Report of the Academic Policies Committee
2001-2002

The Academic Policies Committee (APC) of 2001-02 was composed of: Al Crist, Deborah Davidson (Fall), Doug Devinny, Laura Gellott, Bryan Lewis (Spring), Richar Lott, Dwayne Olsen (Fall), Mary Power, Melvin S. Thomson, Lisa White, and Evelyn Zepp (Chair 01-02). Faculty member Donald Walter (replacing Walter Feldt who resigned) and student member Adam Deford did not attend committee meetings.

The APC met on September 19, October 8, October 22, November 19 (chaired by D. Olsen), December 10 (chaired by D. Olsen - informal, no quorum), 2001; March 11, March 27, and April 24, 2002.

Issues handled by the committee included:

1. Non-existent or outdated policies relating to academic/executive actions.
After discussion with a representative of the Academic Actions Committee, the following priorities in this area were determined:

A) Formal delegation of areas of responsibility from AAC to the Director of Advising and the Academic Actions Officer.
B) Consideration of adjusted and/or additional meeting times for AAC to meet situations documented by the Director of Advising.
C) Establish a second signatory (Chair of AAC) for actions which do not reach the AAC committee.
D) Look at the number and causes of cases where deletions are made from a student's permanent record.
E) Determining clerical errors should remain within the Registrar's office.
The next APC should contact AAC to determine the status of these concerns.
2. Request from Lisa Johnson (Asst. Registrar) to examine credit guidelines for discussion/lab sections. Data was gathered from as many programs as possible, and shared with the Subcommittee on Workload. Sue Lemens (Registrar's office) also reported that Central Data Reporting (CDR) to the UW-System used the following standard:

100-200 level class 300-400 level class
Disc = .5 cr. Disc = 1 cr per hr of lec
Lab = .5 cr Lab = rest of cr.
Lec = rest of credit Lec - 1 cr per hr of lec

It was noted that this policy would not fit performance disciplines and that it was unclear whether this information is based on UW System policy or UW-Parkside policy.

During the discussion two conflicting concerns appeared: 1) programs do not wish to increase the credit hours assigned to labs, because the total credit hours for the program/major become excessively high/ 2) however, given the fact that workload issues are going to be scrutinized more closely, it appears less than advantageous to instructors to be putting in 2-3 hours in a class yet "getting credit" for only 1 hour (1 credit). A method for distinguishing between credit hours for students and contact hours for faculty is needed.

Although this issues was not resolved, APC did pass the following resolution: "In evaluating workload, APC recommends that contact hours (time in class) should be equal to workload hours reported."

3. Request from University Committee to examine guidelines for the types of courses most suitable for the compressed Winterim timetable. A set of guidelines was established and approved. (UC later determined that it did not need these guidelines.)

4. The Chair conveyed to the Deans complaints received from instructors/students about exams being given during the last week of classes, etc., and requested that they remind faculty/teaching academic staff that there IS a final exam policy and that exams must be given during assigned times unless a change is approved by the Chair and the Dean.

5. In light of the new HPEA major, the committee approved dropping the wording in the catalog that states under the "30 credit rule" that "2. No more than 30 credits in physical education coursework may be counted toward graduation."

6. Review of the issue of non-traditional formats and workload credit through existing documents and additional data as can be found. This work needs to be continued by the next APC.

7. As a result of an inquiry from Trudy Biehn to the Department, APC considered a request from the Modern Languages Department to determine whether extension credits in a foreign language transferred to UW-Parkside should continue to be accepted as general elective credit only, or as fulfilling the language requirement. The former is the current policy, as approved by MODL in the past. MODL did not wish to act unilaterally on the policy for a general university requirement.

APC passed a motion to support the Modern Languages evaluation policy (E. Zepp abstaining).

Respectfully submitted,
Evelyn Zepp, Chair, APC 2001-02.