Faculty & Staff
Self Governance » Curricular Affairs Committee
Minutes
9/19/03
Committee members present were Craig Cox, Theresa Shi, Jeanie Jaramillo, Marge Weis, Kalkunte Srivenogupal, and Reza Mehvar.- Minutes: The minutes of the previous meeting were approved.
- New Committee Member: David Allen introduced himself as the new Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs and stated that currently all the fall courses have the WebCT observer access, which the CAC members may use.
- Report from individual members regarding the progress in curricular mapping: Concerns were expressed regarding having to guess on what is being covered in the courses. Dr. Mehvar advised that the members should first identify the core courses, map the abilities based on the information from the course syllabi, contact the faculty team leaders and share with them the mapping process that has already been identified, and ask them to verify the information. This will let the faculty member know that we are not asking them to do the committee's work. The committee needs to determine what, if any, ability statements cannot be linked.
- Jeanie Jaramillo reported on the mapping of the Communications category. Marge Weis reported on the mapping of the problem solving ability statements. Venu reported on the Basic Sciences category and stated that he is still missing POD and Biochemistry and some of the pharmacotherapy syllabi. These syllabi will be provided to him. Teresa Shi reported that there are just so many holes in the information available when just using the syllabi to determine course contents.
- There was much discussion regarding the number of meetings the committee needs to have to complete this process. It was decided that we need a two-day period the whole committee can meet and work on Curriculum mapping as a group project. It was determined that December 2 and 3 will work for everyone. Also, the dates for the next two meetings were set: October 13 and November 3, both at 3:00 PM.
- David Allen and Reza Mehvar reported that the Assessment Committee have already met and performed their initial curriculum mapping process and will have the results to the Curricular Affairs committee by October 13.
- The goal is to put all of the curricular mapping information into a database so that it can be searched based on the course or ability statements. The results from the entire curriculum mapping process with the deficiencies and duplication in the curriculum will be presented to the faculty at a faculty retreat.
- Request to change the course name for PHAR4682: Gary Collins requested to change the name of PHAR 4682 from "Ambulatory Care Clerkship" to "Advanced Ambulatory Care Clerkship". The committee contacted Gary Collins via telephone conference call to seek clarifications. It was agreed that we need to keep some consistency in the names of our courses; if there is to be a course named "advanced", then the course should also have a prerequisite "primary" course, and these courses should be taken in sequence. Currently, primary care clerkship is not a pre-requisite to PHAR4682. Gary Collins agreed to discuss these issues within the Pharmacy Practice Department and submit a revised proposal for consideration in the next CAC meeting.
- Discussion of Early Clinical Experience in Pharmacy Practice course (PHAR 1235) and other courses which qualify for early practice: PHAR 1235 ECE elective course was discussed and Teresa Shih reported that she had been assigned to chair a committee appointed by the Dean to review this course currently being offered. Dean wanted them to draft a proposal to model the course to be offered in Dallas. It was then reported that Dr. Raehl no longer wants to offer the ECE here in Amarillo. Members stated that ECE is an elective course, which could not have been a basis for our compliance with ACPE standards. Further, David Allen advised that he had spoken with an ACPE representative and is of the opinion that we are meeting the guidelines and requirements of the ACPE, regardless of the status of the ECE course. However, the committee is open to any proposals as how to improve early clinical experiences.
- Discussion of changes in the credit hours for anatomy: Lat year, based on a careful review and recommendation of the course team, the committee proposed a reduction in the credit hours from 5 to 4. Indeed, the actual number of contact hours for last year was close 4 credit hours. However, the motion was tabled during the Faculty Meeting in May 2003. The Chair stated that he would like to bring this issue back to the next faculty meeting. There was much discussion whether this should be linked to a one credit hour increase in other courses. The Curricular Affairs Committee feels that its decisions should be driven by sound educational needs rather than financial issues, hence this proposal shoul not be linked to any increase in credit hour. Because of length of discussion, it was decided to address this issue at the next CAC meeting. Decision regarding this issue needs to be made at the December faculty meeting to be in effect for the Fall 2004 school year curriculum.