Minutes for the 10/01/05 UMSC Meeting

 

Present:

Chicago

Peoria

Urbana

Rockford

 

Absent:

Chicago

Peoria

Urbana

Rockford

 

Meeting called to order at 10:00 am.

I.                    Welcome and Introductions

II.                  Approval of the minutes of April 9, 2005 at UICOM-Chicago

a.        Motion made and seconded to approve minutes; unanimously approved

Movement made to extend voting privileges to all persons at meeting; motion seconded and unanimously approved.

 

Dean Flaherty addresses UMSC

1)       UIC-COM is transitioning from a “state school” to a “state related school”

2)       We now need to work on customer service

3)       We need to build a state-wide network

4)       Philanthropy

5)       Student questions:

ü       Student body size

ü       Facilities for students: working on partnering with other suburban hospitals and repartnering with Cook

ü       Need to recognize Urbana, Rockford and Peoria – find an encompassing name

ü       Work on Alumni relations

College Committee Orientation – Dean Sandlow

1)        Size of student body – this year was an “accident”.  In the past the offer/acceptance rate was 2:1.  This year there were 5000 applicants, 2500 could meet qualifications, 1000 interview.

2)       Committee’s:  each campus has a set of committees

a.        Curriculum reports through instruction and appraisal

b.       Student promotions at Rockford and Chicago report to the college level; at Peoria and Urbana report to executive then college level.

c.         Admissions: interviewing and screening

d.       Responsibilities: 

                                                               i.      An email/letter should have been sent to you with meeting times (Yogi will also post this information on the website.)

                                                              ii.      Be prepared for meetings **READ**

                                                            iii.      Take and active role – participate in subcommittees

                                                            iv.      Appropriate communication

                                                              v.      Know how the committee works – if you are unsure, contact the committee head or OSA Dean at your site

                                                            vi.      “Be knowledgeable, be involved, speak up.”

                                                           vii.      Let the proper people know if you cannot make a meeting.

e.        If an issue comes up, filter it through UMSC officers

 

 

President’s Report—Tamika Alexander

1)       College committee positions are for 1 year with the opportunity to keep that position.

2)       UMSC packet – what to do, expect, purpose; website information; constitution; member list; notes on committees, directions on setting up meeting at your site (save receipts), list of general meeting dates; agenda; pages to take notes.

3)       Send meeting notes to Katie (kfranz1@uic.edu) 1 week prior to UMSC meeting.

 

Vice-President—Yogi Patel

1)       Committee reps: attendance, be vocal, don’t communicate confidential information; a negative letter will be sent to your Dean if you do not attend meetings; a positive letter will be sent to your Dean if you fulfill your obligations

 

College Committee Reports

 

CCIA

1)       myevaluations.com: there was a concern about how student evaluations were being handled.  A document through UMSG was proposed and sent to CCIA.  Then from UMSC to CCIA where it will be on the agenda next week.  The document is for guidance; it is not a legal document.  It is entitled Fundamental Principals in Course Evaluations.  It was presented formally to CCIA on 6 October 2005 after having received the endorsement of UMSG, UMSC, Urbana's Educational Policy Committee, and Urbana's Executive Committee.  It was unanimously endorsed by CCIA and will be sent to the College Executive Committee.

2)       Need to increase student responses to evaluations

 

CCSP

 
o Last spring, the CCSP student reps put forth a new student voting proposal.  Up to that point, there were a total of two student votes  -- one year, the reps from Urbana and Chicago held the vote, the next year, Rockford and Peoria.  If a voting rep was absent, they could proxy their vote to a non-voting rep.  This worked reasonably well, but it was galling that four reps would show up regularly, participate, and still have only 2 votes.  Since the committee has a total number of something like 18 votes, the percentage of student votes isn't high.
     So a proposal was put forth that the number of student votes be moved from two rotating votes to four full votes.  To placate some nervousness, we agreed that the votes would be non-proxyable (so if you don't show, the vote is lost) and that the issue would be revisited in a year to see how it's gone.  This passed almost unanimously.
     Unfortunately, due to an innocent oversight, this was never taken to the College Executive Committee.  After I pointed it out last month, it was placed on the agenda for the October CEC meeting and will be reviewed there.
     Policy issues were brought up for discussion at the retreat.  All of the above was discussed, but it should be emphasized that NO FINAL DECISIONS have been reached at this time:
 
     o Urbana and Chicago have different decompression programs -- Urbana has you do your M1 year over two academic years, while Chicago has you do M1/2 over three years.  After much ado, we decided there was no good reason to change the current setups since they work well.
 
     o Number of makeup exams: A few years ago, there was a small cluster of students in Peoria who failed a single course.  They then failed the makeup, but since they had no obvious, usual extenuating circumstance (depression, family problems, illness, etc), there was no policy in place to allow for anyone to give them a second makeup exam (i.e. a third attempt).  Those students were forced to repeat the M2 year, which no one was particularly happy about.
     As a result of this issue, the CCSP student reps put forth a proposal which was accepted with some tinkering: if a student has one deficiency after makeups _and_ the local site committee decides to do so, they can have one more attempt.  This way, a student who's deemed to be "a good student" can get that last try, while a student who's found to be "just getting by" can be forced into a repeat year in an attempt to help them master the material well.
     Unfortunately, a number of cases came up over the summer about this rule.  Apparently, the intent of CCSP was that the "one failure" meant "they passed everything on the first go except for one course, then failed the makeup for that one course as well."  Unfortunately, the final rule never actually said this clearly (and, frankly, I'm not sure I ever recall anyone saying that it was really the way it was intended.)  So this summer, local site committees looked at the rule and said, well, if they have one failure _after makeups_, then we have discretion to grant them a third makeup, right?  This caused a good deal of consternation at CCSP since that hadn't been the intent of at least some of the committee.
     The desire is to "fix" this rule to go back to what they think they originally intended.  However, it was delayed because of...
 
     o Makeup policy: There some significant concern about how many times we're offering makeup exams to students in M1/M2.  While many students never need to take makeups, it's not uncommon that a fair  
number are taking makeups in more than a few subjects.  There's some discussion about what other schools do and their policies, and in general the tide is in favour of cracking down somewhat on the number of makeup exams.  A very, very rough general proposal is something along the lines of "If you fail 1/3rd or fewer classes, you can take makeups in those courses; if you fail 2/3rds to 1/3rd, you must repeat the year; if you fail more than 2/3rds, you're dismissed from the College."  There's a general concern that students _expect_ makeup exams and are, in some cases, blowing off certain courses in the knowledge they'll get another try.
     While this will work against students, I have to say that the proposal does have some merit -- the entire "makeup" culture is somewhat out of hand.  At the same time, we need to make sure we soften the blow and try to make sure it doesn't get too extreme.  This will probably end up happening -- the question is the final  
format of the policy.
 
     o Clinical years: There's also the clinical counterpart to the above -- students who are taking up to 3 tries to pass shelf exams.  Apparently roughly 20-25% of students will take a shelf a second time at least once, but after that the number tails off.  There's support for trying to limit that third try, particularly in cases where students are repeatedly failing.  (One student who took all six core shelves 3 times apiece was cited as an extreme case.)  As above, I think there's support for limiting this, and I think it'll go through -- we need to make sure it's reasonable.
 
     o Transcripts: Finally, there's the entire thorny question of what to put on transcripts if someone has a makeup exam.  Right now, the only negative things that can appear on a transcript are multiple Step 1/2 attempts or repeat years.  (Or outright failures, but in that case you're dismissed from the College, so who cares what your transcript says?)  There's concern about how this doesn't accurately reflect a student's progress through the curriculum, and it's not fair to students who do pass without makeups -- my admittedly blah  
M-1 year consisting of mostly "S" grades was accomplished without any makeups, but someone who took multiple makeups and had extra study time for those makeups may have the exact same M-1 transcript I do.   
Likewise for shelfs -- someone who takes multiple attempts at a shelf may end up with the same grade as someone who did it once. I also think this one will go somewhere -- the question, as always, is how.
 
Very little was finally voted on at the retreat.  What did end up happening is that a study committee is being formed to look at these questions in greater detail over the next 3-4 months.  Dr Miller (the chair) definitely wanted student representation on it, and I believe I'll be one of them.  I think it'll be worked out who the other student will be.
 

CCA

Dean Sandlow went over this information.  No one has been accepted yet for next year..

 

CCR

No meetings attended at this point, unable to contact chairperson.

 

CCSAS

Handle Honors Day - Tuesday 4/8?/06 - and Humanism in Medicine Awards.

 

FEC

ü       Ongoing projects include M4 exchange with King’s College London and application process to select participants

ü       Contact President Christine Khan (ckhan@uiuc.edu) in Urbana if interested

 

Secretary’s Report—Katie Franzwa

Please submit committee reports for minutes; please correct contact information for roster purposes.

 

Treasurer—Avni Avora

ü       2 cars from Rockford, Peoria and Urbana and 3 cars from Chicago are reimbursed.  Need 2 or more members in car to get reimbursed.  This meeting 4 cars will be reimbursed per campus.  Avni will email regarding reimbursements.

ü       HPSC: applied for funding; may add 2 UMSC reps to HPSC (proposal next meeting); we need representatives to be at meetings to get funding.

ü       Student organization delegates can apply for travel reimbursement (will be put on UMSC website).  Reimbursement depends on number of applicants.

ü       Save receipts to get reimbursed

ü       Be patient, it takes a while to get reimbursed

 

Historian—Yogi Patel

If you want something posted, email Yogi.  Avni will be maintaining the listserv-please don’t unsubscribe from the list.

 

OSR Report—Dipesh Navsaria and Hershey Reddy

1)       Annual AAMC in November. 

2)       Humanism in Medicine

3)       Need to vote on OSR alternate – Paul Jeziorczak

4)       Many faces of diversity

 

Site Reports

 

Chicago – Kelly Hodges

ü       Committee members selected

ü       Schoolwide health fair in April

ü       Leadership retreat 10/22 for organization leaders who get money from CMSC

 

Peoria Site Report—Anisha Shetty/Doug Leone

ü       Traditional schedule Pharm/Path/ID/Psych, now Pharm/Path isolated then organ systems intermixed on exams

ü       Lounge remodeled

ü       Campus Care issues – slow reimbursements

ü       M2 lectures are recorded

ü       35th anniversary

ü       Speaker night: 11/16 – IM

ü       Fall party

ü       AOA concerns want it to be more objective rather than subjective

 

Rockford—James Ha

ü       Construction is ongoing

ü       Masters of Biotech

ü       New associate dean

 

Urbana—

ü       1st meeting 2 weeks ago

ü       Committee appointments

ü       Fundraising ideas – COM shirts for all 4 sites with a design competition and online voting

ü       Auditorium not yet renovated

ü       Large M1 class; offered spots to 30 displaced Katrina victims

ü       Combined Immuno and Micro

ü       Separated embryo from anatomy

ü       Walk for wellness

ü       Rearranged M2 curriculum – Pharm and Path for whole year

ü       Committee teaching communication

ü       Founding Dean of Urbana died, he wrote “Keys to the Asylum”

 

MSPAC (Victor Wang and Chuck Smittkamp)

ü       25th Allerton Retreat

ü       Keynote speaker was 1st graduate

ü       25 incoming students

ü       largest MD/PhD program in the country – only one where students can get PhD in something non-science

 

 

 

Old Business

1)       Student Evaluation

2)       CampusCare Health Insurance – New Campus Care Liaison

 

New Business

1)       HPSC

 

Motion to adjourn meeting approved and seconded; meeting adjourned.