Committee Meetings and Minutes

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Accounting Task Force

Meeting Minutes

Current Status of Minutes: Final
Date	October 3, 2014
Time	1:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Location	NRG

Members Present
Sheila Ammons, Kimberly Cameron, June Geppert, Cynthia Lovick, Reed Peoples, James Pumphret, Larry Stephens, Jay Thibodeaux, Brian Voss, Denise White
Guests Present
No guest attendance has been recorded.

Item # 1:	Approval of minutes
Presenter	Dr. Reed Peoples
Discussion	Dr. Peoples opened the meeting by reviewing the minutes of the last meeting, approved by all in attendance.

Item # 2:	Policy for overloading of classes
Presenter	Dr. Reed Peoples
Discussion	Everyone agreed to overload classes by at least two students. Doctor peoples will call the instructor to make sure more than two is acceptable.

Item # 3:	Policy on grading
Presenter	Dr. Reed Peoples
Discussion	There was a misunderstanding of one of November's Taskforce Meeting discussion on grades and accounting programs. The general understanding was that if a student does not get a C or better in any accounting class, they can't move on to the next level course. After a thorough discussion about our policy on grading and how they would affect students in many different situations, the staff's brainstorming created this proposal: Group-Proposed policy: - No Ds acceptable for core courses. o Core courses are:  ACCT 2301  ACCT 2302  ACNT 1371  ACNT 2303  ACNT 2304  ACNT 2333  ACNT 2331  ACNT 2332  ACNT 2376  ACNT 1393  ACNT 1370  ACNT 1331  ACNT 1347  ACNT 2375  ACNT 1325  ACNT 2330 - 1 D acceptable in any elective courses. o Elective courses defined as:  ACNT 2333  ACNT 2376  ACNT 2332  ACNT 2309  ACNT 1370  ACNT 1391  ACNT 1372 - All Ds must be retaken in next semester - 21 hours of C or better for upper level courses. - Upon the 2nd D, one of the D courses must be retaken before proceeding with the plan. - No Ds acceptable in core courses from other universities. Everyone present voted "yes" to the above policy.

Item # 4:	Midterm Assessment
Presenter	Denise White
Discussion	No questions were changed on the midterm assessment. A handout will be added to the newsletter. On blackboard we will put a summary of the basis of our questions "Does the student understand the components of an inventory account? What purchases are on the credit side?" Some instructors are not giving the midterm assessment. La Tasha sent out a notice to everyone saying that everyone has to give the midterm-assessment. Denise stated that the goal result of our assessment is 70% of students making a 70% or better. The spring and summer semesters did not meet these goals. For the statistics of the assessments for these semesters, contact Denise white. These recommendations for how to reach our goals were offered and voted on: * Since we now have a track record for how well our 2301 and 2302 students are doing, we should administer the assessment in 1325 for comparison. By giving the same assessment in 1325 we can see how well those students perform. This will help us figure out if the problem with the assessment is in the instrument, the teaching or the students themselves. * We can find student's problem areas and require them to do more graded homework problems in those areas in order to help reinforce their problem areas. A committee has also been formed to recreate the 2301 assessment. Members of committee: Latasha Roberts, Larry Stephens, Jay Thibodeaux, June Geppert. Voting: Both recommendations above were voted into action by present faculty. Useful Announcement: Smart thinking's services have been acquired and are now being made available to our students as 5 hours free towards tutoring. Accounting is one of the subjects. The library is organizing this, and they say the amount of hours bought by ACC for each student, is not being used by the students. Accounting students are encouraged to go to the library and petition for more hours of tutoring if needed.

Item # 5:	ACBSP
Presenter	Dr. Reed Peoples
Discussion	Dr. Peoples is on the articulation committee. Important a good relationship is maintained.

Item # 6:	Update to Academic Master Plan
Presenter	Dr. Reed Peoples
Discussion	We will wait to update the Academic Master Plan until after the election in November, because we are expecting major changes in the college structure and some changes in how we are going to handle the Master Plan.

Item # 7:	Grade distribution
Presenter	Dr. Reed Peoples
Discussion	Info was passed out for the grade distribution. Grade inflation is the most important part of this to talk about. Dr.Peoples is concerned that some classes are having 70% or more A's in their class. If the instructors are able to get 70% A's through their teaching, they need to teach the rest of the instructors what they are doing in order to do this. Otherwise, classes are being given high grades without earning them. What can we do to make sure we don't have grade inflation? After some brainstorming, the faculty present agreed upon creating an adjunct faculty committee. They review the adjunct faculty portfolios, and they review the grade distributions and evaluations. This committee will be made up of the following faculty: -Jay Thibodeaux, Tracie Nobles, Larry Stephens and Denise White.

Item # 8:	Business Administration Degree
Presenter	Dr. Reed Peoples
Discussion	We are all responsible for Advising Business Administration students. The Core Curriculum committee approved that the core curriculum course 1301 can be either business principles or electives. The electives available to choose from are BUSI 2371, BUSI 2301, MATH 1324. Recommendation is that if a student does not have the pre-requisites to go into business calculus, they must take business algebra in order to take Business Calculus, essentially creating a pre-requisite for Business Calculus. Management is not happy about this because the pre-requisite is not in the degree plan. With this pre-requisite, the students can't take the business courses. This creates a business administration degree where it is possible to have no business principles course. So, a new program will be put into effect in the fall of 2015 including the business principles course. Accounting technician plan: Office administration changed their excel spreadsheet from a 4 hour course to a 3 hour course. This brought our degree plan went from 61 hours to 60. Good for us!

Item # 9:	ACNT 1325
Presenter	Sheila Ammons
Discussion	Sheila was given approval, for one semester (Spring 2015) to teach all her classes online. 1325 had to be made into an online course instead of the hybrid course it is now in order for this to be done. Voting: The group voted on allowing 1325 to be an online course for Spring 2015, then at the end of that semester we reevaluate it.

Item # 10:	Advisory meeting committee will be scheduled for Oct 31, 3PM
Presenter	Denise White
Discussion	Advisory Meeting is scheduled for October 31st at 3PM Reason for Halloween to be the day is to accommodate Tony Ross (chair). We will be presenting to the advisory committee a given schedule. The schedule's meetings will be twice a year, and can be canceled if not needed. Agenda items are needed for the advisory committee. If you have a recommendation, forward them Dr. Peoples and Denis White.

Item # 11:	State board info
Presenter	Dr. Reed Peoples
Discussion	All hiring is frozen. Nothing will happen until after tax referendum (after election). Some changes will happen. We don't know what they are yet. Expect changes in the spring regardless of election result. Why are we trying to get the bond issued? We can't go out and advocate, but they want faculty to be able to answer questions as to why people should do this. Dr. Peoples will be sending out information to the faculty for them to be able to answer this question as well as others. Bond1: Planning & Construction for future growth. Bond 2: Existing campus growth, renovation, health, safety, & sustainability.

Item # 12:	Texas State Board of Accountancy update
Presenter	Dr. Reed Peoples
Discussion	Dr. Peoples handed out information about our standing. This year, we're ranked at 9th place. We had 28students tested, this year it was 33. 5 more students tested this year. Last year we had 38 sections, this year it was 43 sections. We have growth!

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