The Council on Academic Affairs will not meet Thursday as originally scheduled due to a lack of action items.

Because of the cancelation, the first seven agenda items of the year will be moved to the next meeting on Jan. 21.

During that meeting the council will vote on a moratorium on course modality changes due to a memorandum from Provost Jay Gatrell:

“The purpose of this memorandum is to request the Council on Academic Affairs consider a limited moratorium on proposed course-based modality changes for the 2021 calendar year. The proposal is limited as requests that are necessary to support explicit degree requirements in 100% online programs, off site cohorts, or the BGS program would be exempted. However, all other requests to transition a traditional face-to-face course to online or hybrid requests would be postponed until January 1, 2022 with an approved implementation date after July 1, 2022.

Additionally, I am writing to inform you that the Office of Academic Affairs will review all online or hybrid course actions submitted to CAA in Fall 2020 to determine if implementation in a future term would be appropriate. Based on my review of CAA Fall 2020 agendas, I was able to identify a single course, REC1200. If there are other courses where modality changes occurred and/or a new course approval may have request online delivery, please advise.”

One item that will be brought up at the next meeting is a name change for the General Studies Program. The proposed change would result in the program being called Interdisciplinary Studies.

The reasons for the change are:

· “Nationally, the General Studies name has been changed at major programs. Arizona State University was a national leader in changing their program name to Interdisciplinary Studies; programs across the country followed suit, including three of the five former Board of Governors programs in Illinois.”

· “Prospective students do not understand the program based on the name, General Studies. Interdisciplinary Studies provides a more nuanced name for the program.”

· “For students who choose to transition careers, the General Studies name may hamper their job hunting success, whereas the Interdisciplinary Studies name provides for greater recognition.”

· “Confusion around General Education and General Studies continues with the current program name. Interdisciplinary Studies would solve this issue.”

The council will also vote on changing the language in the Communication Disorders and Sciences Honor Program catalog copy and admission requirements and for revisions for two CDS courses.

Two new course will also be voted on: Hispanic Cienma, Honors and Spanish Narrative & Film, Honors.

The rationale for the Hispanic Cienma, Honors course is “Students completing departmental honors in Spanish need regularly offered courses. Also, students completing University Honors and who major or minor in Spanish deserve to have honors course options in Spanish. There are currently no upper-division Spanish honors courses. Students have historically fulfilled honors requirements by completing honors-level projects in regular courses”

The rationale for the Spanish Narrative & Film, Honors course “Students admitted to Departmental Honors in Spanish need to take upper-division Honors courses. There are currently no such courses in the Department of World Languages and Cultures. So far, students have fulfilled these requirements by completing specially designed projects while taking regular courses.”

Corryn Brock can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].