November 6, 2007
TO: Honors Program Committee
Pamela Bathurst, Chair
Mary DuPree
Torry van Slyke, Chair, HSAB
Rick Edgeman
Stephan Flores, Director
Pat Hart
Mark Warner, Assoc. Director
Howard Peavy
Eric Aston
Sandra Reineke
Cheryl Wheaton
RE: Minutes of meeting held November 5, 2007
The meeting was called to order at 2:35 p.m. with the following members present: Pamela Bathurst, Mary DuPree, Rick Edgeman, Stephan Flores, Pat Hart, Sandra Reineke, Torry van Slyke, Mark Warner, and Cheryl Wheaton.
Stephan Flores asked for approval of the minutes of the October 22, 2007 meeting. Rick Edgeman moved, Mary DuPree seconded that the minutes be approved as distributed. Pamela Bathurst called for a vote; approval was unanimous.
AGENDA ITEMS
1. Review of 2008-2009 honors seminar proposals. Stephan Flores asked HSAB Chair Torry van Slyke to share with the committee the board’s deliberations on the six seminar proposals submitted. They were ranked by the Honors Student Advisory Board as follows:
Hollywood Remakes France, Joan West, Foreign Languages and Literatures
Tied for 2nd place were:
Understanding Communist China, Pingchao Zhu, History
1960s Popular Culture, Katherine Aiken, CLASS Dean
Gender & Science: Historical Perspectives, Sean M. Quinlan, History
Crossing Borders with the Graphic Novel, Walter Hesford, English
Leadership and Change, Jon Reardon, Coordinator of Student Activities
Torrey said that the board liked all the proposals; the Leadership and Change proposal caused some concern. Reasons were given in support of each of the proposals, noting in particular that the proposal offered by Professor Zhu was timely with the Olympics occurring this summer, that a course on the Jewish-American roots of the graphic novel hadn’t been offered in the curriculum, and that the course proposed by Sean Quinlan would cover several disciplines, making it a course with a large attraction. He observed that the board felt the Leadership proposal was too demanding for just two credits and that it might be better at 3 credits. Another suggestion was to reduce requirements and offer it as a 1 credit course with the possibility of making it a LEADS course and to attach a leadership certificate for those completing the course. Several students spoke in favor of possible revisions to the seminar, however the votes for the proposals were tightly cast among the first five proposals, with the sixth proposal's rank much farther apart from the other five.
The program committee members engaged in extensive discussion regarding ways in which the Leadership proposal might be revised to make it a more viable seminar proposal. Committee members made such suggestions as providing greater gender differences among the chosen leaders and having the pool of leaders and guest speakers enlarged to include individuals not on campus. One committee member observed, and others agreed, that the proposal needs to present a rigorous theory of leadership; another member observed that the course material needs to demonstrate the “leading edge” of thinking on this topic. Some suggested seeing this course at a lower level and offered earlier in a student’s career in order to develop leadership skills earlier on. The point was also made that an expectation of significant teaching experience is in the spirit of the Honors curriculum and course offerings.
Stephan emphasized that the honors program curriculum has historically worked to have experienced faculty, while encouraging innovation in providing new course offerings. When asked what he would recommend, Stephan replied that he was of different opinions and felt he weighs decisions with the valued discussion and advice of the student and committee responses. He stated that HSAB had suggested the course be proposed as a 200 level seminar and Torry added that he felt Jon Reardon should rework the course to meet the suggested revisions and that there wouldn’t be a lack of interest by students in the course. Mark Warner said that he felt it very important for Jon to hear the critiques of the proposal and be given the opportunity to revise and resubmit. To return to the question regarding his decision, Stephan stated that he couldn’t support the current proposal as a seminar.
Mary Dupree made a motion to encourage Jon to continue developing the course and to make it a 200 level course, with Rick Edgeman and Sandra Reineke as consultants, and to accept the other (five) proposals. The motion was seconded by Rick Edgeman. The motion was given unanimous approval.
Mary wondered what the process was for making a course a non-seminar course within the curriculum. Stephan replied that the program and its director confer with department chairs and faculty to designate honors sections of courses within the university’s general education curriculum (General Core Studies), and that historically one-credit courses, especially directed studies, also have been arranged for honors credit. However, there is no traditional process, outside of the seminar selection process, to create an honors course as part of the program’s and the university’s curriculum. Honors Math 315, for example, is the only non-seminar, three-credit honors course that is not (already) part of the university’s core curriculum. Pat Hart and Mary suggested that the leadership proposal might be considered being made a regular Core Discovery course.
2. Speaker for 2008 Honors Convocation. Stephan distributed a page copied from the National Collegiate Honors Council conference program that described its plenary speaker, Dr. Ellen Winner. Stephan had just attended this conference, in Denver, Colorado. Winner, professor of psychology at Boston College and senior research associate for Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education, is engaged in researching cognitive development in the visual and performing arts and is the author of more than 100 articles and three books. He observed that the College of Education, those in the field of cognitive psychology, art and architecture, music, and theatre arts would probably be interested in her research and he enthusiastically recommended that she be invited to speak at the 2008 Convocation. The committee supported his recommendation and encouraged him to contact her.
Pamela Bathurst called for a motion to adjourn the meeting. Pat Hart moved and Howard Peavy seconded the motion. Motion accepted with general acclamation.
Meeting adjourned at 3:30 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Cheryl Wheaton
cc: Douglas Baker, Provost
Don Crowley, Chair, Faculty Council
Karen Guilfoyle, Chair, Committee on Committees
Doug Adams, Faculty Secretary
Jonathan Gaffney, ASUI President
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