New English courses, including Introduction to Creative Writing and Transatlantic Literary History, will be available in Fall 2015.

The Council on Academic Affairs approved these courses Thursday as well as a new general education journalism course, News Information and Media Literacy, which will also be available in Fall 2015.

The creative writing minor will now have an introductory course, ENG 2000, which will offer students a multi-genre course in place of having genre-specific 2000-level creative writing courses.

Pushing all other courses in the minor to the 3000 level will put the university in line with other institutions, according to the course proposal.

The department will offer two courses titled Transatlantic Literary History: Culture, Literacies and Technologies; the first, ENG 2950, will be available in Fall 2015, and the continuation of that course, ENG 2960, will be offered in Spring 2016.

The new course will replace ENG 4950: Literary History, changing it to a sophomore level to prepare students when choosing their upper level classes within the major.

It will be part of a two-course sequence focusing on the relationship between transatlantic literary periods and the importance of texts within the period.

This course will also familiarize students with transatlantic literary history and will analyze a range of transatlantic texts.

The new journalism course, JOU 2000, will focus on information and news literacy skills and news media development.

Joe Gisondi, a journalism professor, said the new course would help students in the major learn to distinguish what is news and what is not news.

The council also revised film studies course FILM 3759: History of Cinema, changing it to a hybrid course by including an online option effective Summer 2015.

History of Cinema teaches students the history and art form of cinema as they grow up in a culture where moving images are used to tell stories, according to the course rational.

Members also approved changes to the undergraduate academic waiver rules under the senior institution credits requirements.

The number of senior institution credit hours was changed from at least 56 semester hours to a minimum of 42 hours, as part of the undergraduate graduation requirement, which is scheduled to take in effect in Spring 2015.

Debby Hernandez can be reached at 581-2812 or dhernandez5@eiu.edu