Academic Standards Committee Minutes
November 6, 2000
Present: Scott Bailey, Suzanne Barnett, Jo Crane, Katie Danielson, Julian Edgoose, Houston
Dougharty, Ron Fields, Robin Foster (chair), Tom Goleeke, Kristi Hendrickson, David
Lupher, Steve Rodgers, Jack Roundy, Yvonne Swinth, Lori Blake (for Brad Tomhave)
Absent: Alyce Demarais, Doug Goodman, John Finney, Karen Porter
Visitor: Carol Lentz
Foster convened the meeting at 8:03 a.m. and announced that Finney and Tomhave are away at
a conference. She then called attention to the minutes of the last meeting of the committee.
Minutes.
Fields M/S/P approval of the minutes for the meeting of 23 October 2000 as
distributed.
PETITIONS COMMITTEE
Lori Blake reported on behalf of Tomhave that the PC met twice since the last PC report and
acted on 7 petitions, 5 approved and 2 denied, as indicated on printouts submitted to Barnett and
summarized below.
Date
10/20/00-10/26/00
10/27/00-11/02/00
Approved
2
3
The year-to-date figures are as follows:
08/24/00-11/02/00
66 (27*)
Denied
0
2
No Action
0
0
Total
2
5
12
1
79
* The parenthesized number indicates the number of the stated approvals done by the Office of
the Registrar as authorized by the Academic Standards Committee for resolution of specified
issues of registration.
PROBATION AND “REPRESENTATION IN UNIVERSITY ACTIVITIES”
Foster called attention to President Pierce’s email message of 23 October 2000 in response to
the minutes of the ASC meeting of 9 October 2000. Foster noted revised-policy options available
to the committee in deciding the issue of participation in University activities by students on
probation: (1) No restrictions; (2) increased advising of such students, which could involve an
advisor in the Academic and Career Advising office and a contract. She added that, as the
president noted, the first concern should be the evaluation of the effectiveness of activities
restrictions on improved academic performance.
Committee members affirmed interest in assessment of the current policy, which appears on
page 46 of the Logger. Dougharty pointed out that a difficulty of this policy statement about
restrictions on activities is that it conjoins academic probation and conduct probation and thus
confuses the separation of the two kinds of probation: Academic probation appears in the
“Academic Policies” section of the Logger (pp. 42-43), and conduct probation appears in the
Student Integrity Code (Logger, p. 98). Later in the discussion Goleeke discovered that the policy
statement on p. 46 appears nowhere in the Logger index.
Assessment would be to determine (1) the effectiveness of the current policy and (2) the
effectiveness of contracts in recovery from academic probation. Roundy noted the difficulty of
assessing the current policy if it is not working, and Dougharty stated that the current policy is not
working, or at least is not being applied evenly. Roundy said that the mechanism of assessment
might be focus groups of students who have been restricted from participation in activities and
could say whether the restrictions were effective in getting off probation. Swinth introduced the
idea that focus groups also could yield information about the effectiveness of individual contracts
2
in recovery from academic probation. Foster conveyed that Finney had said we could survey all
students on probation in the last year. This would accommodate the “casualties,” students who
were unable to get off probation and have left the University, as well as students who were able
to recover from probation.
Dougharty and Crane expressed interest in finding out what other institutions are doing with
regard to restrictions on activities for students on probation. Barnett asked Roundy if the
academic contracts are the result of an effort to increase retention. Roundy said that contracts
are largely his creation, intended to be a framework, a template, for a student to develop a plan to
regain good academic standing. Roundy’s sense of other institutions’ interest in assuring
students’ academic success is that it is to serve retention, which is an issue institutions across the
country are worrying about.
Fields articulated an interest in getting the numbers—how many cases of probation?—and a
profile of students on probation (freshman, sophomore, and so forth). Roundy said that arriving at
a profile of students is possible. He summarized discussion by suggesting the need to determine
the numbers and the profile, as well as to create a focus group to learn how many students had
restrictions placed on their activities and to assess the role of such restrictions in academic
recovery.
ACTION:
Barnett M/S/P to establish a subset of the committee to look at the relevant
text of the Logger, to review the words, and to make recommendations.
Foster established a subcommittee of Barnett, Finney, Foster, and Roundy. Dougharty pointed
out that this subcommittee will in fact be addressing policy in the effort to work with the words.
The committee adjourned at 8:50. Foster reminded that the next scheduled meeting is on
Monday, 20 November.
Respectfully submitted,
Suzanne W. Barnett