The Council on Academic Affairs approved new and revised courses in sociology and anthropology, history, family and consumer sciences, music and business.

The sociology major will now include the option of counting up to three credit hours of anthropology coursework as an elective for the major, which will fill part of the 21 credits in electives requirement.

This would be exclusive of Introduction to Anthropology, which is already required within the major.

Darren Hendrickson, the chair of the sociology and anthropology department, said both subjects are interrelated.

“This is an opportunity to expose students to a range of different cultures,” Hendrickson said.

The department has also revised the sociology minor to include the Introduction to Anthropology course as an elective.

The anthropology minor was also revised from 12 credit hours in anthropology electives to 12 to 18 credit hours in the subject.

The council approved to change the SOC 3622 Population course to include online delivery, which would be available during the fall and spring 2015.

According to the revision proposal, the department has a significant amount of transfer students, which has been a push to have more options of course availability for students who commute, work, or have other conflicts with scheduling.

The council also approved two new history courses, including HIS 4781 The Arab-Israeli Conflict and HIS 4782 Modern Iran.

Both courses will be face-to-face lecture courses and will be available in spring 2015.

HIS 4781 will focus on the roots, evolution, and historical complexity of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

HIS 4782 Modern Iran will study the history of modern Iran in areas such as revolution, revolts, and social movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, and how they have affected its history, according to the course proposal.

According to the course proposal, the courses will fulfill the need for a modern Middle East course, and provide a 4000 level course for history majors.

Changes in the family and consumer sciences courses were also approved.

FCS 4753 Nutrition and the Addicted Person will be available as an online course in summer 2015.

FCS 5570 Housing will be available as an online course beginning in spring 2015.

Dietetics professor Melanie Burns said the Family and Consumer Sciences School is looking to make their courses more readily available to students.

“We have several traditional students (such as) working parents (and) single parents,” Burns said. “With online offerings, they are able to continue their education.”

Council members approved both FCS courses by an 8 to 1 vote.

The council also approved a new music general education course, MUS 2558 Film Music, which will be offered in the summer of 2015.

The course will focus on musical works that were created for films, according to the course proposal.

Business, finance and marketing majors will also see changes in courses.

Business 3710 Business Financial Management will be available as an online course beginning in spring 2015.

FIN 3720 Investments will be available as an online course during spring 2015 with instructor and student face-to-face interaction.

Professors will be able to use technology to interact with their students online.

Finance professor Patrick Lach said revisions were made to offer available courses for non-traditional students who cannot attend in-class courses.

A new marketing course will be available beginning fall 2015 as a face-to-face and online course.

The course was created to help students better prepare for the job market, with demand in integrating social media components into existing marketing programs, according to the course proposal.

The council will meet at 2 p.m. Jan. 15 in the Booth Library Conference Room 4440.

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