Physical Sciences Task Force
Meeting Minutes
March 3, 2000

The Physical Sciences Task Force met at 9:30 AM Friday, March 3, 2000 in room 4211 at NRG. Members in attendance: Pedigo, Valastro, Stege, Blodgett, Johns, Staff, Hill, Potter, Cavalli, Heath, Becker, Underwood, Cise, Bechtold, Williams, Prahovic.

1. Approval of Agenda - approved.
2. Approval of Minutes- The Minutes of the February 4 meeting were approved with a minor name change.
3. The following information items were presented: General Physics I will be offered at RVS beginning this summer. The college promises to provide money to buy the needed equipment. Fall 2000 scheduling is underway, and Spring will begin soon. It was suggested that AST should be added at EVC for the Spring. Ron gave a brief update on the progress toward an Environmental Technology program.
4. There are no textbook changes for summer, and only a few for Fall 2000. Tipler was adopted for Engineering Physics, and there are still some adoptions under consideration in PSC and GEOL. An unused textbook, McKinney and Toliver, is to be deleted for GEOL 1305 beginning in Fall. The group discussed a large number of changes in courses and degree plans for next year. TF members were asked to get any budget or Master Plan requests for next year to Jeff Bechtold's committee ASAP.
5. All courses were reviewed for compliance with the Texas Common Course Numbering System. Many were changed to fit, including a new Conceptual Physics course and revised engineering courses. All degree plans were reviewed, modified, and approved. The Task Force Chair is directed to submit all course and degree plan changes to the Curriculum Committee for approval. It was not possible to meet the joint requirements of incorporating the Core Curriculum and holding the degree plan under 66 hours, but we did our best. We also filled out the Core Competency Matrices. These will be reviewed and submitted by the TF Chair.
6. The only new business involved an upcoming tour of some of the local Dell facilities. This was set up by John Cise.
7. Breakout sessions-

GEO/PSC - (1) Rejected Aubrecht’s book on Energy as being unsuitable for PSC 1633. (2) Discussed the core competency matrices, determining what classes require prerequisites and what skills are taught in different courses. The worksheets were filled out and submitted to Daryl Pedigo. (3) Held brief discussion about the fall schedule and changes that have been made in it. (4) Once again discussed the mutilation of the geology and PSC degree plans in an attempt to cram the 42 credit hours of core curricula into them. A decision was made to drop the degree plan unless all of the changes requested by the Task Force are made. Revised degree plans will be submitted them for publication in the new catalog. (5) Talked about common course numbering and how best to apply it to the PSC and Geology programs. Since applying these numbers to our current PSC courses would scatter them between the geology and physics departments, a decision was made to simply keep the numbers that we currently use and submit the necessary paperwork for permission to run the following: PSC 1603, PSC 1613, PSC 1633, PSC 1643, GEOL 1653, and GEOL 2614. (6) Because it is apparently coming out in a new edition, Ron Johns will arrange for copies of the new edition of the Pipkin and Trent text used in GEOL 1305 to be sent to interested faculty members for review. (7) Brief discussion of capital items for the 5-year plan. A decision was made for faculty to bring ideas to the next TF meeting. (8) To help adjunct faculty reach the 4 hours of necessary professional development each year, Ron Johns will investigate the feasibility of getting task force meeting attendance to qualify as professional development.

AST/ENR/PHY - (1) The FTF hiring for PHYS was updated. (2) The group approved changes to physics and engineering courses discussed above. It was decided to try and leave PHY 1653 and PHY 1634 as they are for now. All the rest meet TCCN requirements after PHY 1603 is dropped. The changes leave us with 90% of our curriculum matching the TCCN exactly. (3) As part of the course revision process, it was decided to shift Statics and Dynamics back to standard, TCCN, 3 credit hour courses. This matches the UT switch that has already occurred. (4) Jim Heath demonstrated some physics software that the Learning Labs are considering for purchase. The group was generally supportive, but none of the software was identified as particularly wonderful

The meeting was adjourned at 12:15 pm.