Fredonia University Senate

The incompleteness of some departmental responses and the lack of appropriately focused historical data make it impossible for the committee to provide anything more precise than what follows. Where exact data is not available, our estimates are based on some samples of undergraduate historical behavior. It has not been possible to make those samples truly random. Estimated increased demands for resources are indicated in bold-underlined italics.

Calculations are based on an average freshman enrollment of 1100 over the two semesters for AY 1999/2000. Given the gap between this number and the demand for seats in EN 100, which was 895, demand calculations based on this number will probably be safe estimates of real demand even for AY 2001/2202.

THE ART of WRITING: AY 1999/2000, the English department offered 37 sections, 907 seats in EN 100; 895 were filled. For some reason, for AY 2000/2001 the Department anticipates offering a total of 34 sections, or only about 850 seats. The English Department anticipates an average of 14 challenge waivers out of EN 100 per year; the committee estimates about 66 may earn AP or other advanced credit per year; for a total of about 80 waived out of EN 100 per year, leaving approximately 1020 needing to be served.

The Department argues for sound pedagogical reasons that to increase the effectiveness of EN 100 it should reduce class size from 25 to 20, thereby requiring approximately 40 sections per year by their estimate (800 seats?). (The Department has not provided any estimates of the impact of such a change on resources.) The Department does request a Composition Director to coordinate the 32-39 courses each year.

WRITING-ACROSS-THE-CURRICULUM: Requiring significant writing in most GCP courses AND in some course in the major may create resource problems for a few departments. The only departments with major programs not offering a I B (writing intensive) course during AY 1999/2000 were Art, Computer Science, Economics, Mathematics, Speech Pathology & Audiology, and Theatre Arts.

THE ARTS: For AY 1999/2000, the Art, Music and Theatre-Dance departments offered a total of 976 seats in Part I Dc; 912 seats were filled. To these totals, English added 100 seats offered, 95 filled. If PACGE will allow creative writing (English) and perhaps contributions proposed by the Communications Department, on the face, there would seem to be no resource problem. The Committee cannot determine, however, how many of these seats are required for fine arts majors as opposed to GCP students.

If the faculty were to decide that the arts course had to be taken outside the major, and/or PACGE applies a narrow definition of the Arts category, this will require additional resources for the departments of Art, Music and Theatre-Dance. If the seats filled by majors are removed from the Part I D c, AY 1999/2000, only 1000 of the 1100 seats needed for the new Arts requirement would have been available. Resources for 100 additional seats would be needed.

THE HUMANITIES: For AY 1999/2000, the English, Languages, and Philosophy departments, which will presumably be the only allowed contributors, offered 2073 seats, 1987 of which were filled. At least 475 of these seats could and should be diverted to meet the demand for Western Civilization and/or other civilizations. Perhaps others could be equally employed. Only 25 seats seem immediately applicable to the America & Self component. That leaves 1573 seats. Although such courses clearly serve other needs than the GCP, there should be more than enough seats to meet the reduced demand called for in the Guidelines.

MODERN LANGUAGE & CULTURE: In AY 1999/2000, the Foreign Languages Department offered only 10 sections of a language 116-level course; 298 seats; only 145 seats filled. Unfortunately only 8 of those sections were in languages commonly carried over from high school Regents programs; 226 seats; only 133 filled. Given the existing requirement of a 116-level language requirement for ALL elementary and secondary education majors (23% of the student body), given that 74% of Fredonia students have high school Regents B scores of 80 or above, and given 2% with advanced placement credit, we estimate an increased demand of 200 seats per year until the increased Regents requirements kick in.

A score of 70-79 on the Regents B exam would waive FL 115 and place a student in 116. A score of 80-89 would waive 116 and place the student in 215. Based on the GCP Committee's estimate that approximately 85% of the entering freshman class have received a Regent's B score of 75 or higher and 75% a score of 80 or higher, the Chair and Dean estimate that approximately 150 more students may need to take 115-116 than in 1999-2000. Existing space would accommodate half of these students. Additional resources for 75 spaces will be needed.

Additionally incoming transfer students, who typically have not studied foreign languages since high school, would probably place into lower levels than incoming freshmen. Also PACGE may require a local placement test in addition to Regents scores to determine waivers. Such intangibles could significantly increase the number of new seats needed in FL 115 and/or 116.

AMERICAN HISTORY: Based on historical AP scores and a sample of Regents scores for currently enrolled students, we estimate that 70% of students will waive out of this requirement. Consequently we will have to serve about 330 entering freshmen in fall 2001 with the History Department's proposed HY 107, to meet the narrative in American history requirement. The department is willing to increase class sizes in this course from its standard 35 to 45, with a reduced writing requirement. This would still require at least 7 sections to meet the demand. The department will need to augment its American history faculty by one full line, and still staff three sections with adjuncts to meet this increased demand, assuming the department can spread the demand over both semesters and NOT meet it all in the fall semester.

AMERICA & SELF: The 70% of students who waive out of HY 107 will demand a course in this category, i.e., approximately 680 students. In its current HY 105/106 American History survey, the department offered (in the equivalent of 15 normal sections) 505 seats for AY 1999/2000; 523 seats were filled. The department will still have to offer at least 2 sections each of HY 105/106 to meet demands for the major, social studies certification, and elementary education with social studies concentration. These students will be allowed to meet this requirement by completing this two-semester sequence in their major. The remaining 11 sections might be converted to an Introduction to American Studies course that might be more suitable for the America & Self category for non majors. We may still need over 700 additional seats from humanities and social science departments to fill the remaining demand. These would have to come from non-history resources currently devoted to Parts II B & C & III A. Otherwise, the History Department will require 3-4 additional full-time faculty.

NATURAL SCIENCE: In AY 1999-2000, the Biology, Chemistry, Geosciences, and Physics departments, which will presumably be the only departments allowed by PACGE to contribute, offered 3074 equivalent seats for Part II A; 2825 filled. Clearly there should be no resource problem for either the significantly reduced Guidelines demand or maintenance of the current GCP two-course requirement with Mathematics and Computer Science excluded.

SOCIAL SCIENCE: In AY 1999/2000, Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology, which will probably be the only departments allowed by PACGE to contribute, offered 2949 seats for Part II C; 2885 filled. Unfortunately all of these serve as introductions to the major and are required in multiple units for education majors, beyond the two courses currently applicable to the GCP Part II C. This makes it impossible to calculate the adequacy of the current resources unless only the significantly reduced guideline mandate of only one course is required, and/or unless all courses taken under the revised program can also be taken in the major. More problematic is the necessity of shifting some of these resources to meet the America & Self, Western Civilization and other civilizations requirements. See under America & Self and Western Civilization etc.

QUANTITATIVE REASONING: In AY 1999/2000, the Math Department offered 63 seats in MA 104; 50 filled. It offered 490 seats of MA 110; 527 filled. Fortunately the Guidelines allow us to adapt the GenEd math requirement to the mathematical reasoning requirements of any major program. Consequently all 1810 seats offered under Part I C of the current program can be applied at least in part toward the total demand. Although the department did not respond specifically to our questions about resource implications, its on-going involvement in a reevaluation of the appropriateness of its GCP courses and of the application of its resources leaves us confident that existing resources will be adequate.

WESTERN CIVILIZATION & WORLD HISTORY or OTHER CIVILIZATIONS: For AY 1999/2000, History offered 701 seats in courses that could be applied; 705 filled. Unfortunately majors in history, social studies certification and elementary education are required to take two such courses, consuming about 270 seats in addition to the GCP demand. 475 seats offered by Humanities departments under Part II B might also be adapted to this requirement. What if any resources the humanities and social sciences could adapt from current Part III B listings depends entirely on the departments' other needs for those courses. Unfortunately some such courses that are designed to meet the needs of major programs may not be adaptable. If all 950 of the seemingly suitable seats could be transferred from Part III B for AY 1999/2000, there would be adequate resources for meeting this requirement, but many such courses would have to be redesigned for introductory-level and could have no specific prerequisite. Another solution would be for the social science departments to redistribute resources from their introductions to the discipline presently offered under the current Part II C that will be in excess of anticipated demands under the reduced Social Science requirement. Unfortunately that would require that the resources presently devoted to many of those sections of introduction to the major under Part II C would have to be shifted to relatively new courses to fit this category.

INTANGIBLE CONSEQUENCES: Since most departments participating in the current GCP usually offer several, sometimes many different courses in each category of the program, and since PACGE may only approve a very few courses from each department for each of its categories, many of the courses in the current GCP may not be eligible for inclusion in PACGE's approved list. Since many of the courses in question serve double duty in the major and the GCP, the departments may not be able to apply those courses/resources to the revised GenEd program. This and similar problems inherent in the transition mandated by the Guidelines make it impossible to estimate the full resource impact of this transition. Although sufficient faculty resources may be available, considerable modification of existing courses or their complete replacement by new courses may be required.

The impact of shifting resources out of Parts II B & C and III to meet possible demands under American History, Western Civilization, etc. categories will hit departments unevenly. Fewer students will take introductions to the disciplines currently under Part II. Most courses in major programs currently under Parts II & III may not be adjustable to these categories without violating their integrity.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCE IMPLICATIONS OF THE AMENDMENT OF THE CHAIRS OF THE NATURAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

The chairs have insisted that, in order for their faculty to approve any plan, it must require two introductory courses to different disciplines in each of the natural and social sciences, as under the current GCP.

NATURAL SCIENCES: As indicated above, there should be no problem if all Part II A courses can be applied to this requirement.

If, however, the faculty should include in its adopted program a third course in Scientific Thinking, the natural science departments will have to help us assess the resource implications. This will be further complicated by the faculty's decision whether

1. to require that all non-science majors take this course in the natural sciences;
2. to allow Mathematics, Computer Science, Speech-Hearing, and/or Communications and humanities departments to contribute to the Scientific Thinking category.

SOCIAL SCIENCES: This is more complicated. Unlike the natural sciences, the social sciences meet the current GCP II C requirements with courses that serve almost exclusively as introductions to their major programs, not with courses specially designed for the GCP. An indeterminate number of sections of these courses will have to be abandoned to release faculty to develop new courses or significantly modify existing courses to fill the demand in the categories America & Self, Western Civilization, and World History or Other Civilizations. If the faculty should also include in its adopted program a third course in Scientific Thinking, the social science departments will also have to contribute at least modified versions of their introductory courses to meet that demand. The social science departments will have to assess their current contributions to Part III courses to determine which if any of them can be converted to fill these three or four new (basically introductory level) categories, and what resources they can release from their introduction-to-the-discipline (Part II C) sections to serve these same categories. In making these assessments, they must consider that PACGE may only approve a very few courses in each discipline for any given category. The full range of current Part III courses may not be acceptable. If the social sciences cannot significantly help to serve these categories, additional resources will have to be allocated to departments such as History or the humanities that will contribute.

The GCP Committee will be most happy to sit down with the Dean and his chairs to do such resource assessments.

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