Academic Standards Committee Minutes
January 30, 1998
Present: Barry Bauska, Ken Clark, John Finney, Susannah Hannaford, Martins Linauts, Mary Morgan,
Rochelle Nguyen, Stuart Smithers, Marianne Taylor; guests Brad Tomhave and Melanie Sullivan from the
Registrars Office
1. Approval of Minutes: As there were no comments or corrections, the Minutes of the December 5, 1997
ASC meeting were approved as submitted.
2. Announcements: Morgan announced that she would like to request the Curriculum Committee to
reconsider the requirement that both Natural World core units be completed as prerequisites before the
Science in Context core can be taken. There have been a number of cases recently brought before the
Petitions Committee of the ASC in which a student desires to take the second NW core concurrently with the
SCXT core. The ASC supported Morgan's request.
3. Report of the Petitions Committee:
committee meetings since 11/21/97;
Date:
12/5 & 12/12
Approved
43
Denied
6
Morgan presented an oral report of decisions made in 2
No Action
0
YTD
144
21
n/a
In the absence of Lori Blake, the usual written report was not submitted at this time.
In addition, Morgan reported the results of the 1/5/98 Probation/Dismissal meeting, in which 92 actions were
taken:
48
probation
1
suspended
30
warning letters
2
probation/suspension - 1 was re-instated
7
continue on probation
3
1- year dismissals
1
1- term dismissal, which was petitioned to re-instate, but denied
Following the official meeting, one additional student was placed on probation subsequent to all grades finally
being turned in.
Bauska inquired whether the 92 total figure was high, to which Morgan and Finney responded that it was not.
4. Activity unit grade inclusion in cumulative grade average in overload situations (in excess of 1.5
units): Tomhave presented a proposal to consider inclusion of an "F" grade in an activity course in the
calculation of GPA in cases where the maximum 1.5 units have been exceeded. Currently, all activity courses,
with the exception of CTA 292 (Forensics), are graded Pass/Fail. In the ongoing conversion to new computer
system in the Registrars Office, a small number of cases (13) since 1985 have been identified in which F
grade did not get calculated because the course was taken after the activity credit limit had been reached.
Discussion ensued around the table, centered on the history of grading of activity courses, how faculty feel
about assigning an "F" grade which does not count/is not calculated into the GPA ("F, where is thy sting?"),
and how frequently this scenario occurs. The general consensus was that the number of cases is very small,
the effect of including .25 or .5 units of "F" grade may be quite negligible, and in the end, the "F" grade does
appear on the transcript as serves as "the sting."
Bauska suggested that it be recorded that the issue was discussed and that no changes will be made at this
time. Tomhave will monitor the frequency of occurrence, and bring the issue up again in several years for reconsideration.
5. Other business: Though not an agenda item, as long as the committee was on the subject of P/F
grades, Smithers brought up the issue of P/F grades not being included in the class total when overall class
GPA is calculated. He expressed concern that in some cases, this would result in the appearance of class
grade inflation, since some of the P/F grades might have been at the C- level and are not reflected. Faculty do
not know who is taking a class on the P/F option, which, Finney reported, grew out of the cases in which some
faculty used 2 syllabi in a course - one for grade, and another for P/F. The current rule (no knowledge of who
is taking P/F option) is meant to retain the total integrity of the class syllabus for all students regardless of the
grading option. No action was taken on this issue.
6. Discussion of other agenda items for spring term:
Several possible items were presented by
Morgan, Finney and Bauska as follows;
a. Gething's request to Finney to reconsider the choice of some auxiliary verbs in the language of the
"Response to Instances of Plagiarism and Other Acts of Academic Dishonesty." A copy of the
e-mail correspondence was distributed to the committee for consideration at the next ASC meeting.
b. Implementation of Medical Withdrawal Policy;
Morgan raised the question of just what will the
process be - "What am I supposed to do? What's my role?" Finney added that it must be clear how
compliance with the ADA meshes with the policy in cases where medical withdrawal can be considered an
accommodation..
It was decided that an ad hoc committee be formed to discuss the process of implementation, with Finney
coordinating meeting time. The committee will include; Morgan, Finney, Ivey West, Gething, and 2 faculty
members from the ASC. Susannah Hannaford and Marianne Taylor volunteered as faculty representatives.
c.
Consider criteria for independent study courses (Morgan).
d. Report on the task force on Distributed Access (Morgan).
e. Request (from Anton) to reconsider the time & day flexibility of scheduling classes, particularly teamtaught classes (Bauska).
Items c-d-e were not prioritized.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 2:55.
Respectfully submitted by the substitute amanuensis,
Martins Linauts