Senate Document #24 (APC Document #21) Revision of Developmental Studies Program Effective: Fall 1984 In an effort to better insure academic success and therefore increase student retention, we have reexamined our current Developmental Studies Program. The first semester is one of higher risk for all students, but for students in this program it is a time of special jeopardy. More effort must be made to realistically enable students to learn the skills required for their success in college. Currently the program includes: DS 100 Basic Reading 2 credits. Reading comprehension, vocabulary, and study skills. DS 101 Reading Lab 1 credit. Individualized attention to specific reading problems. DS 102 Basic Composition 2 credits. Writing course including sentence and paragraph construction and grammar. DS 103 Writing Lab 1 credit. A misnomer; programmed grammar study. DS 106 Basic Math 3 credits. Arithmetic and Elementary Algebra. DS 107 Math Lab 1 credit. Applications of Arithmetic and Elementary Algebra. In order to strengthen the program several changes have already been made. Full-time teachers, writing and reading, will have replaced most adjunct faculty by next fall. A math lab faculty member is now successfully coordinating Math Lab 30 hours a week. Another change that will strengthen the program is included in this proposal: assigning academic department titles, appropriate to their content, to the former DS courses and renaming the program "COLLEGE SKILLS PROGRAM." ED 101 Study Skills 2 semester hours. (A separate course available to ALL university students for credit.) ED 102 will replace DS 100 and DS 101 - 3 semester hours. Lang 100 will replace DS 102 and DS 103 - 3 semester hours. Math 104 will replace DS 106 and DS 107 - 4 semester hours. Page 2 Only students placed in these courses receive academic credit. RATIONALE: Placing these courses within academic departments will smooth the transition between these initial courses and subsequent courses within each discipline. Each department will be involved in planning, maintaining, and improving these courses and the teachers will interact with other teachers in their department more effectively than at present. It will increase teacher morale and student morale to remove the stigma connected with these "special" classes. An important benefit of the proposed changes will be to free up the Reading, Writing, and Math labs from their current credit awarding roles enabling these labs to become a Center for all UNCA students. The separate study skills course was added to the curriculum because too many students come to college wanting to learn but not knowing how. They need help in developing behavior modifications, in taking lecture notes, text notes, preparing for different types of tests and taking them, developing analytical reading techniques, learning when to study, where to study and how to pace the studying. This course will be available to all enrolled students and will be taught by a full-time faculty member who will teach these skills needed to learn specific content courses across the curriculum. Though the Senate does not believe the awarding of credit is ideal, the committee strongly believes that credit toward graduation should not be withdrawn from this program at this time. To take away credit now would probably contribute to attrition, would create a hardship for certain categories of students, i.e., veterans, social security recipients, those on financial aid and athletes. It would also mean that some students taking these courses would have to carry a much too heavy load of other classes to reach a minimum full-time load. The same credits which have been given to students in this program for four years (and much longer in the case of the math course) could not be arbitrarily cut-off without producing serious effects entirely counterproductive to the purpose at hand, i.e., improved academic success for the students. NEW COURSE DESCRIPTIONS: Math 102 Basic Math I 2 credits. Arithmetic, fractions, decimals, percents, signed numbers, geometric formulas, linear equations and applications. Only students placed in this course receive credit. Does not count toward foreign language requirement. Page 3 Math 103 Basic Math II 2 credits. Exponents, scientific notation, polynomials, graphing, systems of equations, radicals and applications. Prerequisite: Math 102 or satisfactory score on placement exam. Only students placed in this course receive credit. Does not count toward foreign language requirement. Math 104 Basic Math I and II 4 credits. Includes both Math 102 and Math 103. Education 101 Study Skills 2 credits. Individualized and group instruction in study skills for all disciplines: purposes for different kinds of reading, time management, note taking, test taking, memorization skills, etc., including work on attitude and motivation. Education 102 Vocabulary Development and Reading Comprehension 3 credits. Development of word recognition skills as needed, vocabulary development and development in different areas of comprehension; flexibility in reading rate; summarizing; reading in content areas and for different purposes. Only students placed in this course receive credit. Language 100 Basic Writing Skills 3 credits. Fundamentals of discovering, organizing and developing ideas, with contextual emphasis on sentence structure, usage, and grammar. Includes required tutorial participation in The Writing Center. Only students placed in this course receive credit. Does not count toward freshman composition requirement. NOTE: All changes were made in conjunction with the three departments involved.