Minors Minutes: Thursday, July 9th

In attendance :

College /School                                                           Representative(s)

Natural Sciences                                               Judith Quinney, Anneke Chy

Fine Arts                                                            

Nursing                                                            

Undergraduate Studies                                    Jeanette Herman

Business                                                           Leah Miller

Liberal Arts                                                       John St. Lawrence, Delisa Lee, Kim Krieg

LBJ School

Architecture                                                       Katrina Kosted, Tomi Yamamoto

Engineering                  

Pharmacy

Education                                                         Daniela Kaufman

Geo Sciences

Communication                                                

Registrar                                                           Shan Evans, Kim Taylor, Brenda Schumman

 

Overview:

  • Update on simultaneous majors discussion.
  • Review and discuss any outstanding issues from prior meetings.   
  •  Communicate plans for the new system to advisors and students discussed.

Decisions:

  • If a major requires the student to get a minor or certificate, the student will be required to apply for a minor/certificate via the application process.
  • If  a student has a simultaneous major an d one major requires a minor and the other does not, it will be up to the college to override for the specific major if they want to incorporate second major as the minor. 
  • The department/advisor will have to add the approved minor/certificate manually to the student’s profile record before it will linked with the major.

Questions/Issues/Concerns:

  • If a student needs a minor, but would like to use their second major to fulfill this, how would we customize the minor requirement in IDA for these cases?  
    • This could be done with an override on the minor requirement using the course lists.  If an override is created, then the student will not have the minor show up on their transcripts.
    • If you add an override, the minor will automatically be taken off the profile record.
    • Overrides for minor rules will only be done by the college of the minor.

 

  • Would it be possible to show the same major and minor if they are in the same field of study on the transcript?
    • Majors and minors are not the same thing. They will be blocked and displayed in groups on the transcripts (see Mockups for Process Map – Process 8 in the Documentation link).
    • What if the audit and the profile don't match? There needs to be some catch so the systems speak to each other.  The VO screen could be used.  Departments/advisors may need a way to update and fix any issues with discrepancies. 
    • Will it be possible to batch add students to a certificate?  There’s already a process in place for Business and would allow students to skip applying for a certificate a second time.    
      • This may be a phase 2 project and will have to be reviewed before implementing.
      • Will there be a separate way to sort the students when applying for a certificate?  Reporting may be needed.
      •  
      • The Pre Health Certificate may need to be two different certificates because they have to be coded with separate requirements - one for Natural Science majors and one for Non-Natural Science majors.
      • That the “Non-Natural Science Certificate” wouldn’t be as appealing to those looking to get into other schools, such as medical schools.   
      • How would you let an advisor put a student through for approval of a minor?
        • Advisors could go in and put the student into the minor following similar steps a student would take to get into a minor.  If the minor is auto approved, the student would be immediately approved for the minor.  However, if the minor is restricted, it would be sent to the inbox of the approver to be reviewed before it was approved/rejected.

      Next Steps:

      • Ideas on how to communicating new system:
        • Add it to the 2016-2018 catalog.
        • Repeatedly inform the students during orientation.
        • Update advisors on new system, then advisors educate the students
        • List all the information online (each major/minor, descriptions of each, links to the college websites for each, link to contact advisor for help, which major links to which minor/certificate)
        • Create an FAQ page online
        • Phase 2:  try out the new system to figure out any issues and revise or streamline where possible.  We have a year to troubleshoot the problems with the system before the 2016 school year comes around.