Minutes of the Academic Policies Committee
for October 20, 2004

Minutes approved and adopted: November 10, 2004

The Academic Policies Committee met on October 20, 2004, for the first time this semester.

Present: David Beach, Michael Duchac (student), Laura Gellott, Jerry Greenfield, Stuart Hansen, Bryan Lewis, Richard Lott, Sue Norton.
Excused: Megan Mullen, Mary Power.

The meeting was convened at 3:00 p.m. in MOLN 367-A by Laura Gellott, Chair of the 2003-04 APC committee.

1. Election of Chair. Laura Gellott agreed to serve as chair in 2004-05, provided that someone else would serve as ex officio representative to theGeneral Education Steering Committee. Sue Norton agreed to represent APC on Gen Ed.

2. Laura Gellott distributed a DRAFT copy of the annual report of APC for 2003-04. This report be submitted to the Faculty Senate for its next meeting.

New Business:

3. Jerry Greenfield brought up several issues that APC will need to look at during the coming year:

a. Re-consideration of the MWF noon activity hour. This is being drived by the need to maximize classroom use during prime time.

b. Winterim/calendar. Some instructors are concerned that the two weeks is not sufficient time to teach a course.

c. Jerry Greenfield raised a point, related to tabled business from the Senate last year, regarding whether students whose placement tests indicate the need for remedial reading courses should be required to take them. This will be taken up at a future APC meeting.

4. Laura Gellott pointed out that the calendar in a couple of the outlying years is such that there will be more than two weeks/11 days for instruction. She also raised the point that Winterim was originally intended to be a venue for offering special courses (theater trips, etc.,) not a venue for teaching Gen Ed courses or other more traditional offerings. The committee agreed that a discussion of the purpose and intent of Winterim was warranted. Jerry Greenfield brought up the financial benefits to the campus of Winterim. Jerry also mentioned that APC should look at Bill Blanchard's survey of students and faculty evaluations on Winterim.

5. Laura Gellott mentioned that Student Affairs has raised some calendar issues re: an expanded Orientation program. There will be more on this at a future meeting.

6. UWS/WTCS transfer agreements. APC will need to consider the issue about whether courses that are currently accepted as part of an articulation agreement would be allowed to count on a "stand alone" basis; i.e. if a student switches majors and is no longer in a program covered by an articulation agreement would they be able to keep the credits/count the credits towards graduation. Trudy Biehn had supplied Laura with documentation on this issue; this will be shared before the next meeting.

Laura will contact members of the committee via e-mail to set up the next meeting.

Submitted by: Laura Gellott