Minutes
Curriculum Committee
February 11, 2003
Members: James
Swartz (Chair), Gerald Adams, Diane Robertson, Jerry Lalonde, Mark Montgomery,
Courtney Sloger, and Devan McGranahan.
Agenda:
- The minutes
from the 01/28/03 meeting were approved.
- The CSC majors
were interviewed concerning summer MAP opportunities. They are concerned that
any CSC major who wants to do a summer project should have adequate access
to summer MAP opportunities. With only a finite amount of resources (both
with respect to adviser and financial support) this is a problem that is not
restricted to just CSC majors. The proposal below would help to distribute
our resources equitably across all disciplines. It was pointed out that in
item number three below there is provision for the supervision of MAP students
who are pursuing a common project but no such provision for the directing
of summer MAPs. The committee accepted a proposal by the Dean to revise item
number one to be more in parallel with items two and three with respect to
the supervision of MAPs with a common project. The Dean will bring some revised
language to the next meeting.
An essential
element of a Mentored Advanced Project is that it be intensively mentored.
The level of mentoring, combined with the advanced quality of the research,
distinguishes MAPs from other forms of Independent Study. Summer MAPs, the
most intensively mentored of the MAPs, also draw especially heavily on the
resources of the College. For these reasons, the Dean's Office proposes
that a limit be set on the number of MAPs that can be directed by a faculty
member in a single term.
- No more than
6 MAPs in a summer term or any term where a faculty member is teaching one
or no courses.
- No more than
2 MAPs during a regular academic term when the faculty member is teaching
two or more regular courses.
- No more than
3 MAPs during a regular academic term in which the faculty member is teaching
two or more regular courses, and when the MAP students are pursuing a common
project.
- The committee
continued its discussion of faculty compensation for independent study. It
was noted that the faculty has always directed independent study and the science
faculty has always conducted summer research. The biggest injustice comes
in the summer because there is no salary for any faculty time but there is
the expectation that in the sciences faculty will be available to supervise
summer research. One person has proposed that we have course compensation
only for summer directed activities. Some faculty in the social sciences and
humanities spend a lot of time during the academic year guiding independent
projects and, given some of their research interests, it would not be feasible
for some of them to remain at Grinnell during the summer directing student
research. How much course release can the college afford in terms of reasonable
class sizes and the quality of temporary faculty teaching the classes that
have to be covered as more and more regular faculty take their course release?
At this point the committee felt that a broader discussion of this topic is
needed. A discussion of this topic will take place at a future faculty meeting.
- The committee
will put on the next agenda a discussion of shortening the add period to one
week as it appears that some students are waiting until the last minute to
drop some of their classes.
- The final approved
proposal regarding the rule that the only 2 credit MAPs are permitted as follow-up
MAPs:
All MAPs, with the exception of follow-up MAPs, must be at least 4 credits.
Follow-up MAPs may be 2 credits. On those occasions when the MAP director
can show that two 2-credit segments of a MAP taken over two semesters best
meets the research requirements of the project, he or she should speak with
the Associate Dean regarding an exception. In such cases, the student would
enroll in a 397 for the first 2 credits of work, and then may enroll in a
499 for the following 2 credits of work in a subsequent semester.
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