Mary Anne Hanner, dean of the college of sciences, has asked the council on academic affairs to designate 13 biology courses as writing intensive.

Doug Bock, vice chair of the CAA and speech communications professor, said these courses need to be writing intensive so biology majors can complete their electronic writing portfolios, which is a graduation requirement.

Bock said the biology department has looked at several courses and decided to revise them so 35 percent of the student’s grade would be based on writing. There would be one assignment that has a revision opportunity, which can be submitted for the electronic writing portfolio.

“These two qualities are what make a course writing intensive,” Bock said.

A change in the evaluation procedures for the electronic writing portfolio will also be discussed.

“Most of the meeting’s time will be focused toward the revision of the speech communication curriculum, which includes some course proposals and a couple of new options added to the speech communication major,” Bock said.

Some faculty members from the English department are concerned with the new rubric previously approved by CAA.

The new rubric contains a four-point scale of competency ranging from “not competent” to “highly competent.”

The CAA will also be looking at English 2760, English 4760 and History 4940, which are new or revised course proposals, to make sure the courses are not duplicating other courses and are following an appropriate format.

At next week’s meeting, CAA will be looking at grade corrections.

The council meets at 2 p.m. Thursday in the Arcola-Tuscola Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.