UNIVERSITY of WISCONSIN
La Crosse
September 25, 2014
To:
Tony Docan-Morgan, Chair
Academic Policies & Standards Committee (CAPS)
From: Bradley Seebach, Chair
Faculty Senate
This memo is intended to serve as the initial charge letter to the Academic Policies & Standards
Committee for the 2014-2015 academic year. Please see the revised standing committee page for
reference to the committee bylaws and previous charges and reports
(http://www.uwlax.edu/FacultySenate/FacultyCommittees/FacultyCommitteesIndex.htm).
Primary responsibilities of the chairperson include:
 organizing and conducting meetings.
 completing a year end report on the Academic Policies & Standards Committee activities to
be submitted to the Senate Office no later than May 31, 2015.
*The committee chairperson should carefully review Faculty Senate Bylaw II, “Faculty Standing
Committees” for information on committee attendance and the role of alternates.
Primary responsibilities of the secretary include:
 recording minutes of each meeting.
 promptly sending approved meeting minutes to Sibbie Weathers (sweathers@uwlax.edu) so
that the minutes can be posted on the faculty senate website.
We will continue to use Google calendar for both meeting announcements and reporting of meeting
minutes. Committee chairs are responsible for including the Google address (senate@uwlax.edu) on
meeting announcements. This will satisfy the Open Meetings requirements. Committee secretaries are
responsible for sending minutes to both Sibbie and the Google site.
In addition to the committee's normal duties, I ask that the committee consider and report on the
following special charges:

Consider whether there should be restrictions on the enrollment of incoming freshmen in online
courses. There are several aspects to this consideration, and the preferred outcome would be
for the Committee to recommend policy for approval by the Faculty Senate. There is concern
over whether freshmen should be taking online courses at all, as it may detract from full
integration with campus life and the college experience. If they are allowed to enroll in online
courses, should there be a limit to the number of online courses per semester for freshmen?
Should they be allowed or encouraged to take online summer courses from UWL during the
Faculty Senate
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summer before they arrive for their first semester on campus? Should enrollment in online
courses be possible only if the student knowingly chooses to enroll in an online course, or
should the Records Office enroll incoming freshmen in classes without any distinction as to
mode of instruction? Should we consider hybrid courses in a similar manner?
Discussion in student governance groups during the last year has made it likely that a request is
forthcoming for the faculty to consider a change from the A, AB, B grading scale to the more
common “A, A-, B+, B” grading scale. Work with the student representatives for this committee
to consider the relative merits of our existing system.
Consider requiring students who are on probation (or whose appeals for reinstatement to the
university are approved by the committee) to have a registration restriction (negative service
indicator) placed on them. They would then need to meet with their/advisors before enrolling
in a new term, in order to remove this restriction.
Examine summer session drop rates and whether students are taking overloads. Current policy
does not restrict students from take twelve credits in the same third of the summer session, for
example. This may be of particular concern with summer online course offerings.
If you have questions or concerns please contact me at any time during the year. Finally, if the Senate
Executive Committee or I can assist your committee in any way during the year, please do not hesitate
to ask.
saw
cc:
Academic Policies & Standards Committee Members