Core Committee Minutes

February 7, 2008

Lorentzsen Conference Room, 8:00 AM – 9:32 AM

Members present: D. Anderson, M. Burchill, A. Ingberg, D. Sandgren, L Sethre-Hofstad, G. Muilenburg, S. Schwartz. Guest: E. Simmons.

We began with a brief discussion of a proposed Senate motion by Doug Anderson to waive the requirement that students be of junior or senior standing before they can enroll in a 300-level Exploration Course for Core credit. Individuals cannot bring motions to the Senate, so the Core Committee must decide if it wants to sponsor this motion. Gregg asked why the language of the proposed motion did not also do away with the upper-class prerequisite for Religion 3**J courses. We learned from Ernie at the end of the meeting that there is precedent (and good sense) for keeping these issues separate.

Next we continued a previous conversation on Communication 316G, which has been submitted to receive U (US Cultural Diversity) Perspectives designation as well. According to the Catalog, page 22, students “are required to take two courses with Perspectives designation”. For this reason, no course should count for both Perspectives categories.

In the Faculty Senate Agenda for February 11, 2008, it was noticed that our committee’s recommendation to change the composition of the Core Committee to include one faculty representative from each Exploration Area plus Religion was misunderstood; the proposed legislation omits mention of Religion, but mentions separate representation for both Arts and Humanities, which are now in the same Exploration Area. We will propose a friendly amendment to the Senate motion in senate on February 11.

We welcomed a visit by Ernest Simmons, Professor of Religion. With Religion 3**J (Religion II) courses being submitted to Core for approval, we felt a need for the religion department to have a representative sit in and answer questions related to their course proposals. Ernie explained that Religion has many current 3**X (Integration) courses that need to be revisited, once the Capstone requirement becomes clarified. Some of these may be dropped, some converted to capstones (if possible), and some will be modified to become 3**J Religion II core courses; in particular this is the case for many of their courses from the Constructive methodological approach.

Courses discussed for Core approval:

1. Religion 314J “Paul: Apostle or Apostate?” was conditionally approved, pending reception of a separate syllabus.

2. Religion 316J “The Good Life: Old Testament Perspectives” was approved.

3. Religion 334J “Monotheisms” was approved.

4. Religion 349J “Christian Ethics in the Material World” was approved.

5. Religion 384 “Exploring Islam” was tabled until confirmation is received from Curriculum Committee.

6. Religion 386J “Religion in the Postcolonial World” was approved.

7. Religion 392 “Religion and World Affairs” was tabled until confirmation is received from Curriculum Committee.

The next meeting will be Tuesday February 12, 2008, at 8:00 AM.

Respectfully submitted by Douglas Anderson.