International and Domestic Off Campus Studies Committee
Minutes of the November 15, 2006 IDOCS meeting
- 1. Meeting came to order at 3:30 in Buntock Commons 146.
- Present: Solveig Zempel (IGS Dean), Cate Redman (Student
Representative), Maura DeChant [Student Representative], Dona Freeman (FA), Bruce Hanson (NS/Math), Eric Lund (IOS Director), Jeanne Delaney (Humanities and Chair), Kris McPherson (Social Science), Karil Kucera (IGS), Kathy Tuma (IOS).
- Minutes of November 8, 2006 approved with corrections provided by Eric Lund following brief discussion of minute-taking in general.
Motion made by Kris MacPherson that two sets of minutes should be produced: one a summary set for the webpage, and another more detailed set related to specifics discussed to be kept within IDOCS for later reference.
- Updates from the IOS Director:
Eric touched on several topics of interest to the committee:
a) Open house publicity. Mandatory orientation meetings were well attended. 88% for the international orientations; 78% for domestic.
b) Status of program review report. Reviewers will be on campus December 7 th. Anyone interested in self-study can contact Eric. Appendix considered perhaps most interesting portion as it raises questions for the future based on alumni and student feedback. It is hoped that members of IDOCS can find a mutual time to meet with reviewers. Solveig and Eric will post possible meeting times via email.
c) Final issues related to letters of intent for interims. At present, letters of intent for interims that are continuing do not need signature of associate dean. Eric feels this needs to be changed. Jeane asks for clarification on the need for this, i.e., is it for scheduling purposes, in which case, is there another way to t do it? Solveig recommends that deans see list of all of the courses being offered, but notes that new courses definitely should still have a dean's signature.
Kathy Tuma will send out list divided by academic divisions to the deans.
d) Eric noted that new Open Doors annual rating for off-campus study was now available and St Olaf remained on the top, despite a drop in % of student participation.
- Report on the Curriculum Coordinating Committee's restructuring by Jeane Delaney
Jeane reported on how the new structure would deal with issues now related to IOS and reviewed by IDOCS.
Issues raised by various members of the committee included: roles of representation for the various academic communities, maintaining faculty interest in doing committee work, and making sure that there is sufficient college-wide input into the re-structuring.
- Distribution of the fall program review schedule – Kathy Tuma, IOS.
Kathy came with two hand-outs – brief discussion on status of Music 236.
Jeane brought up how to handle the review of those continuing interims we reviewed last year – it was agreed that we had decided to divide up the proposals amongst the committee members, with all 'new' and 'pilot to full' status programs being reviewed by the entire committee.
A course can remain dormant for up to four years. Kathy noted that the engineering course in St Louis would not be an option this year due to changes in the policy at Washington University.
Eric noted that several programs were not running that they thought would be offered – Nursing in Norway and Britain Economics.
Individual feedback to committee by first week in December.
Kathy noted that since Russian 256 hasn't gone yet, we should postpone review of the program until February 2007.
Final issues raised were regarding names of programs, and how they reflect course content.
- First year experience and Off-campus study – Solveig Zempel
Brief report by Maura DeChant on 1980 minutes from the archive, and what led to the creation of the policy.
Since this is not strictly a curricular issue, it was agreed that IDOCS establish a subcommittee to try to coordinate with the registrar to propose alternate possible policies to the Deans Council. Kathy Tuma asked that IOS be included in this discussion as well, and it was agreed that IDOCS would work on this after the interim break.
Meeting adjourned at 5:00 pm. Next meeting will be December 13 th, with email reports on the interims due to Jeane by December 6 th.
Respectfully submitted:
Karil Kucera 11-27-06
