Below is a brief overview of the work of the UEPCC during the academic year of 2016-2017. Please also see the minutes available on this page.

Fall 2016

During Fall 2016, UEPCC discussed the CLAS Strategic Plan over a number of meetings, speaking with Dean Kearney about the plan’s content and making many detailed recommendations. The plan was approved by the College near the end of the fall semester and may be found here. The plan especially stresses creating “connections” among faculty to enhance research opportunities.

UEPCC frequently discussed enrollment counts and how they affected budgets of various areas and the resulting tension created between the budget and achieving the best outcomes for students. UEPCC advocated that this ambiguity be resolved.

The ongoing discussion in UEPCC on how to strengthen certificates and better align them with an intended audience particularly spoke to this issue. The committee made the following recommendation for enrollment numbers for certificates:

Departments find very few ways to gain additional enrollments if low numbers of students are enrolled in the major except by offering GE courses or by offering one or more certificates. It seems appropriate to support a department’s attempts to encourage students to enroll in courses. Unless the credit hour problem can be solved in some way by CLAS, it is reasonable to allow departments to offer multiple certificates as long as they do not duplicate existing programs. Still, it also makes sense to close certificates that consistently gain little interest from students. The number of students earning a certificate might be the best guideline; if those numbers drop below a reasonable number, closing the certificate program might be appropriate.

Academic misconduct was discussed, with the committee endorsing the current sanction levels and processes for dealing with academic fraud:

• The first sanction of a reduced or failing grade is assigned by the instructor.
• The second-level of sanction is applied by the College and includes assigning the Academic Integrity Seminar (costs $100 for the student and around 18 hours of work); then, suspension; and, finally, expulsion.
• This tiered sanctioning moves the responsibility from the instructor to the College, with complaints from students or others handled by the College, making the process easier for those reporting incidents.
• The members also recommended the use of the CLAS Code of Academic Honesty as an honor pledge, to be signed by all students before any exam or before the submission of a major project, suggesting this could be added to the ICON.
• UEPCC then supported a recommendation by the College that all instructors use Turnitin while carefully analyzing any results since Turnitin can cite clichés or common knowledge as plagiarism.

Members of the UI Student Government visited UEPCC twice during the year, once to advocate for student access to faculty ACE evaluations and once to discuss the importance for students to have the opportunity to give midterm feedback. UPECC encouraged faculty to accept this latter recommendation to give students a chance to talk about the course around midterm but did not endorse the first request since ACE evaluations are considered part of the personnel file and thus are confidential.

Spring 2017

UEPCC approved two certificates, with the requirements available in the General Catalog, 2017-2018 to be published in early June.

• Certificate in Geographic Information Science presented by David Bennett, Professor and Chair, Geographical and Sustainability Sciences.
• Certificate in Political Risk Analysis presented by Brian Lai, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and Director of Undergraduate Studies.

A proposal for a new interdisciplinary major in Neuroscience was presented in January by Jodie Plumert, Professor and DEO, Psychological and Brain Sciences; Diane Slusarski, Professor and DEO, Biology; Joshua Weiner, Associate Professor, Biology; Ryan LaLumiere, Assistant Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences. UEPCC recommended approval of the new program of study, and it is now awaiting approval by the Regents.

A new publishing track within the English and English and Creative Writing majors presented by Blaine Greteman, Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of English, was also approved for undergraduates pursuing a degree in this major beginning with Fall 2017.

Also in Spring 2017, Renee Cole, Associate Professor, the Department of Chemistry; and Cornelia Lang, Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, discussed the relation of grading practices to student motivation and success in the classroom. Norm-based grading, also referred to as the use of “the curve,” can result in a lack of grading transparency, leaving students confused and surprised by their final grades. UEPCC reviewed the CLAS grading guidelines and recommended some additions, available for Fall 2017, to help ensure more transparency to grades.

Other guest speakers in spring included Maggie Jessie and Jean Florman, presenting on the new Learning Design Collaboratory initiative. The idea is to revamp high-impact courses by creating teams that support the faculty teaching those courses as they redesign them. The redesign is complemented by assessment and research, and the plan is customized to suit the particular course or sequence.

Brent Gage, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management, also spoke to the committee about the Regents Admission Index, the admission standards for undergraduates to UI if not in a selective college. The Regents Admission Index (RAI) is quite generous to students and needs contextualization in order to serve prospective students and the Regents’ institutions well. The RAI is an aggregate of the ACT score, class rank, high school GPA, and the number of core courses taken during high school. A holistic review for students with lower RAI scores is being explored, as it may give a better idea of which students are likely to be the most successful at UI.

Andrew Beckett, Assistant Dean in the University College, updated the committee on UI Living-Learning Communities, and guests Anne Zalenski, Associate Dean for Distance Education and Outreach, Division of Continuing Education (DCE); Marlys Boote, Assistant Dean for Summer Session, DCE; and Dawn Freerks, Registrar Services Manager, DCE updated UEPCC about the Division. DCE does not want related online courses to compete with or to detract from on-campus enrollments. The DCE goal is to build summer offerings, allowing UI students to take UI courses online while away from campus. A second DCE goal is to support faculty as they develop online courses, with professional online course developers helping to guide these projects.  Additionally, DCE is working with CLAS on its transition to a new process for approving online offerings. Under the direction of Helena Dettmer, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Curriculum, CLAS has created an advisory board to recommend best practices for online courses and programs. The advisory board will help define a vision for collegiate online education and to ensure that online offerings and on-campus courses do not compete with each other but rather support CLAS strategic goals.

Finally, UEPCC discussed the Strategic Implementation Team Report on the Undergraduate Academic Experience, chaired by Cornelia Lang, Associate Professor, Physics and Astronomy and the student success initiatives recommended by the group. The final report will be completed soon.

During the last two meeting of the spring semester, UEPCC discussed the UI 2020 initiative and the CLAS formation of its own 20/20 Committee charged by Dean Djalali to undertake communication on this issue. Marc Armstrong met with UEPCC and the discussion focused on the overall timeline for any related structural changes within CLAS to academic programs, with the 2020 project given the December 2017 end date when a report by Deans Keller, Scranton, Gardial, and Clay will be submitted to the Provost. The four deans will continue to collect information during the first half of the fall semester. Marc Armstrong assured UEPCC members that no decisions about structural reconfigurations or eliminations would be made during the summer months.

Dean Keller from the Graduate College and one of the four deans charged by then Provost Butler and now by Interim Provost Sue Curry to explore restructuring of units at UI also met with UPECC. Dean Keller especially stressed that the four deans had no perceived notions about changes that might or could be made but rather saw this as creative exploration in order to build additional areas of excellence at Iowa.