Minutes of the Academic Policies Committee
for September 25, 2009

The meeting was called to order at 12:10.

Present: Laura Gellott, convener; Professors Gal Gonzalez, Carmel Ruffolo, Stuart Hansen, James Kinchen, Joy Wolf; Academic Staff: Ron Otto; Student Rep. Erin McDermott; Ex Officio: Rhonda Kimmel, Registrar; Susan Hawkins-Wilding, Advising and Career Center; Dennis Rome, Associate Provost/Administration.

Order of Business.

 

1. Student Representative Erin McDermott, attending her first meeting, was introduced.
   
   
2. Laura Gellott was re-elected as chair of APC for the 2009-10 academic year.  She accepted reelection provided that the committee also elect a vice-chair who might take on some responsibilities this fall while Professor Gellott is busy chairing the Provost Search.  Gail Gonzalez was elected and agreed to serve as vice-chair.
   
   
3. Discussion of the need for policy to catch up to the growing reality of courses being offered on line.   Dennis Rome reported that James Robinson has been asked to head up a task force to deal with a complex of issues relating to on-line course offerings: everything from faculty development issues to transcript/registrar’s office issues (the latter being the particular concern of APC).  He said that there will be a request for representation from APC.
   
   
4. Implementation of the 60 credit rule.  Laura Gellott handed out copies of the policy recommended by APC and passed by the Senate on April 22, 2008, which states, in part:

 

Students must complete the sequence of courses ending with ENGL 101 (writing skills requirement) and the sequence of courses ending with MATH 102 or MATH 111 (computation skills requirement) within their first 60 credits.  Students who fail to complete the sequence of courses ending with ENGL 101, or MATH 102 or MATH 111, cannot take other classes until this requirement is completed . . . .

Students must complete the Information Literacy  requirement within their first 60 credits.  Students who fail to complete the Information Literacy requirement within their first 60 credits cannot take other classes until this requirement is completed.

The university has long “required” completion of these requirements within the first 60 credits but for some time has not enforced it. 

Susan Hawkins-Wilding reported that she ran a sample of transcripts of students with over 60 credits and found that 70% lacked one or more of these skills requirements.  Most often that was Math.

Gail Gonzalez reported that MODL LANG has found that over 70% of students in the 103 (first semester) Spanish classes are juniors or seniors.

A significant share of the blame can be placed at uneven advising of students within departments.  While students may be getting good advice on the major at the department level, there is not the same attention to university/degree requirements.   Many faculty members have not gotten good instruction or “training” in advising students on university requirements.

Other problems arise when students, having gotten good advice, then go off and register on their own on SOLAR, ignoring directions to finish up English Comp, Math, Info Literacy, or language requirements.

Attention to these problems is needed at all levels: departments, chairs, deans, as well as the Advising/Career and Registrar’s offices.

Rhonda Kimmel and Susan Hawkins-Wilding both spoke about the need for a “soft implementation” of enforcement of this requirement, since the suspension rates would be enormous.   They will update APC at future meetings. 

5.  Future meeting times will be noon-1:00 on Friday afternoons, in MOLN 367-A.     Tentative meeting dates for the semester are as follows:

October 30

November 6

November 20

December 4

December 11

Meeting was adjourned at 1:10 p.m.

Submitted by: Laura Gellott, Chair