Due to a Joint Council Meeting to discuss management issues (and thus not open to staff and the IFS representative), the June Academic Council meeting was shortened markedly. In her opening remarks, Vice Chancellor Clark noted the Board was visiting various programs and parts of the Eastern campus. The Board's retreat, usually scheduled for July, will be held in September, October or November but not during the regularly scheduled meeting time. She also announced that the tuition reciprocity agreement with Washington will not be renewed; OUS is working on how to handle students who are "in the pipeline" under the now existing agreement.
There was no legislative update as Grattan Kerans was unable to attend the meeting. The UO provost stated that Brady Adams had reaffirmed, at a speaking engagement at UO, that the legislature is determined to fund OUS at the legislatively-passed amount. Two new program proposals were reviewed: an MFA in Dance at UO and a Master of Science in Applied Psychology at SOU. The new dance degree is a more desirable degree in the field than a Ph.D. and would require few additional resources as the current master's degrees meet the MFA requirement. Additional GTF support may be required. UO is predicting about 3 graduates a year from the program. WOU supports the new program as many graduates of its bachelor degree in dance are seeking an MFA; the UO program would be a good complement to the WOU degree.
The SOU degree arises from meetings the psychology department has had with outside professional practitioners that indicate a need for mental health counselors, especially in rural settings; a need for psychologists in human services administration; and a need for administrative psychologists in group facilitation and training. Appropriate professional groups will accredit the mental health counseling and group facilitation strands; at this time, no accrediting agency exists for human services administration. Some additional hiring of faculty will be necessary to mount these new degrees. An external review of the proposal is being developed.
Most of the day's discussion centered on developing a philosophy surrounding transferability of general ed. courses among OUS institutions. Provosts offered opinions on "talking points" developed at the May meeting. Most agreed that OUS students should not face more stringent transferability criteria/scrutiny for general ed. courses than do community college transfer students. Remarks on the issue of a student not having to re-take a general ed. course when he/she has completed a reasonably similar course at another OUS institution emphasized that the term "reasonably similar" left a great deal of latitude. There was some sentiment for excusing a transfer student from a credit if she/he had completed 15 credits in a specific area at one institution but 16 credits in that area are required at the new institution. Finally, there seemed to be agreement on the notion that if a student completes lower-division general ed. requirements at one institution, she/he should be deemed to have completed that many credits of lower-division general ed. at the new institution; that would not preclude the new institution from requiring additional general ed. courses if that institution's requirements for all students exceeds the credits the student has earned elsewhere. Interestingly, requirements for general ed. range from a low of 48 credits at OSU to a high of 75 credits at OIT. The issue will be discussed further.
An impression that emerged during the general ed. discussion is that provosts would rather not involve faculty curriculum committees and departments in the transfer issue - they want to handle these on their own. I gathered they felt curriculum committees and department faculty would want to get down to a course-by-course analysis, something that Shirley Clark and others want to avoid or dramatically reduce. This may be a topic IFS wants to discuss further.
A quick update on the University Centers at Bend and Coos Bay included mention of 85 graduates from Bend (from OSU, EOU, Linfield and Lewis and Clark). Expectations are for perhaps 110 to 115 next year as offerings are increased. The UO will offer a BS in Social Sciences with emphases in anthropology, sociology and geography. There seems to be interest in offering a BA/BS in Humanities through UO, minors in Computer Science and Business from OSU, a BS in Resource Management through OSU and perhaps a recreation degree through OSU. The Coos Bay Center is lining up courses that will fit with the OSU liberal studies degree and efforts are underway to get a full-time or part-time faculty member to come to Coos Bay.
The agenda item regarding how the OUS is meeting the Board's 1994 Performance Expectations/Strategies was postponed for lack of time.