October 10, 2007
Academic Standards committee
Present
Debbie Chee, Robert Taylor, Brad Tomhave, Mike Spivey, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Sarah
Moore, Jack Roundy, Gary McCall, Seth Weinberger, David Sousa, Carolyn Weisz,
Alison Tracy Hale
Guests
Lori Blake, Melanie Sullivan, Peter Wimberger
Order
Chair Spivey convened the meeting at 9:03 a.m.
Approval of Minutes from last meeting. McCall moved to approve the minutes; Taylor
seconded; the minutes were approved unanimously.
Announcements
Chair Spivey announced that Alison Tracy Hale would serve as secretary for the
remainder of the semester.
Spivey also updated the committee on his conversations with Senator Bristow regarding
the committee’s charge to examine the schedule of classes. Senator Bristow had informed
him that the Senate intended to open the discussion of scheduling principles to the full
faculty at the next Faculty Meeting. Spivey reported that he had asked whether this meant
that the Senate would like to rescind the issue from the ASC’s charge. Bristow had
replied that the Senate had not made any such decision; Spivey encouraged committee
members to attend the upcoming full faculty meeting.
Roundy announced that the revised student alert form was now up and available on line.
The announcement was met with considerable enthusiasm from members of the
committee.
Petitions Report
Tomhave reported that the previous 2 meetings of the Petitions Committee had been
canceled due to lack of business.
Since the previous meeting of the ASC, the Petitions Preview Team completed the
following business:
-approved a petition for a second course repeat
-approved a late-add within the automatic “W” period
In the period 9/7/07-10/9/07,
The Petitions Preview Team has approved a total of 3 petitions
The Petitions Committee has approved 7 petitions
6 petitions have been denied.
Committee Business
Spivey commenced discussion of the issue regarding graded units and university honors
at graduation, particularly in the case of students matriculating with multiple AP credits.
Spivey noted an email to the committee from Mark Martin on behalf of a former UPS
student who was ineligible for university honors. Spivey introduced Peter Wimberger to
speak on the issue.
Wimberger reported that in the case of the student mentioned by Martin, as well as in the
cases of several other students, multiple AP units were not included in the 28 graded units
required for honors. Wimberger pointed out that in this case, AP units are not treated in
the same way that transfer units from 2 and 4 year colleges are, a situation Wimberger
characterized as “unfair” and “arbitrary.” He stated that AP units are “standard” across
the AP program. Wimberger noted that the current system is particularly unfair to many
of our “best students” who arrive at UPS with multiple AP credits and who are then
penalized with respect to activity units or who must take more than the 32 units required
for graduation in order to be eligible for university honors. He reported that in his
experience, students who came in with AP units outperformed other transfer students.
Wimberger anticipated the following possible objections to counting AP units as graded
units and responded to them as follows:
1. Accepting AP units as graded units would water down the rigor of the UPS
programs and criteria for excellence. Wimberger reiterated the rigor of the AP
units and the uniformity of standards and practices across the AP program.
2. Concern that such change would result in a flood of honors students that would
dilute the prestige of the award. Wimberger provided a handout (see Appended
Report) showing that only 20 students with a GPA greater than or equal to 3.7 did
not receive honors between the academic years 2002-03 & 2006-07. The number
of students affected in any one year is small.
3. A concern regarding the correlation of AP units with overall GPA. In the case of
honors, students awarded credit for 4 or more AP units are penalized. An
increasing number of students matriculate with 3 or 4 AP units, and most of those
are choosing to take extra units at UPS, rather than completing their degrees in 3.5
years. Wimberger noted that the impact on revenue of accepting AP units was
similar to that of various study abroad programs.
Perkins-Valdez asked whether Wimberger had any information regarding how our peer
institutions handle this question. She noted that UPS might find a benchmark among the
policies of similar institutions but that such information was not readily available in a
preliminary search of websites.
Weinberger noted that the simplest solution was to avoid the larger issue raised by
transfer units and to accept AP and IB credits as graded UPS units, acknowledging that
other systems would require “more acrobatics.” He observed that university honors were
specifically to acknowledge work completed at UPS, and that under a revised policy,
students would have the potential to have taken 9-10 units elsewhere while earning UPS
honors. He suggested making a distinction between introductory units and upper-division
courses taken away from UPS, since AP credit mostly addresses introductory courses. He
noted that such a distinction would take into account the kind of work done by the student
here at UPS, and would thus ensure that students would fulfill the spirit of honors. He
raised the possibility of a petition-style option by which students who did not meet the
28-unit requirement could petition for honors by demonstrating the rigor of their UPS
work.
Perkins-Valdez asked whether a student could graduate with 7 semesters’ coursework at
UPS and receive honors?
Weisz noted that such was often the case for students who study abroad.
Wimberger observed that UPS has the 28-unit standard in order to allow students to
participate in multiple activities and to use the pass-fail option. He further observed that
the students represented in his study of those who had not been awarded honors were not
the ones “skating” through their UPS careers by using P/F or activity units in lieu of
academic courses. Wimberger further expressed concern that the committee not “legislate
to the minority,” since the students about whom he was concerned are not what was
described by various committee members as “slackers.”
Roundy noted that Wimberger’s argument was attractive because transfer courses are
usually introductory as well; such a change would create more similarities among how
courses from various institutions are treated.
McCall raised the question of the standard of quality among courses taken elsewhere; that
is, how does UPS assure the quality of transfer units in general?
Weisz noted that at Stanford, students were encouraged to take courses in order to
maximize their exposure to various fields, often through auditing or P/F options. She
observed that asking students to demonstrate rigor in their individual program might
allow for greater fairness than the application of a set of rules.
Sousa concurred with Weisz, suggesting that rather than stating rules up front, the
committee or a subcommittee could “grope toward” a rule by developing a history of
case-by-case decisions. He further noted that the committee might need to address the
“magic 28” standard, since it might have been put into place at a time when activities
units were graded.
Taylor asked whether there was a limit on the total number of AP/IB units allowed
toward a UPS degree. Roundy stated that 8 units are allowed. Taylor further observed
that music students, who must register for an ensemble unit of .5/ semester, have the
number of graded units available to them severely limited.
Weisz reminded the committee of the difficulties faced by working students, urging that
any revised policy not create bias against a student who, say, completes 3.5 units a
semester. She noted that reducing the required number of graded units would allow us to
encourage out-of-class experience and might make the petitions route more effective.
Tomhave noted that the fairest policy would be to apply the strictest rule to all students.
Sousa asked whether the Petitions Committee did not routinely waive “clear standards.”
Tomhave replied that in a petitions scenario, one student would get honors because s/he
asked, while a student who did not ask would not.
Roundy suggested that a message could be sent from graduation evaluators to students
who have sufficient GPA but are below 28 units, advising them that they are not
automatically eligible for honors but have the right to petition.
McCall wondered whether such a communication would be seen as encouraging students
to request that we break a rule?
Weinberger reminded the committee that we were talking about students who have
almost a year’s credit from other institutions.
Wimberger noted that we already recognize AP units as “something” by virtue of
awarding credit for them; we simply do not recognize them as graded UPS units. He
noted that counting AP (and IB) units as UPS graded units was simpler than establishing
arbitrary rules differentiating among transfer units. He responded to Weinberger’s
concern about students who “skate by” on excess activity units, etc., by reiterating that
this issue involves a small number of students. He stated that making this issue
petitionable creates more work and creates policy focused on a minority. He cautioned
against “legislating to slackers.”
Perkins-Valdez asked whether all disciplines accepted the same scores on AP exams.
Spivey replied that Math/CS accepted a score of three because in the department’s
experience, such students can “handle Calc II.”
Weisz noted that giving credit for scores of 3 and 4 helped to prevent boredom among
students by putting them into more challenging courses earlier in their career.
McCall asked how many units short (of the 28) students affected by the honors issue are?
That is, how many IB/AP units do we allow?
Roundy reasserted that students could apply up to 8 transfer units.
Taylor asked if we might emphasize the criteria for university honors by limiting students
to a maximum of 4 AP or IB/transfer units.
Weisz asked why we would want to limit the total number of transferable units?
Chee requested clarification on whether part of the objection to AP units was that they
were taught in a high school setting.
Weinberger noted that the high school setting was relevant to his objection; in his
experience, AP students don’t know what they need to place out of UPS courses and that
AP was not an equivalent experience to a college courses. Sousa agreed that an AP
course was not a satisfactory substitute for a UPS course. Tracy Hale noted that in
English Literature, the AP program actually creates problems for many students, since its
criteria are so out of step with college expectations.
Weisz noted that students who manage to excel in the less-rigorous AP courses then do
significantly less well—although still satisfactorily—their upper-level coursework at
UPS, thus creating a sort of natural weeding-out process with respect to honors.
Perkins-Valdez expressed interest in limiting the number of units earned through AP or
IB credits.
Moore asked what we would base that limit on?
Weinberger noted that if we limit students to 4 AP/IB units, they have a potential to apply
“one year of ungraded work” toward their degree.
Roundy reminded the committee that students must have 16 units in residence to earn a
UPS degree.
Weinberger observed, to rousing approval, that as a general precedent, the committee
should “Not make policy to let students do whatever they want.”
Perkins-Valdez reiterated her interest in seeing how other institutions handle this
question.
Tomhave said that if UPS accepts AP scores (numbered 1-5) as graded units, we need
some way to calculate those numbers as grades. Weinberger suggested that the UPS GPA
not included the grades from AP, but Tomhave said that by defining the units as
“graded,” UPS becomes the source of those grades and must have a means of calculating
and weighting them.
Moore suggested that it might be possible to count the units not as “graded units” but to
subtract them from the 28 units.
Weisz noted that Moore’s suggestion addressed the idea of improvement across a
student’s career.
Tomhave observed that all grades count equally toward the GPA.
Weisz observed that UPS policies and practices aside from the GPA (letters of
recommendation, etc.) address the issue of student improvement past the first year.
Weinberger proposed the creation of a small committee to look at the few cases in which
students with a GPA of 3.7 or higher are not eligible for honors and to make
determinations regarding each individual situation.
Moore noted that while she was not opposed to Weinberger’s idea, she worried that the
practice might disadvantage some students. The advantage of clear criteria is that they
treat everyone the same.
Chair Spivey noted that several committee members needed to head to class and that the
committee was not yet ready for a motion on this matter. He proposed that we move
forward at our next meeting.
Meeting was adjourned at 9:52 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Alison Tracy Hale