Minutes of the Admissions, Records & Student
Information Committee for March 20, 2001

Next meeting: April 12, Noon. CART 233

The Admissions and Student Records Committee met on Tuesday, March 20th at noon in Com. Arts 233. Attending: D. Baldwin,A. Crist, M. Power, J. Tucker-Snider,C.L. Saffioti-Hughes, M. Jensen, R. Lott, F. Monardi.

The chair took the opportunity to introduce the new Director of Admissions, Matthew Jensen, to the members of the committee.

Continuing Business:
1. In response to questions concerning the make-up of the Admissions Appeals sub-committee and the Minority Student Appeals sub-committee, Matthew Jensen and Allen Crist indicate that a review would be forthcoming with recommendations for revision of both the constituencies and the review process for these two bodies, with the intent to merge them into one. The
chair asked that the committee be able to review their recommendations by the April meeting.

2. In response to the original request by Theron Snell that the committee look into the qualifications and criteria for tuition remission for international students, Mr. Crist indicated that a review would be forthcoming from Cynthia Jensen from the Admissions Office. The members asked if those recommendations would be ready by the April meeting; Mr. Jensen responded that they would be working on it, but might not be ready by April.

3. Mary Power asked for clarification on the membership of the committee {NOTE: SEE FOLLOW-UP EMail}

4. Use of ACT scores for placement purposes. Matthew Jensen indicated that he is willing to contact the ACT representative to determine the process by which a correlation study between and content-specific ACT scores and the current English(WEPT) and Math placement scores can be done, using recent student data. Judith Tucker-Snider asked if such a study is warranted given the history of the campus's use of the placement scores. Saffioti-Hughes pointed out that the last time any consultation with ACT representatives had occurred was over ten years ago, and that it would be worthwhile to explore, regardless of whether any changes were instituted. Fred Monardi indicated that incoming faculty to the university would be interested in knowing more about the history of the use of the tests. Power indicated that her office faces continuing increase in the cost of administering the tests, and that while this is not a primary motivating factor for exploring other alternatives, it needed to be stated. Jensen indicated that he had sponsored a workshop on this very issue with UW Whitewater, which no longer requires the WEPT (Wisconsin English Placement Test) for any of its incoming students, as well with as some private colleges in the state using the ACT's for placement purposes. Power indicated that one significant drawback to using the ACT's only, is that the last administration date for the tests in the summer is far too early in the summer to be used for our 'walk-in students" who continue to register as freshmen into September.

The chair pointed out that fact might be a compelling reason, but that there might be justification to use the WEPT
test only under circumstances when the ACT placement data would not be available. She indicated a willingness to take this issue to the English department for discussion, but needed to know if there was any consensus from the committee as to interest in having the ACT representative come to the campus to discuss a correlation study further. The committee agreed that we would like Mr. Jensen to inquire as to whether there is a cost related to a pilot correlation study. Mondardi pointed out that if there is, perhaps we could do one ourselves, once the new Institutional Research person in on board.

5. Call for New Agenda Items: Admissions Standards, Computerized Screening of Pre-Requisites and Other Issues.
Tucker-Snider pointed out that there were really two issues under discussion related to ACT scores, in light of the lively discussion on the governance list. The chair copied some of the more extensive comments, and asked that the committee review them if they had not already, for the purpose of further discussion at the next meeting. She did ask for responses concerning Don Walter's Query: "Why doesn't our new student records software check pre-requisites?" Mr. Lott, the Registrar, responded that it can, but that this issue was left up to the discretion of the departments. Mary Power pointed out that at one
time the department chairs were asked to respond, and they indicated that if it meant that they would have to do individual waivers for each student, they would not want to have automatic rejection of registration for students who did not meet pre-requisites. Fred Monardi indicated that he would prefer that the system do the job, rather than the faculty member. Lott
indicated that a trial run had been done, but that the system slowed down significantly over the very high percentage of rejections. Others on the committee asked if individual faculty couldn't ask that their own classes be screened automatically.

Mr. Lott indicated that it was a possibility, but had not been tried. The chair indicated that she would alert the chairs through
the Deans to this discussion to ask for further input from department chairs on this issue. In the meantime, she also agreed to respond on the governance list in addition to the posting of the minutes.

The chair asked the committee how they wished to continue the dialogue generated on the governance list, as the result of discussion of admissions requirements. She indicated that newer faculty may not know what the actual requirements are, and that it was important for the university to continue the discussion; that in fact it was not the case (as was seeming to be reported from the recent Faculty Meeting) that older faculty universally had less tolerance for teaching students admitted under our broad admissions policy(as might have been construed from the recent Faculty Meeting)--and referred the committee to comments
from people like Bob Canary and Bill Murin. She reiterated concern that there seems to be more consensus of concern over late admissions of students who tend to be less well prepared, and have made very late decisions about college attendance, as those being most at risk.

She has agreed to ask the University Committee about the possibility of continuing the discussion as a Faculty Meeting agenda item again, although the broad range of comments indicated that not all the interest was centered on admissions requirements, since faculty were interested in discussing grade inflation, teaching standards in our college classrooms, etc, and hoped that there would be other groups taking up the discussion as well.

Mr. Monardi asked that we address again the questions that we had begun to generate last year, before our Retention Services position had been filled: how many students make it to junior year? With what g.p.a? What percentage of students on probation
in their early semesters, actually graduate, etc. The chair asked how high a priority would our requests for institutional research be, compared to others when the new person is on staff. Dirk Baldwin indicated that a small pilot study might be able to be done with these questions. The chair agreed to re-circulate the list of questions developed as a query list for use with the Data Warehouse project, in the hopes that a serious attempt at some analysis of student data would be able to be accomplished.

The meeting adjourned at 1:20.

Carol Lee Saffioti-Hughes,Ph.D