Academic Policies Committee
Minutes - January 11, 2008
Present: Ken Abernethy, Robin Visel, Linda Bartlett, Brad Barron, Tom Kazee, John Harris, Doug Cummins, Kristy Maher (recording), Elizabeth Cooke
The meeting was called to order at 2:00 pm.
The minutes from the previous meeting (December 4, 2007) were approved.
The W component on Global Waters Issue first year seminar was discussed with some debate regarding the minimum requirements of writing seminars. The committee felt that requiring a minimum number of pages of writing as well as drafts and peer reviews made the amount of writing suitable for a W seminar.
The committee recommends that Tom Kazee speak with Stan Crowe, Chair of the First Year Seminar Committee regarding developing some guidelines to assist professors who have proposed First Year Seminars with a writing component (e.g. minimum number of pages, rewriting of drafts, library literacy, etc.).
A question was raised regarding “adjunct” status of some individuals offering FYS/W. In all cases, the academic credentials of persons offering first year seminars were considered appropriate for teaching these courses.
The committee approves the following courses:
For FYW (previously approved for CGA and Concentration credits) – 9 proposals
FYW: Issues in Shakespearean Drama
FYW: History of Detective Fiction
FYW: The American Dream: The Ideal and the Reality
FYW: “I’ll Be Watching You”: Surveillance Thrillers
FYW: Representing the Holocaust
FYW: Stories: Narrative Theory and Craft
FYW: Engaging Nature
FYW: Global Water Issues
FYW: History of Liberal Arts
In the "approved" queue (meaning these have been approved by Curriculum but did not seek CGA credit, so we haven't seen them) -- 14 proposals (5 FYS, 9 FYW)
FYS: Evaluating the Science of Global Climate Change
FYS: What is Normal?
FYS: Drugs, Sex, and the Rocky Road
FYS: American Art: Pushing Boundaries
FYS: Nuclear Power: Pros and Cons
FYW: Turing: Thinking Machines, Codes, and other Enigmas
FYW: Are You Saved? Notions of Christian Conversion
FYW: Mapping Arguments
FYW: Revising a City: Rebuilding New Orleans
FYW: Magic and Religion
FYW: The Ethics of Sex
FYW: Sex and the New Testament
FYW: Is Wal-Mart a Monster or a Miracle?
FYW: Secret Codes: Wars, Computing, and E-Commerce
Historical Analysis
FYS: Critical Identities Studies (and for WGS)
FYS: The Origins of Global Poverty (also for World Cultures)
FYW: Can We Make Sense of the Sixties? (and for W)
FYW: Doing History in the 1950s (and for W)
FYW: The U.S. Civil War through the Lens of Biography (and for W)
FYW: Southern Women: Black and White (and for W and WGS)
FYW: Homer and History (and for W and AGRS)
FYW: The Tumultuous Twenties (and for W)
Natural World
FYW: How Science Shapes Our View of the World (and for W)
FYW: Evaluating Scientific Claims in the Media (and for W)
Ultimate Questions
FYS: Go to Hell: Exclusion and Damnation
FYS: Sea Dragons and Storm Gods: Hebrew Mythology
FYW: Martyr Tales (already through the gate on W)
FYW: Neuroethics (and for W)
FYW: God and Darwin (and for W)
The following course was returned for further clarification:
FYS: Humans, Physics and the Natural Universe – the committee was divided regarding the nature of this courses (particularly its overall with PHY17) as a first year seminar. The breadth of topics proposed in the course seems to suggest it is more of a survey course than a seminar course.
The committee also approved the proposed changes to the Latin major requirements and the Theatre Arts major requirements.
Finally, the committee approved a proposed policy within the new calendar for Drop/Add and Course Withdrawal (from Brad Barron).