This was the second year of the new Academic Policies and Curriculum Committee (AP&CC), which was created when the L&S Faculty combined the functions of the Academic Policy and Appeals, Course and Curriculum, and Graduate Program Committees. The Committee was extremely busy, due in large part to its responsibility for implementation of the College's revised degree requirements.

The AP&CC held nine meetings during the academic year to carry out its functions as authorized by L&S Faculty Document No. 694. The Committee met on the following dates: September 13, October 11, November 8, & December 6, 2005 and January 25, February 22, March 15, April 12, and May 10, 2006.

Procedural Matters

1. Kathryn Dindia was elected Chair for the 2005-2006 academic year at the Committee's first meeting. At the last meeting, she was elected Chair for 2006-2007.
2. Donald Solomon was elected Co-Chair for the 2005-2006 academic year.
3. Sub-committee chairs elected were as follows: HU - Margaret Atherton, NS - John Berges, SS - Steven Redd.
4. The Committee authorized the Chair to act on behalf of the Committee to approve non-controversial items submitted during Summer, 2006.
5. A sub-committee to review courses for the international requirement was appointed with the following members: Margaret Atherton, Jay Beder, John Berges, Kathryn Dindia, Kristin Ruggiero, Charles Schuster, and Gabrielle Verdier.
6. A sub-committee to continue work on consideration of an Extraordinary Accommodations Policy was appointed with the following members: Vicki Bott, Anthony Greene, Michael Gordon, Daniel Sherman, Richard Stockbridge, and Kris Surerus. The committee's assistant, Connie Jo, was unable to get the committee organized for regular meetings. This issue will carry over into the 2006-2007 academic year.
7. The Committee endorsed the actions of the L&S Academic Planning and Governance Committee in nominating faculty members for the Graduate Fellowship, Graduate Research and Graduate Scholastic Appeals Committees and for the Graduate Faculty Council.
8. Members agreed to ask the Graduate School to change its requirement that the nominations for the graduate committees be done by the curriculum committee.
9. A sub-committee on implementation and assessment of the new L&S degree requirements was appointed with the following members: Jay Beder, John Berges, Kathryn Dindia, Mark Harris, Connie Jo, Larry Kuiper, James Peoples, Diane Reddy, and Cheryl Scherkenbach.
10. The subcommittee to review courses for the international requirement (see item 5 above) was reappointed with Jeffrey Oxford replacing Gabrielle Verdier who spent a semester in France.

Legislative Recommendations

In addition to Course Action and Special Listing Requests, which are discussed below, a number of recommendations were forwarded to the Dean for his action or referral to the L&S Faculty:

1. The Committee recommended approval of two new certificate programs:
   • Childhood and Adolescence Studies (undergraduate)
   • Geographic Information Systems (graduate; with Urban Plannning)
2. The Committee recommended approval of "Honors in the Major" for the following programs:
   • Communication
   • Film Studies
   • Women's Studies
3. The Committee recommended approval of changes to the following graduate programs:
   • M.A. in Art History
   • M.A. in Communication
   • M.A. in Mass Communication
   • M.S. in Physics (add a medical physics track)
   • Geography/MLIS joint master's degrees
   • Ph.D. in History
4. The Committee recommended approval of changes to the following majors:
   • Communication (three separate proposals)
   • Comparative Literature
   • Geography
   • History (summer approval)
   • International Studies
   • Italian
   • Physics
   • Spanish
5. The Committee recommended approval of changes to the following minors:
   • M.A. in Art History
   • Sociology (summer approval)
   • Spanish
6. The Committee recommended approval of changes to the following certificate programs:
   • Digital Arts and Culture (undergraduate program)
   • Rhetorical Leadership (graduate program)
7. The Committee endorsed requests for authorization to implement the following new programs:
   • Ph.D. in Communication
   • M.S. in Nonprofit Management and Leadership (with Business Administration)
   • M.A. in Spanish*
     *The Committee subsequently learned that the entitlement to plan the M.A. in Spanish had expired, and it took action to reapprove the entitlement request.
8. The Committee also recommended the following actions:
   • Childhood and Adolescence Studies (undergraduate)
   • Geographic Information Systems (graduate; with Urban Plannning)

New L&S Degree Requirements

At the request of the Provost, the Committee reconsidered its recommendation that Sport and Recreation courses not count toward the L&S degree, and it reaffirmed its earlier recommendation. When it became clear that the Provost would not approve the new requirements with this provision, the Committee voted to recommend to the Faculty that it be removed from the proposal.

The Committee recommended a Fall, 2006 implementation date for the new requirements, which subsequently was approved by the Dean and Provost. A motion at a committee meeting to reconsider this timing failed for lack of a second.

The Committee prepared an implementation plan for the new L&S degree requirements, and after receiving the Dean's approval it initiated the implementation process, notifying departments of actions they needed to take to identify courses to meet the international requirement, the breadth requirements, and the research requirement.

After considerable discussion, the Committee declined to recommend imposing any of the new requirements on the self-contained degree programs in the College.

Other Committee Actions

1. Two new curricular areas (Chinese and Japanese) were recommended for approval during the academic year. The chair, acting for the Committee during the summer, approved an additional curricular area (Korean).
2. Committee members agreed that the Faculty should have the option of reviewing an expired entitlement if it is to be resurrected.
3. The Committee requested that the Graduate School change its policy that requires nominations for graduate committees to come from the curriculum committee. The College's Academic Planning and Governance Committee is charged with making the College's nominations. (The Graduate School subsequently agreed.)
4. The Committee requested that the Graduate Curriculum Committee review its policy requiring at least 30% differentiation in the coursework and grading assignments for graduate and undergraduate students in U/G courses. The result has been that many courses now do not require undergraduates to write papers. (The Graduate Committee indicated it would try to provide clearer guidelines for the differences requested.)
5. Members agreed that standardized language for syllabi relating to absences for religious reasons and requesting assistance because of a disability should be put on a website, and syllabi should provide students with the URL for that information rather than requiring all instructors to include the statements in the syllabi.
6. The Committee declined to act on a recommendation concerning the establishment of a policy on absences from classes for university-sanctioned activities.
7. The Committee recommended to the APCC an interpretation of the English competency policy that would grant completion of the requirement to students who had earned the appropriate grade in English 102 even when the student did not earn degree credits for the course. (This is the case for students who have completed a higher level English course.)
8. The Committee heard one student appeal for a waiver of a one-semester drop for academic reasons. The student's appeal was not granted.

Course Review and Approval

A primary function of the Committee is to review all requests for new courses, modifications of existing courses, course deletions, and changes to GER and/or undergraduate/graduate status. Including summer activities, the following course actions were approved (includes multiple actions for some courses). The Committee recommended that one new course submitted by the Department of English not be approved.

Type of Action	Number	Type of Action	Number
New courses	71	Title change	30
Deleted courses	16	Credit change	11
Drop/add grad cr	2	Description change	61
Jointly-offered status	7	Prerequisite change	172
Number change	45	GER/CD requests	12

The course action request forms submitted by departments/curricular areas were as follows:

Anthropology	3	French	19	Linguistics	26
Art History	5	Geography	2	MAFLL	1
Atmospheric Sciences	1	Geosciences	2	Mathematics	7
Biological Sciences	12	German	5	Physics	33
Communication	63	Global Studies	12	Political Science	7
Comparative Literature	4	History	6	Psychology	5
Conserv & Envir Sci	1	Honors	2	Sociology	3
Economics	1	Italian	1	Spanish	52
English	1	Jewish Studies	12	Urban Studies	1
Ethnic Studies	4	Journalism/Mass Com	3	Women's Studies	3
Film Studies	2	L&S Social Science	3

In addition, the Committee approved the following course-related actions:

86 Special Listing Requests

1 course/topic added to the approved seminars list

12 courses/topics added to the approved international courses list

 

Respectfully submitted,

2005-2006 Academic Policies and Curriculum Committee
College of Letters and Science

Margaret Atherton, Philosophy
John Berges, Biological Sciences
Kathryn Dindia, Communication
Taly Drezner, Geography
Connie Jo, L&S Administration (ex officio)
Thomas O'Bryan, L&S Administration (ex officio)
Jeffrey Oxford, Spanish and Portuguese
Steven Redd, Political Science
Charles Schuster, L&S Administration (ex officio)
Daniel Sherman, History
Donald Solomon, Mathematical Sciences
Michael Weinert, Physics