Program Proposals

• College of Arts & Letters
• College of Business Administration
• College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies

• Program List #1
• Program List #2
• Program List #3

SUBSTANTIVE CHANGE

Art History

Justification:

• Text is edited throughout for clarification and consistency.
• The foreign language requirement is changed to meet the norms of the discipline in foreign language research skills – skills needed for a job in the field and for graduate studies.
• The Art History writing requirement is revised to conform to university requirements.
• Add course, Photography 102: Photography, a Social History, as an additional choice in the Modern & Contemporary section of the Art History curriculum.  Photography and photographic media are foundational in contemporary art.  Art 101: Art Photography is already part of the Art History concentration.  It teaches modern photography (mid-19th to mid-20th century) but does not present contemporary photography.  Nigel Poor, the instructor of Photography 102, and Sharmon Goff, department Chair, have agreed to the addition of this course to the Art History concentration.  See attached email correspondance.
• Remove Art Gallery Management 193 from the seminar section.  Because Art 193 is a hands-on practicum and not an academic seminar, it does not teach Art History majors the skills they need in critical thinking, research and writing.  This program change will assure that all majors get an undergraduate seminar.  We believe this will solve the problem of their reaching the senior seminar unable to produce a BA-level research paper.
• Add an option that allows students to satisfy the seminar requirement with an upper-division seminar in another liberal arts major such as History.  Since Art History currently offers only two undergraduate seminars plus an occasional experimental seminar (Art 196), this option, taken with the approval of the Art History advisor, assures students enough choice to be both practical and enriching.

NON-SUBSTANTIVE CHANGES

BA Studio Art, BA Art Education, MA Art, Art Minor

Justification:

Addition of Art 143, 3D Computer Animation to the Studio Art BA program
Addition of Art 143, 3D Computer Animation to the Art Education BA program
Addition of Art 143, 3D Computer Animation to the Studio Art MA program

This course is the second of three courses to be offered in 3D computer graphics in the Art Department’s program in Electronic Art.  Art 142 (3D Computer Modeling) is the prerequisite course and has now been taught for three semesters.  There is clearly the demand and the necessary skill level in students who have taken the prerequisite course to justify the development of an animation course, which creates the next logical learning step for students with 3D computer modeling experience.

BA Studio Art, BA Art Education, MA Art, Art Minor

Justification:

1. Change the name of Art 144 “Raster and Vector Imaging” to Art 144 “Digital Printmaking” The current course title does not give students a clear idea of the course content.  The course combines digital and traditional printmaking techniques, but the title refers only to the computer processes, and not to the printmaking processes. The new name more accurately describes the course.

2. Modify the catalog description to more accurately describe the course content.

MA Art

Justification:

Addition of Art 297, New Media 1 to the Studio Art MA program.
In this graduate level course students will develop new media projects in digital image and 2D animation at an advanced level.  While the course will be taught consecutively with the upper division studio elective course, Art 197, the students in 297 will work individually with the instructor to develop and execute self-directed projects in digital image and animation.  There are currently no graduate level courses in the Art Department’s Electronic Art studio area, and this needs to be addressed.

MA Art

Justification:

Addition of Art 298, New Media 2 to the Studio Art MA program In this graduate level course students will develop video and new media art projects at an advanced level.  While the course will be taught consecutively with the upper division studio elective course, Art 198, the students in 298 will work individually with the instructor to develop and execute self-directed projects that use video and interactive processes.  There are currently no graduate level courses in the Art Department’s Electronic Art studio area, and this needs to be addressed.

NON-SUBSTANTIVE CHANGE

History B.A.

Justification:

Requesting change of course classification for HIST 143B from “03” to “02”. Course is not an Advanced Study course. No other changes.

NON-SUBSTANTIVE CHANGE

Management Information Systems Concentration in the BSBA Program

Justification:

The demand for enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation people has steadily increased in our region. The College and MIS area are responding to meeting this demand by offering a course that will provide students with the background including skills, knowledge and insights to ERP systems implementation.

NEW PROGRAM

Undergraduate Major, B.S.

Justification:

The addition of a B.S. track to our existing B.A. will address a major student complaint—namely, that many of the state and federal agency jobs that they are qualified to apply for require a B.S. rather than a B.A.  Otherwise, the change is mainly a shift in emphasis, rather than an entirely new program.  This department has always offered its majors an interdisciplinary mix of social-science and science-focused courses, grounded in a strong liberal arts tradition.  By adding the B.S., we hope to give an edge to students preparing for careers that require greater depth in the sciences.  New courses are proposed that reflect the disciplinary specialties of our science faculty, but these courses will also be electives in the B.A.  In fact, the high degree of overlap between the B.S. and B.A. ensures that we will be able to sustain our course offerings reliably into the future, regardless of year-to-year variation in the proportion of students choosing either track.  An informal e-mail survey of our recent graduates indicated that virtually all of them were in favor of offering the B.S., and most would have chosen it had it been available.

SUBSTANTIVE CHANGES

Undergraduate Major, B.A.

Justification:

Changes proposed to the B.A. are intended to align with two other program changes: the revocation of the requirement that students fulfill a minor in another department, and the proposal of a new B.S. track.  The required outside minor was an artifact from a time when interdisciplinary studies were seen as experimental; environmental studies is now an established field.  Many interdisciplinary Environmental Studies programs offer students a choice between a B.S. with a heavy science focus and a B.A. that emphasizes the social sciences to a greater degree.  It is also common in disciplines like Biology and Psychology to offer both a B.S. and B.A.  The B.A. proposed here offers students the following advantages:

1) a lower-division mix of science and social science survey courses that is more flexible, and has more options than that previously offered; additionally, it is identical to that proposed for the B.S., so that students can make their track choice in the junior or senior year
2) a solid grounding in the social sciences, with more emphasis on policy and law in ENVS and more options from Economics, Sociology, History, and Government
3) significant overlap with the B.S. in methods courses like statistics and field methods, as well as science elective options to preserve the interdisciplinary nature of the major
4) an essentially unchanged unit load, compared to the old B.A.+outside minor scheme
5) adds career experience by requiring, rather than merely recommending, an internship or research experience

ENVS Undergraduate Minor

Justification:

Changes to the minor are proposed to give students more flexibility in completing the minor, at the same time that we concentrate more of their units in ENVS courses and give the program some sorely needed structure.  Previously, students were required to choose courses from groupings that had no strong commonalities.  Moreover, students could complete the minor taking as few as 3 Environmental Studies courses, two of these in lower-division.  The course requirements are now clustered around several core competencies, with a much stronger emphasis on ENVS courses, as follows:

1) lower-division survey courses in environmentally related disciplines (2 ENVS courses required)
2) upper-division environmental policy/law (1 ENVS course required)
3) upper-division environmental science (1 ENVS course required)
4) methods (ENVS course as option)
5) additional breadth in social science OR natural science courses (ENVS course as option)

NEW PROGRAM

Undergraduate Major, B.A. in Women's Studies

Justification:

Women’s Studies is an integral part of university education.  Women’s Studies at Sacramento State has historical significance as one of the first programs to be established in the country.  We have offered a special major, a joint major, and a minor in Women’s Studies for 38 years.  We request that the special major be converted into a regular B. A. in Women’s Studies.   We already operate with similar requirements as other Majors, with an established curriculum and a suit of required core courses and electives.  Women’s Studies has its own hegis code.  There are no additional courses or resources required for Women’s Studies to offer the Major.  We can operate with the existing funds allocated to us by the University.   There are no additional staffing, faculty or funding requirements.  The transition to a B.A. in Women’s Studies will have major advantages for both the University and the students.  It will increase the number of students majoring in Women’s Studies – a B. A. in Women’s Studies is definitely more attractive than a B.A. in a Special Major.  For students, it will increase job opportunities and prospects for getting admission into Master’s and PhD programs.  It will also reduce the amount of paper work students are currently required to go through for the special major.  More than 60% of the students polled in in-class surveys conducted in Women’s Studies classes in Fall 2009 are in favor of a Major in Women’s Studies.  Students further indicated that if the option had been available, they would have considered Women’s Studies for their major.  Further, the courses offered, department mission, Goals and Learning outcomes of Women’s Studies at Sacramento State are consistent with other Women’s Studies Programs throughout the country.