COLLEGE OF LETTERS & SCIENCES
CURRICULUM COMMITTEE

AGENDA

The Committee will meet THURSDAY, March 5,  2009
at 2:15 PM in White 6C

       
       
  1. Approval of the January 22, 2009 Minutes.
  2. Announcements
  3. Psychology
    1. New course PSYCH 407  "Psychology of Emotion and Motivation."  (Motivation is fundamental to human behavior, and emotion is intricately involved in motivational processes as both cause and effect. This course offers an introduction to the psychological bases of and interrelations between human emotion and motivation).
  1. Foreign Languages
    1. New course SPANISH 484 " Women Writers of Spain and the Americas."  (The course will fulfill the need to add diversity to the Spanish program by offering a course that familiarizes the students with a variety of representative samples of the works of women writers of the Americas and Spain from the XVI century to the present, and that allows them to historically contextualize their production and critically analyze its socio-political and cultural impact).
  2. Political Science
    1. New course POLISCI_ASIANST 480 "Government and Politics of Japan."  (This course will present a historic and thematic overview of political development in contemporary Japan.  It consists of analysis of Japanese postwar politics, government decision-making structures and processes, foreign affairs and political economy).
  3. Philosophy & Religious Studies
    1. New course RELIGST 304 "Contemporary Islamic Thought and Practice."  (This course will explore—thematically rather than chronologically--major trends in contemporary Islamic thought and practice through a study of key thinkers and a close reading of their works. Such trends include modernism, reformism, fundamentalism, nationalism, centrism, liberalism and feminism).
  4. Informational Items
    1. Number change and requisite change for the "Introduction to the Scientist-Practitioner Disciplines in Psychology" course FROM PSYCH 446 TO PSYCH 327. (Due to the high number of the course and current prerequisites, students are necessarily taking this class at the end of their undergraduate careers when decisions regarding career and graduate school are already in progress.  Offering this class earlier in the psychology curriculum and with fewer prerequisites would allow students to enroll earlier, facilitating their ability to prepare themselves appropriately for the career path that they choose)
    2. Requisite change for PSYCH 345_545 "Abnormal Psychology."  (The content of Abnormal Psychology does not require enrollment in Psychology of Personality (PSYCH 304) as either a prerequisite or corequisite.  Students who have taken Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH 211) should be well-prepared for entry into Abnormal Psychology.  Making this change will make Abnormal Psychology accessible to a larger number of qualified students)
    3. Delete PSYCH 646 "Introduction to the Scientist Practitioner Disciplines in Psychology."  (As a survey course providing an introduction to applied scientist-practitioner professions in psychology, provision of graduate level credit is not appropriate).
    4. Change in the Psychology submajor "Scientist-Practitioner Graduate School Preparation Emphasis."  (Adds the new course PSYCH 407 to,  and changes PSYCH 446 to PSYCH 327 in the AR).
    5. Add the new course POLISCI 480 to Area 3 in the following Political Science majors and submajors:
      1. Political Science Major (BA_BS)
      2. Political Science Major (BSE)
      3. Political Science - Honors (BA_BS) Emphasis
      4. Political Science Minor
      5. Political Science Education Minor