Professor Hartman reported that more departments had submitted courses to meet this requirement. Some members believe it is hard to justify a college-wide requirement when different disciplines require different types of research. The suggestion that students can take research courses in departments other than their majors was discussed. Since many of the submitted research courses are upper level, students would have to take prerequisite courses before being able to take the research course. Some members did not think this was a problem since students often take several courses in one department that is not their major.
Students can also do independent research.
One member said the research requirement has not been thought out and discussed by a group. Another did not agree, saying that the requirement has been discussed by the Chairs Council and a faculty survey has been done. Professor Hartman reported that when she set about implementing the assessment procedures for knowledge area 5, a problem arose. The faculty request to eliminate surveys outside the regular evaluation framework would mean that assessment would be tied to faculty evaluations. She believes this would be unfair to faculty.