Meeting Notes
University Studies Advisory Committee
Participants
Cara Cilano
Michael Freeze
Heidi Higgins
Curry Guinn
Shelly Myers
Guest: Carol Pilgrim
February 25, 2013
Martin Posey
Kathleen Romney
Vonzell Yeager
Kerry Whipple
Notetaker: Lea Bullard
Discussion Notes
1. General news
a. Cara and Carol will be presenting a conference at CTE about how to use the competency petition
forms (at 2:00 on Thursday the 28th the in the CTE conference room)
b. Any more ideas about workshops that are needed are would be useful? Send Cara email with
suggestions
i. Would it be possible to require that departments have to attend the workshops? It
would go a long way to norming the advising decisions being made across departments.
Program coordinators might be place to begin.
ii. Q: Many people have questions about courses, and when they will be reviewed. A: Any
new course proposals will follow the same calendar any previous curricular issues have
followed (due by first Friday in September)
2. Transfer policy recommendations
a. Writing Intensive and Information Literacy policy
i. Regarding the external package for the CAA students
1. Note that there is no mention of Writing Intensive and Information Literacy,
other than to mention that CAA students get credit for 3 hours of each
2. There are 6 more hours that are not mentioned in this document: 3 more each
of IL and WI that ARE mentioned in the internal document
3. Suggestions:
a. Remove the text about “opportunity to receive 3-6 hours of credit toward
the completion of this requirement through transferred course” and let
the following paragraph take care of that.
b. Change “no substitutions allowed” to “no transfer substitutions allowed”
c. Change “pursuing” to “completing”
d. Change “count toward” to “considered for”
e. What if a student submits their petition for a competency for the same
course that the university is in effect already giving them credit for?
How to deal with this?
i. A: Possibly have the petition need to have two courses
submitted
4. Do we want the hours of competency in the major be a residency requirement?
a. We could make it a true residency down the line, if there is a need for it.
The committee discussed that this should be reviewed in a few years.
b. The committee agreed to strike the language about the residency
requirement.
ii. Voting on the internal and external documents, with the changes described above:
1. All in favor, none opposed
3. How AP and other scores/credits work with regard to US
a. University Studies does not have any bearing on how AP credit is used; students are testing out
of courses but there is no way of knowing if they’ve actually had the competency experience
b. It’s likely that departments haven’t given thought to how they are awarding credit for AP scores
c. USAC could recommend a policy that students receive no more than 3 hours in a competency for
what they bring in via AP credit
d. Any policy for AP would need to be on the Senate floor by October 2013
e. Our first step could be to ask departments for a review of their AP credit-granting, with a mind to
competencies “do you believe that AP fulfills a competency?”
i. The request should come from the registrar’s office
ii. The timeline for this is early fall