Meeting Place: RGC - 326

Meeting Time: 9:30am

Participants: James Friedrichsen, Lala Guerra, Ron Johns, Chris Cavalli, Paul Nacozy, Hadi Parhikhteh, Dean Becker, Bob Blodgett, Karl Trappe, Jeff Bechtold, C.D. Rao, Dale Biggs, Leslie Davis, Saad Eways, David Wolf, John Underwood, James Heath, Eric Ebner Elliot Richmond, George Staff, Paul Williams, Dennis Dunn, Mostafa Pirnia, Jan Smith, John Conners

1.) Approval of Agenda

2.) Approval of Minutes from:

3.) Information items presented:

a.) New Geology Courses Added to the Core Curriculum – Geology 1301 and Geology 1405 have been added to the Core Curriculum.

b.) Faculty Advising – All fulltime faculty members will be advising students who have declared their discipline as their major. James mentioned to all fulltime faculty members that they would need to complete a faculty advising training by the end of April. Everyone shared their questions, concerns and suggestions.

c.) FERPA – Linda Kluck will be coming in May - There is no new information on the FERPA rule. There were discussions on other admission issues. Everyone was told that Linda Kluck from admissions would be at our May 5^th meeting to talk to everyone about the FERPA rule and other admissions questions.

d.) Classified Employee Evaluations –Evaluations for Classified Employees have to be completed between April 17 and May 15, 2006. Lab Coordinators will have to fill out evaluation paperwork for Lab Techs. Once the paperwork is completed, the paperwork will be sent to James Friedrichsen. James will then sign off on the evaluation prior to sending it on to David Fonken.

e.) Professional Development – Jim Heath informed everyone in the meeting that the creationism and intelligent design professional development would probably not be ready till fall. He also announced that over the summer the National Science Foundation sponsors a system of short course for science college teachers for their Chautauqua program. These courses are offered at varies colleges and universities through out the United States and selected special sites. Jim told everyone that he would have the brochure and the website (www.chautauqua.pitt.edu) available to anyone that is interested.

f.) Budget – Ron Johns told everyone that a new software program had been developed to make entering of the budget development easier. Ron Johns stated that our department had to prioritize what we really needed for our departments. After a discussion, it was agreed that the main three items needed were money for field trips, laptops and money for the engineering department.

g.) NASA – George Staff told everyone at the meeting that the NASA trip went well and that only 7 students attended. George also announced that he would no longer volunteer for the NASA trip and that someone else would have to volunteer.

4.) Discussion Items:

a.) International Baccalaureate Credit –We are mandated by the state to accept IB credits. The International Baccalaureate program is a European testing system for 16 and 18 year old students who go in and take a selection of courses and written examinations to earn a diploma. There’s a variety of options the students can take such as in different languages and different locations and they get one diploma overall. There are two levels in the IB courses, which are standard and higher level courses. In physics for example, this courses cover topics that are algebra based. UT of Austin only accepts the higher level course for physics with a score of 5, 6 or 7. Therefore we will follow UT Physics and accept the following IB courses: We will accept the higher level course in Physics with a score of 5, 6 or 7 for credit for General College Physics I and II. However after further research it was determined that Environmental studies IB course topics list did not fit our courses, so it was decided that it shouldn’t count for credit in Geology and ESTE

5.) Action Items:

a.) Department Chair Elections – James Friedrichsen was re-elected as department chair for

Physical Sciences again

6.) New Business:

Minutes of PHYS/AST/ENG Subcommittee

April 7, 2006

Participants James Friedrichsen, Lala Guerra, Chris Cavalli, Paul Nacozy, Hadi Parhikhteh, Dean Becker, Karl Trappe, Laura Tacheny, Jeff Bechtold, C.D. Rao, David Wolf, Saad Eways, John Underwood,

Everyone in the meeting voted for their choice of textbook for General Physics. There was a tie between Wilson and Young. The final decision was extended till April 14, 2006 because some instructors did not get the opportunity to look over the Young textbook.

Minutes of GEOL/ESTE Subcommittee

April 7, 2006

Participants: Bob Blodgett, Jan Smith, Leslie Davis, Dennis Dunn, Ron Johns, George Staff

The Coordinating Board has removed EPCT 2403 from its inventory of Texas Common Course Numbers, precipitating the need to reassign the Field Methods with Natural Waters class a new TCCN. George will fill out the necessary paperwork and submit it to the Curriculum Committee.

An issue came up in Prof. Dunn’s class regarding a student who could not participate in Saturday field activities for religious reasons. He will be allowed to do a self-guided trip, but it was agreed that a course note be added to the relevant courses in the course schedule informing students that a Saturday field activity will be required.

Before textbooks were selected, a discussion was had regarding our general disappointment with the lab manual for GEOL 1403. For years, the publisher has ignored our suggested revisions and corrections, had the same mistakes in edition after edition, posed the same poorly worded questions, removed illustrative diagrams and included photos that are not particularly relevant to the curriculum. Unfortunately, it is still better than anything else out there. In desperation, we agreed that we will need to make our own manual. We will work together to share the burden and should be able to get it published. The details will be worked out beginning next fall.

Textbooks were chosen for GEOL 1301, GEOL 1403, and GEOL 1405. A decision was made to go with the new edition of Press and Sevier for GEOL 1403, and to stick with Keller for the new GEOL 1405 course, the same text used in GEOL 1305. Bob recused himself from the decision on GEOL 1301 and left the meeting. The remaining participants unanimously felt that the text he co-authored with Keller was the best one for the new course.