A guest asked if “A” could be used instead of “R,” as “R” might be mistaken for “Remedial.” A friendly amendment to this effect was accepted and passed.

CC 18-19-29: ENV 506: Experimental Design and Applied Statistics: The College of Agriculture has been assessing the Environmental Studies program and looking to improve students' use of statistics. They have designed this course in experimental design and applied statistics for this purpose. This course will help students doing field work run their own statistics. The course will combine lectures on learning to use "R," the open-source statistical program. Upon passing the course, students can decide what stats to run when doing their own studies.

A Senator asked who will be teaching the course. Whittinghill replied that she and Dr. Cristian will be the instructors.

Guest Kim Sipes, Deputy Provost, asked if these faculty are appropriately credentialled to teach these classes.

A Senator responded that many institutions have professors who teach stats within their divisions who are perfectly qualified to teach in their own departments. If a PhD in stats is required to teach stats, there are very few people here at KSU who can fulfill that requirement.

Sipes replied that she was referring to the 2018 revised SACS guidelines, which are fairly new revisions regarding faculty qualifications.

A Senator noted that there are two math faculty with the requisite graduate hours in statistics, but there is a big difference between applied and theoretical stats. The students here need applied stats.

Moffett noted that this is an important conversation to have, but up for discussion at the moment is this new course.

Schneller noted that because of the new revisions to SACS, we do want to be careful and start looking at the curriculum review process. The Curriculum Committee needs to work with the Dean to make sure there are qualified faculty to teach a new course being proposed. If we do put forward a new course like this, we need to make sure there are qualified faculty. This is not a KSU rule but a SACS mandate, and all the SACS schools are now under the gun to respond to this new and more stringent standard.

Moffett replied that this is an issue that should be addressed by the departments and Deans.

Schneller responded that the question needs to be asked before the item reaches the Senate floor; departments submitting new course proposals must verify they have qualified faculty or can get them before the courses go to Senate.

Whittinghill replied that she has made notes to revise the Course Proposal forms accordingly.