Overview of L&S Curriculum Committee Meeting 10/25/10

Overview of L&S Curriculum Committee Meeting

Meeting 1: October 25, 2010

Following is an outline of topics discussed and the actions taken on each topic:

1. Updates on implementation of L&S BABS07 Curriculum – due to an error, the Course Guide incorrectly showed Music 0XX courses as counting as “LAS” courses; these should only count only for free elective credit, not LAS credit.  This has now been corrected; however, we expect that the School of Music will make some changes as a result of this decision.

- Information only, no vote

2. Obsolete courses have been removed from the “active” list; 2450 LAS courses were retired, 14 had to be dealt with on a case by case basis.

- Information only, no vote

3. Some academic programs offered in the School of Education are not accepting admissions closed; there has been some confusion because these programs have L&S counterparts.  Administration is working to clarify information and update the catalogue, and the situation is being monitored.

-       Information only, no vote

4. Psychology came before the committee to finalize a request to change the undergraduate major requirements. Changes include reclassifying courses as either Foundation, Depth, or Capstone, adding new “Depth” courses, and changing requirement to declare the major. They believe more people will declare earlier and perform better academically.  If approved, these changes will go into effect for students who declare the major in Fall 2011 or after.

-       Passed, with the provision that minimum grade requirements should be set for some courses (“friendly amendments”)

5. Consent agenda report: Topics in community engagement was erroneously credit only, change to letter graded. New study abroad courses in History have flexibility in credits so the number of credits can be determined by the study abroad program because it is difficult to parallel UW courses with those taken abroad; this will help students transfer credit from courses taken abroad in approved UW-Madison study abroad programs.

-       Passed

6. LSC submitted seven new course proposals to be considered by the committee

-       Tabled due to lack of information

7. Physiology 435 asked to be designated as an LAS and Advanced Biological Sciences (B) Course

-       Passed

8. Italian requested a reduction of its credit requirements beyond the foundation language courses from 27 to 24 to accommodate double majors.

-       Committee will ask Italian for more information/justification, then come back to the issue

9. LGBT program requested a change to its certificate program where students can only take one elementary level course, and that no more than 6 credits can overlap with Gender and Womens Studies

-       Passed with the provision that there is no way to police the overlap requirement electronically, and this will have to be done by staff

10. Committee brainstormed about potential changes to course proposal forms that would make them easier to use, be online only, automatically update course listings, etc