The Council on Academic Affairs approved four course modifications and three program modifications, mostly in the theatre and digital media departments, at its meeting Thursday afternoon.

The digital media major at Eastern will now be called digital media technology after CAA voted unanimously to approve the name change. The digital media minor was also revised to follow this change. A course revision was also made to DGT 3813: Web Development in addition to the major and minor changes.

Three changes were approved unanimously in the theatre department; including THA 1134: Stage Movement being switched from a two-credit course to a three-credit course and THA 3334: Performing Voice undergoing the same change.

Nicholas Shaw, the chair of the theatre arts program, proposed the changes to the CAA and said that the change to the THA 3334 course makes it a more dual-purpose course, adding a musical voice element to the class.

The theatre arts major itself was revised to adjust to the course changes.

A change was also made in the hospitality and tourism department to the course HTM 4275: HTM Internship; the change focuses the internship more on hospitality than it previously did.

CAA Chair Marita Gronnvoll brought up the school’s electronic course proposal forms as a discussion, saying she was optimistic that technological bugs with the forms were soon to be worked out and a plan was in place to beta test the new system in the college of liberal arts and sciences.

The problem with the current forms is that not everyone can gain access to the forms who needs to see the forms. Gronnvoll said for example that if a faculty member were to be working on a form and needed to pass it along to another group for approval, a glitch would occur and that other group would not always have access to the form.

Gronnvoll said she is “pretty hopeful” right now that all of the bugs have been fixed and now the college of liberal arts will begin its testing of the program.

“(The college of liberal arts) is going to start putting any course proposal changes, so that would mean new courses or revised courses, they’re going to start using the electronic form instead of a PDF form which is what everyone has been using,” Gronnvoll said.

Gronnvoll said a successful test of the system will mean that everyone who needs to see the course proposal form will be able to access it easily. She said when the form is completed it will be a shareable link that anyone on campus should be able to access and see.

If the test works the college of liberal arts will go on using the new system to the end of the semester and the rest of the school will adopt the system in Fall 2020.

JJ Bullock can be reached at 581-2812 or jpbullock@eiu.edu.