Minutes of Academic Standards Committee
January 27, 2010
Present: Sarah Apple, James Bernhard, Tim Beyer, Debbie Chee, Ken Clark, Betsy Kirkpatrick, Heidi
Kreiss, Ben Lewin, Martins Linauts, Gary McCall, Sarah Moore, Jack Roundy, Brad Tomhave, Seth
Weinberger, Linda Williams, Ivey West (visiting)
The meeting was called to order by Chair Weinberger at 3:33 pm.
M/S/P approval of the minutes from December 2, 2009.
Announcements: Roundy brought to our attention that our Leave of Absence policy currently needed to be
updated to comply with a new federal law with regard to veterans, and proposed language that remedies the
problem. While the university was routinely in compliance with the policy, the extant language did not
explicitly state the federal policy. The new language makes our policy explicit.
The new policy is as follows:
Students usually request leaves for medical reasons, financial difficulties, uncertainty about
academic or career goals, personal considerations such as illnesses within families, or special
educational opportunities not available at Puget Sound. A student going on a Puget Sound study
abroad program remains registered on campus as a study abroad student and completes a form
issued by the Director of International Programs in [Howarth Hall, room 215; (253)879-3578].
International students are not allowed to take a formal leave of absence unless they will be out of
the country and have obtained prior approval from the International Student Coordinator.
Members of the military services who take leaves of absence in order to perform military service
may be granted leaves of absence up to five years in length (see Veterans Policy).
Petitions Sub-Committee report: Petitions for the period 11/26/2009 – 01/21/2010
The Petitions Sub-Committee conducted 6 meetings since the last petitions report of the fall semester:
December 2: December 9, December 16, January 5 (the Probation/Dismissal meeting), January 14 (the
Readmission/Reinstatement meeting), and January 21 with the following results:
5 Approved Reinstatements or Readmissions from Suspension or Dismissal
3 Denied Reinstatements or Readmission from Suspension or Dismissal
8 Approved Re-enrollments from a Medical Withdrawal
8 Approved Time Conflicts
10 Approved Medical Withdrawals
1 Approved Emergency Administrative Withdrawal
1 Denied Waiver of the “Last 8 Units Rule”
1 Approved Concurrent Enrollment
1 Approved Second Course Repeat
3 Approved Waivers of the Minimum GPA Required for Independent Study
1 Denied Waiver of the Minimum GPA Required for Independent Study
1 Denied Transfer Credit from Community College with Junior Standing
1 Approved Drop After Last Day of Class
7 Approved Withdrawals with W Grade
1 Denied Withdrawal with W Grade
1 Denied Request to Postpone Repetition of Required Course
53 Total Petitions
Registrar Approved: 1
Preview Team Approved: 12
Sub-Committee Approved: 32
Total Approved: 45
Sub-Committee Denied: 8
Total Petitions: 53
For the year to date, 128 petitions have been acted upon, 110 of which were approved and 18 were denied.
About 1/3 of the petitions are either Time Conflicts (25) or Late Adds at (22).
The Probation/Dismissal Meeting for the Fall 2009 semester was held on January 5, 2010, and the
following sanctions were placed:
35 Warnings
6 Suspensions
0 Suspension/Probations
65 Probations
3 Continued Probations
3 Semester Dismissals
8 Year Dismissals
120 Total Sanctions
Spring Semester Petitions Sub-Committee Membership: Sarah Apple (student), James Bernhard, Tim
Beyer, Debbie Chee (Dean of Students Office), Ken Clark, Doug Goodman, Heidi Kreiss (student), Ben
Lewin, Gary McCall, Sarah Moore (Associate Dean), Maria Sampen, Brad Tomhave (Registrar).
Sub-Committee meetings will be held on Wednesdays at 4:30, immediately following the standing
committee meeting, or at 3:30, if there is no standing committee meeting scheduled.
Final Exam policy: In the ASC meeting of Dec. 9, Weinberger had proposed a change to the final
examination policy language that made more explicit the intention that final exams are to be given only
during the scheduled final exam period. Weinberger brought to this meeting a draft of such language (see
below; changes in italics), which after a couple of friendly amendments was M/S/P unanimously.
a. “In all classes in which a final examination is given, the final examination may be given
only during the time period assigned. The final examination is not to be given during the last
week of classes or the reading period. No exceptions to the final examination schedule can
be made by the instructor…. Requests to waive any part of this final examination policy must
be submitted in writing by the faculty member to the Dean of the University.”
Final Examination Length: Weinberger brought a request from the faculty Senate to consider a proposal to
extend the length of each final exam period from 2 hours to 3 hours. Weinberger offered the proposal that
final exam start times would remain the same as currently, therefore allowing students only one hour
between exams scheduled back-to-back. Moore suggested that this change would cause an additional
hardship for students who have three exams scheduled on one day. Weinberger responded that faculty
would not be compelled to increase the length of their exams because of the increased time, but that they
would have the option to increase the difference between a midterm exam and the final exam. Because it
was apparent that further discussion would ensue, Weinberger asked that the discussion be tabled until the
next meeting to allow time to consider the next agenda item.
Policy on Incompletes: Roundy brought to the committee’s attention his concern that our current policy
requiring completion of Incomplete grades by midterm of the following semester does a disservice to our
students. Because the deadline is so late, students carrying an Incomplete are essentially taking five, rather
than four, units. The additional burden of finishing the incomplete likely jeopardizes their success in their
other classes. In addition, Roundy brought the following data to bear: 1) 26% of I grades given between
2004 and 2009 resulted in final grades of D or F, and 2) all other liberal arts schools on the east and west
coasts have earlier deadlines than ours, with the most liberal deadline being the third week of classes in the
following semester. There was general agreement that the extended deadline does not aid the success of our
students: both West and Chee indicated that most of the students they work with who take incompletes do
not finish the work. Burnhard suggested that an earlier deadline might restrict the inappropriate use of
incomplete grades when the amount of work to be made up is excessive. Apple and Kreiss both agreed that
it would aid students to have the deadline earlier than it is currently. In response to a draft revision of the
policy that Roundy proposed, Moore added that the deadline could always be petitioned, but that the
proposed language did not make clear whether it is the student or the faculty member who has standing to
initiate that petition.
After brief discussion, there was consensus that the deadline should be made earlier, but there was no clear
consensus about how much earlier. There seem to be four options for setting the deadline for work to be
completed:
a. a standard time period after the semester ends (e.g., 2 weeks, 5 weeks)
b. the day before the start of the following semester (excluding summer session)
c. a standard time period after the start of the following semester (excluding summer session)
d. a standing date for each semester (e.g., January 15 and June 15).
Roundy worried that a deadline shortly after the end of a semester would present a hardship for faculty who
may have to be present to administer an exam. Kirkpatrick added that such a deadline could also be a
hardship for students, who may have flights home or have to move out of their housing immediately after
the end of the semester. Moore reminded the committee that the rationale for moving the deadline was to
reduce overlap with the following semester, and as such, a deadline immediately prior to or in the first
weeks of the following semester accomplishes that purpose without the hardships imposed by a postsemester deadline. Roundy suggested that the outcome of an incomplete might influence following
semester’s course schedule for the student, and it would be useful to require completion of incompletes
before the Add deadline. With time running short, and some sense that there was convergence toward the
deadline being set during the first week of classes, the discussion was tabled to the next meeting.
M/S/P meeting adjourned at 4:27.
Respectfully submitted,
Betsy Kirkpatrick, Scribe of the Day