The College of Education Executive Committee met on Thursday, May 28, 1998, at 8:30 a.m. in the Conference Room in the Education Center with Dean Toth presiding. Members present were: Drs. McGahee, Ducharme, Dixey, M. Reed, Price, Deavours (for Gunter), Swank, Bauer, Gillis (for Andrews), T. Reed, Gibbs (for Siegrist), and Ms. Roberts. Guests: Dr. Louis Levy and Mr. Jerry Wright.

Dr. Levy and Mr. Wright had been invited to the meeting by Dean Toth in order to answer questions from the COE faculty about the semester conversion process. Ms. Roberts had been asked to collect the questions from the faculty. These questions and the responses from Dr. Levy and Mr. Wright follow:

 

Q. Does a student currently enrolled in the program have to have 120 hours in order to graduate?

A. Students must have 120 semester hours or 180 quarter hours in order to graduate, whichever is to the student’s advantage. A student who changes his/her major or who has been out of school for a year or more must go under the semester system.

 

Q. Are students held to the requirement of completing 60 hours in the junior and senior curriculum, or 90 quarter hours to graduate?

A. If a student meets the core curriculum, he/she must have 120 semester hours or 180 quarter hours to graduate. A student could graduate with 120 hours but not have 60 hours of junior/senior coursework.

 

Q. When is a student held to the semester system?

A. If the student is a transfer student from within the University System, he/she may go under the quarter system or the semester system, whichever is to the student’s advantage. If the student is a first-time student in the University System, he/she must go under the semester system.

 

Q. Do we multiply quarter hours and quality points by .66 in order to get semester GPA?

A. Hours times .66 in order to get GPA. Nothing is rounded.

 

Q. When will the Registrar’s Office convert to the semester system on Banner?

A. At the beginning of summer quarter, if you look at "shaterm" on Banner, in the upper right-hand corner, and enter US (undergraduate semester) or GS (graduate semester) instead of the usual UG and GR, information about students’ GPA’s and hours can be seen in both the semester system and the quarter system. At the beginning of fall semester, this information will be available only for the semester system.

 

Q. How will course substitutions be handled?

A. As there will be a large number of substitutions, several may be entered on one form.

 

Q. Can a Computer Science course be used to satisfy requirements in Area D?

A. No.

 

Q. When will the new catalog be available?

A. Probably mid to late June.

 

Q. Are all the course titles and numbers available for all courses at the two-year colleges?

A. Not yet. As they become available, they will be on the Board of Regents’ home page: www.peachnet.edu

 

Q. What will happen if a student is unintentionally mis-advised?

A The Registrar’s Office will sort this out on a case by case basis. Basic policy, however, such as the required 120 semester hours to graduate, will not be over-ridden.

 

Q. Will students still be able to get a "double major" under the semester system.

A. If they take the correct courses, yes. Banner will list major(s) and minor(s).

 

Mr. Wright informed the committee members of several new features which will be available on Banner: the ability to view a student’s academic history, a class search feature which gives the number of remaining seats available, open and closed sections of classes. These features should be available on Banner by June.

Dean Toth asked Dr. Levy to be more flexible in his interpretation of suitable substitutions for the core curriculum. Dean Toth also noted that advisors need to get graduation applications submitted for undergraduate students at least two semesters in advance of the anticipated graduation date so that unexpected problems could be resolved.

Dean Toth asked Mr. Wright about the possibility of entering teaching fields and major options on students’ transcripts using Banner. Mr. Wright replied that, with the new Banner, listing teaching fields and major options on students’ transcripts will be possible.

 

Dean Toth thanked the department heads for making the necessary cuts in their summer school budgets. He stated that he realized that this was a difficult thing to do, but that we had no choice. Dean Toth reported that the COE had cut within $41,000 of the requested amount to be cut of $193,622. Dean Toth felt that Dr. Benjamin would not require the COE to cut this remaining $41,000 if course enrollments were good. Dean Toth reminded department heads to notify the students who had enrolled in classes which had been cut.

Dr. M. Reed distributed the results from the COE technology integration and support survey. The results were by department and the COE as a whole. Overall, the results were quite positive.

Dean Toth distributed a copy of the response that had been prepared for Jan Kettlewell on the proposed implementation plan for changes in teacher education in Georgia. Several individuals had provided input into this response. Dean Toth has met with Dr. Bailey and with Dr. Benjamin to discuss the implementation plan. Dr. Benjamin plans to write a letter to Dr. Kettlewell expressing some concerns about the plan. Dean Toth noted that several deans of Colleges of Education throughout the University System had written to Dr. Kettlewell expressing their concerns about the plan.
Dean Toth distributed a proposed Kings Bay schedule of classes to Dr. McGahee and Dr. Price.
 Dean Toth distributed a flyer from David Schmidt requesting that faculty "vote" on whether or not they want their pictures used on their departments’ home pages. David will send out an e-mail to faculty explaining how to "vote."
 Dean Toth asked Drs. Ducharme, Price, and Dixey to meet and develop a two-year cycle for off-campus courses. Dean Toth expressed concerns about the quality of some of the off-campus programs, especially as SACS has a requirement that off-campus and distance learning courses be of comparable quality to on-campus courses.
 Dean Toth noted that there is no COE representative on the screening committee for the Director of Institutional Effectiveness.
 Dean Toth will route a flyer about class attendance records to the department heads for their comments; he will send the comments on to Dr. Benjamin.
 Dr. M. Reed asked department heads to let her know if there are specific departmental questions they wanted added to the alumni survey completed by Dr. Crowe’s office.
 Terry Fredrickson in the Alumni Office has requested that the COE sponsor some type of event for COE alumni during October.
 Dean Toth announced that all position searches will close June 8. All unfilled faculty positions will be redistributed for next year.
 Dr. Price announced that the Department of Secondary Education, Curriculum, and Instructional Technology will sponsor a "Curriculum Innovation" conference on Saturday.
 Dr. Ducharme announced that the "Nuts and Bolts" conference will be June 15-18.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 10:01 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Donnie J. McGahee