Minutes of the Faculty Assembly
November 19, 2007
Martin Chapel
#2
1. Devotion: Ann Hershberger (Nursing) raised the questions, “Is there such a thing as waiting for Advent? Can Thanksgiving (an ambiguous national holiday) prepare us for Advent?” Following her brief reflections, she led us in a Prayer for November and the singing of #108 from Sing the Journey, “Give Thanks for Life.”
2. Provost Beryl Brubaker opened the meeting by inviting Andrea Schrock Wenger to make an announcement about the 4-911 magnets. Andrea emphasized the importance of calling 9-911 for the usual kinds of medical or fire emergencies, but for campus security issues to use 4-911. More of these magnets are available by contacting the Marketing Office (x4634).
3. The provost announced that there would be two topics for table discussions following a presentation by Dr. Beth Aracena (associate dean for curriculum) on revision of the Global Village Curriculum (GVC). One topic would be revision of the GVC and the second topic the policy on faculty development funds.
4. Beth’s presentation to the assembly was based heavily on the handout provided to faculty in advance “GVCC Report to Faculty with a Plan for Consideration: Finding Opportunity in Challenge” (appended to these minutes). The following comments indicate points that she highlighted in her presentation.
a. There have been many changes to the GVC in a short period of time. As we consider it once again, we get the feeling that everything we do is a pilot. However, we are forced to reconsider the current GVC by our financial situation and the prioritization process, which called for reduction of 1.7 FTE from GVC (Undergraduate Reduction Plan presented by President’s Cabinet - May 2007).
b. Beth affirmed the good thinking and the proposals that came from the work of the faculty on the current GVC (adopted in April 2003).
c. She noted that starting in the 2007-08 academic year, not only was the colloquium requirement changed from 4 SH to 3SH, but also that a third colloquium course offering was added in order to make it easier for students to complete this GVC requirement.
d. In presenting the GVC Committee’s formal response to the Reduction Plan, she highlighted the priority of creating smaller class sizes and putting more, not fewer, resources into first-year learning. Thus the merger of FYS into College Writing will not achieve the 0.625 FTE recommended in the Reduction Plan. Replacing Senior Seminar with departmental capstone courses will save the GVC around 0.5 SH, but it is not clear whether a return to a distributive model will yield any savings. In this part of her presentation, Beth repeatedly used the word “experiment.”
e. Regarding Undergraduate Council’s work on the implementation plan, she highlighted the transfer of the speech course to VACA (visual and communication arts). She noted that she is hesitant at this point to send out a survey to all departments for feedback on speech when there are so many other components in the GVC requiring faculty input.
f. In explaining the goals for this faculty assembly, Beth emphasized that the GVC presentation today is for eliciting questions and not for seeking approval. The GVC Committee wants to build on this proposal, but we need to limit response time because decisions need to be made relatively quickly. The draft of the revised plan is a blueprint; course design, which comes later, is the key.
g. Beth made the following observations regarding the proposed curriculum:
(i) she pointed out that the GVC blueprint responds to the demands of our accrediting agency (SACS) in requiring a minimum of 30 hours and providing a coherent rationale that reflects our core values (hence, the categories of Christian faith, communication, cross-cultural learning, reconciliation arts, social justice and creation care).
(ii) She clarified that the “literature” course under the category reconciliation arts would be something like a creative writing course.
(iii) The curriculum requires 29-34 semester hours; we could ensure 30 hours by increasing the speech course to 3 hours.
(iv) Information literacy is not included but could be integrated into other courses
(v) Would we support increasing the Bible requirement?
(vi) Would we consider requiring a JPCS course?
(vii) No name has yet been decided on for the College Writing-FYS merged course.
(viii) Is it controversial to put history in the category cross-cultural learning?
(ix) The foreign language requirement presents particular problems (see i. below).h. Regarding first-year learning, Beth noted that plans are being made to care for first-year students by building a support network that includes both student life and academics. In order to do this, it would be necessary to offer workshops to faculty and staff, prepare a training manual, and invest in the development of peer leaders and mentors. The importance of differentiating instruction was illustrated by results from student focus-group discussions in First Year Seminar.
i. Regarding the foreign language requirement, Beth reported that 75% of the students taking the online Spanish and French language placement tests do not demonstrate competency at the elementary level and, therefore, must take an elementary level course. As a consequence, many more students than we originally anticipated have to take an elementary level language course. We currently have only 72 seats available in Elementary I Spanish, with 71 students this year placing into this Spanish level. An additional 47 students from the same class either did not study a language in high school or did not take the online exam. We cannot support our foreign language requirement as written unless we add more sections of elementary level classes. Most first-year students this year could not enroll in foreign language due to closed courses, which means that we are ‘behind’ in enrolling those students who will need to take such a course.
5. Time for questions from the floor. [In cases where Beth Aracena responded to a question, her remarks are coded BA.]
a. Sandy Brownscombe (Education) Have we done any cost analysis to see if this proposed program will be any more affordable than the current one? Where does the cross-cultural experience fit into this proposal?
BA: Departments must identify specific courses for GVC in order to do the cost analysis and they must consider if there is enough room in a particular course to absorb gen. ed. enrollment. We must also consider whether there are enough courses to absorb enrollment. The 3 SH cross-cultural social science course is part of the cross-cultural program; cross-cultural designate courses have not yet been determined.
b. Steve Johnson (VACA) I want to make a plea for requiring one or more literature and or history courses in GVC. The time spent reading and studying human stories will have a positive impact on students’ writing.
BA: We can’t add hours, so we have to require courses that already exist.
c. Roman Miller (Biology) Is there a rationale for including certain courses under the categories of Reconciliation Arts and Social Justice? I could conceive of courses from the same department that could fit in either category.
BA: These categories fit with SACS requirements (for courses in the arts and social sciences) and with our theme, Micah 6:8.
d. Vi Dutcher (Language & Literature) We want to think carefully about adding a literature requirement because we do not want to require a course for which we cannot supply the needed number of seats without adding load hours to our department.
e. Marti Eads (Language & Literature) Can you address the question of whether all cross-culturals should require language study? And what is our vision of a ‘wise student’? What do we need to offer to move our students toward wisdom?
BA: The issue of the ‘wise student’ must be reserved for a separate time of discussion. The Cross-cultural Committee does not support making language study a mandatory part of every cross-cultural, but it does encourage foreign language where it matches faculty expertise.
f. Dan Wessner (History & Political Science) We could address the issue of boosting reading skills by having courses that are designated reading intensive. We might also be able to designate some courses language intensive and have students use Rosetta Stone software to study language as part of those courses. This approach helps us to implement our learning objectives through our existing courses without adding courses.
BA: I would not be in favor of adding more designates. We already face problems with our writing intensive courses (issues of justice, for example, when a student pleads to have a course counted as writing intensive because it involved more writing than her roommate’s course that was designated writing intensive).
g. Vi Dutcher (Language & Literature) We view language learning as taking place within a culture and not in a context isolated from culture such as Rosetta Stone, which represents a controversial way of teaching language.
h. Lori Leaman (Education) I like what the committee has done in linking the ideas drawn from Micah 6:8 with the major areas of the curriculum. Can we create courses that have these themes and competencies, GVC courses that prepare students better for courses that they take in their majors?
i. Owen Byer (Mathematics) Can we move to our table discussions now?
6. At this point, discussion began at tables where faculty members were gathered with their senators who were making notes on the discussion for later processing.
7. At 11:20 Provost Brubaker reminded the assembly that they had the option of discussing the faculty development funds or continuing their discussion of the GVC.
8. The meeting adjourned at 11:30 p.m.
R. Michael Medley
Minutes Recorder
