Proposed amendment to the motion:

To replace “That the Registrar be added as a member of the Academic Standing and Honors Committee as a non-voting, ex officio member…” with “the Registrar and a professional adviser be added as members of the Academic Standing and Honors Committee as non-voting, ex officio members.” (Stein)

There was a supporting email for this motion from Eddie Cheng, Chair of Academic Standing and Honors committee (ASH).  Ms. Wood asked who the professional adviser would be, and why that person would be needed.  Ms. Stein replied that with the charge of the committee and the students involved, it would be best to have a professional adviser on the committee.  Mr. Grossman inquired who would appoint the professional adviser.  Mr. Shablin answered that the chair of the Academic Standing and Honors committee would call the chair of the PAC committee, and a designee would be appointed.

The amendment was passed unanimously.
The motion was passed unanimously.

NEW BUSINESS

1. Motion from the University Committee on Undergraduate Instruction and the General Education Committee to adopt its draft on International Baccalaureate credit for General Education courses

MOVED that the Senate approve the policy for granting credit to students earning the International Baccalaureate Diploma as recommended by the University Committee on Undergraduate Instruction and the General Education Committee (Eis, Latcha)

Scott Crabill was present to answer questions about the motion regarding granting credit from the International Baccalaureate for General education courses.  He introduced Caroline O’Mahony (UCUI), Ray Liedka (Gen Ed Committee) and Tricia Westergaard (Associate Registrar) who were present to help answer questions.  Mr. Crabill provided an explanation of what the International Baccaulaureate is, namely, a rigorous high school preparatory program that allows students to develop academically, as well as acquire a sense of overall well-being.  The IB blends language, science, arts, math as well as service-minded activities, and prepares students to excel when they go on to the university.  He explained that the difference between the IB and the AP programs are that with the AP program, a student could do Calculus for Math AP, for instance.  But if you do the IB, you have to do the whole program.  He said that they had looked at and reviewed all the tests, and made sure that students were getting credit based upon the totality of the diploma so that it matched up with the spirit of General Education at OU.   He reported that there are impressive success rates for students among IB test completers, and he added that universities want to accept the best and the brightest, which the IB students are.  Mr. Crabill provided statistics about the number of IB students who are accepted compared with the number who actually enroll at OU, and since these numbers are low, he suggested that perhaps students go to universities that accept the most IB credits.  Ms. O’Mahony added that we need to recruit students like these, who can write a 4000 word essay, as IB students can do, for example. She said that OU needs to be more IB-friendly, and what the General Education committee would like to do is make OU more interesting to IB students, and recruit students from all over the world.  

Mr. Clason said that he thought it was a good idea.  However, he wanted to make sure that once we get these students to our campus, we should get them to continue with their international education.  Mr. Clason said that he would want to encourage these students to take more languages, although they have been told by advisors that they did not need to take foreign languages.  He pointed out that these students can take another language while at OU other than the one they had earned credits for.  Mr. Grimm asked for information about how many apply to OU with an International Baccaulareate, and Mr. Crabill replied that 44 students applied last year.  Mr. Grimm inquired what had changed in the existing policy, and Mr. Crabill stated that the difference is that OU had not been giving credit for a standard level course, but with the new policy these students would get credit for standard level courses, not just Gen Ed courses.  Mr. Grimm asked if there is a limit to the number of credits they can get, and Mr. Liedka replied that they can get up to 28 credits.  Ms. Westergaard observed that the number of students who had sent IB scores was 47.

Ms. Miller said that she thinks the IB policy is a good idea, but she also said that she does not think that IB students pick Vanderbilt or another institution instead of OU just because they are more IB-friendly institutions.  She said that there needs to be a broader movement at OU to provide the best education.  Mr. Grossman inquired how many AP students there were, so as to compare that number with the 47 who sent IB test scores.  Ms. Westergaard replied that OU gets over 900 AP tested students and she emphasized that there is always a much larger number of AP students than IB students.  Mr. Larrabee asked why we do not have additional options to offer them once they have gotten their IB credits, and Mr. Crabill answered that OU is trying to set the bar higher in order to get these students involved. Ms. O’Mahony said that IB students expect a lot when they come to OU, and so we should be aiming at both getting and also keeping these students.  She added that it is not really all about the course-by-course credit, but about the qualities of the students we want to have on our campus.  Ms. Miller expressed her concern that the IB policy would become another program that gets students in and out as fast as possible, which may be why we have retention problems.

GOOD AND WELFARE

• Michelle Piskulich told the Senate that ‘Survey Monkey’ will be used to sign up for Senate Standing Committees, and she hopes that senators will encourage faculty members in their departments to volunteer for committees. . 
• Ms. Bee said that she feels as if the right hand does not always know what the left hand is doing, as with the 3+3 program, and she thought we should try to avoid that type of situation.  Ms. Miller said that she agreed.  Ms. Eis said that she thought there are two issues—Political Science had not been involved in the 3+3 program, and also it needs to be clarified what constitutes an informational item.  She suggested that the Steering Committee could work on some kind of clarity for this, and then bring it back to the Senate as part of the university’s process.  Mr. Grossman said that the Senate constitution states that the Senate is supposed to be consulted on all matters of academic importance.  Mr. Meehan thanked Ms. Eis and Mr. Grossman, and said that this was the reason he had brought up the 3+3 matter on behalf of Mr. Dulio.  Mr. Meehan added that what an informational item is needs to be clarified so we make sure that we have the type of consultation we all believe in as shared governance.  Mr. Dulio said that he had talked to Mr. Crabill about the 3+3 program, but he is still not certain that it is a great idea.  He said that he brought it up because he believes we need to talk about it more, and also we need more weighty conversations and discussions about what we do and how we do it.  Mr. Polis said that we do have a whole series of processes that cover everything, and numerous committees that each have procedures, and so we need to follow these procedures already in place.  Ms. Awbrey said that we need to think what is a new program and what is a modification, because new programs come all the way to the Senate, but modifications go to UCUI, and so there is a difference.  Mr. Shablin observed that he used to see experienced people on committees, talking and discussing issues, but the new faculty need to know that they should bring the topics back to the departments because information at UCUI that has broad representation is not being discussed in departments. Ms. Berven suggested that it would help if there were minutes from committee meetings posted online for everyone to read.  Ms. Awbrey said they had become concerned about modifications because at UCUI they were not seeing them, yet programs were morphing, and so UCUI started to look at them.  She added that one issue is how much does the Senate want to see.
• Ms. Stein reported that she had attended the Retention Conference and it was excellent.  She said that the conference was very relevant to the IB discussion, and she encouraged faculty members to attend this conference next year. 

The meeting was adjourned at 4:20 P.M.

Respectfully submitted,
Dikka Berven (secretary)