Undergraduate Council Attending:H. Chereck, P. Engelking, M. Gleason, A. Leavitt, J. Long, J. Nicols, S. Pratt, J Rice, M. Smith, S. Stolp, R. Zimmerman Absent:F. Chadwell, J. Earl, H. Gerdes, W. Gottshall, R. Koch, K. Nicholson, M. Partch, S. Ponder The meeting began at 12:35. Since the students hadn't yet arrived, it was decided to begin with the second item on the agenda. Access to Classes It was noted that this item was originally brought to the UC by Scott Pratt at one of the earlier meetings from his questioning if the UO is moving toward not having students able to complete their major requirements in a timely fashion. It was also noted that in the 80's, students came to UO from California because they were not able to graduate in a timely fashion due to inaccessibility. At the UO, one of the ongoing problems is class scheduling because students generally want to take classes during the hours of 9:00 am to 3:00 pm; and at the earlier or later times, classes are not full. Another problem for overcrowding is that some departments recommend that their majors take classes in other departments, and the other departments are unaware and not able to accommodate all the students. It was recommended that a subgroup be formed to identify the access issues. The members of the subgroup are: Herb Chereck (chair), Hilary Gerdes, Anne Leavitt, Scott Pratt, Marian Smith. The subgroup will meet about two times and will bring their list of issues back to the Council. General Education Requirements Since the students had not yet arrived, J.Rice offered to give some background regarding his talks with the students and what they are seeking. One of the items was related to course evaluations. He indicated that for the past three years, the ASUO has received evaluation data from the Computing Center through the Provost's Office, and the students have been publishing a pamphlet of numbers. Unfortunately, there were mistakes in the pamphlet and the quality of the information was poor. Lately, the ASUO has not been able to cover the cost of printing. The students are asking for good information so that they can make wise decisions during registration.Rice suggested that the administration, not the ASUO, put together the information. It was decided to have Resource Management create a web-searchable data base from which students could get information on the department, the course number, the course title, and the instructors. The students were very encouraged by this, but they would also like to have information about workload, would like to see a syllabus, and would like to see how the course fits in with other courses. Rice has met with two students in order to develop a package of ways to provide students with more information about courses and also address the issue of coherency in general education satisfying courses. It was suggested that in addition to having a web data base, each department prepare a summary which describes all their general education courses and information on how each course can be used to achieve coherence by packaging their courses together with courses from the same or different department. This information should be on the web for students to use before registering for classes. The new Duck Hunt system is set up so that students can key into a department to see what courses are being offered. What is hoped for are links from the course to a description of the course, a syllabus, the professor, and to evaluations. It would be in the department's best interest to set up these descriptions. Also, the department should indicate justification for the course to have group satisfying status. J.Nicols noted that CAS will be reviewing all the general education courses for all of their departments, and this system would reinforce the review. It would also show positive results of all the discussions of general education requirements out of the UC. One of the suggestions was that there be a template for the courses to make it easier for the students to search out the information. There also should be links from the template to a short biography of the faculty member, method of grading, and a short philosophy statement of undergraduate education. It was noted that this would be for general education courses only. In order for this to be effective for Fall term, these items should be in place by May. Building links to the various information would be the responsibility of the departments. Chereck indicated that the Registrar's office will train department personnel in creating the links. It was also indicated that some schools/colleges are using their ed tech money to maintain their websites. One concern was the fact that students register for courses before there is a syllabus available; therefore, the most current syllabus would be for the previous year. But Rice indicated that syllabi for general education courses do not change that much from year to year. Another concern was the fact that faculty also need training so that they can update their web page. S. Stolp suggested that faculty coordinate with the people who are preparing the new Student Handbook and also the Greenbook. The information in these publications can also be used for the web page. A. Leavitt noted that the information for the Student Handbook will all be done electronically, with only the final copy being a paper copy. Nicols indicated that he is currently doing something like this with his web page. He will try to set up something for History as a trial. He should have something worked up for the next meeting of the UC, March 17. It was the consensus of the group that the system be done right, even if it takes a longer time to do. Therefore, there is a possibility that the information will not be ready by May. But, sample templates should be ready for the UC review at the March 17 meeting. Meeting adjourned at 1:45 PM Next meeting: Friday, March 17, 12:30 PM, Johnson Hall Conference Room Minutes submitted by Carol White 
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