Minutes of Physical Sciences Task Force

Feb. 7, 2003

 

Meeting Place: RVS 2213

Meeting Time: 1:30 pm

Participants: Dean Becker, Heather Beatty, Jeff Bechtold, Dale Biggs, Bob Blodgett, Chris Cavalli, Dan Dewberry, Saad Eways, James Friedrichsen, Jim Heath, Ron Johns, Tim Jordan, Frank Mikan, Mostafa Pirnia, Maurine Poe, C. D. Rao, Elliot Richmond, George Staff, Laura Tacheny, Allen Underwood, Sal Valastro

 

1.)     Approval of Agenda

2.)     Approval of Minutes for 12/06/02

3.)     Information items presented:

a.)     NSS Survey — George Staff and Chris Cavalli brought up the National Space Society on-line petition to support continued manned exploration and colonization of space.  Ron Johns agreed to email the website to everyone so that they can sign the petition.

b.)     Meeting with the President — Arrangements have been made to meet with President Font้ at 3:00 after the meeting.  After a brief discussion, it was agreed that those meeting with the President should discuss facilities, section cutting, the lack of dedicated classrooms and labs, and the building of a planetarium.  The fact that the current rules regarding adjunct advancement do not include consideration of teaching in the summer semester was also added as an item to be brought up.

c.)      Master Plan Initiatives — The administration has recently sent out a comprehensive list of master plan initiatives, and, much to our glee, almost all of the 20-odd proposals we submitted were approved.  However, almost all of them require voter approval of the tax and bond referendum in may to be funded.

d.)     Astronomy at Bowie — Jim heath and ron Johns will meet with Luanne Preston and folks from Bowie High School to investigate the possibility of offering astronomy at Bowie.

e.)      ESTE Curriculum Changes — The Curriculum Committee approved the changes in the ESTE program and degree plan we submitted.  In brief,

1.)     PSC 1603 (Science and the Environment) and PSC 1643 (Science and Social Issues) are being made equivalent to ACGM courses ENVR 1301 and 1302, respectively.  This entails a change in their names and minor changes to the course descriptions and other characteristics.

 

2.)     Now that the environmental technology courses have been offered, feedback from students and faculty suggest that some minor revisions are necessary.  The most significant of these relate to the name of the courses and the course descriptions, which have been slightly modified to better reflect the curriculum and introductory nature of the courses.

3.)     The Associate of Applied Science in Environmental Technology and the Advanced Technical Certificate in Environmental Technology will need to be modified to be in accord with the course changes discussed above.

 

4.)     The degree plan for an Associate of Science in Physical Science is renamed as being in Environmental Studies.  This is in keeping with similar programs at other colleges and with the new departmental name.  This also entails changes to some of the required coursework.

 

5.)     The Associate of Science in General Studies in Science contains some errors that need to be corrected.  It also needs to be brought in line with the other science degrees, which require a minimum grade of “C” in all math and science courses and a 2.0 GPA.

 

f.)       Budget Cuts — Our governor has decided that community colleges and four-year universities should lose 7% of their state funding.  TACC is forming a coalition of community colleges to fight this, but, given the level of dedication of our state government to education, it is very likely to happen.  This will result in a disemboweling of our current budgets, since the cuts will be retroactive to the beginning of the fiscal year.  The College already has a freeze on capital equipment and travel in place.  We are not able to run any field activities that are not required parts of the curriculum.

g.)     ESTE laptops — They’re on their way!  They were purchased just before the budget freeze.

h.)     Recycled Laptops — Our request for recycled laptops was presented to the tech committee.  Together with biology, we’re in line to receive 6 laptops in various stages of disrepair.

i.)       Syllabi — Everyone should have submitted a syllabus in accordance with the master syllabus guidelines.  We are still lacking Master Syllabi for a few courses.  Saad Eways offered to develop several of these for Engineering.

j.)       Hiring Committee — Saad Eways brought us up to date on the status of the Physics Hiring Committee.  The committee is formed and is awaiting applications from HR.

k.)     Program Reviews — Jim Heath and Jeff Bechtold brought us up to date on the status of the Astronomy and Physics program reviews, respectively.  Both are very nearly done.

l.)       Edwards Aquifer Monitoring Well — Bob Blodgett informed the committee of the status of the well.  The wellhouse is nearly complete and the pump will be installed very soon.  Bob received a round of applause for his tremendous efforts in bringing this project to fruition.

m.)   Lab Coordinator Meeting  — Just a reminder that there is a lab coordinator meeting at noon at HBC on March 21.

4.)     Items presented for discussion:

a.)     New Common Course Numbers — The state committee in charge of creating common course numbers is accepting recommendations.  We have several courses in need of TCCN’s, specifically PSC 1633, PHY 1653, SPS 1603, and GEO 1653.  Application requires some background research in what other colleges offer.  Jeff Bechtold offered to investigate the status of courses similar to PHY 1653.

b.)     Computer and Software Problesm at RGC — This topic is specific to Physics, so it was moved to the breakout session.

 

5.)     Items presented for action:

a.)     Astronomy Common Course Numbers — Lori Rosenthal had a student from SWTSU who was trying to transfer astronomy credits.  She discovered that SWTSU and Texas Tech have the opposite Common Course Numbers from our astronomy classes.  We have PHYS 1311 = Stellar Astronomy and PHYS 1312 = Solar System Astronomy, whereas the other two institutions have PHYS 1311= Solar System Astronomy and PHYS 1312 = Stellar Astronomy.  The confusion arises because the ACGM lists PHYS 1311 and 1312 as Introductory Astronomy I and II.  Jim Heath also pointed out that his review of other colleges in the program review indicated that many colleges were using those same numbers for a one-semester survey course that covered topics in both Stellar and Solar System Astronomy.  He agreed to investigate this issue more fully.

 

 

Minutes of ESTE/GEOL Subcommittee

Feb. 7, 2002

 

Participants: Heather Beatty, Bob Blodgett, Dan Dewberry, Ron Johns, Frank Mikan, Maurine Poe, George Staff, Sal Valastro

 

The committee briefly discussed the new edition of Understanding Earth that is coming out.  The consensus was that it looked promising and that we should adopt the new edition.

Sal Valastro brought up the question of what to do with his GEOL 1404 class, specifically, how to handle the fact that 75% of the students have not had GEOL 1403.  Given that the curriculum has to be covered, those present felt that while some minor accommodation might be made for the students, they were going to have to suck it up and study to compensate for their lack of Physical Geology.  The standards of the course cannot be compromised.

The rest of the time was spent discussing the draft list of course topics for geology classes.  Ron Johns will make the proposed revisions and send them out for review.  Ideally, a final vote can be taken on them at the next meeting.

 

 

Minutes of PHYS/AST/ENG Subcommittee

Feb. 7, 2003

 

The faculty introduced a discussion about offering basic laboratory computer system training to all instructors. Discussion of the need, type, and manner of delivery of this instruction will be continued in future meetings.      

The faculty next discussed a recent incident where an instructor felt threatened by one or more of her students. The lab coordinator at the campus involved will try to put into a place a system where there is less chance that an instructor would be teaching a class at night without a lab assistant nearby (two assistants were sick the day of the incident). Another instructor offered to come by during the time of this particular class in order to help prevent future incidents of this manner.      

John Cise, in absentia, introduced several topics. His proposal was to change the requirement for General Physics I to College Algebra from Intermediate Algebra. Near, but not total, agreement to this suggestion was found. The faculty will vote on the proposal next month.   Another proposal was that the words "C or better" be added to these prerequisites in the catalog.  A third proposal was to add the names of the classes to the catalog description. The last two proposals were approved.      

Allen Underwood suggested that the department write a "help sheet" for advisers. This document would help our advisors tell students the best physics class for them to take and when best to take it. This document will be discussed in future departmental meetings.      

Finally, Saad Eways presented his proposed official course topics for ENGR 2332. These topics were discussed and approved. The topics list will be added to the Departmental web site.