At the Council on Academic Affairs meeting Thursday, three senior seminar classes were revised from two to three credit hours in accordance with last year’s general education requirement changes.

“Last year we went from two to three credit hour senior seminars in the general education program, so we are still in the process of approving the revised senior seminars,” said CAA Chair Ron Wohlstein, sociology/anthropology professor.

Wohlstein said the change was made to make them more substantive.

“The changes the seminars must make would involve adding more writing to the course as well as assessment activity,” Wohlstein said.

Also, more time would be available to expand on the information learned in the senior seminar, Wohlstein said.

The three senior seminars passed by CAA were Impact of Communication Deficits, Nutritional Dilemmas and Decisions and Controversial Issues in Education.

Gail Richard, a communications disorders professor who will be teaching Impact of Communication Deficits, said, “The class will help students understand communication deficits and how they affect people and their jobs.”

The Nutritional Dilemmas and Decisions seminar will examine the relationship of food and nutrition connected to multi-cultural practices, according to the proposal.

The Controversial Issues in Education seminar will deal specifically with current controversial issues, according to the proposal.

CAA also will be sending a letter to all departments concerning writing-intensive courses in relation to the electronic writing portfolio, which was initiated in the fall of 2000 for freshmen students.

The letter will encourage each department to consider increasing the number of writing-intensive courses offered by the program and remind the departments that if a course is currently listed as writing-intensive, it must be so.

The electronic writing portfolio requires that students submit one paper for each year from a writing-intensive course. Freshman can submit a paper from English 1002 and seniors can submit a paper from a senior seminar class, because both classes are required to be taken and are required to be writing-intensive.

However, students in their freshman and sophomore years must take a writing intensive course either from the general education program or from their major requirements.

“There are a sufficient number of writing-intensive courses in the university, but there are some departments who may want to develop more writing-intensive courses to give their majors more opportunities,” Wohlstein said.

The Council for Academic Support and Achievement has been compiling lists of writing-intensive courses for reference to be sent to student advisers and others involved. In order for the list to be accurate, courses that are listed as writing-intensive must actually be writing-intensive.

For a course to be considered writing-intensive, at least 35 percent of the final grade must be derived from writing assignments, and at least one assignment must be revised after the instructor provides comments on the paper.