EDUCATIONAL POLICY COMMITTEE
Minutes
October 4, 2007

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

Guests: Pat Folsom, Assistant Provost, Enrollment Services; Director of the Academic Advising Center; Chair of the Task Force on Learning Communities at The University of Iowa; and Professor David Gier, School of Music, member of the Task Force on Learning Communities.

1. The minutes from September 27 were approved as written.
2. EPC discussed a proposal from the Executive Committee to redistribute voting groups within the College electoral divisions to create a better balance of eligible voters. Currently, Voting Group II has around a 152 faculty while Group I has 260 and Group III has 241. EPC was concerned that the proposal did not specify which voting groups would be moved. Within such a representative system, it is crucial that members elected from a division be able to represent those groups well. In addition, consensus on the EPC was that voting groups should be able to choose the division that best suits them. One suggested alternative to reordering voting groups was lifting the fifty percent requirement, thus adding members back into Group II who had been excluded by this rule, but most members voiced concern with that solution. Another member suggested that the College reconsider the representative system in general and perhaps choose another model for electing members, noting many such models exist, and that since departments are becoming even more interdisciplinary, the representation by disciplines might prove inadequate soon. Others on EPC stressed the relevance of the current divisions and the importance of each division having representation on elected committees, since that diversity informs discussions and creates a better sense of shared governance. One suggested mechanism to enhance the balance in representatives elected to the Faculty Assembly would be for “at large” representatives to be distributed to the divisions by the number of voting faculty. At the end of the discussion, EPC asked that the proposal be revised, giving more particular details about which units would be moved, and restoring a unit’s right to request a placement within a division. Helena Dettmer will raise EPC’s concerns with the Executive Committee.
3. EPC examined the definition of prerequisites and co-requisites to be used by the new student information system, a part of MAUI.  A campus-wide committee of UI colleges and the Registrar has been meeting to discuss how prerequisites should be defined and how the system should function. Generally, the committee and the Registrar have suggested that prerequisites be attached to the Catalog description of the course rather than to a particular ISIS offering. All prerequisites will be checked and enforced. Individual instructors or departments will be able to give students special permission to enroll but the Registrar will not be able to override a prerequisite.  The plan is undergoing extensive development, in part depending on what is possible within the new system. EPC had a number of concerns that will be shared with the committee: Students must have information when blocked from registration for a course about why the block is occurring and who to contact for help.The system must take into account transfer credit, including credit from abroad, and the speed it is received and evaluated by Admissions.The timing of when students are dropped from a course is crucial. There must be time for them to find another class; receive special permission; and to have their transcripts evaluated. Asymmetrical corequisites are used by many courses for important reasons and should be continued. EPC was assured that the prerequisite committee is working to solve these issues, except for those concerning corequisites. All UI colleges except for CLAS already have agreed to discontinue the corequisite category. The problem in CLAS appears to be centered on the different uses of “corequisite” in different contexts. Some instructors use the term for courses that must either be taken at the same time or before their course is offered. Others use corequisite for courses that must be taken simultaneously. This appears to be largely a problem of semantics, with a potential remedy of giving different names and registration rules for these two types of requisite courses. EPC’s concerns will be raised with the committee.

4. Guests Pat Folsom and Professor David Gier spoke with EPC on the findings of the Task Force on Learning Communities.  Generally, most CIC institutions have learning communities that are both residential and academic, with each institution creating options that work well for their students. These communities help students to integrate what they learn within the classroom to outside interests, thus making learning engaged and relevant. Learning communities especially help students at large institutions to adjust socially and academically, creating a smoother transition to the expectations of the university or college. The University of Iowa currently has some living communities, but more could be done integrating such existing social communities with other current UI academic offerings. The University of Iowa, for example, already offers First-Year Seminars, The College Transition course, and Courses in Common, academic experiences to help first year students adjust to Iowa. The Task Force recommends that these could be further integrated into an expanded living-learning community program and is currently drafting possible design plans. EPC was very enthusiastic about the task force’s findings and ideas, stressing that these communities could help students to grow academically and to find their niche at Iowa.

Respectfully submitted,

Mark Reagan
EPC Secretary