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November 21, 2013, 3:30-5:00, UMC 247

Meeting Minutes

Representatives present: Daniel Barth, PSYC; Giulia Bernardini, HUMN; Deane Bowers, EBIO; Jack Burns, APS;  Brian Catlos, RLST; Cathy Comstock, RAPS; Bert Covert, ANTH; Damian Doyle, PWR; Francoise Duresse, AAH; Amma Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin, THDN; David Grant, MATH;  Weiqing Han, ATOC; Asunción Horno-Degado, SPAN; Alison Jaggar, WMST; David Jonas, CHEM; Catherine Labio, ENGL; Mark Pittenger, HIST; Mike Radelet, SOCY; Rob Rupert, PHIL; Greg Tucker, GEOL

Representatives not present: Michela Ardizzoni, FRIT; Reece Auguiste, FILM; Paul Beale, PHYS; Cynthia Carey, IPHY; Diane Conlin, CLAS; Vanja Dukic, APPM; Daniel Kaffine, ECON; Chris Kopff, HNRS;  Susan Moore, SLHS; Bhuvana Narasimhan, LING; Greg Odorizzi, MCDB; Matthias Richter, ALC; Elisabeth Root, GEOG; Beverly Weber, GSLL; Bianca Williams, ETHN

Also present:  Steven Leigh, Leslie Reynolds

The meeting was called to order at 3:33PM. Catherine Labio thanked the representatives who came out on a snowy day.

Dean’s Remarks, Steven Leigh

The University of Colorado ��«����Ƶ’s rank is rising for Fulbright Scholars, both students and faculty.

Dean Leigh had been encouraged by the campus uptake on the Academic Quality Initiative developed by the Planning Committee last year. An enrollment management committee has been formed to consider the implications of growing the campus 10 percent. The registrar’s office has looked at the success of the scholarship program proposed by the ASC Budget Committee and approached 242 students who were getting behind in their progress toward graduation. Of those students, 52 were given scholarships of $500 or $1,000 to take classes during summer session. Half of those students are now on track and all but one is still enrolled. Arts and Sciences hopes to expand summer scholarships, possibly by using summer revenue.

Last summer’s session put about $1,000,000.00 back into the departments.

The Budget Committee will be looking at dynamic budgeting this year.

Dean’s Charge, Catherine Labio, Steven Leigh

Today, Professor Labio and Dean Leigh completed the new Core Review Committee. They will meet for the first time before the winter break. Many questions concerning the core have been coming up including questioning the need for a core. The committee will present its findings in the spring; the ASC will vote on it in April.

Catherine Labio opened the floor for comments on the Dean’s Charge. Among the issues discussed:

• The Esteemed Scholars program has already raised the percentage of students with 3.8 GPA or above enrolling at CU.
• The social contract between the state and university is broken; should the university raise in-state tuition and lower out-of-state? For CU to reach its potential it needs to attract the best students from around the world. It is not believed that more tax money will come, so looking at other models, such as an increased emphasis on endowments, would be more practical.
• The extent to which people from different parts of the state may or may not be inclined to consider CU ��«����Ƶ as a desirable college option.
• The need to highlight our value as a research institution to the state of Colorado and the fact that universities play a crucial role in driving the economies of the areas they serve.

Dean Leigh reminded the representatives that he can only make suggestions on what issues the ASC will take up. The faculty should be telling the campus what to do. There is a committee of chairs and directors who are looking at short term issues; he advises that the ASC focus more on where the campus ought to be in 10 to 20 years.

Professor Labio asked the ASC representatives to contact her with issues they want to discuss; if they send her a topic, the ASC can hold a debate or invite guests to speak on concerns of mutual interest.

Chair’s Remarks, Catherine Labio

Last month the issue of faculty involvement in CU communications was raised. There is a new campus communications platform called  that was developed with faculty input through the BFA.

Professor Labio asked the representatives to look at the calendar of events link and let he know if it meets the faculty’s needs.

In December there will be a joint meeting with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS); please invite fellow faculty members.

Online Education, Rob Rupert

Professor Rupert asked the ASC representatives to consider a set of 12 proposed guidelines for online course evaluation developed by the Curriculum Committee to help departments evaluate their new online courses. This document focuses on academic issues. ASSETT has other guidelines, which deal with technical matters. This is not a definitive document and not meant to be an endorsement of online courses. The Curriculum Committee will continue to provide oversight.

A few issues discussed:

• The percentage of instruction that goes into deciding whether a course should be categorized as a Hybrid I, Hybrid II or Online course (as per the online instruction policies drafted last year by the ad hoc committee on online education and approved by the ASC on 4.18.13), refers only to the instruction time that would take place online rather than in a traditional classroom.

Quoting from the Online Instruction Policies (the full document is available as an appendix to the minutes of the 4.18.13 meeting):

“Online courses are understood to be those courses that have a significant instructional component (one-third or more of the instruction that is delivered) that occurs outside the traditional classroom (face-to-face) setting.

• These courses will be classified in the following categories, which will become part of the course title.
• Hybrid I: Courses in which at least one-third but no more than one half of the instruction is delivered outside of a face-to-face context.
• Hybrid II: Courses in which at least half but no more than four-fifths of the instruction is delivered outside of a face-to-face context.
• Online: Courses in which at least four-fifths of the instruction is delivered outside of a face-to-face context.”
• The introduction of these categories was meant in part to provide transparency and to help determine classroom needs.
• It is important to think about how the professor is involved in online courses and how to make sure the student is a part of the community by contact with faculty. “Completion oriented” type of work should be limited.
• Academic honesty is a major concern. If the university demands an in person final exam, some populations cannot be served. Supervised testing in other locations is a possibility.
• Protecting the quality of a CU degree is of major concern when regulating online courses.
• CU’s first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS) will be coming out soon.  Such courses cannot be added without approval of the Provost.

Professor Labio asked the representatives to take the guidelines drafted by the Curriculum Committee to the departments and discuss. There will be a vote in December.

Libraries, Leslie Reynolds, Senior Associate Dean, Libraries

Dean Reynolds started with the goal of the libraries:

Advance learning and discovery in the University and beyond by providing access to a broad array of resources for education, research, scholarship, and creative work to inspire and ensure the interchange of ideas.

The libraries are in the midst of a program review and budget issues are the biggest challenge. The libraries would need a 6 to 8 percent increase in budget to keep up with inflation; this year the libraries received a 5 percent increase and last year received no increase. To make up for this shortfall the libraries cancel journal titles and buy fewer publications. The budget situation is unsustainable; teaching and research can’t be supported if this trend continues. 70 percent of the acquisition budget goes to paying for serials, 30 percent goes to purchasing books.

There are not enough librarians to provide support for research in engineering and the sciences.

There is a growing demand for instructional support services.

Norlin would like to stay open as long as the Commons (24/5) is open, but doesn’t have the resources. Archives (in the basement) needs environmental controls. The operations budget hasn’t increased since the days of the card catalog and typewriters.

Some positive news: Library faculty have recently approved an opt-out Open Access Policy for their publications and hope that the rest of the campus will adopt the same. This information was shared with the BFA Library Committee. The libraries have a partnership with high performance computing on research data services. Also, the libraries are working with Faculty Affairs on a new faculty profiling system, VIVO.

Dean Reynolds opened the floor to discussion. Among the issues raised:

• Academic publisher Elsevier raising prices was noted to be a major cause of higher costs.
• All libraries are wrestling with budget and open-access issues.
• Open access shifts costs to the author. If grant money is used for research, the public should have access to that research. It’s more difficult in the humanities to make that publishing cost shift.
• How libraries decide what goes off-site.
• As long as books are being published, the library will be buying.
• The Open Access System was discussed (this particular issue will probably be on the ASC agenda this coming spring).
• Undergraduate use of the library and the lack of knowledge some have about using the library. The libraries partner with the Program for Writing and Rhetoric to provide an instruction session at the Norlin Library. Students can make an appointment with a librarian for help with research. Instructors can contact subject specialist librarians and either bring classes to the library or have librarian come to their classroom for targeted instruction on using the library and resources targeted to course learning objectives.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:55 PM

Minutes submitted by Janice Jeffryes