Minutes of the Academic Policies Committee
for April 2, 2004

Meeting was convened at 2:02 p.m.

Present: Laura Gellott, Jerry Greenfield, Michael Gurtman, Richard Lott, Paul Mohazzabi, Mary Power, Sue Norton.

Guests: Randy McCready, David Bruning.

Excused: Fay Akindes, Norman Cloutier, Bryan Lewis, Doug Sawyer.

1. Update on Senate actions of March 23. The Senate passed our recommendation re: adding a member of the teaching academic staff to grade appeal review committees in cases involving a member of the teaching academic staff. The Senate adjourned before acting on the recommendations re: change in the Incomplete grade policy, and putting a “stop” date on change of grade actions. Those items will be on the agenda on April 20.

2. Completion of English/Math requirement. After discussion, including the presentation of some statistics by Jerry Greenfield on the number of students who currently test into remedial coursework in both Math and English, the committee agreed to send to the Senate the following recommendation:

”Satisfactory completion of the Computational Skills requirement (Math 102 or Math 111, with a grade of C- or better), completion of the Reading and Writing Skills requirement (English 101, with a grade of C- or better), and completion of the Information Literacy requirement is a prerequisite to enrollment in 300 and 400 level courses.”

Rationale: Many students are delaying the taking or completion of these required courses, especially the Math courses, until late in their college careers, thus creating a bottleneck in registration for those sections and pushing out students at the freshman level, when these courses should be taken.

Moreover, the recommendation serves to enforce a policy still in existence, but not currently enforced, i.e. the old “Collegiate Skills Requirement,” which statedsthat students must complete these courses, including Information Literacy (formerly the “Library Skills” component of the late English 102, late and later University Seminar courses) by the time they completed 60 credits.

Altering the requirement to making completion of these courses, and completion of Information Literacy, a prerequisite for upper division courses would still allow a student to enroll in lower division coursework while they were finishing these required courses. Under the 60 credit rule, students would be barred (as they were formerly, under “Collegiate Skills Drop actions) from registering for ANY further coursework until they had completed the requirements.

The new PeopleSoft system will be able to enforce such a prerequisite.

 

3. Director of Financial Aid Randy McCready made a presentation on the necessity of introducing an internal grade of “FN” – Failure/Not Attending. This is necessary in order to meet federal financial aid accountability requirements by better monitoring students who may have received financial aid but are not attending classes. It is an internal grade only; student transcripts will still show an “F.”

After discussion it was resolved to send this to the Senate as an information item. The recording of an “FN” grade – on line, in the new PeopleSoft/Solar System merely operationalizes, under the new grade reporting system, the directive already in place on the old pink grading sheets that asks instructors to write on the reverse side of the sheet the names of students who are enrolled in the course/on the grade roster but not attending class.

4. David Bruning presented a request from the students in the university-wide honor society Phi Eta Sigma to establish a “Provost’s List.” Such a list, similar to those in exeistence at other institutions, would recognize students with a semester-by-semester record of exceptional academic achievement. It would differ from the Dean’s List in having a higher GPA requirement, and in excluding those courses which do not carry graduation credit (e.g. English 090, Math 015.)

Requirements for the Provost’s List would be as follows:

Semester GPA of 3.8 or better.

Minimum of 9 credits per semester.

Exclusion of courses which do not carry graduation credit.

APC voted to recommend to the Senate the adoption of a Provost’s List beginning in Fall 2004.

Meeting Adjourned: 3:30 p.m.

Submitted by: Laura Gellott