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agenda status: approved

Agenda:

1. Approval of the Agenda
   
2. Approval of the November 19, 2009 Minutes
   
3. Comments from the Chairperson
   
4. Comments from the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education
   
5. Request for a Moratorium on Admission to the Deaf Education Emphasis Area of the Bachelor of Arts Degree in Special Education.........(Attachment 1, Attachment 2, Attachment 3)
   Cass Book, Associate Dean, College of Education
   Susan Dalebout, Director of Student Affairs, College of Education
   
6. Request for a Moratorium on Admission to the Bachelor of Arts in American Studies.........(Attachment 1, Attachment 2)
   Request for a Moratorium on Admission to the Minor in American Studies.........(Attachment 1, Attachment 2)
   Janet Swenson, Associate Dean, College of Arts and Letters
   
7. Course Repeat Policy – Information Item
   
8. Roundtable: All Other Business

Phone or e-mail Sandra Walther (353-5380; swalther@msu.edu) if you cannot be present. Please remember that you are asked to send a substitute from your college.e

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minutes status: approved

approved at meeting of 12/17/2009

UCAP Minutes for meeting held on 12/03/2009

Attending: Gillian Bice, Peter Cobbett, Lisa Cook, Marty Crimp, Doug Estry, Anita Ezzo, Fred Fico, Melanie Helton, Michael Lipphardt, Justin Lippi, Michael Ly, Matt McKeon, John Reifenberg, Henry Reinart, Ron Perry, Mahdi Saeed, Christopher Scales, Sharif Shakrani, Mike Shields, Jim Smith, Jeanne Wald

Absent: Paul Abramson, Mary Kay Smith

The committee approved Juliette Niemi to take the minutes.

Chairperson Crimp suggested that it might be more efficient to deal with agenda items # 6 (Request for Moratorium on Admission to the Bachelor of Arts in American Studies) and #7 (Request for Moratorium on Admission to the Minor in American Studies) together. There were no objections to amending the agenda.

The Agenda was approved as amended.

It was moved and seconded to approve the minutes from the 11/19/09 meeting.

Justin Lippi asked that the following language be inserted into the discussion on the Mandatory Assessment and Involuntary Withdrawal Policy under “Committee suggestions…: concerns for criteria, that it will become applied more widely than anticipated, and that it will lead to people entering into ineffective treatment. A motion to this effect was made and passed.

The November 19, 2009 minutes were approved as amended.

Comments from the Chairperson
Chairperson Crimp alerted the members to upcoming modifications to faculty healthcare that are moving through UCFA.
The Provost sent a memo regarding the M-W-F class scheduling to ECAC but there was no discussion at the meeting. Professor Crimp will forward the memo to those interested. Comments from the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education
Associate Provost Estry reminded the group that the committee would meet again on December 10 and December 17. The December 17 meeting occurs during finals week.

Request for a Moratorium on Admission to the Deaf Education Emphasis Area of the Bachelor of Arts Degree in Special Education
Cass Book, Associate Dean, College of Education
Susan Dalebout, Director of Student Affairs, College of Education Professor Crimp reminded members and guests of procedures approved by the committee and distributed to guests. It was noted that, beyond the individual designated by the unit to speak to the issue, there were no additional requests to speak.

Associate Dean Book and Dr. Susan Dalebout were granted voice. Associate Dean Book indicated that the College of Education (COE) had been diligent in engaging others in the moratorium process. The COE had simultaneously submitted a request for a moratorium and discontinuance to UCC for consideration.

Associate Provost Estry and Chairperson Crimp reminded the committee that only the moratorium request was to be considered at this meeting.

Associate Dean Book reviewed the current state of the COE in order to provide context for the request for a moratorium on Deaf Education. The College is facing budget reductions and, as a result, the College had not searched for 16 open faculty lines including math, science, and literature. The College had laid-off 78 fixed term faculty and 15 secretaries. Committee members were referred to the UCC documentation for additional details.

Associate Dean Book commented on the difference between deaf education as an area focused on individuals who are hearing impaired and the Deaf culture and provided context for understanding the background of deaf education.

• Little “d” deaf means unable to hear without assistance. Capital “D” deaf is Deaf culture united by the use of American Sign Language. This circumstance is unique to Deaf culture in the United States. There are also many people associated with Deaf culture who have some hearing capacity.
• The incidences of true deafness in this country are small,. 1 in 1,000 or 1 in 1500 births. 95% of deaf children are born to hearing parents. Cochlear implants have helped immensely. Children can now be identified as deaf at birth, as opposed to age 3 or 4. Parents are given strategies from birth and children can now be mainstreamed in the classroom. Children using cochlear implants generally do not participate in deaf education.
• There is not a shortage of deaf education teachers in Michigan. Dr. Book noted that only 12 states in the nation report a shortage of deaf education teachers. Therefore, MSU deaf education students are having trouble finding jobs. In addition, more than 70 other institutions throughout the country offer deaf education programs. Eastern Michigan University has a strong program that works with oral competency and students can engage in American Sign Language (ASL). MSU’s program is ASL based. There is a 5-course sequence in ASL and , in addition to Deaf Education students, others enroll for the full series. Currently, faculty at LCC teaches much of the ASL for MSU.
• In summary,
  o there is a low incidence deaf population;
  o there is no shortage of teachers in Michigan,
  o another university in the state has room for more students and does a great job educating them.
  o the Deaf Education program is an expensive program to maintain and it has no graduate students.
• The only students that might be negatively impacted by the moratorium are current freshman. The College has had individual and group meetings with these students. These students have multiple options in other areas at MSU or may choose to attend a program at another university.
• Enrollment and award data were provided.
• Associate Dean Book noted that a small number of students complete the entire ASL sequence. College of Arts & Letters students can use ASL to fill their language requirement. These students could pursue ASL at LCC who, in fact, provides MSU’s ASL courses. In addition, CMU, Madonna, and U of M all offer entire programs in deaf interpreter education.

Concerns raised during the meeting:

• The expense of maintaining the program was given as a reason for the moratorium request but no expense reduction or cost-saving data was presented.
• Data presented on supply and demand for Deaf Ed graduates was inconsistent as aggregated from state-to-state. The supply and nationwide demand argument presented could not be evaluated due to the data’s weakness.
• It appears that MSU is the only total communication program in the State. Although EMU and community colleges have similar programs and ASL is available to students, MSU is providing something unique and valuable.
• A committee member questioned the level and effectiveness of communication to students affected by the moratorium request.

Chairperson Crimp asked for any further concerns to be forwarded to Provost. None were offered, and with no objection the committee moved on.

Chairperson Crimp reminded the committee members of their responsibility to inform their colleagues in their respective colleges of UCAP’s business that might be of interest.

Associate Provost Estry noted that the agenda is on the UCAP site and the Shaping the Future website. The deans of the colleges as well as chairs and directors were notified and have the responsibility to inform interested parties. In addition, consistent with UCAP procedures, committee members could ask that specific people be invited. There were no requests to speak at this meeting. He also reminded the committee that its charge is to report areas of concern to the Provost. He added that it would be difficult to associate a cost-savings with many of the requests for moratorium the committee would be reviewing. As far as notification of faculty and students about the committee’s review of a moratorium request, Dr. Estry stated that UCAP is responsible for disseminating its agenda and is not responsible for identifying all that may want voice and reiterated that committee members could invite individuals to speak about a moratorium request.

Associate Provost Estry stated that if financial issues are presented as a primary mitigating factor in a moratorium request it is reasonable to assume the unit will provide evidence and it is reasonable to assume UCAP would ask about it. However, there are many other reasons that programs are being considered for moratorium and discontinuance and these may be more central than resources. Often the savings may come in indirect ways as was noted in the AMS program.


Request for a Moratorium on Admission to the Bachelor of Arts in American Studies
Request for a Moratorium on Admission to the Minor in American Studies
Janet Swenson, Associate Dean, College of Arts and Letters
Kathleen Geissler, Professor, College of Arts and Letters

Associate Dean Swenson and Professor Geissler were given voice. Associate Dean Swenson distributed materials to the committee and reported that:

• There are 9 students with an American Studies major; 5 seniors, 2 juniors, 1 sophomore, and 1 freshman. No students are enrolled in the minor.
• AMS became a program at MSU in 1968. In the past 10 years there have been 12 graduates from the program. The AMS program is offered elsewhere in Big Ten and State of Michigan. Courses covering the same content are offered in the College.
• There will be an inherent cost savings as faculty will be available to teach other courses as part of their instructional load.
• Students have been involved in consultation, meeting individually with the program director and invited to open meetings. Only one student attended one of two open houses.
• All students currently enrolled in the program will be able to complete it.
• The College hosted 2 faculty open houses. No American Studies faculty attended either meeting.
• AMS faculty met with the Dean, the college advisory committee, and the college curricula committee. There faculty is more concerned about the moratorium request for the AMS graduate program than the undergraduate program.
• The program as it existed until 2008 was one that had many courses offered through other units such as English and History. These courses were often cross-listed. There are a smaller number of AMS courses.
• Joy Speas recommended the program end date in case there was a need for freshman to complete the AMS degree. The program will likely not need to extend beyond 2012.
• MSU’s program has been an interdisciplinary model since 1968. Many students have completed an AMS grad degree from the various interdisciplinary programs, not necessarily the AMS undergraduate program.
• Many of the AMS courses are duplicated in other departments, such as the English department for example. Only the AMS courses are being proposed for elimination.
• There has been no comment from the faculty on the moratorium and only one student asked for advising information.

Chairman Crimp asked the committee for specific feedback to send to provost. Hearing none, the committee will communicate to the Provost that it had no concerns about this moratorium request.

Course Repeat Policy
The committee discussed creation of a taskforce or subcommittee. Consensus was to create working group to deal with this.

Henry Reinart reported that the ASMSU Academic Policy committee passed a proposal regarding the repeat policy to forward to UCAP. Roundtable: All other business
Professor Bice moved that at subsequent meetings UCAP vote on “forwarding the proposal to provost with or without concerns” The motion passed.

A suggestion was made to forward the minutes regarding the Deaf Ed moratorium request to the Provost. The consensus was to review the minutes of the meeting prior to forwarding to the Provost to be sure that all concerns were reflected.

Professor Bice moved to send the Provost forward the request for moratoria for the AMS program with no concerns. The motion was approved by the committee.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:19pm.

Respectfully Submitted by
Juliette Niemi

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