Policy for the Emendation of Approved University Curriculum Committee Minutes

The information about courses and academic units which appear in the ULM catalog and in the official course inventory file is based on the material in the approved University Curriculum Committee minutes. Information in all of these sources must match. Also, because the minutes are now electronically “built” directly from the proposal that is electronically submitted to the UCC, the information in the minutes automatically is exactly what is typed into the proposal. Therefore, the materials in all four of these sources must coincide.

At times, a department head or a dean has later wanted to make a minor change in the information that he/she had submitted to the UCC and which was approved and entered into the minutes. At other times, the staff members who are responsible for compiling the catalog and maintaining the course inventory file have noted differences between what the approved minutes say and what a department head has submitted to be entered into the catalog or course inventory file.

Because the information in all four sources must coincide, it is necessary that a policy for handling differences and for, if needed, emending previously-approved University Curriculum Committee minutes be established.

Therefore, the following two procedures have been created.

I. Procedure to be followed if a staff member notes a difference:   

1. If a staff member notes a difference between what is in the approved minutes and/or course inventory file and what a department head submits to the catalog, then the staff member will notify the Chair and the Vice-Chair/Secretary of the UCC about the difference. 
2. After notifying the Chair and Vice-Chair/Secretary, the staff member will contact the department head and ascertain which set of material the head believes should correctly be entered into the catalog and course inventory file.   
3. The staff member will relay to the Chair and Vice-Chair/Secretary what the department head believes should be correctly entered into the catalog. 
4. The Chair must then decide whether these changes are minor or not. 

1. 1.  Minor changes are to be defined as the following: 
      
      --slight changes in wording which do not substantially affect the meaning of the content.
      --an error in defining the course characteristics such as the Activity type (for example, the course description says the class includes a lab, but the Activity Type listed on the form is LEC). 
      --forgetting to add that a course was formerly another course number.
      --other differences which seem to be due to mistyping or which can be categorized as “minor.”  
      
      
   2. If a difference is determined to be minor by the Chair, then the Chair will ask the staff member to forward the changes on to the Vice-Chair/ Secretary of the UCC who will record them and bring them before the members of the UCC at the next UCC meeting to be read into the current minutes. 
      
      
   3. If the difference is determined to not be minor by the Chair, then the approved minutes will not be emended.

II. Procedure to be followed if a department head wants to make a change in the approved minutes and/or the catalog and course inventory file:

1. The head should contact the Chair who will then determine whether the change is minor.
   
   
2. If the Chair considers the change to be minor, then he/she will notify the Vice-Chair/Secretary who will emend the minutes appropriately. 
   
   
3. The Chair will also notify the Registrar’s Office about the minor change(s).
   
   
4. If the Chair determines that the changes are not minor, then the minutes will not be emended.

The use of these procedures should ensure that the information found in the approved minutes, the catalog, and the course inventory file is accurate.

It also should be noted that the UCC minutes will be considered emended only after the Vice-Chair/Secretary has brought them before the members of the UCC and the UCC members have approved their being read into the minutes.