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agenda status: approved

Agenda:
REVISED

1. Approval of Agenda

2. Approval of Minutes of the October 28, 2004 meeting..........(Attachment)

3. Comments from the Chairperson

4. Comments from the Assistant Provost

5. ASMSU Discussion of Honor Code and Minors...........Dan Weber

6. Referral to Sub-Committees:
New Residential College Program..........(Attachment)
Engineering Admit When Ready Proposal..........(Attachment)

7. Roundtable discussion



Please phone or E-Mail Robin Pline (353-5380; pline@msu.edu) if you cannot be present and send a substitute in your place.


Attachment: Minutes of October 28, 2004
Engineering Admit When Ready Proposal
New Residential College Program Materials – please be sure to read the committee’s

report on their website at:
http://realizingthevision.msu.edu/nrcppc/documents/DRAFT_10-15_003.doc

11.11.04UCAPAgenda.doc

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minutes status: approved

approved at meeting of

UCAP Minutes for meeting held on 11/11/2004
Approved 12/2/04

1. The meeting was called to order at 10:15 a.m. The agenda was approved.

2. Minutes of the September 2, 2004 meeting were approved with correction to item 3: Cynthia Taggart’s name removed from list of members on subcommittee on The Code of Teaching Responsibility.

3. Comments from the Chairperson: Chairman Ogundimu commented on the November 9 Executive Committee of Academic Council (ECAC) meeting. The meeting was dominated by the Committee on College Reorganization (CCR) Final Report. The report recommends two options for reorganization of colleges: (a) limited faculty-led reorganization within the existing college structure, and (b) creation of a new Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences. ECAC will prepare a set of questions to guide various committees, including UCAP, in providing feedback on the CCR Final Report. In the meantime, UCAP members should read the report.
ECAC also discussed the proposal to establish a new residential college, various aspects of which will come to UCAP for discussion. It is important for UCAP members to consider the Arts and Humanities Residential Program proposal and the CCR report simultaneously, as they address interrelated issues about college structure.
Renee Canady (alternate UCAP representative to ECAC) reported that ECAC accepted UCAP’s report on SOCT after discussion of concerns from colleges using SOCT for evaluation purposes. ECAC accepted UCAP’s recommendation for approving the proposed merger of Advertising and Merchandising Management.

4. Comments from the Assistant Provost: Assistant Provost Youatt pointed out that the Faculty Council will discuss the CCR Final Report at their November 16 meeting, before UCAP has discussed the report. The Faculty Council, however, will not discuss substantive issues about the report, only procedural and process issues.
UCAP’s discussion of class-size issues raised by Osteopathic Medicine was again delayed because UCAP has not yet received written materials from Osteopathic Medicine and no COM representative was available at UCAP meeting for discussion. Youatt has retrieved related materials submitted to the Graduate Council and has permission to share them with UCAP.
Rebecca Henry reported that University Graduate Council (UGC) will be looking into what information and policies pertinent accrediting bodies have that are relevant to possible reorganizations of Medical Colleges. Youatt suggested that we should offer to have a UCAP member serve on that subcommittee.
Youatt pointed out that UCAP has been asked to comment on a variety of important issues in a short time. Provost Simon has asked UCAP for advice on four areas on the proposed residential college; ECAC wants our input by November 23. We will also be responding to the CCR report, but will be given guidelines to focus our consideration.

5. ASMSU Discussion of Honor Code and Minors: Dan Weber, representing ASMSU, presented two issues for which ASMSU is developing proposals, with the intent of getting faculty input from UCAP before the proposals are fully developed.
Minors: Academic minors are not currently available to undergraduates, except those in Education, where content-area minors are required by state law. ASMSU is developing a proposal for permitting minors and have looked at how minors are structured in other institutions. They are seeking a structure for minors that would:
· be transcriptable
· allow students access to courses they might not otherwise be able to take (because they are restricted to majors)
· encourage in-depth study in a particular area.
A number of questions and issues came up in the discussion, including:
· MSU previously made the decision not to require minors to allow for greater depth of study in the major
· concerns about how much room a minor would leave students for electives
· establishing minors would make more sense in some areas, particularly the core liberal arts and sciences, than in others
· departments might not want to support minors because of limited resources.
Chairman Ogundimu suggested that ASMSU:

· look into why MSU historically has not had minors
· look carefully at the structure of minors at other institutions; and
· look at whether schools that have minors also have foreign language requirements.
He also suggested that ASMSU might want to compile a list of more specific questions that UCAP could distribute to various colleges and units.

Honor Code: ASMSU would like to propose a University-wide honor code that would include a clear statement of:
· Acceptable behavior
· Responsibility of students to report academic dishonesty
· Responsibility of faculty to encourage an atmosphere conducive to academic honesty.
In addition, they would ultimately like to see

· No proctoring of examinations
· A student honor board to deal with student infractions of the honor code.
The committee discussed a number of issues, including:
· Whether there is evidence of honor codes working in large public institutions
· The UCAP subcommittee on academic integrity last year did not address honor code issues directly, but did recommend that the University’s policies about academic integrity be made more accessible on web sites
· Research suggests that honor codes work better in small schools, but that having a clear public statement does have an impact
· In the College of Human Medicine, most requests for stricter proctoring and other safeguards against academic dishonesty have come from students
· The College of Nursing recently adopted an honor code, with the issue originating with students
· Student ownership of honor code is important because much academic dishonesty cannot realistically be monitored by faculty.

Chairman Ogundimu suggested that ASMSU send UCAP a draft proposal when they have something more concrete.

6. Referral to Sub-Committees:
New Arts and Humanities Residential Program: Provost Simon has requested UCAP’s advise on four issues in the proposal for a new residential college program:
(a) potential advantages of having first entering class in Fall 2006 vs. Fall 2007
(b) desirability of having new students be part of development team
(c) advantages and disadvantages of autonomous residential college vs. a program embedded within existing college; and
(d) advice on composition of a development faculty
Preliminary discussion ensued, with issues raised including:
· When James Madison was established, it was conceived as an experiment about the feasibility of creating a small college within a larger institution.
· Whereas James Madison is an autonomous college, Lyman Briggs is embedded in the College of Natural Science
· For viability, the program of autonomous college needs to have clear integrity and coherence
· (Lauren Beach, ASMSU): small class sizes and self-contained nature of James Madison as an autonomous college are important for creating the desired close community and the strengths of a small college
· (Rodney Phillips, James Madison): some James Madison faculty have expressed concerns about having first-year students involved in planning, but have interest in helping with the planning of the new residential program
· Fall 2005 is too early to admit students
· Important to get input from students in the Residential Option in Arts and Letters (ROIAL), as this program has some goals similar to those of the proposed residential college.
Subcommittee appointed to meet on Thursday, November 18, circulate a draft response to UCAP members and revise response on Monday, November 22:
· Cynthia Taggart (chair)
· Maija Zile
· Rodney Phillips
· Lauren Beach
· (Folu Ogundimu to attend as observer)
Engineering Admit When Ready Proposal: Subcommittee to consider proposal and bring set of issues to discuss with full committee at December 2 meeting. Issues include:
· implications of the proposal for other parts of university if this is approved
· possible need for other data to inform full discussion

Subcommittee:
· Kurt Stirewalt (chair)
· Jennifer Hodges
· Ralph Putnam
· Sharon Senk
Subcommittee on Code of Teaching Responsibility: ECAC has not yet referred issues back to UCAP so no current action required by subcommittee.

7. Roundtable discussion: No issues reported.

Submitted by Ralph Putnam (ralphp@msu.edu)

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