COLLEGE COUNCIL NOTES Fall 2007

To: All College Faculty and Staff
From: Melynda Nuss, Chair, College Council
Re: Open Forums for Discussion of the Flexible Core
Date: September 26, 2007

Dear Faculty:

The Faculty Senate has asked the College Councils from each college to organize college-wide discussions on the University’s new Flexible Core Proposal. Their goal is for all faculty to be informed about the proposal before a formal faculty vote, tentatively scheduled to begin October 29. They would also like to gather enough constructive feedback about the proposal (both positive and negative) to allow the Curriculum Committee to construct a more acceptable proposal in case the current proposal does not receive support from the faculty.

We will be holding two discussion forums:

Wednesday, October 10     2:45-4:00 pm  CAS 255
Thursday, October 11     2:45-4:00pm  CAS 254

Each forum will have a brief presentation on the history of the proposal and the way that it affects our current core requirements. After the presentations, we will have an opportunity for open, collegial discussion on the merits of the proposal and on alternatives that the University might want to consider. We will try to have representatives from the University Curriculum Committee at each forum to explain the reasoning behind the proposal and the constraints that the committee was operating within. The COAH members on the University Curriculum are Kenneth Buckman (Hist/Phil), Ed Cameron (English), Wendell Davis (Music), Michael Faubion (Hist/Phil), Greg Gilson (Hist/Phil) and Barbara Vielma (English).

The Faculty Senate also has a website where faculty can discuss the flexible core proposal. Although the Senate encourages all faculty to attach their names to their comments, there is also an opportunity to enter feedback anonymously by going to http://etrc.panam.edu/login and entering User name= bucky; Password= 4utpa.

The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures has organized a task force on the new core curriculum; if you would like to know more, you can read their statement opposing the proposal on the Faculty Senate website or contact Stephanie Alvarez at smalvarezm@utpa.edu.

Thank you so much. I look forward to an invigorating discussion.

Melynda Nuss
Chair, College Council
College of Arts and Humanities

Dr. Hector Ochoa
Dean


Dr. Jaime Curts
Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies

Dr. Sylvia Ramirez
Associate Dean for Graduate Studies

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