The next meeting of the General Education Committee will be held on
either April 14 or April 21.
General Education Committee Minutes
Wednesday, March 31, 1999
Members present: Gene Bartoo, Mike Biderman, Betsy Darken (chair and
secretary), Jim Hiestand, Nick Honerkamp, Roger Thompson, Bruce Wallace,
Barbara Walton
Visitors: D. Kutz (Chemistry), P. Kazemersky and Cliff Parten
(Engineering), R. Duffy (THSP), V. Rutledge & T. Bibler (TPA), P. Simbi and
D. Farone (Social Work), S. Smullen (CPSC), V. Keatley and M. Trimpey
(Nursing)
The committee convened at 3:05 p.m.
1. Chemistry: Oral Communication (OC) integration plan (D. Kutz)
The proposal includes the use of a new two hour course, Scientific
Communication, already approved, and a one hour seminar, Chemistry 443.
Students will receive explicit training on OC and formal evaluations on
four presentations. (Students also will be giving talks in many other
upper level chemistry courses.) Four Chemistry professors attended the OC
workshop in February. The Chemistry Department was lauded for the quality
of its proposal. Doug Kutz gave permission for it to be used as a sample
on the General Education website.
Chemistry Oral Communication integration plan CERTIFIED, 9-0-0
2. Engineering: Oral Communication plan (P. Kazemersky and Cliff Parten)
The Engineering plan requires students to make at least one oral
report in four designated courses. All four courses include explicit
training in OC and grading and critiquing of presentations. (Engineering
students also receive OC training in freshman Core courses, and give
presentations in other higher level courses.) Two Engineering professors
attended the OC workshop in February, and at least one more will attend the
Instructional Excellence Retreat on OC in May. The committee complimented
Engineering on the amount of practice their students receive in OC.
Engineering Oral Communication plan CERTIFIED, 9-0-0
3. Engineering: Intensive Writing (IW) plan (P. Kazemersky and Cliff
Parten)
The plan consisted of five courses ranging from 1 hour to 4 hours,
with every student taking at least four of these courses. The committee
pointed out that (a) English 122 must be an EXPLICIT prerequisite of all of
these courses; (b) since the Green Book guidelines require that students
go through a "series of drafts of each paper", one draft is not adequate;
(c) the paragraph in the summary on credit hour breakdown is somewhat
misleading and can be eliminated.
Engineering Intensive Writing plan RETURNED FOR REVISION REGARDING
THE POINTS MADE ABOVE, 9-0-0
4. Theatre and Speech : Oral Communication integration plan (R. Duffy)
The OC plan includes the use of five designated courses, in which
students will be required to give at least six oral presentations. All
faculty have graduate courses in OC and related fields, and have taught
THSP 109. The committee clearly had no desire to question the quality of
this proposal. (We are not the type to bring coals to Newcastle.)
Theatre and Speech Oral Communication integration plan CERTIFIED, 9-0-0
5. TPA: Intensive Writing and Oral Communication integration plans
(V. Rutledge & T. Bibler)
The plan is to integrate IW and OC into the Professional
Development School I (PDS) Program, in which education students spend a
semester at a public school working with both public school teachers and
UTC professors. A number of committee members were confused as to the
actual manner in which IW and OC activities will be conducted and
evaluated. The committee would like to be given a concise summary, not
embedded in a general program description, of how these requirements are
being integrated. This summary should include a description of the
specific types of assignments being used, written in nontechnical language.
There was a question about lesson plans being used to satisfy part of the
IW requirement. Professor Darken ruminated that she hoped that these were
not the same kinds of lesson plans she makes for her classes, and was
reassured that hers would not pass muster in the PDS IW plan. Several
committee members commented that it seemed as though IW and OC could be
effectively integrated into the PDS program, but it was hard to be sure
since there were so many components with descriptions dispersed throughout
the proposal
TPA Intensive Writing and Oral Communication integration plans
RETURNED FOR REVISION REGARDING THE POINTS MADE ABOVE, 8-0-0
6. Social Work 250: History and Philosophy or American Social Welfare
(Category B)
(P. Simbi and D. Farone)
The first question asked was why this was being proposed for the
Humanities and Fine Arts category instead of the Social Sciences.
Professors Simbi and Farone pointed out that the course included commentary
on the philosophical foundations of social welfare, historical discussions
of topics ranging from medieval feudalism to alms houses, indentured
servants, and settlement houses in the U.S. Professor Darken was concerned
as to whether or not Social Work majors would be eligible to use this
course to satisfy the GE Humanities requirement, and was told that Social
Work majors must take Phil 221 or 425. There was considerable discussion
about the types of courses, not necessarily traditional humanities courses,
which could satisfy the GE Guidelines for Category B Humanities. This
discussion, several people pointed out, had been held before with regard to
nonwestern courses which the committee certified for Category B. The
guidelines for this category, including those that refer to creativity,
lend themselves to many interpretations.
Social Work 250 CERTIFIED, 7-2-0
7. Social Work: Intensive Writing integration plan (P. Simbi and D.
Farone)
The plan proposed to satisfy the IW requirement via the course,
Applied Social Work Research, in which students are required to write a
research paper. Students are required to write drafts of various parts of
this paper. Questions were raised as to how these drafts related to the
final paper. Questions were also asked about how an IW requirement which
must be the equivalent of a 3 hour course can be satisfied in one four hour
course which obviously concentrates primarily on research design, etc.
Professors Simbi and Farone pointed out that the prerequisites for this
course is a theoretical research design course and a statistics course, and
the primary focus of this course is the research paper. They also
commented that students will have had experience in writing papers prior to
this course, so that their writing competence should be somewhat developed.
In that case, a number of committee members remarked, the plan to
integrate IW into the Social Work curriculum should be expanded to include
more than a single course. Not all agreed.
Social Work Intensive Writing integration plan RETURNED FOR
REVISION REGARDING THE POINTS MADE ABOVE, 7-1-1
8. Computer Science: Oral Communication integration plan (S. Smullen)
The plan is to integrate the OC requirement into the required
capstone course for all computer science majors, CPSC 490, Group Project.
Oral presentations are also required in two other courses, and strongly
encouraged in all other junior/senior level courses. The three faculty who
teach CPSC 490 have either attended the OC workshop or will meet the
training requirement before they teach this course.
Computer Science Oral Communication integration plan CERTIFIED, 9-0-0
8. Nursing: Oral Communication integration plan (V. Keatley and M.
Trimpey)
OC is to be integrated into four courses, several taken
concurrently. The committee was impressed with the plan for students to
give a talk once to their peers, and then re-work the same talk to give to
a client group in the community. Students must also watch videotapes of
their presentations. (No pain, no gain!)
Nursing Oral Communication integration plan CERTIFIED, 9-0-0
9. Nursing: Computer Literacy integration plan (V. Keatley and M.
Trimpey)
Computer literacy is to be integrated throughout the entire Nursing
Program. The committee noted that, while the assignments involving
computer literacy are concisely stated and clear, the manner in which these
satisfy the guidelines for computer literacy are not directly addressed.
In addition the amount of time spent on some assignments needs to be made
more clear.
Nursing Computer Literacy integration plan RETURNED FOR REVISION
REGARDING THE POINTS MADE ABOVE, 9-0-0
The meeting adjourned at 5:20 p.m.
Mathematics Department, UT-Chattanooga
615 McCallie Ave, Chattanooga, TN 37403
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