Minutes of the Academic Policies Committee
for September 26, 2008

Minutes – Academic Policies Committee

September 26, 2008

Approved: October 3, 2008 

Present:  Laura Gellott, Gail Gonzalez, James Kinchen, Peter Knight, Ronald Otto, Carmel Ruffolo, Joy Wolf; Rhonda Kimmel, Registrar; Doug DeVinny, Administrative Rep.

Meeting was called to order at 12:02.

1.  Laura Gellott was elected chair for the 2008-09 academic year.

2.  Minutes of September 5, 2008 were approved and will be posted to Governance and sent to the Secretary of the Faculty.

3.  The Committee discussed the 1+3 proposed arrangement with Gateway Technical College.  This is part of a larger UWS/WTC (Wisconsin Technical Colleges) initiative to package a cluster of gen ed courses being taught at a WTC institution and promote the possibility of students taking up to 30 credits of gen ed work at the technical college and transferring that work to a neighboring UW institution. 

Doug DeVinny reports that the majority of UW campuses have already made such an arrangement with a neighboring WTC institution. 

Over the summer Laura Gellott circulated syllabi from Gateway to the appropriate department chairs.  In most cases these are courses already being accepted at Parkside as part of earlier articulation agreements.  What is new is the "packaging" and "marketing" of the 30 credits as, in effect, a freshman year at Gateway prior to transferring to Parkside.  The majority of chairs indicated that the courses would, and do, count as the equivalent to courses within their departments.  At the same time some chairs expressed some reservations about the credentials of individuals teaching these courses, or what the impact on Parkside freshman enrollments might be.

APC approved the concept of the 1+3 agreement with the following provisos:

a.  a meeting be set up between representatives of UW-P and Gateway to discuss areas of concern, especially instructor qualifications , breadth of coverage in certain courses, and the use of challenge exams for credit at Gateway.  Representatives should include chairs of respective academic policies committees, interested chairs, and admin. reps (registrars, academic deans).  Tom Schnaubelt, Dean of Community Engagement, has offered to assist in convening such a meeting.

b.  the 1+3 agreement should be periodically reviewed.  The suggestion was to review it every two years, at the time of the drafting of a new catalog. A specific authority should be designated to assure that this occurs.

There was also a suggestion that we see if Bill Blanchard is able to come up with some research and data on the success rates of Gateway transfer students. [Subsequent to the meeting Bill Blanchard and Doug DeVinny provided such information, is was and will continue to be discussed in subsequent meetings.]

Meeting adjourned at 1:00 p.m.

Next meeting: Friday, October 3, 12:00-1:00; MOLN 367-A.

Agenda:

1.  BIOS request for honors in the major (provided that revised document is received by us by Friday a.m.)

2.  Discussion of proposal for new appeals committee to deal with transcript issues.

3.  Catalog issues: Rhonda Kimmel.

Submitted by:  Laura Gellott