FACULTY MEETING MINUTES

OCTOBER 27, 2006

 

                               More than 60% of full-time faculty attended the meeting!

 

· Fr. Tom Looney, Associate Vice-President for Academic Affairs, opened the Meeting with a prayer at 2:00

 

· Howard Fedrick, Faculty Chair,  announced the following items before the meeting turned to CORE revision:

 

Appreciation to John McAndrew, Director of Public Relations, and Ned Rowan

for providing for individual faculty photos to be taken before and after this Meeting.

 

Congratulations to the Social Affairs Committee for their first Roving Social. 

Please keep attentive for the next one in November.

 

The Faculty Benefits Committee recently sent out a report by email.  All were encouraged to read it and respond if desirable to Brian Williams, FB Chair.

 

            The 2007 Tenure & Promotion Committee will be formed in the near future.

 

            It has been announced by Nick Holodick, IVPAA, that upon completion of the CORE

            revision a CORE Coordinator will be appointed from the faculty to provide ongoing  

            oversight to the entire CORE.

 

Sheileen Corbett agreed to assist in moderating today’s Meeting by serving as the official “you had your hand up before him” person.

 

· Howard then turned the floor over to Jennifer McClinton-Temple and Brian Pavlac, the Chair and Chair-elect of C&T, to take questions on the CORE.

   Howard acted as Moderator for the overall discussion of the C&T CORE Report..

 

 

· Kristi Concannon passed out a sheet of questions, one side of which was to be answered by a scantron sheet; the other were open ended. (Responses are still being accepted by C&T) 

 

· A description of the proposed CORE was handed out to all at the meeting.  It was to serve as the outline for discussion. After its distribution, the following caveat was announced by Jen.

   At various points in the meeting this advisory was repeated.

 

The proposed CORE as detailed in the meeting handout is only the current thinking of the C&T committee and can be changed with further deliberation. Comments made at this faculty meeting would be recorded and be used as fodder for these further discussions. An up or down vote on a NEW CORE is a “long” way off.

 

 

 

Part I:    The Transferable Skills of Liberal Learning 

 

CORE 1xx: First Year Seminar (replaces CORE 100: Critical Thinking)

If feasible, FYS required by all 1^st semester first year students.

How to deal with transfers? (dedicated section?)

Won’t discuss formal logic, but will use it in close reading of texts (logic still in CORE 281)

Can be taught by any faculty member; good way to meet first year students outside major.

Proposed FYS topic to be approved by its project team

 

Effective Writing

General response - OK

Possible name change? May be call it “Writing and Mankind”

 

Oral Communication

Course includes speaking and listening skills

Meetings of C&T with Project Team to discuss syllabus and course revisions already taking place

 

Quantitative Reasoning

Will have the syllabus that is used currently; developed recently by the Math  Department.

 

Part II:   Knowledge, Traditional Disciplines and Interdisciplinary                                                Perspectives  

 

Civilizations: Historical Perspectives

Question: Since America is both a World civilization and a Western civilization, would it be excluded from 131 since there is a new American Studies requirement, or will America be available twice over?

 

Answer: The Civilization courses will be approached with an historian’s viewpoint whereas the American Studies courses (apart from American Civilization until 1914) will be approached by the viewpoint of whatever part of American Society the professor is concentrating on with a historical structure

Question:  raised about applying “civilization” as a label for the category?  Answer that as taught today history offers a broadly-based view of the past, beyond the traditional emphasis on politics. 

Query: Why could Core 131 American Civilization not fit in the other  history courses like Global History—would it not be best if both civilization courses were in the same category? 

Answer:  C&T decided on the one category that only included history courses, so that all students would take at least one history course.  This choice of C&T is, of course, only one way to approach integrating the liberal arts requirement of history by using Western Civilization or World History.  C&T wanted some broader, more global perspectives, while creating also the separate “American” category because it is important for students to know their own culture. 

Question: Could the argument be made that American Civilization be put into one of the other categories as well, including American with the other Civilization courses. 

Answer:  Yes, the argument could be made. 

 

Contemporary Global Studies

This field is ripe for the imaginative suggestions of our faculty – full and part-time

 

Good drop-in with some tweaking: IB241: Introduction to International Business.

It seems that the International Business course would fit in the category, possibly with some revision.  The current version of the course seems suitable for first and second year students, partly because it does not require much math.  But the Project Team would have to examine the course as to whether it meets the category’s goals and objectives.  It is hoped that different disciplines will contribute courses to the global category. 

Question:  Would higher level courses be allowed to substitute for Core courses in this category?  Answer:  Maybe. 

 

Foreign Cultures/ Foreign Languages

Change Foreign to International or the like

The question of why has King’s deemphasized a language requirement was answered by Margaret Corgan.  She explained the current setup (which also does not require a language) acts as a nice (and proven) way of  prompting students whose interest is sparked by an elective language course or even a culture course to declare a minor in a language. 

    

      The current language non-requirement was based on an admissions study that prospective students avoided colleges with language requirements.  It was proposed that this phenomenon be studied again. 

 

Social Science

Whereas Pat Student (or Joe Student) has to take two Social Science courses in the current CORE, in the proposed CORE he/she would only be required to take one.  However, one of the students can choose to take three Social Science courses in the proposed CORE total since that choice would be offered under both the American Studies and Contemporary Global Studies requirements.

Question: What about courses in Economics and Psychology that used to be in the Social Science category? 

Answer: The new categories offer a different approach to interdisciplinarity.  The re-categorization into “Contemporary Global” or “American” means that Economics and Psychology do not fit in so neatly as they did in the former “Second Social Science” category, so they need to go elsewhere. 

 

 

American Studies:

C&T has only decided that this requirement is a good thing.  Some courses currently exist; others may be created to meet the expectations of the Project Team master syllabus. The details of the offerings have not been formally discussed by the committee, therefore they could not comment.  Many ideas for the offerings were discussed.

 

Literature and Fine Arts:

Literature Requirement: OK

“Fine” arts may be too confining a term since even though areas like film, photography, poetry, design, etc. would not be defined as fine arts by Oxford, the suggestions were accepted  by the C&T committee as possible offerings. 

May need to hire tenure-track faculty to serve as authorities on art appreciation

Many potential art instructors may not want to be full-time faculty because they already have full-time jobs.

Still, the second Literature requirement would be missed by some. Two faculty members specifically stated that they were upset to see the option of a second literature course removed.

 

Natural Science

Brian Mangan questioned the “Methods and History of Science” title found in Brian Pavlac’s 10/26 email.  He was told that this was more of a description of the course’s pedagogy than a title and that it would be neither a methods nor history course.

 

CORE 270 would lay the groundwork so a non-science major would be able to understand the content in a 27x.

It was noted that these courses would cover contemporary issues related to science.

 

Philosophy:

C&T reported that after lengthy discussion and submissions by the Philosophy Department, the final slot of the 17 course proposed CORE was filled with a second philosophy course.

C&T had originally proposed CORE capstone course in the 17^th slot.

The only other option proposed to the committee was a capstone course that would be taught by people from different departments. 

Question: What happened to the proposed capstone course for the core?

Answer:  That capstone course had been discussed (and mentioned, for example, in the Business Division Meeting), but afterwards had not gained support.  At the next C&T meeting the slot for the 17tth course went instead to the second philosophy course.  C&T will be looking more closely at the second Philosophy offering. 

Question:  Whether philosophy could include more globalization, reflecting various world religions (as are mentioned in the World Geography course)? 

Philosophy answered that they offer some courses on non-Western and Eastern philosophy now, and hope to do more.  They are open to more suggestions along those lines. 

Theology answered that they are not a “Religious Studies” department,  also noting that Christianity is a world-wide religion, which dialogues with other faith traditions.  Thus the current way of studying Theology at Kings gets at that global dimension. 

 

Theology

General approval. Two courses as in current CORE. No questions asked, no comments made. 

 

Closing comments:

 

Some faculty would have liked to see more choice in the CORE than the proposed CORE offers

Students still do get 3 electives outside of major and CORE courses.

 

Paul Zbiek thanked the C&T Committee for the fine job they’ve done thus far, which was met with resounding applause.

Howard, Faculty Chair, echoed Paul’s comments thanking C&T for its hard work and added two advices to the Faculty in general:

1. We, the faculty,  should applaud ourselves for having diligently focused our thinking on this subject of the CORE revision and give thanks for the hearty discussion, for raising questions, for challenging and affirming what has been proposed.  We should continue our communication and work with C&T in this as yet unfinished work.  

2. An unwritten piece which the committee cannot actually address is our attitude in the implementation of the new Core.  When we discuss selections with students, try to avoid the tone of “having to get the Core out of the way.”  Instead take the attitude that “here are some good choices we can make;” “here are some broad-based courses from which to make a selection.”

 

Jennifer then gave the C&T Committee a week’s break from regular meetings. However, she did remind all of the availability of Sharepoint to continue the discussion at any point in the future.

 

Meeting was adjourned at 4:15 PM.

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Ron Supkowski

 

Reviewed and Edited by Charlie Brooks, Sheileen Corbett, Joan Coffin, Jayne Moore, Brian Pavlac, Jennifer McClinton-Temple, and Howard Fedrick