Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Discipline/Department Meeting
North Hennepin Community College, April 11, 2003

Philosophy Report Summary
Facilitators: Jeffrey Smith, Lynda Milne, Cheryl Avenel-Navara

 

Transfer issue/problem one:

CREDIT/CONTENT MISMATCH
A number of comments concerned the possibility that philosophy courses being applied to the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum are not equivalent in content or in academic credit being awarded.

Strategies to address transfer issue/problem one:

See issue three below.

 

Transfer issue/problem two:

COORDINATION OF COURSE LISTS USED BY ADVISORS
There is a need for greater consistency across institutions, and for systemwide information that is as accessible to faculty as to students and advisors.

Strategies to address transfer issue/problem two:

A unified database should be created and made available to faculty, counselors, students, listing all MnSCU courses by goal area. (Easy/major)

 

Transfer issue/problem three:

APPROVAL PROCESSES
There is a need to examine processes at the institutional and system levels to ensure that courses are approved for the MTC in a way that ensures quality and consistency while protecting academic freedom.

Strategies to address transfer issue/problems one and three:

Systemwide and campus-based meetings of faculty by goal area (perhaps with CTL discipline workshop funds). These meetings would discuss and produce new paradigms, and would share information gained with the General Education Oversight Committee. (Easy/major)

Goal statements should be revised. (Hard/major)

Policy should eliminate “infusion” in goal requirements, but encourage infusion in course application to goals.  (I.e., goals should be less cross-disciplinary, but interdisciplinarity should be encouraged in satisfaction of goals). (Hard/major)

 

Transfer issue/problem four:

PROBLEMS NOT SUFFICIENTLY KNOWN
Both at the opening of the session and at its close, the philosophy discipline group agreed that they were not aware of many problems that affected students concerning transfer of philosophy courses. So at beginning and end they agreed that the primary issue may simply be that faculty need more information about current problems..

Strategies to address transfer issue/problem four:

Faculty talk to transfer specialists to identify problems on campus, at system level. (Easy/minor)

System should make available reports identifying problems encountered by students. (Easy/minor)

Faculty and advisers can share informal experiences via listservs, meetings, including external articulation agreements. (Easy/minor)