Academic Policies Committee Year-End Report 2006-2007
The 2006-2007 Academic Policies Committee consists of the following members:
Cauthen, Nickie, (SCM), ex officio
Haas, Heather (SCM), Co-Chair
Hay, Celia (PP)
Hillyer, Joyce (PP)
Hwang, Simon (SCM)
Lawrence, John (FPA)
Livingston, Sharon, ex officio
Mallory, Sarah Beth, ex officio
Mason-Barber, Linda (PP), ex officio
McMullen, Linda (PP), ex officio
O'Connor, Frank (HSS)
Pinkerman, Loren (LIB), ex officio
Reneke, Margaret (FPA), Secretary
Shirley, Kevin (HSS), Co-Chair
Thompson, Charles (HSS), ex officio
The committee's original charge declared that the Academic Policies Committee should:
1. Review two appeals submitted by graduate students during the summer 2006.
2. Review a proposal for an interdisciplinary major.
3. Consider whether the faculty should endorse a proposal for the establishment of a general
studies major. The Academic Council passed along possible language for such a major
(see Appendix A).
4. Review whether departments outside the pre-professional areas should establish minimum
grade point averages higher than those specified in the College Bulletin.
5. Work to address issues of academic standards and rigor in the curriculum, probably in
conjunction with the Core Task Force.
Additional items referred to the committee during the year include:
1. Acting on the Annual Report and Recommendations of the Sustainability Taskforce
originally delivered to President Gulley August, 2006. The committee was charged to review
and consider the academic programs recommendations contained within the report.
2. Review and discuss the absence policy.
3. Review and act on the Core Task Force Recommendation to eliminate “Dimensions
of Well Being.”
4. Review the status of the “C-“ grade in the current +/- system and determine whether courses
in which a student earns a C- should count toward a major.
5. Review the college’s internship program.
6. Review a grade appeal from Fall Semester.
7. Review program proposals to establish minors in Japanese Studies, Oikos, and Physics.
8. Review Interim and other course proposals
Additional items developed within committee:
1. Initiation of the APC Book Club to encourage faculty discussion of the NSSE results.
2. Review the Academic Probation system and development of an "Early Intervention System."
Summary of Activities of the Academic Policies Committee (2006-2007)
A tabular summary of the APC charges and the action status of each is provided in Appendix B.
Regular Business:
Grade Appeals, Interdisciplinary Major Petitions, and Course & Program Proposal Review
In matters of routine business the APC oversaw three grade appeals and reviewed (and rejected) one petition to declare an interdisciplinary major. The APC also reviewed a number of course and program proposals. Eight course proposals were reviewed; five of these were ultimately forwarded to the faculty for approval, while the other three were returned to the department for changes and were not returned to the APC this year. Four interim travel course proposals and 19 on-campus and domestic travel course proposals were reviewed and forwarded to the faculty for approval. Three new programs (a Physics minor, an Oikos minor, and a minor in Japanese Studies) were also reviewed and forwarded to the Dean for presentation to the faculty.
Changes Made to Academic Policies in 2006-2007
In other business, the 2006-2007 APC also worked to increase the “transparency” of the committee and its procedures. To this end, an APC website was introduced
( http://home.lagrange.edu/apc/ ), the course proposal process passed by the faculty in 2005-2006 was incorporated into the 2007-2008 faculty handbook, and a set of program proposal guidelines was developed to clarify the process for proposing majors and minors (a process that had apparently never before been codified). These guidelines are presented in Appendix C.
At the recommendation of the Core Task Force, the APC also considered the issue of eliminating the requirement for the Dimensions of Well-Being course. Largely because of concern over staffing issues, the APC forwarded this recommendation to the faculty where it was approved.
At the recommendation of the Sustainability Task Force, the APC forwarded recommendations to the faculty that considerations of sustainability issues be incorporated into existing curricular content, where possible, and that, similarly, effort be made to develop interim courses with sustainability as a component/theme. The APC’s recommendation was that faculty in individual departments should consider these issues, but that the efforts should be coordinated by the Sustainability Task Force. In particular, the APC was concerned that efforts to integrate sustainability as an interdisciplinary theme would be likely to fail unless some kind of training and larger faculty discussion was coordinated (presumably by the Sustainability Task Force). Other issues raised in the Sustainability Task Force’s recommendations seemed to be more directly related to the efforts of the Core Review Task Force and the Core program directors, and the APC recommended that those concerns be forwarded to those groups for further consideration.
The APC was also called on to clarify the C- issue. With the move to the plus/minus grading scheme, students who earn a C- (which is, qualitatively, a passing grade) earn only 1.75 grade points for the course (which is, quantitatively, not a passing grade). At the time of the adoption of the plus/minus system, this concern was not addressed, and faculty differed in their opinions of whether grades of C- should be counted toward the major. After conducting a straw poll of the faculty, the APC recommended that C- grades should be counted toward the major as long as the student’s major GPA remained at or above a 2.0. This policy was approved by the faculty, and on that basis, the APC recommended that the same policy apply to minors. Making this change will also require some revision to the catalog copy regarding course repetition, academic forgiveness, and transfer and transient credit, and in the copy describing requirements for earning majors and minors within individual departments.
Policy Issues Discussed Without Further Action
As per our charge, the APC also spent considerable time discussing several general issues, including the possibility of formalizing a General Studies major, the right of departments to set prerequisites for declaring a major that exceed those required by the college for graduation, and changing the probation policy to assure earlier intervention for struggling students. Our reflections convinced us that although, to some extent, these are separate issues, changing any one aspect of any of these systems may have significant implications for the other systems. Lacking time to clarify these issues, the committee chairs, in consultation with the Dean, decided that it would be better to postpone action on these issues until we could clarify both the real intent of these proposals and the implications of their adoption on other aspects of the curriculum. A summary of our deliberations to date, however, is presented in the three paragraphs below:
First, the APC was asked to determine whether individual departments could set prerequisites for declaring a major that exceed those required by the college for graduation. Because several departments have already set prerequisites for declaring the major that exceed the requirements the college has set for graduation, it did not seem appropriate for APC to set a policy that would prevent other departments from doing so. Further, given the fact that many departments do set such limits and others are considering doing so, it seemed unlikely that a policy limiting departmental rights on this matter would pass the faculty. It is clear, however, that such policies have many and serious implications for issues such as advising, relative enrollments across departments (and therefore staffing), and perhaps even grade inflation. Because some students may be ineligible to declare a major of interest, and yet still meet college graduation requirements, such policies may also increase demand for some kind of a “general studies” major. Thus, although there are clearly some immediate benefits to departments that set prerequisites for declaring the major, we cannot ignore the fact that there may well be a long-term “down side” at a broader institutional level.
Second, the APC was asked to develop guidelines for establishing a General Studies major. Ultimately, however, the committee’s attempts to devise a workable General Studies major were halted by the realization that we were attempting to devise a policy to do at least three different things. First, the General Studies major was supposed to be awarded to pre-engineering students, who transfer out of LaGrange College after two years, but who then are awarded a LaGrange College degree when they complete their studies at the other institution. Second, the General Studies major was also to be a “degree of last resort” for students who did not meet graduation requirements in a major. These students, however, fell into two camps – one comprising students who had passed all the necessary coursework to earn a professional degree (e.g., in education) but who were unable to complete extracurricular requirements necessary to earn the degree (e.g., passing the Praxis), and the other comprising students who had not successfully completed the requirements for any existing major (e.g., who had failed a required course in their senior year). Although it would no doubt be possible to develop a degree that might appropriately be awarded to people in any one of these groups, it was difficult to envision a single degree that could achieve all three ends simultaneously. Furthermore, it became clear that there was at least some faculty resistance to codifying a degree that would allow students to earn a major without passing the relevant courses. Similarly, although any such codified degree might be intended to be a “degree of last resort,” once codified it seemed likely that at least some students might CHOOSE to pursue such a degree (i.e., get a college degree by earning 120 hours with a 2.0 GPA, by taking any courses you choose and without needing to declare a major). Although this would not be the intention of creating a generic General Studies major, it might nonetheless be an outcome of that process. Thus the co-chairs suggested that the Academic Dean should consider these issues separately, and decide which, if any, should be codified. Thus the issue of some kind of a General Studies major may return to the APC agenda in the 2007-2008 academic year.
Third, our conversations on these matters led us increasingly to recognize the importance of early intervention for struggling students. We believe that departmental efforts to prevent some students from declaring the major is largely a reaction to the difficulty of teaching students who lack either the necessary skills or the necessary motivation to complete required course work. A strong probation policy should reduce this problem. Similarly, students who are struggling academically -- either because of a lack of skills or a lack of motivation -- are also more likely to be in need of a General Studies major as a means of last resort in order to allow a timely graduation. We believe that an early warning and intervention policy, combined with a stronger probation policy, might help to reduce these two problems.
APC Book Club
Finally, to encourage interdisciplinary faculty conversations regarding pedagogical issues, the APC instituted a series of four faculty luncheons to discuss George Kuh et al.’s book, Student Success in College. Although not all interested faculty were able to attend meetings, given other obligations, between 14 to 16 faculty members attended each lunch. By the second session there was evidence that individual faculty members were making changes based on things they had read in the book. The last session focused specifically on what changes we could make, as an institution, to bring the culture at LaGrange College more in line with that at the DEEP schools described in the book. A list of the suggestions from that brainstorming session is posted on the APC website and presented as Appendix D of this report.
Chairs’ Considerations
The committee’s chairs entered the year cognizant of the demanding schedules the committee members maintain. As such, we were determined to impose upon them no more than necessary. To that end, the chairs did preliminary reviews of every item forwarded to the committee. These reviews led to many conversations about not only the issues themselves, but the processes by which the faculty approach them. The salient considerations of those conversations follow:
1. It is the chairs’ opinion that consideration be given to reorganizing the committee’s calendar so that it functions on an April-April calendar. Much of APC’s business is driven by the annual bulletin deadline. The work of the committee could be performed much more efficiently if the APC actually began its work in April. Those first two months (the last two of the academic year) would allow the committee to get organized and engage in preliminary discussions of the charge before leaving for the summer. When the new academic year began, the APC would be positioned to begin work immediately on the substance of their charge in August (as opposed to October). We are aware that this requires a complete reconsideration of the committee structure/calendar of the institution and frankly, the negatives may well outweigh the positives, but if we want to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the APC such an idea deserves consideration.
2. Another related point of consideration is that perhaps the work of the committee be split with the addition of a second APC. Again, although there are several issues associated with such a change (that may in fact make such a thing prohibitive) the workload of APC was, at times, overwhelming. If there were a second APC it could, at least in theory, share the load and enhance the quality of the committee’s deliberations. APC members have also suggested that the work of the committee be divided between two committees – which would essentially parallel the old “Academic Standards” and “Curriculum” committees.
3. Currently, all members of the APC are appointed. Given the critically important work done by the committee we believe that at least a portion of the committee should be elected. It is probably also advisable that these elected positions be for multi-year terms to ensure some continuity to the membership of the committee. Further, we found that the co-chair system worked quite well and believe that it should at least be considered for future use.
4. A greater degree of continuity needs to be developed across the years within the committee. Future committee members need to know what has been discussed, worked on and debated. Appointing or electing members to multi-year terms would be helpful, as would the compilation of a complete set of minutes, maintained on the website (or elsewhere) over a period of years. Perhaps a record or ‘handbook’ of Institutional Memory concerning academic matters should be prepared, regularly updated and housed in the Banks/Lewis Library. Certainly updated forms approved in one year need to be made readily available for use in subsequent years.
5. We also believe that a thorough review of the committee’s responsibilities as defined in the faculty handbook is in order. The handbook currently states that the committee should review courses and programs based upon ‘rigor and quality.’ The terms themselves are subject to interpretation and hence could benefit from clearer definition. What’s more, according to the faculty handbook this committee is charged with reviewing matters of advising, admissions, core curriculum requirements, and programming as they pertain to the academic life of the college. Technically, then, we believe that the Advising and Core Task Forces (and possibly the Sustainability Task Force as well) should have come not from the dean/AC, but should instead have operated as subcommittees of the APC. We do not know whether or not conversations occurred with APC before these groups were formed, nor do we necessarily have any reservations about the groups’ memberships or their recommendations, but we do see an inconsistency between the descriptions of the responsibilities of the APC as articulated in the faculty handbook and the way these responsibilities have been allocated to task forces independent of the APC. Given the contractual nature of the faculty handbook such inconsistency is, in our view, problematic at best and, potentially, fraught with danger.
6. It is the chairs’ opinion that the relationship between the committee and the larger faculty needs to be clarified. On more than one occasion faculty members have commented to us that passage of a proposal by the APC and hence a recommendation that the faculty endorse it means that they “have to” pass it or that they “should” pass it. In no way is that the meaning of an APC recommendation, at least in our view. Given the language in the faculty handbook, the APC, this year at least, reviewed proposed courses in terms of their “rigor and quality.” Certainly there are other considerations (e.g., budgeting, staffing, and institutional mission) that might affect whether or not a particular course or program is passed through the faculty, and that point needs to be clearly understood by all parties.
7. While it is perfectly appropriate for the APC chairs to introduce course proposals to the faculty, we believe that program proposals should be presented to the faculty by the Dean as chief academic officer. Programs have institutional implications (impact upon budget, staffing, workload, etc.) that outweigh the impact of any single course. The APC can and should review the “rigor and quality” of a proposed program, but we are not in a position to comment intelligently on the other ramifications associated with program proposals. The Dean is.
8. We believe that, as a matter of course, all major proposals coming out of APC (and out of all committees) should be voted upon by paper ballot when considered by the faculty.
9. We believe that an online anonymous comment board should be established for faculty use. This board would allow for faculty discussion of issues under consideration by various committees, and the posting of proposals from all committees well in advance of their appearance at a faculty meeting. Each proposal could include a ‘comment box’ in which faculty could give comments anonymously on the merits/faults of the proposal. It would be especially valuable if faculty members could choose whether to send their comments privately to the chair or post them publicly to the discussion board. Such technology does exist and adopting it would allow greater communication and consideration of the proposals, thereby reducing the sense of helplessness associated with rushed votes in faculty meetings.
10. The chairs also feel that the criteria for the evaluation of interim course proposals should be clarified. At this point there are, so far as we know, no guidelines for interim term courses except that on-campus courses should require at least 120 hours of student involvement. But while it is widely acknowledged that the interim course should be intensive and unique, it is not clear whether that “uniqueness” is to be defined primarily in terms of content, or whether the uniqueness should also extend to pedagogical methods and methods of assessment. When courses with unique content are proposed, by what criteria should their rigor and quality be evaluated? Given that faculty members do not have to necessarily be an ‘expert’ in the field to teach an interim course, what constitutes academic rigor and quality? Further, we believe that the deadline for proposal submission should occur earlier in the spring semester so that the committee can properly execute its responsibilities and review the proposals. We also support (and members of the committee generally concur) the idea of a complete review of the interim program, one that not only develops evaluation criteria for course proposals, but also considers the degree to which the interim term is accomplishing the goals assigned it by the faculty and consider changes that may be required.
11. The faculty and administration need to develop some clear guidelines on what can and cannot be done without the vote of the faculty. Do things like course name changes and revisions to catalog course descriptions require faculty vote? Does the addition of a “special topics” course or an “internship” or “independent study” course to a program require approval of the faculty -- given that the requirements for such courses (and even the content) are likely to vary from year to year? Time and again this question came up, and frequently no one had a clear answer.
12. It is the view of the chairs that a more efficient means of communication between the relevant parties associated with a course/program proposal is required. Too often we suffered from what we call “cross-channel communications.” By this we are referring to the tendency for discussions of a proposal to occur between faculty and dean and/or faculty and APC and/or dean and APC separately. A convergence needs to occur. As a matter of course, meetings to discuss proposal development should probably include all parties – faculty member, dean, and APC chair(s). Clarifying the understandings of all parties requires a great deal of time, but not doing so significantly increases the likelihood of serious misunderstandings.
13. Finally, it is clear to the chairs that this institution must commit itself to fostering connections between the Admissions, Academic Programming, and Student Life units of this institution. Currently, we suffer from limited communication, divergent priorities and programming, and the absence of integration across the various “constituencies” of the LaGrange College staff. LaGrange College will not accomplish its goals unless all parties are working together toward these ends. We were made aware of just how large the gulf is when we had the opportunity to meet with Student Life in December, 2006. The level of frustration generated by the perceived lack of faculty interest and involvement was palpable. In other circles, faculty members continue to come to us voicing their displeasure at the lack of communication between themselves and admissions. This situation must be rectified.
Appendix A
Academic Council’s Recommended Language for a General Studies Major
The Bachelor of Arts in General Studies requires a 2.0 GPA and successful completion of a 120 semester-hour curriculum to include an 18 semester hour division-level concentration. For students enrolled in the Evening College, the requirement is a 2.0 GPA, and 180 quarter hours, 30 of which will be completed in the division-level concentration. The degree builds upon the solid liberal arts and sciences foundation of the core to allow focused exploration of a division’s offerings. The degree designation requires the approval of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean and will be considered only under the following conditions.
A. This degree option is available only to students who will have completed at least 90 semester hours or 135 quarter hours at the end of the term during which they make application.
B. Candidates must complete the Academic Petition requesting the General Studies degree designation; the Petition must be signed by the student’s advisor, and approved by the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean.
C. Attached to the Academic Petition must be a specific plan of study for the senior year, indicating the course sequence. Any deviation from the approved sequence must be authorized in advance by the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean.
D. To fulfill the 18 semester hour/30 quarter hour requirement, students must complete 4 of the required 6 courses within one department. The remaining 2 courses may be completed in other departments within the division.
Appendix B
APC Agenda Items 2006-2007
Issue Status (see below)
Grade Appeals X
Petition to Declare an Interdisciplinary Major X
General Studies Major O
Departmental Prerequisites for Declaring a Major X
Faculty Discussions RE Student Engagement X
Sustainability Recommendations X
Elimination of Dimensions of Well Being X
Internship Policies O
Attendance Policies O
Japanese Studies Minor X
Oikos Minor X
Physics Minor X
Program Proposal Guidelines X
Change Course Proposal Process Description in Handbook X
C-
To Count or Not to Count X
Course Repetition
Academic Forgiveness
Transfer & Transient Credit
Minors
Web Page X
Probation Policy O
Course Proposals
SOCI 4200 Social Inequity X
SOCI 3800 (?)
ANTR 3800 (?)
SOCI 4900 (?)
PHYS 3201 X
SOCI 1320 X
RELI 2320 X
POLS 2320 X
OIKS 4000 X
Interim Travel Courses (4) X
Interim New On-Campus and Domestic Travel Courses (19) X
Program Proposals
Physics Minor X
Oikos Minor X
Japanese Minor X
X = Acted upon by APC
O = Outstanding/Pending
? = Status Unknown
Appendix C
Program Proposal Guidelines
Faculty who wish to propose new programs (majors or minors) must complete a program proposal. These proposals must be reviewed and approved by the department chair (where appropriate), the division chair, the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean, the Academic Policies Committee, the faculty, the President, and the Board of Trustees.
A program proposal should begin with a narrative overview of the proposed program, including a rationale for the program both in terms of the relationship between the proposed program and existing programs, and between the proposed program and the mission of LaGrange College. Ideally this overview will also provide some estimate of expected demand.
The narrative overview and rationale should be followed by the description of the program as it will be published in the Bulletin, including a short introduction to the program, the objectives of the program, the requirements of the program, and a list of required or elective courses, including course numbers and catalog descriptions.
The catalog copy should be followed by course proposals for each new course required by the program. Each course proposal must be supported by the librarians’ assessment of the adequacy of current library holdings.
The completed program proposal must then be forwarded through several relevant offices for review. Each of these people/committees must sign off on the proposal, indicating their consideration of the issues specified and their support, in order for the proposal to move to the next stage of review.
First, the department chair (if any, or the person presenting the proposal, if not) should review the proposal to ensure that the proposal is complete, that the proposed offerings do not duplicate existing offerings, that existing (or expected) faculty are (or will be) sufficient to staff the course, and that the proposed courses are sufficient to give students a reasonable overview of the topic.
Second, the division chair should review the proposal, paying particular attention to issues of staffing within the division and budgetary considerations.
Third, the proposal should be forwarded to the Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean who will review the proposal, paying particular attention to the rationale for the proposal, and to issues of staffing (within the department, the division, and in the Core) and budget. Issues of expected demand may also influence the Dean’s assessment. The Dean’s signature is to be interpreted that the program and its components have received “administrative” approval, and can be staffed and funded (and will be, if approved).
Programs that receive the Dean’s assurance of administrative support will be reviewed by the Academic Policies Committee to assess the academic adequacy of the proposed program and its contributions to the “academic rigor and quality” of the institution.
Program proposals that receive the approval of the APC will be forwarded to the faculty for approval at the next faculty meeting. Programs that are approved by the faculty will be sent to the President who will then take it to the Board of Trustees for final approval.
Once final approval has been awarded by the Board of Trustees, the catalog copy will be forwarded to the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs (or other appropriate personnel) for addition in the next Bulletin.
Appendix D
APC Book Club Brainstorming: Integrating DEEP Recommendations at LC
Suggestions for Changes that Could Be Made in the Short-Term
Tutoring Center
open earlier in term (preferably during the first week) and in Interim (for evening college)
carefully consider who qualifies to tutor, which requires academic and interpersonal skills
tie tutoring more closely to departments?
include some faculty staffing?
Increase Public Recognition of Academic Excellence
appoint an “Academic Information Director”
e.g., to release info about student accomplishments to students’ hometown papers
recognize student athletes for academic success at games
increase publication of excellent student work in the student newspaper
name a student of the month (in each division)
establish essay contests? --but have to fight apathy (people don’t participate)
Book Buy-Back
could this happen later?
are students selling books back because there aren’t many traditional finals given?
Emphasize the Value of the Liberal Arts Tradition
Q: “Why are you at a liberal arts institution?” A: “Am I?”
show relevance of course material
journal or blog? --but have to be careful not to just reward narcissism
talk explicitly about the “critical thinking” required by assignments
show students how what they do in class is “NSSE-relevant”
Suggestions for Changes that Could Be Made in the Long-Term
Tutoring Center
move to a more departmental system? (could help reduce embarrassment?)
emphasize training for tutors
Increase the Number of Social/Supportive Faculty Forums
(the cohesiveness of the faculty affects the “temperature” of the place)
we aren’t exchanging ideas, and students perceive that
need a faculty lounge (and the new library will have one)
need more faculty lunches, even brown bags
continue these discussions, even without the book
but need to keep in mind that busy faculty schedules and problems parking are issues
need to find ways to mix faculty from the two “campuses”
Work to Increase Writing, Reading, and Thinking Across the Curriculum
focus on student learning rather than faculty teaching
we need to talk to each other, so we can help students integrate knowledge
across classes and departments
put more emphasis on writing and less on SAT scores during admissions?
--but this might work better at more selective institutions
