EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

PRESENT 
Tony Allred, Bill Clapp, Gary Dohrer, Michelle Heward, Diane Kawamura, Marie Kotter, Ann Millner, Dan Schroeder, Molly Smith, Kay Brown - Secretary

EXCUSED 
Dave Eisler, Dawn Gatherum

MINUTES 
Marie Kotter: Moved to approve the minutes from the February 13, 2003 meeting
Second: Bill Clapp
Outcome: The minutes were approved.

The survey will be randomly administered to just over two thousand Weber State students. They have received IRB approval for the survey. Nine out of eleven state institutions have approved the use of the survey. The survey will take the students 25-30 minutes to complete. The question of whether a student could take the survey home was asked.

Concerns:
How is the information going to be used?
Many of the questions are intrusive
The information could be used against the University

Would the information be available through GRAMA (Government Records Access and Management Act)? Could a reporter access the information? If the information is stored at Weber State it would probably fall under GRAMA. Rebecca Reese will contact Rich Hill, University Council to discuss the issue.
Using one class period to administer the survey. A possible alternate to using class time could be making it available in the Testing Center.
Where does it state who will have access to the information?
Could the survey affect funding from the Legislature?
The student organization, WSUSA (Brody Barnes, President), has not been contacted. How do students feel about this survey?

Sample survey questions of concern -

Question #25 Do you support stricter disciplinary consequences for students who repeatedly violate campus alcohol policies? This is a politically charged question. Could the Legislature use this information to impose mandatory disciplinary policies?

Question #58 - How interesting are most of your courses to you?

Question #59 - During the past year, how did you usually get beer, wine, or hard liquor?

Is there protection for the students and the institution? Each university will have available to them the information from their university. The data will then be combined from all the state institutions

The Legislature will not have the results of the individual institutions, only the combined information.

Benefits: The Drug and Alcohol Education Office will be able to target their focus and the intervention they do to the areas that the students have identified as problems. They will be more effective in their work of health promotion.

This item will be rescheduled for the Agenda Setting meeting on March 13. A one page document from the Drug and Alcohol Education Office stating who they are, where the survey comes from, the other institutions participating in the survey, details of how the survey would be administered, what would be done with the results, and why this information will be of value to Weber State needs to come to the March 13 meeting for discussion with the possibility of having the item and information sheet forwarded to the Faculty Senate for the March 27 meeting.

Currently the policy reads: "Courses selected to fulfill the breadth requirements must each be from a different program (e.g., have a different course abbreviation), with the exception of Honors courses."

Questions raised and discussed - Should the breadth requirements be reviewed? In practice does this requirement do what we want it to do? Should students be able to take two courses from one area? Is the current distribution fair? The idea behind the policy was to expose students with faculty in different departments with different view points.

Another question raised was, Should there be a blanket rule for transfer credits that result in a percentage less than the credit hours required, i.e. 2.33 or 2.75 credit hours?

Also discussed was the idea of reviewing the criteria listed under each area of general education. As a result of the college assessment committees, colleges are reviewing current criteria and proposing changes.

MOTION 
Marie Kotter: Moved to send a request to the deans stating that as a result of assessment, some colleges are requesting changes to the criteria for the various areas of the general education requirement. If a dean feels changes are needed in the general education criteria for their college, those requests need to be sent and reviewed by their college curriculum committee, signed off by the chair of the college curriculum committee, the dean of the college, and forwarded to the Curriculum & General Education Committee for review. Requests for changes in general education criteria are due by the end of Fall Semester 2003. The University Curriculum & General Education Committee will then review all changes from all colleges together.
Second: Michelle Heward
Outcome: The motion passed unanimously.

The Executive Committee discussed putting together an ad hoc committee or a sub committee of the Curriculum & General Education Committee.

Jim Wilson was asked to address the general education concerns about the current policy and suggest as a possible charge for next year’s Curriculum & General Education Committee to review the current policy and make recommendations.

WILD CARD 
Fred Hansen, Director of Purchasing, and chair of the Wild Card Committee has requested that two faculty members sit on the committee. Molly Smith and John Ellsworth’s names will be forwarded to Fred Hansen.

ADJOURN 
The meeting adjourned at 3:30 p.m.