EDUCATIONAL POLICY COMMITTEE
Minutes
February 7, 2008

Attending: S. Birrell, H. Dettmer (Chair), M. Gilbert, K. Hall (committee staff), R. Honey, R. Ketterer, J. Kimberley (student member), Philip Kutzko, M. Niño-Murcia, D. Redlawsk, and A. Segre

Excused Absence: J. Menninger

Guests: Dr. Luke Flaherty, Director, Office of Academic Services, CLAS, and Julie Fell, Senior Associate Director, Office of the Registrar, on the computation of the CLAS major GPA.

1. The minutes from January 31 were approved as written.
2. Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Services Helena Dettmer reviewed the College’s request for a pilot curriculum committee to examine and discuss course approval requests. The committee will be composed of two current EPC members and two former EPC members as well as the Associate Dean. The committee will meet on an ad hoc basis. H. Dettmer hopes the committee will provide additional information on curricular changes and aid in communication among University offices as well as assisting with the exploration of possible new academic programs. The Educational Policy Committee had a number of questions, with some members stressing that a curriculum committee was unnecessary, interfering with a traditional area of departmental independence. EPC was also concerned with issues of mediation among departments in case of duplicative course requests. H. Dettmer reminded EPC that she now approves new course proposals and that she is willing to share this authority with the new committee, giving the faculty more say in the curriculum rather than less. She would mediate and oversee any issues among departments. She assured EPC that the curriculum committee was a three year pilot and that EPC and Faculty Assembly approval would be needed for the formation of any permanent curriculum committee.
3. Luke Flaherty reviewed the current dual method of reporting the major GPA for CLAS students. The UI Major GPA is reported for all courses in the major taken at UI while the Major GPA is calculated on all courses accepted for requirements of a major, including those courses taken at other institutions. Academic institutions and employers find this dual system of reporting confusing, not understanding which is the UI standard and which best represents a student’s achievement. Students are often surprised that both 2.00 GPAs must be satisfied to earn a degree. Julie Fell reminded the committee that regardless of which GPA is officially calculated, the degree evaluation will continue to show all transfer courses with the grade earned in each course so that faculty can see a student’s background and level of preparation, information necessary for advising purposes. L. Flaherty clarified that UI major courses currently appear on the transcript in the semester or session taken but are not computed and displayed as a separate UI Major GPA.  He stressed that a central issue involves which Major GPA standard should be used for graduation. In the current dual system, students must earn a 2.0 in both the UI Major GPA (calculated only using courses for the major taken at UI) and the Major GPA (calculated on all courses for the major including transfer equivalencies). EPC discussed the effect of each method and which seemed fairer. For example, a student might have an unfairly inflated GPA in the major because of transfer course work and thus might appear as a better student than someone who has only taken more rigorous major-level courses at UI and thus has a lower GPA. This appears unfair to the four-year major at UI. On the other hand, it seems wrong to penalize a student who has done outstanding work in difficult courses at another institution by not counting the GPA of courses in the major completed at that institution. However, it seems illogical to impose The University of Iowa 2.00 GPA in the Major graduation standard on courses taken before the student even arrived at UI. However, since such courses are counted toward the satisfaction of requirements for the major, they should be included. Another solution might be to examine transfer equivalency standards, with departments not accepting course work for the major below a 2.00. A discussion followed on how transfer coursework is found to be equivalent to UI major-level courses, and EPC expressed an interest in studying this question further. Because of its complexity, the discussion on the dual system of computing the Major GPA will be returned to later.

Respectfully submitted,
EPC Secretary
Robert Ketterer