2016-04-19 Meeting Notes

Date

Apr 19, 2016

Attendees

AY 2015-2016 Members: Jont Allen, Can Bayram, Mohamed Ali Belabbas, John Dallesasse, Arne Fliflet, Patricia Franke, Pavan Kumar Hanumolu, Kiruba Haran, Yih-Chun Hu, Nam Sung Kim, Erhan Kudeki (Ex-Officio), Rakesh Kumar, Stephen Levinson, Yi Lu, Jonathan Makela (Chair), Serge Minin, Chandrasekhar Radhakrishnan, Maxim Raginsky, William Sanders (Ex-Officio), Christopher Schmitz, Jose Schutt-Aine, Paris Smaragdis, Lav Varshney, Shobha Vasudevan, Venugopal Veeravalli, Lara Waldrop, Hao Zhu

Discussion Items

Minutes

• The meeting was called to order at 2:05pm.
• Minutes from April 5, 2016 were approved.
• The committee discussed the draft report on the delivery of the core curriculum, complied by Makela.
  • A general discussion of the need of a "instructional methods" person (or group).  They would monitor the literature as well as activities on campus (and outside, as possible) for new methods.  They would also serve as a repository for institutional knowledge.  There were questions on whether this position (a) should sit at the department level or elsewhere (i.e., the college) and (b) whether this would be a new position or a new responsibility for an existing person.  There was concern that this might generate an additional level of bureaucracy and stifle innovation.  It was also discussed whether this person should be a practitioner or educational specialist.
  • There was discussion about how to encourage faculty to be engaged in the introductory core.  It was suggested that, while these courses were evolving over the past few years, it was good to have a smaller set of instructors.  When the "bugs" are worked out and the material is at a stable point, more instructors could be encouraged to teach these courses.  It was also suggested that a subset of our faculty will not be interested in teaching at this level, which is fine.
  • Makela agreed to make a slight revision to the document based upon the discussion and other feedback received on the draft report and have a final version ready for discussion at the next curriculum committee meeting.
• The meeting was adjourned at 2:49pm.

Action Items