The Council of Academic Affairs discussed proposed catalog changes for several courses, majors, minors and options Thursday in Room 4440 of Booth Library.

The first class discussed was PLS 3543, Civil Liberties in America, which asked to revise the language of the course and also allows for it to be taken online.

Karen B. Swenson, a political science professor who teaches the class, said the class is offered once a year and is in high demand.

“There is often a waiting list for PLS 3543 and so it would be nice to be able to offer it over the summer,” Swenson said.

The political science department would still be offering the course in person like it has for many years.

PLS 3543 will be offered over the spring and summer and this will provide flexibility for students, especially those who want to take the course over the summer and not stay in the local area.

PLS 3543 online will be taken through the Desire to Learn (D2L) program where discussion is carried out through either a discussion board or seminar room.

Other than the face-to-face experience, the difference in taking Civil Liberties in America Online will be attendance playing a factor in the overall grades.

Swenson will accommodate these points to either “participation” credit or adding more weight to exams.

The revisions for PLS 3543 have been unanimously approved.

CAA members also voted on the revision to the history major. This includes history with teacher licensure, history with international studies and history as a minor.

The history department said they felt these revisions would expose students to deep content knowledge in multiple fields of history, further emphasizing student understanding of the nature of historical inquiry.

The history department also said it felt these revisions allow more freedom for students within the major and help recruit more history majors and minors.

Along with the other revisions, the history department proposed to reduce the number of required credit hours in order to allow students to explore other minors, which could allow the department to be

Another proposal was to revise HIS 4375, the History Capstone Seminar course.

The history department said they want to focus more on professional skill development throughout the major program.

These revisions will help history majors solidify their training in the historical discipline.

All history majors will apply their skills to a written research project, a set of professional development pieces and a public presentation.

All revisions proposed by the history department were unanimously approved.

Darren Hendrickson, the chair and associate professor of the sociology department introduced a new course, ANT 3612, The Body in Anthropological Perspective as well as revisions to make SOC 2830, Family and Society available online.

Both sociology and anthropology department proposals have been unanimously approved by CAA.

CAA approved several proposed changes for the department of music since they could not do so last week because last week’s meeting being canceled.

The proposed revisions were for program changes for all performance concentrations, for keyboard, vocal and instrumental concentrations as well as in the composition concentration.

These revisions also include eliminating MUS 3155/3156 from the keyboard concentration, MUS 3156 from the instrumental concentration, and MUS 3155 from the vocal concentration.

All revisions proposed by the music department have been unanimously approved.

Jeff Coy can be reached at 581-2812 or at jrcoy@eiu.edu