October 26, 2006 – Agenda & Minutes

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Members Present: Sheryl Beach, Peter Becker, Geoffrey Birchard, Estela Blaisten (chair), Tim Born, Rick Diecchio, Robert Ellsworth, Rebecca Goldin, Barry Klinger, Dimitri Klimov, Barry Kronenfeld,
Members Absent: Dan Cox
Guests Present: Dimitrios Papaconstantopoulos (CDS Chair)

Call to order. Meeting was called to order at 11:00am

  1. Approval of minutes.
    • Minutes from 10/12 meeting were approved.
  2. Announcements
    • Bob Ellsworth replaced Merav Opher as the Physics and Astronomy Department’s curriculum committee representative.
    • Assad Khan (akhanf@gmu.edu) will act as administrative secretary of the committee, with the task of producing the minutes, collecting the submissions, and posting electronically such submissions.
  3. Review of courses that need immediate attention by General Education committee.
    • **BIOL 301-Approved
      Questions posed:
      • Should topics within an existing course be brought to the curriculum committee?
      • The committee agreed that this was a singular course designed around topics, and that it was not needed to bring individual topics to the committee.
    • **GEOL 420-Approved with one revision to cover page (new course)
      Questions posed:
      • – A lot of required readings. How will this be provided? The committee agreed that the instructor will need to address these issues, including the copyrights.
      • – Should the presentation at end of semester be called “final presentation?” The committee decided that the language used was fine.
  4. Review of new degree proposals
    • **BS in Computational and Data Sciences-Approved
      • Dr. Papaconstantopoulos presented a report of the modifications included in the version under review. These modifications were result of discussions with the Computer Science Department. Among others, it was important to note that more credits were added for ITE courses with provisions included. For example, CS 261 will also have a FORTRAN section taught in addition to the current JAVA offering. MATLAB, Mathematica hasn’t been addressed yet in detail, but it is the desire of the department that these symbolic languages be included in a special section of the CS courses as well.
      • Questions/issues raised:
        • Biology track is all molecular. Nothing with organisms or geological has been attempted for being conversing with all the parts of biology.
        • Concerns from the math faculty:
          1. Potential overlap of faculty resources
          2. CDS and Math recruiting the same faculty
          3. Duplication of courses. Some could be taught in math.
          4. Viability of this program. Very intense program, little flexibility.
        • Concerns from the physics faculty:
          1. The major in physics may shrink because of some students migrating to the new degree
          2. The degree is a couple of courses short from the BS in Physics
  5. Review of course modifications
    • **ASTR 111-Approved
    • **ASTR 112-Approved
    • **ASTR 113-Approved
    • **ASTR 114-Approved
  6. The next meeting date was set for November 9, 2006.
  7. Everything not covered in this meeting was moved forward to the November 9th meeting as follows:
    • # BINF 650 new course (Bioinformatics Dep)
    • # EOS 670 modification (ESGS Dep)
    • # EOS 754 modification (ESGS Dep)
    • # EOS 854 modification (ESGS Dep)
    • # BIOS 703 modification (MBB Dep)
    • # BIOS 898 modification (MBB Dep)
    • # BIOS 899 modification (MBB Dep)
    • # BIOS 711 deletion (MBB Dep)
    • # BIOS 713 deletion (MBB Dep)
    • # BIOS 715 deletion (MBB Dep)
    • # BIOS 721 deletion (MBB Dep)
    • # BIOS 723 deletion (MBB Dep)
    • # BIOS 787 deletion (MBB Dep)
    • # BIOS 788 deletion (MBB Dep)

Download original PDF documents:
Agenda: October 26, 2006
Minutes: October 26, 2006