EDUCATIONAL POLICY COMMITTEE
Minutes
September 27, 2007

Attending: S. Birrell, Jeffrey Cox, H. Dettmer (Chair), M. Gilbert, K. Hall (committee staff), R. Honey, R. Ketterer, J. Menninger, M. Niño-Murcia, M. Reagan, A. Segre

Excused Absence: J. Kimberley (student member)

Guests: Members of the Common Academic Experience subcommittee,  Professors Peter Hlebowitsh (College of Education) and Dennis Moore (Rhetoric)

1. The minutes from September 20 were approved as written.
2. Guests Professors Peter Hlebowitsh and Dennis Moore were introduced, with a reminder from Helena Dettmer that the Common Academic Experience subcommittee’s study of the UI GE Program was done in preparation for reaccreditation, an ongoing process with site visits scheduled for this spring. Professor Hlebowitsh next highlighted findings by the CAE subcommittee, discussing the student survey and its results. Each GE program area was able to claim that it contributed to the student growth at least one of the eight general education goals better than or as well as any of the other subject areas, which in effect confirmed that the distributed GE system is working as designed and as expected. Critical thinking skills especially received high marks in the survey, perhaps because critical thinking has a pervasive presence in every discipline and thus in each GE area. There was some concern that communication skills did not score as high as critical thinking skills, another comprehensive criterion of the GE Program, and that this issue needs exploration. Members discussed the difficulties of teaching and learning communication skills within large courses, pointing out that academic outcomes are closely related to practical and financial constraints. The term “communication skills” refers to writing, speaking, and visual communication, and thus is a rather diffuse term, which might have affected the survey outcomes.Professor Moore next updated EPC on the new General Education Advisory Committee, established on an ad hoc basis to examine and carry out the recommendations of the CAE subcommittee. He pointed out that at no time has either committee felt any pressure to drastically revise the current GE requirements. Instead, the atmosphere at the meetings has been open and exploratory. The new committee is no longer under the auspices of the Office of the Provost and consists mostly of representatives from CLAS departments who are involved with the GE Program or otherwise have an expertise in the topic. The mandate of the new advisory committee is to give focus and visibility to the program so that students and faculty have a sense of being engaged in an intellectual project. Faculty and student consciousness about the purpose and goals of the program are crucial to its success. EPC discussed faculty attitudes toward the GE Program, also discussing how departments must balance resources for major-level courses and for the GE Program. It might be very useful to know how many upper level GE courses play a central role in the requirements of any major to see how and where the two intersect.  Members agreed on the importance of the GE Program having a clear message beyond the simplistic one of job skills and careers. The program could perhaps be clarified around key principles related to citizenship such as civic responsibility and social justice rather than around a skill set. The new committee will be consulting frequently with EPC and the General Education Curriculum Committee as it develops possible ways to revitalize the General Education Program. Professor Moore ended the discussion by stressing that the committee is committed to keeping the semester hour requirements of specific GE areas as they are now while creating meaningful titles and clarified outcomes for the program.
3. EPC continued discussion of the proposal for an undergraduate writing track in English brought to EPC last week by English DEO Jon Wilcox. Hesitations were expressed by members about the required 3.33 GPA in English courses for admittance to the track, noting that the GPA was high, making the track open only to Honors students, and thus creating a very elite program. Most programs with such high GPAs are outside of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, such as the teacher education program. Since creative writing is an art form, it might be better if its selective admission procedures were modeled on those used by the arts, which require an audition or a portfolio review but not a GPA. This seems to be a more open, fair, and direct policy than requiring the 3.33 and then making exceptions based on the quality of written work by applicants, especially for students drawn to the program from other institutions by the reputation of the Writers’ Workshop. Discussion ensued on the source and reasons for the requested 3.33 GPA. One member suggested that developing a broad  knowledge of literature and its traditions, which the department hopes to encourage through the GPA requirement, might be better encouraged by requiring a certain number of earned semester hours in literature courses before a student could apply to the writing track. EPC agreed and recommended that Jon Wilcox be notified of this discussion so that the English Department could consider this suggestion before returning to EPC with a revised proposal.
4. EPC returned to the CLAS pandemic academic response policy, making minor corrections and recommending  that a statement on the importance of safeguarding academic freedom and traditional governance structures and policies, especially those relating to promotion and tenure, during a pandemic should be mentioned in the plan. The proposal will be revised to reflect these ideas.
5. EPC discussed a draft of the disaster academic response policy, asking for clarification on how such a disaster would be defined and for clearer distinctions between this policy and how faculty currently respond to individual students in unfortunate circumstances. The policy will be revised according to these suggestions.

Respectfully submitted,

Mark Reagan
EPC Secretary