The Council on Academic Affairs will be meeting at 2 p.m. Thursday via D2L Collaborate to vote on ten different proposals presented to them.

One of the proposals being presented to the council comes from the English department, with the department wanting to implement policies for student remediation and dismissal from the English Language Arts program.

The document details the various ways that advisors obtain information about students’ success in the program and the steps that will take place if a student is struggling to meet the criteria for advanced education courses and student teaching.

The English department is proposing this policy because it wants to support future teachers as they work toward their goal of entering the field of education. The department wants to make sure to help students as they continue on with their degrees.

A proposal has also been made for revisions to the history with teacher licensure in social science degree. Two changes are being proposed by the history department: one a GPA requirement change and the other a change to the elective structure.

The history department wants to lower the minimum GPA from 3.0 to 2.75. The program has required a minimum GPA of 3.0 for more than a decade, but the department no longer thinks that it serves as a useful gatekeeper and is instead holding a handful of students back from student teaching.

As for the change to the elective structure, the department wants to have a more inclusive elective listing so that teacher licensure students may choose from any courses with prefixes from Anthropology, Economics, Geography, History, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology.

All students majoring in history with teacher licensure need an endorsement in order to teach AP and honors in social studies subjects other than the general ones, so the department built two elective options into the program to assist students in earning endorsements. The inclusive elective listing would allow students to count coursework as both history electives and in the two-elective option.

The council is also voting on a proposal from the department of teaching. This proposal requests the removal of the Adult Education minor from the Undergraduate Catalog and from the listing of approved minors for undergraduates.

The proposal also calls for the removal of various classes from the undergraduate catalog and from the listing of courses available for undergraduates to enroll.

The rationale for this decision is that:

“The Adult and Community Education Major has been removed from the catalog and not supported in any fashion by the university. There are no students pursuing this minor; most of the courses have not been offered for over three years, and there are not faculty with workloads available to teach the courses. Removal would preclude any students that would look at the catalog and ask to pursue the listed minor.”

Another proposal suggests adding a member from the General Education Committee to the Faculty Laureate Selection Committee. As the proposal explains, the Faculty Laureate Selection Committee typically consists of two CAA members, the current Faculty Laureate, and a Student Representative.

The proposal also calls for the member of the General Education Committee to be appointed by the Chair of the General Education Committee.

The council will also vote on a proposal requesting changes to the Honors programming offerings.

Eastern currently has two general education based honors programs: University Honors and General Honors. The Honors Council proposes having a single general education based honors program with two levels of achievement.

The rationale for this proposal is that “it preserves two levels of involvement suited to two populations (first-time freshman and transfer students) while allowing students the flexibility to move from one program to another without any need for re-coding in Banner.”

The proposal further explains that it will also help students who might have completed 21 or 24 credits worth of Honors requirements to still receive some recognition of their honors status on their transcript. This flexibility will also make Honors participation more attractive to students attending Eastern.

A different proposal calls for two changes to be made in the business administration minor. The proposal requests the addition of BUS 3070 to the required course list, and the subtraction of BUS 2710 from the required course list.

As the proposal states, “In the current structure of the minor, Finance is the only functional area among the School of Business that still has 2000-level course numbering for its required course for Business minor. Newly proposed course, BUS 3070 – Survey of Finance, will replace the current BUS 2710 – Survey of Finance, is a survey class to provide the necessary knowledge for the FIN.”

The proposal calls to change the course number from BUS 2710 to BUS 3070 because the content level for the current BUS 2710 is more appropriate for a junior level class, so the change would reflect that.

The council will also be voting on various proposals asking for the addition of new courses or revision of existing ones to various programs at Eastern.

One proposal asks for the addition of a new course to the computer and information technology program called Cloud Services. This course will provide students with understanding about various concepts relating to cloud services such as access management, computing, and so on.

The rationale for this proposal is that since computer and information technology is constantly changing and growing as a profession, the department wants to develop this course to cover the latest trends and topics in the program.

Another proposal asks for the addition of an Honors Personal Nutrition course to the nutrition and dietetics program. This course would study the impact of individual food behaviors throughout one’s lifespan and strategies to promote healthy eating behaviors.

The proposal states that “proposed revisions are aligned with the accreditation of the undergraduate nursing program while still meeting the accreditation needs of the Didactic Program in Dietetics.”

A proposal for the career and technical education program proposes revising an existing course, Methods of Teaching Middle- and Secondary-Level Business Education. This course’s goal is to prepare students to teach business subjects in middle and secondary schools.

The proposal asks for the combination of the CTE 3400 and CTE 3405 courses. Its rationale for this decision is that “all CTE programs will now have sub-area specific methods as a stand-alone course, allowing the area to delve deeper into the needs of their specific content.”

Kyara Morales-Rodriguez can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].