Faculty Talks in Circles about Distribution Requirements
The final faculty meeting of the semester was held on Monday, December 2, 2024. Most of the meeting was, once again, spent discussing distribution requirements. Other topics included preparing for the Trump administration, adding more flexibility to the Neuroscience and Political Science majors, approving a new study abroad program, and an update from the committee reviewing governance documents.
The meeting began with President Audrey Bilger bringing the minutes from the November 4 meeting, which were approved unanimously. She then shared that, in the aftermath of the presidential election, she has been in conversation with other college leaders around the country. They anticipate that with the incoming Trump administration, there will be areas of concern for higher education, especially in regards to immigration, international students, faculty, and staff, study abroad, equity and inclusivity initiatives, trans rights, and financial aid. “I wanted you to know that I and other members of the leadership team are watching and talking to colleagues and considering what we might need to do,” Bilger said. They are all paying close attention in order to protect our community members, she said. She closed her report by sharing that, on a brighter note, she and Cheryl are looking forward to the faculty holiday party they will be hosting next week.
Next up was Kathy Oleson, Dean of the Faculty, with several brief updates. Oleson shared that the faculty retreat will be held on May 28 at the World Forestry Center. Additionally, the Retention, Persistence, and Graduation Group has been discussing what to focus on and reaching out for more information. The Presidential Council on Campus Climate has also been meeting regularly, and are making a list of potential speakers for the spring. They’re especially interested in pairs of speakers who can speak on antisemitism and Islamophobia, Oleson said. She brought up Jon Rork with updates from the Center for Teaching and Learning: “it’s coming up on time to apply for space for the spring, and the application will be coming this week for the Student Teaching Consultant Program,” Rork said.
Then, Ann Delehanty brought three motions from CAPP (the Committee on Academic Policy and Planning). The first was to alter the neuroscience major to highlight the interdisciplinary nature of the major and to increase flexibility. The second was to change the political science major to remove the subfield depth requirement. This requirement (two units from two of the subfields) was originally intended to “stem the practice of students ‘majoring in professors,’” – students taking the majority of their classes with one preferred professor – but the major has changed over time, so this is less of a problem, according to the memo from the Political Science department. Neither of these major alterations changed the total number of units required. Finally, the third motion was to add Universität Konstanz in Germany as an approved study abroad location, which will allow students to take classes in English in Germany, which isn’t currently an available option, as well as more classes within the student’s major. All three motions were approved unanimously.
The next report was from Peter Ksander and Nigel Nicholson on behalf of the Ad Hoc Committee on Governance Documents and Processes. The basic goal of the committee is to have a much clearer set of governance documents where people will be able to find information more easily. They are currently focusing on the faculty code, which is the “accumulated body of legislation passed by the faculty,” according to the bylaws. The faculty code is a bit convoluted at the moment because a lot of information ends up there, so the idea is to move some things out of the faculty code for consistency and so that faculty doesn’t have to waste time voting on them. “The time we have in faculty meetings, despite how I’m going on about this, is precious,” said Nicholson, to much laughter.
The rest of the meeting was spent, once again, discussing the upcoming changes to distribution requirements. Suzy Renn began by presenting updates from the Ad Hoc Committee. Because there is currently a disagreement within the committee and because they are waiting for results from SCAPP’s tabling, they do not have a model yet. (Note: students, if you have opinions about changes to distribution requirements, you can make your voice heard by filling out SCAPP’s survey!
Renn presented the results of the survey from the last meeting, which showed a clear preference for the modify model or the adjustable model. As discussed in last month’s faculty beat, the “modify” model is somewhat similar to the current system: there would be three groups, and students would be required to take three classes in Group I (including one language), two in Group II, and three in Group III (including one quantitative), but the 2+1 requirement would be removed. The “adjustable” model would require one class in each of five groups, likely something along the lines of Group I, Group II, Group III, language, and quantitative, but those groups could be divided differently.
There was some discussion of the fact that this new version of the “adjustable” model only requires five units, as opposed to an earlier version, which would have required eight or nine. In the earlier version, students could take more in some groups than others, so long as they were taking at least one in each group and at least eight or nine total. The committee decided that unless they put in a lot of confusing rules, students would end up just taking one in each group and the rest in their major, so it’s simpler to just require five units, Renn said.
Faculty discussed how this is a decrease in required units. Renn explained that with the current model, students are meeting some of the nine required classes with courses in the major, so there are really only six or seven required classes outside the major, whereas with the new “modify” model it would be five or six and in the “adjustable” model it would be four outside the major. Faculty (and your Quest reporter!) were confused by the numbers here: “So, on your account, five is one less than nine?” asked Peter Steinberger (Political Science) at one point, misinterpreting what had been said.
Faculty also discussed the similarities between the two models. In effect, they are mostly the same, except that the “modify” model requires two classes in each of Groups I, II, and III, while the “adjustable” model only requires one class per group, as Jennifer Heath (Physics) pointed out. They debated whether it would be clearer to pull the language and quantitative requirements out of Group I and III in the “modify” model to match.
There were questions about how literature classes would be categorized with regards to the language requirement, and about how it would work for some HSS classes to meet the quantitative requirement, both of which are still being worked out. Renn also clarified that the current thinking is that students would be able to meet the language and quantitative requirements with classes from other universities or study abroad, but not with AP, IB, or dual credit programs.
Faculty debated the structure of these two models, how they will be changed by future amendments, and whether they should vote separately on the language and quantitative requirements. Kris Anderson (Psychology), who was previously on this committee, encouraged the committee to put out two or three models that faculty would vote on, and for faculty “to just keep your mitts off it; just vote up or down.” Renn said that the goal is to bring forth two models for the January 27 faculty meeting, then have faculty submit unofficial proposed amendments to those two models. The committee will then bring people together who have similar amendments, get those together in advance, and work with the faculty drafting these amendments to model impacts.
Faculty also offered many other comments, oftentimes reiterating topics that had already been discussed and not really getting anywhere. One professor expressed that she thinks we would be moving to a system with less choice. Adam Groce (Computer Science) said he was concerned that this system, especially in regards to some HSS classes counting towards the quantitative requirement, would lead to a race to offer the easiest class that meets certain requirements. Jon Rork (Economics) said, regarding the language and quantitative requirements, that he doesn’t understand how a 100-level class and 300-level class would meet the same objectives, and he wants to be very careful how those objectives are written so accreditors don’t get upset. In response, Sameer ud Dowla Khan (Linguistics) compared this to students taking an economics class in high school; they still have to take a Group II, perhaps a higher level, and this hasn’t been a problem.
Once again, faculty ran out of time in the middle of this discussion, and a motion to extend the meeting failed, so the meeting was adjourned.