Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017, 3:30-5:00

Meeting Minutes

Representatives present:  Douglas Bamforth, for Joanna Lambert, ANTH; David Boonin, PHIL; Christine Brennan, SLHS; Barbara Buttenfield, GEOG; Brian Cadena, ECON; Cathy Comstock, RAPS; Kim Dickey, AAH;  Erica Ellingson, APS; David Ferris, HUMN; John Gibert, CLAS; David Grant, MATH; Sakia Hintz, GSLL; Kwame Holmes, ETHN; Leslie Irvine, SOCY; Janet Jacobs, WGST; Daniel Jones, HNRS; Keller Kimbrough, ALC; Carl Koval, CHEM; Jill Litt, ENVS; Julie Lundquist, ATOC; Ramesh Mallipeddi, ENGL; Matt McQueen, IPHY; Stephen Mojzsis, GEOL; David Paradis, HIST; Lonni Pearce, PWR; Patricia Rankin, PHYS; Kelly Sears, FILM; Ted Stark, THDN; David Stock, EBIO; Ding Xue, MCDB; Masano Yamashita, FRIT

Representatives not present: Scott Adler, PSCI; Julio Baena, SPAN; Vanja Dukic, APPM; Holly Gayley, RLST; Yuko Munakata, PHYS

Also in attendance: David Brown; Rachel Dahir; Robert Stubbs; Kathryn Tisdale, Jim White

The meeting was called to order at 3:30

Chair’s Remarks, Stephen Mojzsis

Professor Mojzsis welcomed the ASC members and expressed the importance of faculty governance. He recommended a handbook, Can Faculty Governance Survive? By Lindley J. Stiles. From this handbook “…the power comes from the faculty; they led by influence rather than by personal orders; and they have veto power.”

The Professors of Distinction for 2017 will speak on Thursday, September 21 at 3:30 in the Old Main Chapel. For the first time since this college honorific title was instituted, the three divisions of Arts and Sciences are completely and evenly represented: Mark Amerika (FILM-AH); Martha Palmer (LING-SS) and Mark Serreze, (GEOG-NS) are this year’s recipients.

College Strategic Plan Update, David Brown, Chair, Strategic Planning Committee

Last year, the ASC voted unanimously to start a strategic planning process, former Dean Steven Leigh and past ASC chair Rob Rupert composed a committee that represents each division, faculty, staff and students. Professor Brown agreed to chair. The committee met for the first time in Spring, 2017. This August, an all-day retreat was held; Russell Moore, Jeff Cox and Jim White attended to speak about visioning. The process was started on that day with gathering the first ideas for a vision statement. Through an on-going process over several weeks, the committee has formulated the vision statement to report to the faculty.

The committee will be working on identifying 4 or 5 areas to concentrate on in strategic planning and mechanisms on how to achieve college goals. Please contact Professor Brown at D.S.Brown@colorado.edu with questions or feedback as this process evolves. He has about 40 meetings scheduled with departments and interested groups; some meetings he will attend with Jeff Cox but the A&S committee and the campus committee are separate and have separate charges.

The committee has been thinking about ways the college can be more interdisciplinary; ways we can made the college more diverse; how we can be more innovative; how we can make faculty, student and staff life better by empowering people and giving them the tools to succeed.

The ASC website will be updated by the end of the month with outcomes of the committee’s work thus far.

The connection between Foundations of Excellence, the Academic Futures Initiative and our Strategic Planning Committee was questioned. Further information was requested about the linkage (or lack thereof) between the two activities.

To summarize: The Strategic Planning Committee is charged with putting together a strategic plan for the College of Arts and Sciences. The university is going through a similar process for the entire campus. As our committee is slightly ahead of the campus committee, it has the distinct likelihood of influencing the entire campus.

Everyone on the Strategic Planning Committee will have connections with the university committee of Jeff Cox; they will meet a few times together and may have sub-committees working together.

Interim Dean’s Remarks, Jim White

Dean White thanked the ASC representatives, David Brown and the Strategic Planning Committee for their work.

Dean White started out by sharing his two goals for the year: A better College of Arts and Sciences and a successful visioning process. This college, which consists of 60 to 70% of the university, has often been “the remainder in the equation.” Dean White gave the example of enrollment: other colleges state their desired number of students, A&S receives the remaining students. As a college we need to decide what we want and express that to the university. A&S is the anchor of a liberal arts education. Organizational structures, like colleges and schools within the university, should empower faculty and staff. Dean White opened the floor to questions.

  • The consensus-building process as it applies to the Academic Futures Initiative was questioned.
  • The process for hiring a permanent dean was questioned. Dean White said the Provost didn’t want to make a permanent selection before the visioning process was complete. The questions will be asked, are we organized correctly?  Is A&S too big?  After a year, Dean White’s performance will be reviewed and if he is not performing satisfactorily, he will be replaced. 
  • The visioning process will look at other universities and faculty and staff have been invited to submit white papers.

On the Radar

These will be items that do not need immediate attention but, if interest is generated, the ASC will bring up in the future.

  • We do not know the outcome of the visioning initiative so we should follow existing process. According to our ASC bylaws: The Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, recognizing that faculty governance is imperative, affirms its right and responsibility to participate fully in the governance of the College in consonance with the Laws of the Regents, including all matters of educational policy, academic ethics, faculty appointments, promotion and tenure, budgetary review, the selection of administrators, and other policies concerning the general academic welfare.
  • Chris Kopff (HNRS) brought up a New York Times article showing a broad decline of students from under-represented groups at The University of Colorado over the last 30 years.

[The data show that, although minority groups’ share among our students has risen somewhat over the last 30 years, it hasn’t risen nearly as quickly as these same groups’ share in the college-age population.]

  • Andrew Martin (EBIO) has brought up the fact that a small fraction of our faculty attain excellence in teaching and research in the tenure and promotion process. Would we like to create a way to acknowledge and reward this? The Personnel Committee will look at this and it is likely that an ad hoc committee will be formed to make recommendations to the Dean.
  • The new committee, Health Risks for Football Players, chaired by David Grant, has been composed and started work; they will report to the ASC.
  • The General Education Implementation Committee is working on their tremendous task along with the Curriculum Committee and Kathryn Tisdale.
  • The Academic Futures Initiative involving Russ Moore’s office is currently vague but evolving. What we do in the college should strongly affect that visioning process so we will continue to closely follow that work as well as the Foundations for Excellence Initiative.
  • Faculty have noticed an increase in the number of days campus parking is unavailable to faculty and staff; is this something the ASC should look at?
  • Move in date for the College of Arts and Sciences is later than other units.
  • Shall we consider a position statement on the status of DACA students? There are 83 on campus; about 50 in A&S.
  • Shall the ASC consider a statement on campus climate and priorities?
  • The Alternative College Option students comprise about 40% of our incoming class; how did we get there? ASC is consulting with BFA on this important issue.

FCQ Redesign, Robert Stubbs and Rachel Dahir

In winter 2016, the Office of Data Analytics set out to modernize the FCQ process. The university used 500,000 sheets of paper in a labor-intensive process. In the 90’s some electronic processes were initiated but only about 30 percent. A 3rd party vender (Discipline Based Educational Research DBER) created an administration tool and a pilot was run in 2016. The pilot program FCQ’s were administered to about 3000 students using a wide variety of courses across 3 campuses. The pilot used two instruments, one from a peer institution and one from the 3rd party vendor. The Office of Data of Data Analytics looked at the results, decided not to use the peer instrument and looked at different ways to promote responses, e.g., one extra point for participation, participation thresholds. Reminder e-mails were send and different combinations of reminders were tried to see what produced the best response. During spring 2017, the group looked at looked at online administration, testing instruments, getting feedback, getting info quickly and producing reports for faculty. This fall it was decided to move to an online administration platform. The question set will remain the same in fall of 2017 as it is important in the promotion and tenure process. Faculty will be given strategies for increasing participation such as early notifications, additional point incentives and information of how FCQ’s are used.

The FCG leadership group will be in touch with faculty. Faculty can sign up for 30 minute, face-to-sessions to discuss the new program.

Discussion and Vote on the Arts & Sciences Petition Policy, Leslie Irvine, Chair, Curriculum Committee

The Curriculum Committee brought a petition policy to the ASC for a vote. (Petition attached)

The Curriculum Committee originally brought a proposal on dropping courses to the ASC in January of 2017; ASC representatives felt the policy was too liberal and asked for some changes; the resulting policy was developed with Kathryn Tisdale, Director of Advising Quality. The ASC representatives were previously given a paper outlining the differences in the policies. The following points were made in response to questions raised by representatives:

  • Some representatives voiced strong support of the new policy as allowing some flexibility but not overly lenient.
  • Concern was expressed that no supporting documentation is required. Kathryn Tisdale said the previous policy favored students with better writing skills; that judgement piece has been removed. The policy is meant to take advising and the dean’s office away from arbitrating a student’s extenuating circumstances.
  • The previous pilot program did cause an raise in GPA’s, an untick in total number of credits completed and persistence into the next year.
  • The limit of two was questioned. As there is outreach built in, there is a chance for advising to help students with planning. If unlimited late drops were available, the ability to offer advising might not be feasible.

A friendly amendment was made to accept the policy with a 3-year sunset clause so data can be studied before renewing.

The motion was moved and seconded; the vote was 27 in favor of the new Petition Policy, with a friendly amendment of a 3-year sunset clause, 0 against with 2 abstentions.

The motion passes.

Professor Mojzsis reminded the interim committee chairs to meet with their committees and elect permanent chairs.

The departments will be asked to provide lists of voting eligible faculty.

The ASC will continue to build a close working relationship with the Boulder Faculty Assembly.

New Business

Ted Stark would like to look into the content of welcome days, feels like it’s not academically focused. Would like to get more information and, if necessary, form a committee to improve the orientations. Amber Cardamone of New Student and Family Programs is currently collecting information on these programs. Professor Mojzsis will invite her to attend a meeting. Professor Mojzsis also meets regularly with Associate Dean Kyle Junkins about the first year experience.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:00.

Minutes submitted by Janice Jeffryes 

Arts and Sciences Petition Policy (Draft)

The College of Arts and Sciences, in support of student success, maintains the following policy for petitions to change an academic record:

  1. Students pursuing a primary major in the College of Arts and Sciences may petition the Office of the Dean for the following changes to academic record:
  2. Late Drop a single course** (up to five (5) credits) after the 10-week drop period through the last day of class in the fall and spring terms only. **Additional courses may be eligible for late drop consideration in the same term and will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
  3. Change a Grade Option from “Letter Grade” to “Pass/Fail” or “No Credit” (or the reverse) after the posted deadline up until the last day of class in the fall and spring terms. Students may apply up to six (6) credits of pass/fail coursework toward graduation requirements.

Notes:

  • Students will be limited to two (2) total petitions over the course of their undergraduate careers in the College of Arts and Sciences.
  • The petition process will require an explanation as to why the student did not make the change by the posted deadlines, however, documentation of an extenuating circumstance will not be required.
  • In the case of options (a) and (b), students who do not petition by the last day of class in a given term, or who have already reached the maximum number of exceptions (2) will be referred to the office of Student Support and Case Management to pursue a retroactive appeal and/or other options based on their individual circumstances.
  • In the case of a Late Drop, a course will post as a “W” and students will not be eligible for an automatic tuition adjustment.
  • Exceptions will be made in cases referred by the Office of Victim’s Assistance or the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance involving Title IX infractions.
  • In applicable cases, the office of International Student and Scholar Services and Athletics will be notified of changes to the student record as part of the work flow process.
  • In all cases, the academic advisor and faculty of record will be notified of the changes to the student record, triggering outreach to students.
  • In all cases, students will be notified by the Dean’s Office reiterating the two (2) petition limit and in the cases of students who have reached the maximum, their ineligibility for further consideration (except as noted in points IV. and V.a. above).
  • Academic actions excluded from this petition process include requests for: a credit overload; retroactive changes in grading option from “Pass/Fail” to “Letter Grade”; intra-university transfer; change of major; retroactive withdrawal on the basis of nonattendance, and reinstatement. These options may still be pursued by students via separate processes.
  • Students who are dual-enrolled in another college (Engineering, Business, Music, CMCI and Education) are not eligible for this petition process, and would be referred to that College’s policy and procedure.

Petition Procedure

  1. The Arts & Science petition will be an online document built in Work Flow in partnership with the Office of the Registrar.
  2. Students will indicate the type of action they wish to pursue (late drop, or change to the grading option,) and follow the prompts to enter in the required data.
  • The completed petition will be submitted online and routed thus:
    1. Dean’s office – staff will determine eligibility, either approve or deny the petition, and log the request and decision
      1. In a case where a student wishes to late drop more than one class, the petition will be routed to a member of AAC leadership for outreach and will make a decision on the petition.
      2. If denied, the petition will route to the student and advisor with a notification
    2. If approved, the petition would then route to Athletics or ISSS in applicable cases for review
      1. If at this point the student chooses to rescind the petition, it will be routed to Dean’s office for notification & logs will be changed
      2. If approved, the petition will route to the Office of the Registrar for processing
    3. Once processed, the student, the advisor, the faculty member and the Dean’s office are notified