Honors Forum Council Meeting  -- Friday, November 19, 1999

Present:

Michael Arnush, Jon Ramsey, Phil Boshoff, Ruth Copans, Kim Helms, Katie Cella

Absent:

Sue Bender & Amelia Rauser

Guests:

Bill Fox, Paty Rubio & Jennifer Taxman

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The HFC extended an invitation to Skidmore faculty interested in developing Honors Forum curricula in their discipline; representatives from Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work (Bill Fox), FLL-Spanish and Women's Studies (Paty Rubio), and the Library (Jennifer Taxman) joined the Council for lunch and discussion.

Library: Jennifer Taxman presented a library research course designed to equip students with the ability to utilize Skidmore Library resources for research. The Council discussed several issues with Jennifer and Ruth Copans: course level, the Honors component, level of sophistication, final project by the students. The Council agreed that the course as planned will be a welcome addition to the HF curriculum and encouraged the Library faculty to proceed.

Spanish: Paty Rubio explained how under the reconfiguration process the Spanish section is likely to construct an Honors 4-credit section of 203 and probably 103. On behalf of the Women Studies Program Paty will put the Honors curriculum on its Dec. 15th meeting.

Anthropology: Bill Fox proposed SW214 for F00, AN101 for F01, and SO222, SO316 and SW2XX for S02. The department projects this scheme on a two-year cycle. SO101, which had been taught as Honors by Rory McVeigh, will not continue as Honors due to current enrollment pressures (two sections of 40 each, thus  ncapable of supporting the HF mission). Bill raised the issue of faculty workload for HF 3+1 configuration: Does the number of students in the add-on (1 credit) influence whether the instructor will get credit for 3 credits or 4? how low can the enrollment be for the instructor to receive credit for the credit? Bill suggested he and the Council need guidance from Dean's Office as to what the cut-off number is for enrollment in 3+1 credit classes.

Respectfully submitted,

Rebecca Burnham

Honors Forum Secretary