts, while costly to the University, are invaluable to incoming students. That is their time to explore the campus and get settled before the crunch of classes begin. CFYE made the point to mention that none of these suggestions will go into effect for this falls upcoming SOAR dates.
The next item on the boards' agenda was a name change for the Office of the Dean of Students. There is much confusion between ODOS and the Dean of Students' Office. The first is the entire collection of programs and offices inside Bascom and the later is specifically the Deans' offices. The board was told that the entire office was surveyed on what they would like the name to be changed to and it came to a consensus that "Division of..." should be included in the title. With that the board was given several options for names and after debate about whether the name should be more "student-friendly" or authoritarian, the board decided that the "Division of Student Life" was the most appropriate. This decision was passed on to Dean Berquam (who had to leave the meeting before this conversation took place).
The last thing we covered was just a short "year in review". We quickly went over all the major topics the board had covered this school year. The board was thanked for our service that our last meeting of the school year adjourned.
If you have any questions feel free to post a comment!
Rebecca

Programs Committee- School of Education

The Programs Committee for SoE met today, April 16th at 12:30pm.

The agenda consisted of course changes.

For the Art department, the course 518, Artist Video, had a syllabus change to make it not repeatable, as it is not the highest level course in the subject.

In the Kinesiology department, a similar case was present for the course 499 and the wording was changed to make it repeatable. In addition, there was a program change for the Athletic Training Sub-Plan, adding and editing certain courses.

Lastly, there were a group of courses on which the departments of Counseling Psychology, Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education, and Educational Psychology collaborated to consolidate and cross-list and make it more comprehensible for students in those programs. Psychology 629, Counseling Psychology 736 and 737, and Rehab Psychology/Special Ed 735 are now cross-listed. Counseling Psychology 995 was added as a 0 credit class in order to waive student tuition for those who have an internship while working on their dissertations.

Those were the interesting points of the meeting. Next to be held May 13th at 11:30am.