Academic Senate Committee on WID/WAC 12/04/19

The Academic Senate Committee on WID/WAC met on 12/04/19, 12:35 pm

Committee Members in Attendance:

John Talbird (Committee Chairperson, English), Arthur Corradetti (OAA Liaison), Ian Schanning (Physics), Rommel Robertson (Social Sciences), Sanjay Koul (Biological Sciences and Geology), Chris Leary (English), Linda Meltzer (Business), Elise Denbo (WID/WAC), Bob Donley (WID/WAC), and Raymond Lam (Committee Secretary, Engineering Technology).

Liaisons in Attendance:

See above.

Business:

The meeting was called to order at 12:35 pm

1. Introductions to New Members and Distribution of Documents
* John Talbird, chairman of the WID/WAC Committee, welcomed all members and asked everybody to introduce himself/herself to the committee.
* The chairman distributed the meeting agenda and a petition for waiver of WI requirement to committee members.
* The secretary distributed the minutes of WID/WAC meeting on May 15, 2019.

2. Vote on Approval of WID/WAC Meeting Minutes of May 15, 2019
* The vote counts were seven “YES” votes and zero “NO” vote. The meeting minutes dated May 15, 2019 were therefore approved by the committee.

3. WI Waiver
* A transfer student filed a petition for waiver of WI requirement on November 12, 2019 based on two English courses, English 101 and English 102, taken at SUNY Farmingdale, and courses taken at Full Sail University. The student claimed that this was a hardship because he intended to graduate at the end of the summer next year and he would not be able to take two WI courses before his intended graduation date.
* The student was suggested to take two WI courses in the spring semester, or take one WI course in the winter semester and the other one in the spring semester to complete the requirement.
* The student withdrew from a Writing Intensive course in 2014 and his GPA was 2.69.
* The English 101 and English 102 courses at SUNY Farmingdale were determined that they were not WI courses and they were freshmen composition courses. WI courses were geared to provide extra practice in writing, in addition to those in the freshmen English courses.
* Eight members voted “NO” and zero “YES”. The committee therefore denied the petition for waiver.

4. WI faculty Syllabi and Assignments in Spring 2020
* Eighty-five faculty syllabi were solicited in the last assessment. Twenty-two faculty did not submit his/her WI syllabi. The faculty who did not submit syllabi will be reminded for another submission with a letter by the committee chairman. The department chairs will be copied on the reminder.
* Every faculty had been notified whether his/her WI syllabus was approved in the last assessment. Action had not been decided on the WI faculty with unapproved syllabi. Faculty members were encouraged to comply with the WI requirements. Punishment will not be the way of handling faculty with the unapproved syllabi. Some faculty members did resubmit a revised syllabus. A refresher course was proposed for the WI faculty members who were not up to the standard or had been trained on WI a long time ago.
* Another WI faculty syllabi assessment will take place in the 2020 spring semester. Another 85 syllabi will be solicited. A rubric will be provided to committee members as an evaluation tool. A syllabus is passed if it meets the minimum requirement. Feedbacks to the faculty are encouraged for improvement. Assignments will be distributed to committee members, at the latest, at the mid of spring semester. Seven to eight syllabi will be assigned to each committee member for assessment. The committee will therefore meet twice in the spring. The first meeting in the spring semester will be held on February 26, 2020.
* A recertification process of WI was the original charge, but it was not materialized due to the large volume of work. A concern was raised that WI sessions were not performing as well as other sessions a couple years ago. The current process of assessment was therefore created.
* There was a question of whether WI courses did help students to learn better from the course materials. One study found that students in all HIP courses including WI courses were significantly lower in their reading of their instructors. No conclusion has been reached by the study. In another study, students succeeded in their course work if they took two or more HIP courses. The effect had to be accumulative.

5. Other Business
* Future of the WAC fellows program was not clear. The first CUNY Central Meeting of this year indicated that the WAC fellows program may be discontinued. The discontinuation was not definite at this point. Recruiting fellows to work at QCC had been difficult. It was suggested to source fellows from the tutors of the QCC Writing Center rather than from those of the Graduate Center.
* Director of the Writing Center would like to encourage even more students who are taking WI courses to come to the Writing Center for assistance.
* The terms for the current committee chair and secretary will end next year. New people are needed to fill the two positions.
* Next meeting will be held on February 26, 2020.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:17 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Ray Lam
Committee on WID/WAC, Secretary