Minors Minutes: Wednesday, June 24th

Representatives

Overview:

• Discussion of simultaneous majors and how they will work with minors.
• Review of simultaneous major/IDA flowchart (see under Documentation).
• Demo of new degree plan interface.

Questions/Issues/Concerns:

• If you have a major degree plan you will only have one minor requirement and it will be auto added to the major degree plans in IDA.
• COLA is currently defining the minor within the major requirements.  In the new 2016-2018 catalog, the minors/certificates will be coded separately in IDA and incorporated into the major degree requirements.
• For the major there will be one and only one minor requirement defined.  This will be used as an exit indicator in IDA to go look for a minor/certificate on the student profile record.
• When the 2014-2016 catalog is rolled over to the 2016-2018 catalog, all existing minor requirements will be automatically changed to elective requirements. A new minor requirement will automatically be added.  If the degree plan is set up to require a minor the estimated hours for the requirement will default to 15 hours.  If not, it will default to 0 hours.  The estimated hours are used to calculate the PTD. 

Simultaneous Majors:

• If a student is pursuing two majors, colleges don’t want students to get minor approved if the second major could possibly fulfill minor requirements.  Credentials on the transcript will duplicate.  EX: Major in History, Major in French, Minor in History, Minor in French.
• Incorporating any courses that fall out of an individual audit of a student that is pursuing simultaneous majors, gives the student the benefit of the doubt that they are fulfilling the major requirements of the second major and applying them to the minor requirement.  This will be reflected in the PTD.
• Concern was expressed that the minor would have a random selection of courses that fall out of the audit.  They may not necessarily meet the minor requirement rules. How would advisors know for sure that those courses fulfilled the minor?  Overrides may be necessary at some point.
• What happens if the student doesn’t finish their second major?  Overrides may be required and a student may have to apply for a minor and take additional courses.
• Should the audit automatically check that the minor requirement has been complete if the number of hours for the minor is met?  It could cause a problem if there degree audit is saying complete and a student does not complete the second major. 
• If we don’t automatically indicate that the student has met the minor requirements, advisors will have to create an override to complete the minor requirement. 
• What are the rules of making sure that students are meeting requirements for both majors that are requiring minors? Advisors will need to communicate with students. 
• Audit overrides will have to be created when adding specific courses for minors for simultaneous majors.
• If the students do not meet both simultaneous major requirements and don’t have courses for a minor, student may not be able to graduate.  Students may still have to select a minor and fulfill minor requirements if they don’t fulfill both majors.  This may extend their time at UT.
• If a student has a simultaneous major, only one requires a minor, and none of the courses the student takes can fulfill the minor for the requirements, the student must apply for a minor.
• Simultaneous majors (BSA) within natural Sciences are prohibited from pursuing a minor in Engineering, Nat Science, Geoscience Pharmacy and Nursing.  This will be up to the advisors to enforce.
• Advisors need to inform and communicate students about their PTDs, when they are required to apply for a minor, and to think about it early in their academic careers.
• Liberal Arts is the only college that’s requiring transcript recognized minors for all their majors.  They are offereing most minors for the first release. 
• Natural Sciences will require either transcript recognized minor, certificate, or 15 hours in a field of study outside of the college which could result in multiple overrides.
• Is there an option for the colleges to keep what they have in place?  Yes, if they don't require a transcript recognized minor, they shoudl be able to keep the degree plans as is.  However, any minor requirement will change to an elective when the 2014-2016 catalog rolls over to the 2016-2018 catalog.  They will still need to review the existing degree plans.
• Can a checkbox be included in the minor requirement to indicate if courses should be used for the minor requirement if a student has simultaneous majors?
• Can the minor be marked as complete when the second major has 100% on the PTD? Due to potential timing issues and the fact that certified austis for the schools run concurrently, this may never happen and an override would still have to be created to indicate the minor is complete.
• Could it be that the same courses in the minor are not the same course that are required for the major?  Yes, in order to fulfill the minor the student must take the required courses defined by the offering college/school.
• Since every major code has a 3 character department code (FOS) associated with it can you allow the system to pull courses that are only associate with the other major FOS? 

• Yes.  However,  if you have 12 hours in the same field of study we applied it to the minor to complete the minor requirement, would not give the student the benefit of applying courses to the minor even if they do meet the other major requirements.  Course order would matter and may impact the PTD. 

• Students should still get credit applied to their second minor for courses that are not taken in any particular order and give the student.

Degree Plan Demo:

• Hours required for the plan will be set at 15 -18 hours for minors 18-24 for certificates. If hours change, they can be updated in the future.
• The degree plan system indicates if a degree plan requires a minor.  This is pulled into IDA and will be used to determine defaults for the new minor requirement in the 2016-2018 catalog.   
• Registrar’s office maintains the degree plan profiles.  The college will need to let them know if a new degree plan requires a minor. 
• All current minor requirements will become electives once the catalog rolls over and then a new minor requirement will be added with a default of 15 hours if a minor is required for the degree plan.
• Colleges and departments should review all degree plans after the rollover. 

Action Items:

• After the production rollover, departments should go through all of their degree plans and evaluate if elective requirements should be deleted in the 16-18 catalog or the will be considered electives and incorporated into the PTD.
• Get numbers across all colleges of how many students have simultaneous majors.
• Discussion of the minor timeline, who has access, and what time frame should be used, will be deferred until Kim, Mike and Brenda are in attendance.
• Schedule meeting with Kim Taylor, Mike Raney, Brenda Shumann, Daniela Kaufman, Delisa Lee, John St. Lawrence, Kim Krieg, Judith Quinney, Anneke Chy, and Jesse Weeks to discuss simultaneous majors.