Undergraduate Studies Committee Report
Change of General Education Requirement
Minimum of Three Credits of Interprofessional Projects

Introduction

The Undergraduate Studies Committee (USC) delayed for two years any formal discussion of the Interprofessional Project (IPRO) General Education (Gen Ed) requirement, at the request of the Dean of the Undergraduate College and, subsequently, the Provost, due to the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) visit (preparation during the 2001-2002 academic year and the actual visit in Fall 2002).

Following ABET accreditation comments in the Spring/Summer 2003, the USC proposed to initiate a review of the IPRO program and the IPRO Gen Ed requirement in October 2003. The USC motion to initiate such a review was passed in November 2003.

A subcommittee of the USC was appointed to define the scope of the review and to request an IPRO Review Document (IRD) from the IPRO administrators. The scope of the IRD included: the IPRO objectives, assessment data (such as grade distribution, faculty staffing, content, etc.), finances, marketing, satisfaction, and conclusions.

The IRD was formally requested in early December 2003, and delivered to the USC in mid-February 2004, with an oral presentation. The IPRO Gen Ed requirement was discussed by the USC at its March 2004 and April 2004 meetings. A motion to change the IPRO Gen Ed requirement to a minimum of three credits was passed by the USC (13 for, 8 against) in April 2004. This motion was presented to the Faculty Council in May 2004.

The Faculty Council requested in September 2004 a report outlining the pros and cons of this change in the Gen Ed requirement, reflecting discussions held on this issue at the USC during the Spring 2004. What follows is the text of the motion, a very brief history of the IPRO Gen Ed requirement, and a summary of the points made in support and against changing the IPRO Gen Ed requirement to a minimum of three credits.

USC IPRO Motion of April 22, 2004

Brief History of IPROs as a Gen Ed Requirement and Their Support

The six credit hour IPRO Gen Ed requirement was approved in Spring 1997 after a heated debate between the faculty and the administration (who proposed this initiative), as a compromise between nine credits of IPRO and no required IPROs. Recognizing that IPROs are both labor and cost intensive, in the Spring 1997, both the USC and the Main Campus faculty strongly supported a motion that stated:   if resources have not been sufficiently and appropriately allocated for IPROs after a three year period, the IPRO Gen Ed requirement would be suspended.

Initial funding for IPROs came from Academic Units (AUs). After the three-year start-up period, a sufficient level of IPRO funding was not found, and the USC considered a motion in 2001 to eliminate the IPRO Gen Ed requirement. Subsequently, AUs were reimbursed $4000/IPRO offered by a faculty member from their AU. In 2003, the reimbursement to the AUs was reduced to $2000/IPRO. In 2004, while the above USC motion to reduce the IPRO Gen Ed requirement was being considered, the AU reimbursement level was returned to $4000/IPRO by the administration.

Arguments FOR the Motion: Minimum of Three Credits of IPRO for Gen Ed

1. The motion specifies a minimum number of three IPRO credits; AUs or degree programs can retain six credits of IPROs, or require nine credits of IPROs, although no degree program to date has more than six credits of IPRO.
2. The motion supports curricular flexibility, without an increase in total degree credit hours, allowing AUs to replace the three IPRO credits with an academically appropriate substitute or reduce the total credit hours required.
For example, BCPS considers an UG research substitute as paramount for admission to graduate school; CAE and BME would use the three credits as a major design experience course; other substitutes might be an in-depth business/management/marketing elective course.
3. A signature program (with minimal funding by the administration) would be retained, not eliminated, allowing only the best IPROs to be offered, with external funding supporting a much higher percentage of IPROs.
4. IPRO grade inflation calls into question whether the educational objectives are appropriately measured and rewarded. Students with grade point averages below the minimum necessary to graduate seek to take an extra IPRO to raise their grade point average.
5. The motion would serve to convert the "faux-IPRO" or "neo-IPRO" courses into actual AU capstone courses, providing an honest set of IPRO course to the entire university.
6. Since teaching good IPROs is comparably more expensive, that is, they take considerable faculty time and resources, reducing the total number of IPROs/year is an excellent strategy for a tuition driven university that is always operating in a budget deficit.
7. Skills that are enhanced by IPROs, such as entrepreneurial or industry/business related, are less critical to some degree programs, like BME, where clinical, disciplinary research/problem-solving experiences are also important.
8. There is a wide variance of student and faculty feedback on the quality of the IPROs, such that IPROs are often viewed as second class courses.
9. In general, IPROs are not acceptable to ABET in lieu of a Humanities elective, a Social Science elective, or a capstone design experience.
10. The grading of IPRO courses is among the highest for any course taught within any AU at IIT, while the IPRO course ratings by the students is among the lowest. This is opposite of most courses taught at IIT.

Arguments AGAINST the Motion: Minimum of Three Credits of IPRO for Gen Ed

1. Reducing the minimum IPRO requirement will likely lead to many degree programs requiring only one IPRO course, making it difficult to ensure the interdisciplinary nature of an IPRO, and might effectively kill the program.
2. Recent key improvements have been made to the selection and delivery of IPROs, e.g., a review committee of faculty and students to approve IPRO proposals, hiring of a full-time instructor to help manage individual IPROs in mid-2003, and the appointment of an IPRO faculty from some AUs.
3. It is not just with IPROs that students express their dissatisfaction; there are good and bad courses and instructors in all AUs.
4. The motion would result in less emphasis on a signature program and might hurt recruiting.
5. IPROs are a different educational experience; thus it takes time to develop the skills to lead and evaluate IPRO students. They should not be compared to regular courses on the basis of how they challenge students and grade inflation.
6. IPROs were never designed to satisfy ABET requirements, with the exception of showing that students are capable of working in multi-disciplinary teams.
7. Prospective students seeking something beyond the traditional college education recognize the value of IPROs. Along with the Leadership Academy, the entrepreneurial and honors research programs, IPROs attract, retain, and challenge the best students.
8. An alumni survey from Summer 2004 shows that the IPRO program should be retained as a requirement. Older working alumni and engineering alumni favor IPROs more than non-engineering alumni.
9. Students have at least two projects to put on their resume, and talk about at job interviews; they can show that they have developed skills working on a team that may be of interest to an employer.
10. IPROs are valuable to students oriented towards industry and entrepreneurial endeavors.

Some concluding remarks related to the USC's IPRO Gen Ed motion are in order. There is a well-founded skepticism by the faculty that the administration's promises to support IPROs over the past eight years at the financial level that they require are not trustworthy. Yet, dedicated faculty still strive to offer excellent IPROs. Other faculty see little or no value in IPROs for their majors, and criticize the slow (eight year) development of an acceptable IPRO course structure, as well as the excessive faculty effort and cost for a relatively small class size to produce a good IPRO course. Nonetheless, additional efforts have been made, following the USC's IPRO Gen Ed motion, to improve IPROs and study their outcomes via a series of surveys.