Minutes of the Education Policy Committee

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

Submitted by Nathan Schlueter

 

Present:

Terry Schlabach

Kris Eitrheim

Nathan Schlueter

Barb Wiese 

Bonnie Leonhardt

Pam Long

Paul Koch

Rich Legg

 

Guests:

Dan Zeimet

Chris Lee

Richard Dienesch

Art Moreau

Lew Sandborne

Ralph Harris

Jim Van Spreybrock

                                         

Organizational Business:

1)      Motion to approve minutes from April 8 meeting

a.       Leonhardt

b.      Eitrheim

c.       Approved

2)      Economics and Finance Program Review

a.      (The Economics review is postponed until next October)

b.      Art Moreau presented the Finance review

                                                              i.      The Finance department interviewed students and businesses in preparation for the review, and determined that the currently designed general finance major was not optimally serving the students or the business community. Instead, they propose to move to a "screening" model which allows for majors to concentrate in a given area within the major. These "screens" would include a Financial Institutions Concentration (focus on valuation), a Corporate Concentration (focus on accounting and financing) and a Financial Economics Concentration (focus on financing and economics). This change would involve a complete overhaul of the program.

                                                            ii.      The present business core course in finance (FNCE 303) is both too general (for majors) and too specific (for non-majors). The department proposes to transform this into general course (FNCE 300) and to change its focus away from corporate finance

                                                          iii.      The department plans to use topics courses to allow greater flexibility for fast changing conditions

                                                          iv.      The review contains a complete set of substitutions for a January implementation of the new program

                                                             v.      FNCE 200 is approved and will appear in the catalogue, but will not be offered for general education credit. (Consideration of this question is postponed until the fall).

c.       Motion to approve Finance review

                                                              i.      Leonhardt

                                                            ii.      Wiese

                                                          iii.      Approved

3)      New Courses in Economics

a.       ECON 375 (Law and Economics) presented by Lee

                                                               i.      Increased focus on law and economics in law school; judges are increasingly using such reasoning; part of pre-law certificate program and Interdisciplinary Minor

b.      STBE 337 (Statistics for Business and Economics) presented by Harris

                                                               i.      Attempt to combine (and eliminate) BUS 205 and BUS 305; more use of computer; frees up resources

c.       Motion to Approve

                                                               i.      Eitrheim

                                                             ii.      Long

                                                            iii.      Approved

4)      Financial standing policy

a.       Schlueter made motion to recommend to University officers that policy of prohibiting students with bad financial standing from withdrawing from courses be eliminated 

                                                               i.      Eitrheim

b.      Amended Motion: There was a discussion of the first motion. Sanborne offered practical reasons why this is an effective policy for securing payments. Schlueter reiterated that students should not be threatened with an academic "F" for financial reasons. Schlueter then proposed to amend the motion above to recommend to the University officers that, rather than eliminate the policy entirely, a substitute administrative designation be used on the transcript, rather than an academic "F," for those students who desired to but were prohibited from withdrawing from a course for financial reasons.

                                                               i.      Amended motion approved  

5)      The time was set for first meeting of next year

a.       September 2, 3:15, 231 AM

6)      EPC intends to strictly enforce deadline rules for submissions next year

7)      Discussed the possibility of requiring a regular and consistent format for submitting materials. This will be discussed next fall.

8)      Motion to thank Terry for her service to the committee

a.       Schlueter

b.      Wiese

c.       Approved

9)      Motion to adjourn

a.       Long

b.      Eitrheim

c.       Approved