Not attending: Faye Caldwell, Megan Partch, Stephen Ponder, Carol White (on vacation).

Visitors: John Moseley, Karen Sprague, Terri Warpinski, Kate Wagley, Mike Eyster

Jim Long welcomed the group at 8:05.

1. Dean or Vice Provost of Undergraduate Studies. Provost John Moseley attended to have a discussion with the group about the job description for the proposed Dean or Vice Provost of Undergraduate Studies (title still needs to be agreed upon) in the Office of Academic Affairs. This would be a half to 2/3 position targeted at a current faculty member devoted to undergraduate education who is willing to put in approximately three years. Job description needs to represent a part-time rather than full-time job.

Part of the position would consist of a current piece of Jim Buck's job having to do with Office of Student Advising and Retention, and Office of Multicultural Affairs. The new Dean would be the point person for the Undergraduate Council.

One Council member asked about the relation of this new position to the College Deans? Moseley described the position as being the same as the Graduate Dean, officially the Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies. The position would be parallel to the Graduate Dean except for tasks unique to the graduate level, such as GTF's.

Another Council member asked about the title of the position in relation to Ann Leavitt's new position (Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of Student Life). After discussion, the Council member stated that he was in favor of the Vice Provost title for the new position.

Council member question: Do you see this new Dean as having a budget? Yes, but not from new monies. Moseley described current monies that would be shifted to this position.

Council member question: Why an official administrative title and position when faculty are generally uneasy about increasing administration? With the title, the new person would be empowered to carry out the tasks. Moseley described the ratio of central administration to other expenses and a recent summary report available to us if we so desire.

The Undergraduate Council would work in an advisory fashion with the new Dean much as the Graduate Council works with the Graduate Dean.

Council member question raised about the Career Center. Moseley acknowledged that Career Center needs to be thought about.

Moseley wants to come back to the UC with a written position description (four weeks from now).

2. "Guiding Principles for the Transfer of General Education Credits Between Oregon University System (OUS) Institutions" Moseley also walked us through this document (distributed earlier). Students transfer fairly easily if they have an Academic Transfer (AAOT) Degree from a community college, but there are problems yet to be solved for transfer between "sister" institutions.

Question: Is it easily identifiable at each of the other institutions (e.g. Portland State) whether student has met the U of O requirements? A Council member suggested adding a statement to the document that allows a student to have exceptions--e.g. if a student comes with part of the requirement met in an area (e.g. 11 credits) and takes one more course to achieve 15 credits.

Question: Who implements this set of guidelines? Question: Is this document referring to group or general education requirements? Moseley says U of O can add addenda to this set of guidelines. As Council members continued to ask questions and make suggestions, Moseley recorded ideas for changing or amending the document.

3. Process for Change Report. Karen Sprague attended to guide us through the document that summarized the Process for Change (distributed previously). Sprague 's comments included:

Goals: increase coherence and quality of the undergraduate experience

Dean's Scholarships. Work of the recruitment and retention committee was the initial impetus--one of the results was "Dean's Scholarships". The admission numbers so far seem to be better (higher quality students).

New requirement: If GPA was lower than 3.0, applicant has to write an essay. Seems to have weeded out some people.

Surveys show that students are "amazingly happy" here.

Participatory Learning Experiences--Upper Division group--still wants to expand the implementation of this piece, but slowly and carefully. Looking at proposals carefully. Integration of these projects with those listed by the Career Center. Don Van Houten and a committee working on sorting which ones are worth academic credit.

Pathways--generated by Lower Division team. Experiment. The effort of looking at coherence needs to be continued. Three pathways operating. Two are classic. The other is in Romance Languages--starts students at a higher level, moves them quickly into study of cultures. Need for other pathways: What is missing--Pathways with the Arts or the Sciences as a key emphasis. What else is missing is one that is about other things but is for scientists.

Projects for 2000-- Sprague will return for out next meeting October 21 to present these.

4. Proposal from Photography. Terri Warpinski, Assoc. Dean, AAA, and Kate Wagley, Head, FAA, came to answer questions.. We looked at the BFA part of the proposal only. Warpinski and Wagley described the gist of the proposal. It does not require any new courses, but is a separation of existing courses from Visual Design into its own unit. The BFA Photography Program was approved unanimously.

5. Council members introduced themselves.

Meeting was adjourned at 9:15.