To: FLC Faculty Senate

To: FLC Faculty Senate

From: Curriculum Committee

Date: 3/3/15

Subject: One Credit COMP SAI

Dear Senators,

In the fall 2014, a course proposal came before the Curriculum Committee from the Writing Program asking for a one credit Supplemental Academic Instruction course that would be taught concurrently with COMP 150 for students who would normally place into our remedial courses. It was a new course designed to eventually replace our remedial courses (TRS 90 (3 credits) and TRS91 (3 credits)) and our “stretch program” (COMP125 (3 credits) and COMP 126 (3 credits).

After investigating such a significant change to the Writing Program’s curriculum, the CC learned that Writing Program faculty were not in favor of a one credit COMP SAI and instead wanted COMP SAI to have more credits. CC members voted to modify the COMP 100 course proposal by voting to add one credit hour to it, making COMP 100 a 2 credit course, because we strongly believe in increased—not decreased—writing instruction for FLC students who need it. That modification was approved by Senate as a consent item and the Provost then rejected the curriculum committee’s change. By writing this memo, the Curriculum Committee wants to reaffirm our decision for more student instruction in writing.

Whereas numerous issues are behind this, the CC would like to highlight two fundamental issues: 1) FLC continues to admit underprepared students who in the past have had access to varying levels of academic instruction in writing —the reason previous administrations approved TRS 90, TRS 91, COMP 125, and COMP 126 is because they identified a need for differing levels of writing instruction for different students. The CC supports this approach to curriculum development. 2) CC members want our students to have more writing instruction, especially when they lose instructional time with the transition to 3 credits (both CO-1 and CO-2 are going from 4 to 3 credits).

Specifically, we have the following concerns:

For academic programs:

1. Faculty should be in charge of curriculum.. The WP was not allowed to create the type of course they felt would best fit our students; instead they were told what type of course to create. WP faculty are writing specialists and should be valued for their opinions—they have normed with national standards/best practices in making decisions about the number of credits for SAI. Ana Hale and Erik Juergensmeyer have attended workshops/presentations at writing conferences urging for more contextual practices.

2.The CC has concerns about the rigor of the methods used to implement and evaluate the one credit SAI "pilot."

3. Any one-size-fits-all approach (the supplemental academic instruction “fix” to remediation is being handed down from Complete College America see http://completecollege.org/) is not designed for a variety of FLC students and their different learning needs.

For the CC:

1. One credit SAI that went to the state never went through CC for approval.

2. There is no statutory requirement that SAI has to be one credit.

3. We recognize a critical need for some of our FLC students to have more faculty instruction in writing, not less. This need will become greater when COMP 150 and 250 move from 4 credits to 3 credits. For our most underprepared students, the percentage decrease of faculty instruction time will be 53%.

4. Fundamental problem of letting in students who need academic support, then not giving them the support they need to be successful.

For FLC:

1. We are concerned that FLC’s definition of “limited academic deficiency” will limit our ability to achieve enrollment levels necessary for financial survival. Basically, with the current admission cutoff levels, FLC will likely have to turn away students, thus hurting our financial position and hurting our mission of providing accessible education.

2. We are concerned about workload and faculty teaching loads not being clearly spelled out and that Writing Program faculty workloads will increase.

As a result of this disagreement between the CC and the administration, the CC recommends the following changes:

1. CC will send significant modifications of course proposals done by the CC back to the dean for approval.

2. The administration will not create curriculum without review by the CC.