The Council on Academic Affairs voted Thursday to approve a revision that will replace the environmental sustainability and environmental studies minors with the new environmental impact and sustainability minor.

Diane Burns, chair of the Department of Geology and Geography, said neither of the original minors, which have both existed on the course catalog for a long time, have some required course overlap.

Replacing both the minors with a new one would make the process of getting the minor more efficient and easier for students to understand, Burns said.

CAA also approved a revision for a revised option for the Recreation Administration: Therapeutic Recreation bachelor’s degree.

BIO 2220: Anatomy & Physiology 2 will be removed, REC 4950: Leisure and Aging will be added to required courses and removed from elective courses and REC 4710: Therapeutic Recreation Seminar would go from being one credit to three.

James Barkley, professor in the recreation administration program, said the National Council of Therapeutic Recreation Certification, and every other program in the nation, requires two anatomy courses.

To replace that, the elective course (REC 4950) will be moved to being one of the required courses.

Increasing REC 4710’s credit hours from one to three would also be to meet the requirements of the NCTR, Barkley said.

In turn, CAA voted to approve revising the Therapeutic Recreation Seminar course to reflect its added credit hours.

CAA also approved changing the Department of Health Promotion to the Department of Public Health.

Julie Dietz, chair of the Department of Health Promotion, said within the last few years, the curriculum has shifted to public health. After speaking with alumni and major stakeholders, changing the name just made sense.

“To accurately reflect both what we do now and what the future of our profession is, including potential accreditation, we’re requesting that the department name be changed to public health and that we be allowed to use that beginning in spring semester,” Dietz said.

The department also requested to have the name change reflected in the degree and major names in the fall catalog.

CAA also voted to approve changing the prefixes in the courses from HPR to PBH to coincide with the department name change.

Dietz said this change would make most sense being effective in Fall 2020 because that is when it could also change in the catalog.

Logan Raschke can be reached at 581-2812 or at lrraschke@eiu.edu.