Minutes of the Educational Policy Committee December 15, 2004

Approved 1-26-05

Educational Policy Committee

December 15, 2004 (Meeting #6)

Present: Josh Breyfogle , Gloria Brush, Chris Carroll, Richard Davis, Bill Fleischman, Kathryn Fuller, John Goodge, Steve Hedman , Karl Johnson, Vince Magnuson, Mary Ann Marchel , Mary Jean Menzel , Elizabeth Nelson, Bill Payne, Jerry Pepper, Ryan Rosandich , Randy Skalberg , Timothy Tangen , Larry Wittmers

Excused: Lesley Choi , Rod Lievano , Kate Maurer, Duane Millslagle

The minutes of the 11-10-04 meeting were approved with no changes.

Subcommittee Reports:

Academic Integrity – committee work currently completed.

Admissions, Retention & Graduation

Mary Jean Menzel is serving as chair. The committee conducted a fact finding mission on the topic of student retention. Data was gathered from national, University of Minnesota system-wide and local sources for comparison. Spring semester the committee will continue general discussions to further operationalize student retention, refine the data gathered, identify other pertinent resources and render a recommendation to EPC. This subcommittee requests that Steve Hedman (Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic Administration) bring the issue of UMD's transfer policy for technical college credits to EPC for discussion.

IDS Advisory Board

This committee elected Jennifer Frahm as its chair. An additional consultant was allocated last year and a search is currently underway. This position would begin Fall 05. The advisory board is requesting to be involved in the search process. A request will be coming forth from this committee in the spring that new faculty should receive assistance beyond the procedural orientation that currently exists. The committee is in favor of encouraging faculty to attend some type of teaching-focused program at the onset of their careers at UMD.

International Education – no report given

Liberal Education

This committee is co-chaired by Tineke Ritmeester and Kate Basham. The committee is reviewing lib ed categories 7 & 8 and expect to have this completed by the end of spring semester. It was not anticipated that this committee will be bringing any issues forward to EPC spring semester. In preparation for the next accreditation visit, the lib ed committee has collected 3 years of data (approx 800-900 students) and held several focus groups. The committee will not likely conduct additional surveys or focus groups this year, but instead spend time reviewing the data they have already collected. It was suggested that faculty be surveyed on their views of the liberal education program. The underlying premise of the liberal education program at UMD has not changed in over 20 years. It would be beneficial for the campus to review our current liberal education program prior to our next accreditation visit. A compilation of lib ed data will be submitted to EPC before the end of spring semester.

Information Technology & Library

Bill Fleischman is chairing this committee. The revisions suggested by EPC for the Appropriate Use of Information Technology Policy were approved by the subcommittee. The revisions were an attempt to bring UMD's policy in line with recent Regential policies (HIPPA, FERPA, etc). The Appropriate Use Policy will be brought to the Campus Assembly in April. This committee does not foresee bringing any additional agenda items forward to EPC for spring semester. The committee will spend next semester discussing security/log-in authentication considerations and reviewing the planning documents for both the library and ITSS.

5xxx courses

The issue of 5xxx courses was addressed at a recent Graduate Council meeting. There are existing guidelines that exist, but no hard and fast rule about how courses are assigned. In general, 4xxx courses should be primarily for undergraduate students and 5xxx courses for graduate students. The dilemma comes when a majority of students in a 5xxx course are undergraduates or when an undergraduate program requires a 5xxx course to graduate. No policy is expected to come forward on this issue. Steve Hedman will forward the guidelines to the EPC chair, Bill Payne. It was noted that the discussion held in the Graduate Council was based on existing courses, not new courses being drafted.

Meeting adjourned 3:30 p.m.