Meeting Minutes: Committee on English
Minutes
Academic Advisory Committee on English
January 27-28, 2005
The Lodge at Unicoi, Georgia
Representatives from USG institutions in attendance:
Bobbie Robinson, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, Beth Howells, Armstrong Atlantic State University, Beverly Head, Atlanta Metropolitan College, Lillie Johnson, Augusta State University, Stan Webb, Bainbridge College, Susan Henry, Clayton College & State University, Michael Hannaford, Coastal Georgia Community College, Dan Ross, Columbus State University, Mary Nielson, Dalton State College, Ulf Kirchdorfer, Darton College, LaNelle Daniel, Floyd College, Joyce Jenkins, Fort Valley State University, Patricia Worrall, Gainesville College, David Evans, Georgia College & State University, Peter McGuire, Georgia Institute of Technology, Ted Wadley, Georgia Perimeter College, Curtis Ricker, Georgia Southern University, Martha Singer, Georgia State University, Richard Baskin, Gordon College, Robert Barrier, Kennesaw State University, Debra Matthews, Macon State College, Carmine Palumbo, Middle Georgia College, Thomas Austenfeld, Chair, North Georgia College & State University, Barbara Haas, Savannah State University, Carl McDonald, South Georgia College, Kim Haimes-Korn, Southern Polytechnic State University, Jane Hill, State University of West Georgia, Nelson Hilton, University of Georgia, Mark Smith, Valdosta State University, Lisa Mallory, Atlanta Metropolitan College, Bryan Davis, Georgia Southwestern State University.
Other Attendees: Dorothy Zinsmeister, Board of Regents, Leslie Caldwell, Board of Regents
Guests:
Merryl Penson, Executive Director of Library Services for BOR, Christie Desmet, Director of Composition UGA, Ron Balthazor, Assistant Administrator for EMMA, UGA, Anita DeRouen, graduate student UGA
Absent:
Surendra Pandey, Albany State University, Dana Nevil, East Georgia College (illness), Sara Selby, Waycross College (excused)
Thursday the 27th:
Dr. Austenfeld, ACE chair, called the meeting to order at 1:05 p.m., made comments welcoming participants to North Georgia, explained some logistics, and introduced Jeanette Mann, who just finished her Master's last night, from North Georgia College & SU Department of Continuing Education, Dorothy Zinsmeister and Leslie Caldwell from the System Office, Executive Committee members Lillie Thompson, Joyce Jenkins, and Carmine Palumbo.
Dr. Austenfeld offered a few words about Dana Nevil, chair elect, who has been battling breast cancer and is unable to attend.
Dr. Austenfeld began the business portion of the meeting by announcing that the minutes of last year's meeting, which have been placed in each attendee's folder, have been approved, so they do not need to be voted on. Also in the folders are copies of reports from last year, especially the follow-up report from last year--in response to Dan Papp's request for input on the high school curriculum. There are also bylaws for the BOR ACE, which can also be found in the folder. There was a question concerning the validity of the bylaws, which were approved three years ago under Elizabeth Ragsdale's committee.
Dorothy Zinsmeister announced that she will post these bylaws on the website for this committee, but asked a question concerning Article 3 of bylaws; they apparently do not say what standard is used to establish consensus of the committee. A motion was put on the table by Dr. Austenfeld that we discuss the Article 3 of the bylaws.
Discussion:
- There is a 2/3 rule in Article 5 of bylaws.
- Sometimes we vote outside the meeting. Should a quorum be specified?
- The "majority of the voting membership" should be the standard for questions other than amendments.
- There should be a strong representation of "the body's will."
- Sometimes the response rate will be very low during a period other than the academic year.
- We should take this up during the "business meeting" tomorrow.
Dr. Austenfeld asked Curtis Ricker and Joyce Jenkins to make some suggestions at the meeting tomorrow.
Dr. Austenfeld explained that the BOR did not issue us a specific charge this year, so in response to his invitation to suggest topics, there were a number of suggestions. For the next hour and a half Dorothy Zinsmeister and Leslie Caldwell will give us an idea of what is going on in the System office.
Leslie Caldwell began by introducing himself as having assumed some of Kathleen Burke's directorship duties since her retirement. Some of her other duties have been spread out among other people in the system office. He began by dividing his presentation into two parts:
"Things that have not happened": First, among these is the change to the 3-point grading system for the Regents' Essay. He explained that a number of things must happen before this can happen. His impression was that this change was predicated by move to online testing, which is the other thing that has not happened. He asked the Testing Subcommittee if we could put it on hold, which is where we will stay, with the 4-point system, until we find if online testing is adopted or not. He announced that there was a pilot of the online exam in the spring of 2004. There were some technical problems. One school did not get the system to work at all. The raters liked the system. It was fairly efficient, so it is not necessarily indicative of how the system will actually work. The cost of making the system fully operational came in about the same time as budget cuts this year, so it is on hold right now. He does not foresee that it will happen soon. It will be a while.
"Things that have happened": the new set of statistics that we are working with. He found the old statistics confusing. They are going over the grades, primarily the people who give few scores of "1" and excessive scores of "1." He sent letters to raters which sent them to a website where they could get a better idea of what they are doing, asking them to move their scale up or down to meet the long standing standard. Some of those raters rated again in the fall, and 22 of the 25 did much better. The last new thing he was working was a proposal for an end of semester administration of the test. He is still working on feasibility before he tries to find out of there is resistance to doing this. It might cut down on people who must take remediation during summer and fall semester.
Dr. Austenfeld opened the floor to discussion:
- Can we explore the 3-point rating and the online registration? As a committee we do not have control over when it will come online, but we did have a debate on 3 point scale, and there are either good reasons to have 3 point rating system or not.
- Exemptions will decrease the number of "4" essays. Isn't this a point in favor of the 3-point?
- Shouldn't the pedagogical issues take precedent over the technological issues?
- At my institution, a memo was circulated about the remediation classes. A student who never attends class can pass exam and still get an "A," while a student who takes the entire class and fails still gets "F." What about tying grade in class to skill of teacher, rather than whether or not they pass test? The professor does not even give the grade any more. What about issues of motivation?
- At my [several members] institution, if they do not come to class then they cannot take the exam.
- Students can still take the class at my institution, regardless of whether they come to class.
- The institution can have an institutional policy that is more stringent.
- Is this is in the Academic Affairs policy handbook?
- Is there a USG policy mandating that the courses must be 3 hours?
- Here is a FAQ memo from 8/04, which answers some questions for us. It says that once the "transitional period" is over it will be decided as to 2 or 3 credit hours.
- Is this is tied to the fact that in order for them to receive financial aid there must be a pass for the exam or take the course?
- There should be some agreement from this group if 3 hours are required. I think 3 hours is too many.
Dr. Austenfeld invites Dorothy Zinsmeister to speak:
Dr. Zinsmeister said that she would like clarification from the group about Area F from minutes of last year, an attachment to the minutes, which is on page five. She has minutes from us approving change to Area F, minutes from VPAA saying it was not approved, and more minutes from summer saying it was approved. She wants to know if we approve THIS Area F. Dr. Austenfeld answered in the affirmative.
Dr. Zinsmeister explained that USG is asking us to monitor the effects of budget cuts on our campuses. She wants these observations to be tied to data, that an increase in faculty load is not necessarily bad unless there is a "quality issue." She would be interested in hearing about these. She said that she will share information about a presentation from Dan Papp that was presented at a BOR meeting about removing SAT from admissions to two-year colleges. She also explained that she needed to give us a "heads up" on something we will be asked to do in future months. Talking about AP scores, there has been a fact gathering group looking at how we compare system wide with what is an acceptable AP score to get one semester credit. What is it for 2 semester credit? There have been some concerns raised. There are some that find that practice to be not recommended. In many cases, in her discussions with Chairs of English departments when they ask where that number came from there has not been much research to make these decisions, but there is not a good reason in some cases, and not a good understanding sometimes of what the AP test even looks like. Some of us have been graders, so that is useful information for us to share as a group, but the system office will be contacting us to show us some data in English and will ask this group to put its heads together to make some suggestions about certain minimum acceptances in the system (e.g. will any institution accept a 2). Maybe we have our own recommendations.
Dr. Zinsmeister congratulated us on taking the DOE curriculum issues so seriously last year. On February 4th and 5th the USG and DOE are having two joint workshops at Georgia Tech and at UGA Tifton to do a two-day workshop on the GPS for higher education faculty, a mixed group of the four disciplines. They are designed to break out into discipline groups to discuss how faculty can reach out to teachers in GPS and what these will mean to us as incoming students. All USG institutions have been invited. We need to let someone at our institution know if we would like to go. The have anticipated 700 people and still have some room for others.
The last item was Learning Outcomes. There is an attachment from last year minutes dealing with Outcomes for Composition and also for Sophomore Literature. She asks us to continue this conversation, that there is an importance in this, that we have made a wonderful start, but that there is not enough specificity to make these useful documents. She pulled up a document, where the author had talked about "outsourcing the core curriculum" which brought up important issues about what institutions say they believe about core curriculum, but what it is like in practice, which part-timers and grad students. The surveys that they have some with faculty, that faculty are not aware of what other faculty who are teaching core curriculum courses are trying to accomplish, and that faculty who teach upper division are not aware of what is being taught and believe that whatever is trying to be accomplished but that they are not accomplishing. With possible elimination of SAT, these issues are all the more important. She wants to send information to Chair of Freshman Subcommittee.
Dr. Austenfeld called for Break at roughly 3 p.m. Thomas called the meeting back to order at 3:25 p.m.
Dr. Austenfeld introduced Merryll Penson, Executive Director of Library Services; she was our speaker for the afternoon. Presentation title was "GALILEO and other Thoughts."
She began by telling committee how pleased she is to talk about GALILEO: it works for students across the system, regardless of where they are; it levels the playing field, but there are things that one institution has that others do not, despite size. She is going to tell us about GALILEO, some of the features, some of the challenges, the literary movement, some of the things they would like to have, and hopefully some discussion.
- GALILEO started in 1995 as a collaborative project, the first other than Peachnet where a group came forward and asked for it and got it.
- a real mix of institutions uses GALILEO, some liberal arts: Agnes Scott, DeVry
- gives us a progress report that was created for the stakeholders
- how do you define outcomes? What is a success?
- shows an analysis of Bainbridge before and after GALILEO
- shows a usage chart
- when it started current freshman were in 4th grade and many faculty did not have computers
- it brought technology to many campuses and opportunities for upgrading band with at campuses
- as libraries make transitions there are issues: purchase price for databases has risen drastically, many lease options do not exist any more
- now many other places have diverse institutions participating, so now vendors adjust price accordingly
- there are many options and many more electronic resources
- aggregator databases and publishers are wondering if this is a model that they want to participate
- there is more competition now
- the issue of scholarly communication and why are institutions selling their research to publishers who sell it back to students at a high price
- there have been some groups that have tried to start their own publications to compete
- there will need to be faculty participation to solve the problem
- the transition has really meant more access
- the archiving issue has not been resolved. What kind of access do we have once it is in electronic form?
- the big thing is that we still need both electronic and paper, which puts us in a strange position, as they are not there yet in terms of having everything electronic
- funding has remained flat
- program is targeted for austerity reduction of 3%
- costs rise 3 to 5% each year
- OED cost going up 5% this year
- number of students / users has increased
- MLA Bibliography has gone up from 113,827.2 in 01, now is 145,711.51 in 05
- challenges that are external: Georgia economy, power shift in legislature, perceptions of public good, grants typically are one time, technology changes, user expectations
- internal changes: competing needs (healthcare, banner, Peoplesoft, Regents Test), Campus vs. System
- Customized Sets of databases: Core (across the library communities) Academic libraries, USG and private libraries, USG libraries only, cost share among libraries depending upon interest and funds, individual purchases
- shows examples in Language and Lit of how some institutions have more than others
- offers handouts on Setting up Journal Alert
- there has been a group dealing with how to integrate the WebCT environment with the GALILEO environment: students need to be able to access certain materials, faculty need to be able to create durable links to certain materials, and librarians need to be able to create durable links to materials for groups of students / types of classes
- shows an example of how student account could be linked to institution at large, WebCT, and the online library
- needs the Google interface so that students can search from one simple search box in any discipline
- shows us the Association of College and Research Libraries Standards, which has five major points
There was some discussion, including mention of the New Georgia Encyclopedia and the need to have links that will go back and forth between these databases. Dr. Austenfeld pointed out that he interacts with GALILEO in three distinct ways: 1. Composition students, 2. English majors, 3. Personal research. In a time of budget cuts, discovering that the versions are different at different institutions, what are professors to do when there is the idea that we cannot buy books so just find it on GALILEO?
Thomas asked Subcommittees to meet when the presentation was over at 4:50
Testing Subcommittee: no charge
Freshman Subcommittee: look at implications of removing SAT admission requirement and implication of AP scores
Friday 28 January
Dr. Austenfeld called the meeting to order at 8:50 a.m. and announced that the Freshman Subcommittee has asked to have another meeting this morning; the other Subcommittees have decided another meeting is optional.
Dr. Austenfeld announced the "main event" for the morning is Emma project with Nelson Hilton, UGA.
Dr. Hilton thanked Thomas for asking them to come. They will be demonstrating Emma. Dr. Hilton introduced Christie Desmet, Director of First-Year Composition at UGA, Anita DeRouen, graduate student at UGA, and Ron Bathazor, Assistant Administrator for Emma Project.
Dr. Hilton began with a Powerpoint presentation, explaining that the Emma Project is a transition into a paperless environment, the known universe of student papers. He continued with an overview of the Electronic Markup Management Application, a project that began five years ago. It is a ubiquitous web-based application which deals with collection distribution of student essays.
- Emma makes electronic portfolios possible: archiving, for class, for student, whatever, creating an archive database, where student writing can be kept, for example if a graduate asks for a letter of recommendation, these essays will be archived, ongoing expanding library of student compositions
- Peer Review: the physical problem of passing these papers around in solved with electronic form
- Uncoupling Instruction and Evaluation: documents generated in a class and graded somewhere else, unlike the method that we are used to. For UGA, with many papers, this is a consideration
- Data Mining: searching for pattern that can only be found this way. A large amount of data available
- Assessment: possibilities for different kinds of assessment, of instructor and instructor response to student work
- Research: human subjects research, grades are assessment
- Access and Privacy issues: right now student makes these decisions, but if the identification information is removed, then the document can be used for research
- Scalability: a database that can hold many documents.
Why? The explicitness of what it makes possible. We find a kind of review, standing back from document to get insight; this is one of the goals of writing process.
EMMA is: shows web page with names and contacts
Dr. Hilton turned the floor over to Dr. Christy Desmond, Director of First Year Composition. She explains that she uses Emma in an upper division Shakespeare course. She walks us through what it is like to use it, browser and editor. She has a personal private Emma homepage, has all documents for current term. There is a portfolio for each student and an archive of all classes that have been worked on in the past. The archive can give many forms of information. The Editor: open and you find the basics, which is how to get an essay formatted, either type here of cut / paste from word processor, basic information Emma uploads automatically, once you have pasted in text, highlight pieces of it so that Emma can give feedback. Emma will format an essay once it is recognized as such. It will give title proper formatting, paragraphs, essay titles and Works Cited. Uploading is easy. People will do more surface revision, because it is so simple. The website also automatically converts to PDF. The comment feature, the grader and peer-reviewer are all working in the same environment. Comments can be shown in a number of forms, in text, parallel, etc. Click on link and it goes straight to appropriate page of St. Martin's handbook. They are moving to portfolio grading, so revision is important part of process. Emma can put drafts side by side in order to see revision process.
Anita DeRouen was the third to speak. She showed how she uses Emma and how she envisions it being used. It is very valuable in that it focuses on what is in paper rather than what it looks like. Removing the scaffolding of MS word makes them focus on what it in the paper. Instructors can create their own template, or many templates throughout the course of the semester depending upon the assignment. Gives instructor a much better sense of what is going on structurally in the paper: mark thesis sentence, major points, allows instructor to interact with student thought process. Classroom tasks: for example, highlight topic sentences throughout an essay, can take out topic sentences and look just at them. Emma pull out just thesis sentences of an entire class of papers and discuss them in class, pull citations from group of papers, evaluate the use of different types of sources, side by side views from draft to final paper, read across to see where paper has changed. Using Emma in literature classrooms she has found that students were uncomfortable with poetry, determined that she wanted a template for explication. Using Emma for reading poetry can show us the level of engagement with the text. Show me the poet's diction. Show use of some technique. Emma alters the reading process. She shows examples of students marking portions of text and responding to portions that they marked. She sees potential for using Emma as a tool to help students create a schema for marking their own texts.
Ron Balthazor was the last to speak. He began by following up on a few things: Plagiarism is a different ballgame when all of the information is right there in front of you. He is a big fan of peer review and used do it all in the classroom, but it takes much time. Now his peer-review takes place outside the classroom; he can assign four or five or six reviews outside a class. Emma can transform from poetic spacing of poem into paragraph form very easily. Reshaping pedagogy: students submit questions that can make good papers, and distribute these. Electronic environment makes these types of responses available to the entire class. The technology: 1. Open source text editor, community of tech developers working on a product and sharing it. 2. The server is a suite of open source materials--apache web server, which is the standard, and tomcat--web application server, cocoon--open source data base, 9 gigs of RAM!!!! It is a perfect tool for a distance learning situation, for writing lab. Hopefully, they will be able to make this available to other institutions, so that we can all be part of the use for students and also be able to participate in research opportunities
Dr. Austenfeld asked for questions and comments:
Q: This is an excellent tool for writing for mass media, valuable for students to learn the technology. There will be much use in this for students to view source code and the tags that are being used.
A: Hopefully they will be able to use this regardless of whether not the professor in their class is using is. XML is the global standard, so students will have a leg up in they have some sense of the markup.
Q: Is this being used in all Freshman Comp classes?
A: Currently 30 sections, actually other classes that are not part of the project are using it. Hopes that people will see benefits of using it, tracking students, tracking comments, wants people to want to use it.
Q: What is fee structure for bringing to other institutions?
A: Not designed to make money. There is currently no fee for using it.
Q: Do all students have laptops?
A: There is a new student center with many terminals, but Emma is installed on many computers around campus. They do not need a laptop, as long as there is something available for them to use it, does not take up much space, have not seen problems with students not being able to use it.
Q: Will there be pilot workshops around system?
A: Do not know if we will come to you or if you will come for workshops. The CD will have instructor component to help.
Q: What about Business Communication as a tool for that class?
A: In that regard, you could send this to us and say can Emma do this, and we can give you an idea of how to do it.
Q: Where do you get the documents, like Shakespeare, that you can use for markup?
A: Sometimes the students input and mark their own texts. All of Shakespeare is already marked-up in XML, so there is no problem there.
Q: How will we learn about these workshops?
A: We are glad there is interest and now that we know there is we can start to take some action to get these workshops started.
Contact info: Ron Balthazor at UGA: rlbaltha@uga.edu
Dr. Austenfeld called for a break, asking the committee to reconvene at 11 a.m.
Break
Dr. Austenfeld called the meeting back to order at 11:10 a.m.
Subcommittee Reports:
Report from Freshman Subcommittee: Richard Baskin Chair
- 1101 and 1102 outcomes: they do not see need to change outcomes, with a minor exception
- SAT scores: they oppose removing these scores for a number of reasons
- AP scores: general finding, there are different standards, Susan will elaborate; shows grade distributions, ACE recommendations in Powerpoint presentation showing examples of varying systems of assessment--this is something we need to talk about more. Dr. Austenfeld clarifies that they would like to revisit these scores and the various institutional policies.
Thomas asks if there is a motion dealing with removal of SAT scores
Richard Baskin: Motion: We recommend to BOR that we continue to use SAT scores at part of admissions process in all USG schools, since in the absence of this testing and placement will fall on less reliable instruments and will overtax existing resources.
Second: Michael Haniford.
Unanimous acceptance.
Report from Sophomore Subcommittee: Marti Singer, Chair
They have solved the outcome problems--use and access of technology, will take time for faculty, training, heavy use of part-time faculty, is there a possibility that there could be some part-time appointments of graduate students who are trained in this area. 3.
- Tech classrooms & training
- Active exchange between schools who have grad students and those who do not
- Whole issue of plagiarism
Marti points out that she has worked on Sophomore learning outcomes. Her committee has approved the outcomes, but Dr. Austenfeld believes that since these have not been reviewed by the entire committee, they should be placed into the record as being endorsed by the committee, but not by the entire group. These will be sent to Dorothy to represent the work of the subcommittee, offered as a representative of one institution's work on learning outcomes.
Major programs committee: David Evans Chair
- Inability to cooperate with education programs--different epistemological universes, finding a way to navigate that, if there is a way we could make a collective statememnt
- Perception of image--that Comp I and II are sufficient prep to teach writing
- Part-time andtemp faculty, compensation, abuse, what do we do about that
- What is the major supposed to be? Writing? Cultural studies?
- The issue of 1st year programs in senior colleges, what sort of logistical issues are raised, something that seems to be on the rise over the last few years, administering
Testing Subcommittee: Patsy Worrel Chair
- End of Semester Regents Testing is still under discussion
- ESL testing for Regents policies are not consistent system-wide
- Editorial change made in fall 2004 asking for them to be considered drafts, not as final copies
Concludes subcommittees
Business Portion of Meeting
Discussion of By-laws:
Thomas made motion to accept by-laws, seconded by Joyce, approved unanimously.
Executive Committee:Lillie moves off committee, Joyce remains, Carmine remains, Dana is Chair, and David Evans is elected to Executive Committee.
Joyce Jenkins moved to thank Dr. Austenfeld for serving as chair. Dr. Austenfeld turned the meeting over to Carmine Palumbo, who is serving as Chair elect in place of Dana Nevil.
Meeting convened shortly after noon.
Minutes were recorded by Carmine D. Palumbo.