MINUTES
UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE
MEETING OF 16 DECEMBER 2003

Present: Michael Arenson, Kenneth Biederman, Douglas Buttrey,
John Courtright, Joseph DiMartile, Louis Hirsh, Amy Johnson, Thomas
Leitch, David Marshall, James Morrison, Charles Pavitt

The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. The first order of
business was a detailed discussion of the status of the ongoing review
of the multicultural requirement in light of the forums the Committee
had recently convened. Although there was general agreement that the
forums had been productive, there was also agreement that they had not
yielded any simple consensus on the current requirement or possible
alternatives. After extensive discussion, the Committee formed a
subcommittee (Arenson, Buttrey, Courtright) charged with defining the
outcomes we would most like to see and defend for students completing
the requirement and then work backwards toward investigating the kinds
of educational experiences most likely to produce those outcomes.
The Chair reported a lack of progress in discovering a rationale
for the apparent discrepancy in the minimum requirements for courses
fulfilling the mathematics requirement (D-) and the requirement in
English composition (C-). Several members of the committee suggested
asking Dan Rich and Bob Brown as well as Heyward Brock about the history
of the problem.
Turning to new business, the Committee approved revisions to the
Major in Civil Engineering by a vote of 7-0-2, revisions to the Major in
Environmental Engineering (9-0-0), and a new Minor in Environmental
Engineering (9-0-0). A motion to approve revisions to the Major in
Computer Engineering, however, failed (1-7-0), as did a motion to
approve revisions to the Major in Electrical Engineering (1-7-0),
because of the Committee's reservations about the prospect of some 50
new students per year seeking admission to the already crowded list of
courses proposed in both cases as alternatives for the currently
required ENGL 301.
In other business, the Committee approved revisions to the Major
in Chemical Engineering (9-0-0) and to the Minor in Animal Science
(9-0-0) before turning to a brief consideration of the October 2003
report from the General Education Committee. Because time did not permit
a thorough review of this report, the Committee agreed to consider it at
greater length during its next meeting, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. on
Tuesday, 13 January 2004.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Thomas Leitch