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| Tuesday, November 15th, 2016

  

Reformulation of chemistry degree programs discussed at latest UGSC meeting

Soren Spicknall
COPY EDITOR

The most recent meeting of the
Undergraduate Studies Committee (UGSC),
the body composed largely of faculty and staff
which makes major decisions about the future
of undergraduate education at Illinois Tech,
covered a range of proposals stemming from
previous discussions and from new material
presented by various departments. At the
beginning of its biweekly meeting on Tuesday,
November 8, the gathered representatives
discussed the merits and drawbacks of three
separate proposals meant to address a debate
from the previous meeting, focusing on how
pass/fail credits should be counted when
calculating a student’s GPA for graduating with
honors.

The first proposed solution was not
a proposal in the formal sense, as it suggested
making no change to the existing policy, which
requires at least 60 “graded” hours to be taken at
Illinois Tech for a student to be considered for
honors. Since “graded” has a specific definition
at the university level, pass/ fail courses would
not be counted toward that 607credit total or
in the honors GPA calculation. The second
proposal sought to remove the word “graded”
from that statement, allowing pass/ fail courses
to count toward the required credit total for
an honors designation, but leaving the issue of
GPA calculation unresolved. The final proposal
was formatted as follows:

"For purposes of Honors or High Honors
designation, PASS/FAIL courses are considered
graded courses. However, if the student has
elected PASS/FAIL grading, a lower bound on
GPA will be calculated utilizing the lowest letter
grade qualifying as PASS for those courses,
and this lower bound on GPA will be used to
determine eligibility for honors designations.

   
  

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If the course is only offered as PASS/FAIL (i.e.
not student elected) it will not be included in
this minimum bound calculation."

Because this full range of proposals
was not available at the previous UGSC
meeting, discussion on them was relatively
limited compared to the extended debate
two weeks before. Representatives were
asked to take all three proposals back to their
departments for feedback, and to reconvene
for a decision at the next meeting.

Next, slight revisions to the Neural
Engineering and Imaging Tracks of the
Biomedical Engineering curriculum were
presented as an information item, consisting
of a change of a single course requirement and
no change in the number of required hours to
complete the degree.

Discussion quickly moved on to the
next agenda item, a proposed BS. in Molecular
Biochemistry and Biophysics (MBB) Co,
Terminal degree with the MS. in Molecular
Biochemistry and Biophysics. Because the
degree was being presented for the first time
that Tuesday, an approval vote will not be held
until the next UGSC meeting. There was some
opposition to a change made in the coeterminal
degree which removed a required specific
elective in the master’s degree it is based
upon, highlighting the principle held by some
that coeterminal degrees should be as closely
linked to their individual undergraduate
and graduate degrees as possible. Some were
concerned that significant changes in degree
programs while creating coeterminal degrees
could lead to a requirement that those degrees
be accredited additionally as individual degree
programs, which is not currently the case.
Others in the group pointed to the existence
of certain coeterminal degree programs which
already slightly modify the requirements of
their undergraduate or graduate portion,

saying that any precedent there might have
been for requirements to remain untouched
had been usurped by practical implementation
of different coeterminal degrees over time.
With those in the room agreeing to disagree
for the time being, the proposed program was
put aside for further discussion at the next
meeting.

The most substantial topic of the
afternoon came when two representatives of
the Department of Chemistry gave a formal
presentation previewing a complete overhaul of
their degree programs, excluding the baseline
BS. in Chemistry with no specialization. The
presenters explained that their department
currently offered six specialized degree
programs, created in 2005, each with four or
five additional course requirements beyond
the regular chemistry degree. Those programs
had been plagued by extremely low enrollment
numbers (three of them experiencing zero
enrollment at one point or another), attributed
to poor marketing and the programs’ lack
of relevance to modern chemistry careers.
The chemistry department hoped to close
its current programs and launch five new
programs in the Fall semester of 2017 after
assessing tracks that are currently in demand,
wishingto create a diverse array of degrees that
are more easily marketable than their previous
specialized options. Those five degrees
would be in bioanalytical, computational,
environmental, forensic, and medicinal
chemistry, each of which would be a “first” for
Chicagoland universities, the state of Illinois,
or even the US. as a whole.

The chemistry department’s
proposal included a plan to refresh discipline,
specific expertise in its ranks, as well as
expansion of research work. Only two new
faculty members would be needed between all
five programs, since the programs were largely

 

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formulated in such a way that credits would
be shared with other departments. That said,
eight new plans were still planned to be created
within the department to fit the needs of the
new degrees. Solving the other half of the
department’s ongoing recruitment issues, its
staff announced plans to aggressively market
its new degrees in a way that had never been
done for the programs formulated in 2005,
attracting students from across the country
and abroad.

Some UGSC members expressed
worries about the burden that having low
enrollment in the future might put on the
department to maintain and staff courses
with very few students, but the department's
representatives highlighted the high degree
of crossover between credits as a way of
mitigating potential strain. A number of typos
were found in the department’s proposals for
the credit breakdown of its five new degrees, as
well, all of which must be corrected before the
degrees are approved by the UGSC.

After the Department of Chemistry’s
presentation, the UGSC briefly reviewed
and voted upon reports generated by the
Communication Across the Curriculum
program, a subcommittee of the group, which
had evaluated coursework in the Department
of Humanities and the Department of Math
& Science Education. The reports were voted
through without much discussion, aside from
a clarification from UGSC chair Ray Trygstad
about why the materials required a vote in the
first place.

UGSC meetings take place biweekly
in various rooms within Wishnick Hall, and
documentation of its members, decisions, and
discussions can be found at iit.edu/~ugsc.

    
   
  

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