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WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

ACADEMIC COORDINATING COMMISSION MINUTES

Regular Meeting  --  February 28, 2006

Chair Tom Downing called the meeting of the Academic Coordinating Commission to order on February 28, 2006 in OM340 at 4:06 p.m.  There were fifteen (15) members present, two (2) guests, one (1) recorder, and the Registrar for a total of nineteen. (19). (See attached roster). 

Approval of ACC minutes

Commissioners approved the minutes of February 28, with minor corrections.

Items from the Chair:

Chair Downing reported that:

·     The March 7^th ACC meeting has been cancelled. This meeting was never part of the regular schedule, but was added when it was noted that the first officially scheduled meeting of Winter Quarter fell before classes had begun.  The first meeting Spring Quarter of the ACC will take place on Tuesday, March 28^th, the first day of classes in Spring Quarter. 

·     On April 11^th Kris Bulcroft and Karen Perry will address the ACC on the results of their deliberations on improving the General Studies major.

·     On April 25^th, the third meeting of ACC in Spring quarter, the ACC will host a meeting for curricular committee chairs and their staff to review new regulations, processes, etc., and to respond to their questions and concerns.

APPOINTMENTS

To International Programs:   Chris Wise, CHSS, replacing Cheryl Peltier-Davis, Spring Quarter.

AGENDA ITEMS - Discussion

ADD-DROP.  Commissioners discussed issues with the add/drop policy. 

Current policy:

·       There is insufficient incentive to get out of class in a sufficiently timely fashion that the class would be made available to someone else.

·       Students complain about receiving a “W” on their transcripts for courses they have dropped between the end of Phase III and the end of the second week of classes (a period of two or three days, depending on the quarter).

·       Some faculty complain that the policy of letting students in a class as late as the end of Phase III makes teaching their classes difficult, since by this time homework assignments and even quizzes might have been due or given.

·       Many students sit in on a class for which they are not registered, hoping that someone drops and makes a space available for them.

Some Recommendations:

·       Some commissioners urged that the system is not broken and we should not try to fix it.  

·       One proposal is that we stagger the drop and add dates, that is, that we permit adds for one day beyond the drop period. The point of this is, of course, to make room available. However, it may even exacerbate the problem some faculty report for cases of students who enter a class after 10% of it has already gone by.

·       To avoid the problem of the “W” given between the end of Phase III and the end of the second week of classes, but not lose the incentive to get out of a class in time for it to be made available to someone else, we should consider as an incentive a monetary charge instead of the W (drops after the end of the second week would still carry a W and would require the use of a late drop privilege). There was a suggestion that this would cause problems for monitoring eligibility for financial aid.

·       Michael Meehan noted that one issue seems to be that when a student is in a class trying to decide whether to keep it or put it off and he or she has not had any work returned, it can be hard to make a decision.  They should have the choice to drop even later on, after they have had some feedback.

·       It is important to distinguish those who withdraw when they are failing, and those who withdraw when they are passing

·       Provost Bodman opined that it is necessary to step back from 75 years of complexity, and to then come out with simple principles rather than this rather “Byzantine” system.  Out of a population of 11,000 to have 7,200 students change courses suggests a problem with the current process.  The Chair suggested forming a small committee consisting of the Provost, the Registrar, one more faculty member and a student to reexamine the entire matter of add/drop policies. The Chair gave a homework assignment to the Commissioners:  Each commissioner is to look at a couple of schools and examine their withdrawal policies and withdrawal rules; in particular, they should look to see whether any schools levee a charge against students for withdrawing from classes

The Executive Committee will write a charge for the small ad hoc committee. 

Alpha Suffixes

Commissioners continued discussion of Alpha Suffixes from the February 14^th meeting.

A motion was made by Grant Donnellan, seconded by Michael Meehan as follows:

“Alpha suffixes shall be used only to distinguish sections of courses repeatable for credit (e.g., 417a, 417b or 445a or 445b) and in the rare cases where a unit’s offerings exceed the numbers available in the traditional numbering system.”

The motion passed unanimously.  Commissioners stated that many of the problems created by using suffixes can be addressed by using "attributes" or "section numbers." 

READING of Curricular Minutes – Exhibit B:

The following minutes were accepted by the Academic Coordinating Commission on Tuesday February 28:   (Commissioners welcomed Keith Hyatt who explained the course and credit changes to allow double certification in Special Ed and Elementary Education.)

Constituent Concerns 

Commissioner Lauren Balisky had two concerns:

1.       She reported that one of her professors had expressed a wish that the finals schedule would rotate so that classes that meet at a particular time every quarter don’t always have the same location in the final schedule. The failure to do this is particularly galling for those who meet classes at virtuous times and then always get stuck with a final late in finals week.  The issue will be brought up at the next meeting when the Registrar is present. It is the recollection of some of the commissioners that such a rotation was the practice at WWU in the past.

2.       Balisky reported that she has a hard time getting many of the classes in her major because though they are part of her major, she is not a major in the department that offers the classes in question. This is a problem in particular for students with student-designed majors, especially in the case of courses that are offered by heavily impacted departments. This can seriously retard progress towards degree and should be addressed immediately.  For purposes of access students who have courses required for their majors should be regarded by the units in which they are not majoring in the same way majors in that unit are regarded.

3.       One commissioner noted some possible complications:  Would students who are required to take courses in a “related field” (common in the sciences) have the same privileges, even for “disjunctive requirements?”

4.       Should we extend such access to students who require a course for a “declared” minor?

Adjournment

Commissioners adjourned at 5:47 pm.

Rose Marie Norton-Nader, Recorder, February 28, 2006

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