Academic Standards Committee Minutes
October 31, 1997
Present: Barry Bauska, Ken Clark, Greg Elliott, John Finney, Tom Gething, Martins Linauts, Mary
Morgan, Rochelle Nguyen, Jack Roundy, Stuart Smithers, Tanya Stambuk, Marianne Taylor, Peter
Wimberger
1. Minutes: Roundy confessed adding a phrase to Step 2 of the new Medical Withdrawal Policy passed
by the ASC on Oct. 17. The affected sentence now reads, “The Registrar or Academic Standards
Committee may wish to consult with the student before acting on the petition.” Roundy stated that his
reason for adding the phrase was to clarify the chronology of steps in the process. Committee members
accepted the emendation after brief discussion. Otherwise, the minutes of the October 17 meeting were
approved as written.
2. Announcements: Finney reported that the Hearing Board handling a case of alleged academic
dishonesty has now met four times and is close to reaching a decision.
3. Petitions: Morgan submitted the Petitions Committee report without comment:
Date
Approved
Denied
No Action
10/24/97
YTD
9
87
0
14
0
1
4. Petitions for Reinstatement by Students Dismissed for a Full Year: Bauska reintroduced the
topic: students whose cumulative grade averages have been below 2.0 for two consecutive terms and
who have quality point deficiencies of 3.00 or more are normally dismissed for a full year. Logger policy
adds, “The student may petition for readmission after one term away.” In practice, however, students
dismissed for a full year sometimes file petitions for immediate reinstatement, and these petitions are
almost always denied. Because this policy does not fall under the University’s non-petitionable rules, the
ASC accepts these premature petitions for consideration. Morgan, bringing this issue before the
committee on behalf of former ACA advisor Ann Willcockson, stated that current policy often makes for
awkward dialogue with dismissed students. Staff discourage, but cannot forbid, premature petitions, and
students too often invest fruitless effort in filing them.
Bauska suggested that we may be confusing students by telling them not to file these petitions, while at
the same time failing to designate year-long dismissal as non-petitionable. Finney was disinclined to
make this a non-petitionable policy, since all our non-petitionable rules currently address defining
characteristics of our degree. Further, allowing students to file these petitions gives them both the
opportunity to be heard and the opportunity to hear our unmistakable message of the need to take time
away from the University when their petitions are denied. Elliott and Bauska both thought the current
policy has the merit of brevity and clarity. Bauska asked if anyone cared to make an argument for policy
change, and hearing none, he closed the discussion.
5. Revised Policy on Audit Registrations: Finney introduced the discussion by offering a draft revision
of the audit policy to address two issues: 1) definition of alumni auditors, and 2) dates when students may
enroll for audits. Regarding the former issue, Finney reported a conversation with the Controller, Cheri
Mondou, who pointed out that over the years the University has come to treat a number of non-graduates
as alumni for purposes of the audit (alumni are permitted to audit one course per term free of charge).
Finney proposed that we consider limiting audit enrollment to alumni who have earned degrees from the
University. Regarding enrollment dates, Finney proposed allowing requests for audits to be filed anytime
during the add period, confirming those requests on the day after the end of the add period. This change
would make the process of requesting audit registration easier both for students and for Registrar’s staff.
One concern arose immediately regarding Finney’s registration proposal: how would eligibility to audit be
decided in a case where a faculty member signed an audit slip early in the add period, only to find that his
or her course filled to the enrollment limit with regular registrants? Wimberger suggested that the
Registrar might create an audit registration form with two boxes on it, one to indicate an instructor’s wish
that the audit be approved even if the class size limit is exceeded with the auditor, one to indicate that the
class size limit must be honored even if the auditor is denied a space. Finney wondered if such a system
might offer access to a course by an auditor over access by a regular registrant. Bauska said it might, but
that in many cases an instructor would in fact be willing to admit an auditor, who demands little additional
investment of faculty time, when he or she would not be willing to add another regular registrant.
Moving to the question of alumni status for auditing purposes, Wimberger suggested that we might want
to leave some flexibility in our definition, given the relatively small number of registrants involved. Elliott
suggested that we redefine eligible auditors as “full-time students, alumni with Puget Sound degrees, and
members of the Puget Sound Women’s League.” Bauska asked Finney if he could bring another draft of
a revised audit policy to the next meeting of the committee after incorporating these suggestions, and
Finney replied that he would.
6. Honor Code: As the meeting wound down, Wimberger asked for clarification about faculty and
administrator roles in the imposition of grade penalties for academic dishonesty (the case involved a
faculty member who felt s/he had been discouraged from failing two students caught cheating on an
exam). Gething, Finney and Smithers all assured Wimberger that faculty had complete prerogative to
fail a student for cheating, with Finney adding that this penalty was commonly imposed. Gething also
clarified the reporting process for academic dishonesty cases: this year, academic dishonesty cases
should be reported to the Registrar rather than to the Dean of Students.
With this, we adjourned the meeting at 9:45.
Respectfully submitted by the ASC amanuensis,
Jack Roundy