CAA approves 3 items in meeting Thursday
March 25, 2021
The Eastern Council on Academic Affairs met virtually Thursday to vote on three items.
The first was presented by Steven Daniels, the chair of the physics department. It was a proposal to add EEN 1100 Introduction to Logic Design to the required courses for the program.
It was passed unanimously by the council.
The second item was presented by Grant Sterling and was a trio of proposals that would be handled by the General Education Committee.
The first would be for the committee to create survey that faculty members would use to describe their quantitative reasoning activities and evaluate how students performed on them.
The second would allow the creation of a committee made up of volunteers that would create an instrument for students to self-assess their quantitative reasoning.
The third would have the General Education Committee create a new critical thinking assessment and also modify the submission process for EWP assignments.
This proposal was approved by the council as well.
The final action item was the subject of a lengthy discussion among CAA members before it was voted on.
It was a proposal was presented by Josh Norman, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management, and Brad Bennington.
It was about the Fresh Start Academic Renewal Policy, which would allow students that are returning to Eastern with a GPA below 2.0 to “reestablish themselves academically” and get a fresh start of sorts.
There was some opposition to the proposal with the concern that it did not do enough to assist students in their reentry to college life and there was also discussion about how to handle EIU 2919 Strategies for Academic Success, which students need to take after being placed on academic warning.
Some amendments were made to the proposal. One said that EIU 2919 would be required for students using the Renewal Policy, and if they had taken it before they could retake it. The other amendment was made to clarify the second bullet point of the policy, which originally read “Your last term of attendance at EIU must be at least one year prior to readmission.”
The amended version would say that the absence from Eastern must be at least three full semesters in length, including the summer semester.
The proposal was passed with seven votes in favor and two opposed.
There were also three discussion items on the agenda.
The first was an announcement from the Faculty Laureate Committee that they had received a nomination for Faculty Laureate and that political science professor Kevin Anderson would be given the award.
CAA chair Claudia Janssen Danyi then provided an update on the calculation methods for HLC 25 percent reporting requirements and also sought feedback from the council on the topic of a possible Douglas Hall name change.
The next CAA meeting is scheduled for April 1 at 2 p.m.
Adam Tumino can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].