Undergraduate Academic Council
Meeting: UAC Meeting Wednesday, February 25th, 2009, 12:30-1:30pm
Room: Undergraduate Ed Conference room LC31J.
Members Present: J. Philippe Abraham, Yu-Hu Chen, Steven Doellefeld,
Rick Fogarty (new member from History Department), Sue Faerman,
Jane Kessler, Bob Keesee, Maria Moon, Sue Phillips, Joan Savitt (Chair),
Greg Stevens and Dan White (Anthropology). Maria Brown, Timothy
Groves and William Meredith had previously informed the Chair that
they were not able to make it to today’s meeting.
Review of the minutes: Minutes from Feb 11th meeting were approved.
Report from the Chair:
1. The Chair noted that Ann Withington has resigned her seat on UAC.
Rick Fogarty has agreed to serve as her replacement. A replacement for
Joel Berkowitz has not yet been named.
2. The Chair discussed proposed amendments to two bills based on
recommendations made by the Senate Executive Committee.
A: Two changes to the 2nd Bachelor’s Degree bill were discussed and then
approved.
1. The admission deadline for fall was changed from July 1 to May 1
2. An additional sentence right after the sentence ending "...will not be admitted
to the university" stating, "Appeals will be processed by the Committee on
Admissions and Academic Standing of the University Academic Council.” will be
added.
B. The UAC also revisited the Criminal Justice Major’s Honors bill
because there is a problem in that the proposed 400-level courses cannot
be taught as shared resources with any 600 level courses. Therefore, the
new courses will need to be either distinct courses at the 400 level or
shared at the 400/500 level. The Vice Provost will talk with Joanne
Malatesta regarding this and will report back to UAC.
The Vice Provost’s report:
1. Discussion still continues regarding the Transfer Credit Appeals. The
Vice Provost has requested clarification of several points from SUNY
System Administration and is waiting to hear from them.
2. The Vice Provost informed the UAC that there is a point of clarification
needed regarding the Dean’s List revisions passed in UAC in the fall
semester. Regarding appeals, was the intention of UAC that students be
able to appeal for retroactive inclusion on the Dean’s List from any
semester, or should the process indeed be starting with the naming of
students to the list for Spring 2009 semester?
There is an appeal form which was created by the Vice Provost’s office
and the student’s appeal must meet the following criteria:
a) The course work should be nearly completely by the time of the appeal
(this must be substantiated by the professor of the course);
b) Circumstances beyond student’s control and
c) Completion of the work must have been done in a timely manner
The UAC members voted that the intention should be to allow for
retroactive appeals.
3. The Vice Provost asked the Chair to include in the Senate minutes that
in going with the spirit of the University’s “Going Green” project, her
office is no longer printing the Dean’s List certificate. Instead, students
are receiving an email from the Vice Provost telling them that they have
been so named and the Dean’s List mention is being placed on their
official transcripts.
4. There is not update on the status of the School of Education petition for
a new Minor.
Additional discussion related to I grades
Bill 0809-02 took effect “with the Spring, 2009 semester”. UAC has now voted that the
interpretation of “with the Spring, 2009 semester” should be
(1) that any student who has completed a properly assigned I grade who then qualifies for Dean’s
List should submit the proper supporting documents and be placed on the Dean’s List
retroactively, and
(2) that appeals may be submitted for any prior semester, provided that the student has not
already completed the degree. (After the degree has been awarded, UAC considers this part of
the record to be frozen.)
UAC then identified a problematic group of students: those engaged in courses where the work
of the class is expected to be completed after the end of the semester. A typical course in this
category would involve a research project possibly spanning an entire academic year. These
students are routinely assigned a grade of I at the end of the semester and therefore do not
qualify for Dean’s List even if they otherwise have completed 12 credits of A/E graded
coursework with the proper semester GPA.
UAC believes that all such projects should appear on a transcript as a set of components, each
one tied to its proper time frame, rather than as an incomplete whole listed only in the semester
where the work was begun or completed. We suggest, for example, that a student register for 2
credits of “XXX 498” in the fall and an additional 1 credit of “XXX 498” in the spring, or whatever
split is appropriate, so that the total number of credits equals the number earned, and the student
be awarded a grade as each component is completed. (This assumes that any XXX498 class
would be repeatable for credit.) Such a registration would also reflect the student’s actual
academic load each semester, which would be appropriate for verifications of their status.
UAC offers this as a recommendation to the Provost and suggests that every department in
which a student can engage in a research project create a course of this type.
Next meeting will be March 4th at LC31