Educational Policy Committee

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

 

Members Present: Pat Connelly, Fr. Bud Grant, Martin Hansen, Tom Hill, Lori Rodrigues-Fischer, Deanna Stoube, Jim Van Speybroeck, Barb Wiese, Dan Zeimet, Mara Adams

 

Guests: Allison Ambrose, Rick Dienesch, Lew Marx, Dee Wellman

 

I.                   Approval of minutes from 1/31/2006

Those minutes will be approved at next week’s meeting.

 

II.                Clarification of minutes from 1/31/2006

Corrections are in italics.

 

Discussion then moved to the issue of assessment.  T. Schuster-Matlock stated that assessment has focused largely upon evaluation of students through portfolios. The department would like to refine it more and is seeking a grant from the state Dept. of Education. In response to a question from a committee member, T. Schuster noted that while there do not seem to be competing demands from various accrediting agencies, some demands do pose challenges to the personal philosophies of individual professors.

State licensure for teachers does not currently require an exit test, but M. Less noted that such a requirement may be coming soon as a substitute for all the elaborate portfolio work that pre-service teachers must do. 

P. Koch argued that even if national standardized tests are used, it would be beneficial to maintain the practice of creating teaching portfolios.

J. Roller and B. Wiese added that students could perhaps keep rolling portfolios, especially since Iowa teachers must maintain portfolios anyway.

 

Motion passed without objection.

 

III.             Accounting Program Review

Motion to approve the Accounting Program Review: Jim Van Speybroeck; seconded by Pat Connelly.

 

The Undergraduate Accounting Program review included the following:

 

1. CHANGE:  The Department requests approval to add a new course, ACCT 360-Accounting Internship 1 to 3 credit hours. This course will not be one of the required accounting electives and will not count toward the 33 hours of required accounting courses.

2. CHANGE: The Department requests approval to change ACCT 402 to a topics class, and to rename it Accounting Seminar. The accounting topics covered will vary, and could include accounting ethics, accounting law, standard setters and current accounting problems, spotting accounting fraud, or advanced sampling. This will be a 1-3 hour course, and will be repeatable, for various topics. It will remain an accounting elective.

3. CHANGE: The Department requests approval to make the following changes to the accounting requirements:

 

Drop the following as requirements:

 

-BUS 301 – Business Law 1

-BUS 302 – Business Law 2

-ECON 307 – Money, Banking, and Financial Institutions

 

Add the following course as a requirement:

 

-BUS 201 Legal Environment of Business

 

Increase the business elective requirement from 6 hours to 12 hours, with no more 6 hours from any one department. The allowed electives are as follows:

-CSCI 150 Internet Programming and Application

-ECON 307 – Money, Banking, and Financial Institutions

-ECON 312 Intermediate Macro Theory

-ECON 313 Intermediate Micro Theory

-FNCE 300 Principles of Finance

-FNCE 301 Financial Valuation in the Corporation

-WI-MGMT 310 Principles of Management

-MGMT 332 Organizational Theory and Behavior

-MKTG 309 Principles of Marketing

-MKTG 322 International Marketing

-INTL 372 Managing Across Cultures

 

Changes Since the Last Program Review

  • The addition of ACCT 314, Internal Auditing, 3 credit hours, an elective course.
  • The change in how certain courses are now delivered. In cooperation with ACCEL, ACCT 301, ACCT 302, ACCT 305, ACCT 307, ACCT 309, ACCT 312 are now offered in 8-week sessions, 2 nights a weeks, for 2 hours and 35 minutes each night.
  • The department implemented a VITA (voluntary income tax assistance) program.
  • Changed our name back to Department of Accounting.

 

Long-Range Plans

 

1. Develop both undergraduate and graduate accounting ethics courses, making sure that there is minimal overlap between the 2 courses. Make the undergraduate course a required accounting course.

 

2. Develop an intra-disciplinary, independent-study type course where groups of two to four students will prepare research projects based on the content of the two specific courses. For example, a group in Tax and Cost might research international transfer pricing and its tax consequences. Or Special Topics and Auditing students could research how an unethical executives could overstate earnings to fraudulently overstate earning per share and therefore reap stock option benefits, and what audit techniques would uncover such a fraud.

 

3. Develop an inter-disciplinary course where students in courses from different departments complete a research project, such as groups from Cost and Marketing, or Tax and Finance.

 

4. Develop a writing lab for accounting students.

 

5. Develop, possibly in conjunction with the College of Business, a separate writing course that would be required of all accounting majors.

 

 

A committee member asked if the Career Services office will still manage the internships. Students will continue to rely upon Career Services for all the arrangements with regards to their internships. The proposed changes only affect how they will be transcripted; COOP as a designation will be replaced by the ACCT 360 designation.

 

A committee member asked about the teaching of 300 level courses for the ACCEL program. Lew Marx said that teaching 300 level material in six weeks presented various challenges, especially in the WI courses. Rick Dienesch noted that these issues are part of on-going discussions between the Accounting department and Lew Sanborne. 

 

A committee member asked about the proposed writing lab and the projected impact of this on the Student Success Center. Lew Marx and Dee Wellman noted that this writing lab would be funded by accounting firms for the purpose of teaching specific skills particular to the accounting discipline. In accordance with trends in business, many universities are using a model of funding and partnership between professional firms and accounting departments. Rick Dienesch noted that while our current Writing Lab provides support for general work, some disciplines in the business field, especially accounting, require writing assistance that is specifically tailored to that field. Many corporations are willing to finance such programs.

 

A committee member noted that a writing lab for College of Business students was proposed several years ago and yet has not been created. Furthermore, the removal of required courses such as ENGL 315 or the proposed writing lab impacts other departments outside the College of Business. Rick Dienesch pointed out that Accounting requirements with regards to writing have always different than others in the College of Business as they are affected by industry standards. It was decided that the discussion about the impact of a proposed writing lab was an important one and should take place in another venue. Long range plans are not approved by EPC until they are part of specific departmental changes in the review process.

 

Fr. Bud Grant noted that item # 2 on the four-point plans is one that he reviews carefully. He further noted that the while the account department’s  four-point plans do not always specifically address how item #2 is being assessed, the various course syllabi do make clear how they address the general education requirements. Fr. Bud suggested that it would be helpful if in their five year reviews, departments could use a code on the matrix to indicate how general education goals are being met. Fr. Bud further asked about the ways in which a quantitative discipline such as accounting would address teaching attitudes and values, the assessment of such values, and how this information could be included in the syllabi. Lew Marx, Allison Ambrose and Rick Dienesch offered several examples of how this was done in various courses and how industry standards require professionals to know and follow ethical guidelines.

 

Barb Wiese said that many departments grapple with how to assess attitudinal qualities; furthermore there does not appear to be any consistency in how departments use the matrix grid in their five year reviews. The whole faculty should be involved in a discussion about this consistency.

 

A committee member suggested a change in wording for statements that read “a student may be required…” to indicate the variety of teaching tools that faculty can employ in their courses. However, revised wording would remove any confusion as to what is actually required of students in any give course.

 

Jim Van Speybroeck called the question and the motion was passed without objection.

 

The Master of Accounting Program review included the following:

 

The Accounting Department wished to propose the following actions to be taken by the Educational Policies Committee:

 

1. The addition of MAcc 622, Forensic Accounting.

 

2. Replace MAcc 614 The Management Consulting Profession with MAcc 614 Financial Statement Analysis and Valuation.

 

3. Change the name of MAcc 603 from Advanced Managerial Accounting Theory and  

   Controllership to Advanced Managerial Accounting Theory.

 

4. Change MAcc 609 from a required to an elective course.

 

Jim Van Speybroeck called for the question. Motion was approved without objection with the proviso that the department submits the syllabus for MAcc 614.

 

IV.              IE Proposal

 

Proposal for Curriculum Changes in Industrial Engineering

The industrial engineering department has discussed curricular changes (CSCI 195, IE 105, IE 110) for review at the Spring 2006 Industrial Engineering Advisory Board Meeting.  After discussion and any appropriate revision, the following proposed changes will be presented to the Educational Policies Committee for approval and to be put into effect prior to May 15, 2006.

 

1. Proposal:

The Industrial Engineering department proposes that the CSCI 195 Programming in C++ be eliminated from the Bachelor’s of Science in Industrial Engineering degree requirements.

 

2. Proposal:

The Industrial Engineering department proposes that the IE 105: Introduction to Industrial Engineering be changed from a 3 hour course to a 1 hour course.

 

3. Proposal:

The Industrial Engineering department proposes that the IE 110: Engineering Graphics  be changed from a 3 hour course to a 2 hour course with one hour section of lecture and two one hour sections of lab (this would keep the course load for the professor, at 3 hours for this course)

 

Motion to approve changes: Jim Van Speybroeck; seconded by Deanna Stoube. Motion passed without objection.

 

 

V.                 New Business

 

No new business.

 

Reminders that next week’s meeting will discuss proposals for EDUC 590, 591 and the History Department five-year review.