The Council on Academic Affairs discussed their role in the vitalization project and revised the public relations minor at their meeting Thursday.

As brought up by philosophy professor Gary Aylesworth in last week’s CAA meeting, according to Article 7 of the CAA’s bylaws, it is the CAA’s responsibility to advise the President in the addition, deletion, or revision of undergraduate programs.

There are a number of reasons CAA should take up a position of helping with these suggestions, Aylesworth said, primarily because it is the group that is normally in charge of these recommendations, though he said he thinks they have been bypassed during the vitalization process.

“Bad things happen when regular order isn’t followed,” Aylesworth said. “It’s just not good policy not to follow regular order.”

Workgroup no. 7, which looked at Academic Programs during the vitalization project, recommended seven program eliminations or consolidations in their report, which was posted online.

The administration narrowed this list down to five programs.

The master’s degree in Special Education as well as, the bachelor’s degrees in Africana Studies, career and technical education, adult and community education, and philosophy are still being considered for consolidation or deletion.

CAA Chair Stacey Ruholl said Provost Blair Lord told her he is assembling a packet of information about these programs so the CAA and other councils or committees can review the materials and decide what actions they would like to take next.

The information all the councils and committees will be the same, Ruholl said.

Ruholl said the council would will look at the information given to them at their next meeting and decide what its role will be in regards to the recommendations.

This topic will carry over for meetings to come.

During the meeting, revisions to the class Television Criticism 4770 to update it for the first time since 2002 and align it better with the learning goals of the university were unanimously approved. Revisions to the Public relations minor reducing it from a 24 credit hour minor to a 21-hour minor were also approved.

Two new classes were also proposed including “Human Memory” as an elective and “Sustainability in the Hospitality Industry,” as a general education course. “Human Memory” was approved unanimously while “Sustainability in the Hospitality Industry” will have to be renamed and revised before being voted on

Chrissy Miller can be reached at 581-2812 or clmiller9@eiu.edu.