The Council on Academic Affairs Agenda will vote to add a new philosophy and women’s studies class at 2 p.m. Thursday in Booth Library Room 4440.

Marita Gronnvoll, the CAA chair, said the new class is originating in philosophy.

“(The class) will be cross-listed with women studies and the women studies minor and it is PHI/WST3012, philosophy of sex and love, which is the new course being proposed by philosophy,” Gronnvoll said.

A philosophy representative will be there to discuss the class.

“People who present to CAA will talk about the need for the course and give a background and say why the course is being presented and what they hope the course will do,” Gronnvoll said.

Gronnvoll said the class would take a philosophical approach to issues of sex and love that people talk about all the time.

“They make a great point that some of the most polarizing debates in the world center around these issues around sex and love so they talk about things like homosexuality, marriage, pornography, consent laws,” Gronnvoll said. “It’s a great fit for philosophy and works great for the department.”

PHI/WST3012 would be a philosophy elective, but will also be a great fit for the women’s studies minor as well.

The class would also be offered online.

Some discussion topics for Thursday include reports from the Committee for the Assessment of Student Learning.

“CASL has been assessing critical thinking scores of the graduating seniors and comparing it to the incoming freshmen,” Gronnvoll said.

CASL has been using an exam to make the comparison.

Gronnvoll said, “It has always been a little bit discouraging on how our students are doing on critical thinking and what we can do better.”

A new exam has also been introduced and will be discussed Thursday.

The results were almost the same proving that the learning goals here are very important, which has been verified through the different assessments that have been used, Gronnvoll said.

“The meeting will be very informative, but don’t expect anything troublesome or controversial,” Gronnvoll said.

Gronnvoll said at next year’s meetings they will vote on communication studies, new courses, new minors and a new health studies major.

Further information has not been finalized, but something good should be coming out of it, Gronnvoll said.

Some departments are revising their curriculum to offer more online classes, while others are revising their curriculum to meet the universities learning goals.

Gronnvoll said that a busy semester is ahead of us, and we should be expecting a lot of courses.

Adrian Bolaji can be reached at 581-2812 or aabolaji@eiu.edu