MCS College Council
October 11, 2000

In Attendance:
William Williams
David Owen 
William Brown
Richard McCullough
James Greenberg
Steve Garoff
Eric Grotzinger
Sharon McCarl
Gordon Rule
Amy Kennedy
Irene Fonseca
Melissa Pasquinelli
Christopher Noser
Jason Jordan

I. CSW PROPOSED MODEL FOR FALL 2001

The proposal for a new CSW model to begin in the fall 2001 semester was presented to the council.  Many students are 
unhappy with the current model, citing that some of the modules are too remedial and unnecessary.  In particular, the 
Word and Excel modules were deemed to be unnecessary.  The new model was designed to focus mainly on Carnegie Mellon 
specific computing skills, leaving topics such as word processing and using spreadsheets to be offered as optional modules. 

This proposal was presented to CUA prior to the College Council and was met with much disapproval.  Members feel that 
extensive knowledge of spreadsheet programs such as Excel is crucial to a number of MCS courses.  It was the opinion of 
the group that instructors do not have the time or resources to teach students how to use Excel as part of their courses 
and that it should be included in CSW.

The council would like to modify the proposal so that the Andrew Calendar section is eliminated and both Network Security
& Abuse and Information Literacy are reduced to one hour.  This would leave an additional six hours that could be filled 
with two modules of the student's choosing.   

COLLEGE COUNCIL ACTION: The council voted unanimously in favor of a scaled down model of the Carnegie Mellon specific 
topics and the inclusion of two modules of the students' choice.  It would be strongly recommended that MCS students take 
Excel as one of the optional modules.  Eric will present this idea to the Associate Deans of the other colleges.

II. COURSE WAIVER VS COURSE CREDIT

Currently MCS awards credit to students who have achieved acceptable scores on AP exams, IB exams, or Cambridge A-Level 
exams, or who have taken a comparable course at another college or university.  There have been an increasing number of 
students requesting credit for MCS courses based on material they have covered outside of these accepted formats and credit 
has been awarded on a case-by-case basis.  Because of the increasing number of students requesting this type of credit, it 
has become necessary to define a standard policy in MCS. 

One option is to give a course waiver instead of credit.  This would mean that a student could take any courses that 
require the waivered course as a prerequisite and could count the waivered course toward degree requirements; the student 
would have to take additional courses in order to fulfill the required units for graduation.  

It is also necessary to define a standard for determining whether a student is eligible for a waiver.  Steve Garoff 
proposed allowing students to take the final exam from the previous semester of the course.  If the student scores in the 
top 20%, the course will be waived.  Some members favored simply awarding credit by exam in this case.

Sharon McCarl raised the issue that the university will ultimately lose money if students are given sufficient credit for 
work done outside of Carnegie Mellon, that it would not be necessary for them to spend the typical eight semesters here.        

COLLEGE COUNCIL ACTION:  The council recommended that Eric Grotzinger raise this issue at the next Associate Deans Council, 
as it clearly requires further discussion and comparison with other Carnegie Mellon colleges and perhaps other universities. 

III. ELIMINATION OF CLASS RANK

Eric Grotzinger raised the issue of eliminating class rank, citing that most competitive universities have already done 
so.  It is often the case that students with high QPAs can rank somewhat lower than expected, given that there are a 
significant number of students in the high QPA range.  The undergraduates present at College Council were in favor of 
eliminating class rank, as were the students polled later at the Dean's SAC meeting.    

COLLEGE COUNCIL ACTION: No action was taken at this time.

IV. UPDATE ON DH 1300 HALLWAY PROJECT

Patricia Maurides, director of the BSA program, worked together with design student Chris Rugen to produce four pieces of 
artwork that will be hung in the DH 1300 hallway.  Each piece represents one of the four departments in MCS, incorporating 
images provided by the departments.  The artwork will be mounted and displayed in the hallway in time for Family Weekend, 
which begins on October 27. 

V. PILOT TA EVALUATION

Because FCEs are defined in the context of lectures and are not recommended for use in recitations, a pilot TA evaluation 
program is planned for the fall 2000 semester.  Like the FCEs, information obtained in the pilot evaluation program will 
not be published.  Given that teaching is a requirement for graduate students, evaluation of their teaching is analogous 
to assigning a grade so that  evaluations must be held confidential.  

The Eberly Teaching Center piloted an evaluation of TAs on a university wide scale several years ago, and, while it was 
deemed to be successful, central administration discontinued financial support and the program was dropped.  However, SCS 
has adopted the program and handles processing and costs at the college level.  MCS would like to move in this direction 
as well and has found that cost should not be excessive.  The pilot program this fall will be used in recitations only, 
as opposed to evaluation of TAs in lab courses or who simply provide office hours.  

The initial plan was to provide both FCEs and the pilot evaluation forms to students on the same day, asking that they 
fill out both forms.  This would allow for a comparison of the results.  However, students and faculty alike felt that 
this would result in a lower quality of response from students.  Graduate student representative Melissa Pasquinelli, 
who is a TA, stated that she felt the questions on the pilot evaluation forms were much more helpful to her than those 
on the FCEs, but agreed that asking students to fill out both types of form on the same day would result in a lower 
quality response.  (Students attending the Dean's SAC meeting following College Council were also polled on this issue 
and felt that it would be best to provide only one form on given day.)