[Be sure to check the comments for a clarification about the change.]
According to an email from the Chancellor sent out late Friday afternoon (and pasted at the end of this post), SIUC will now require graduates to complete only 42 hours in upper division classes (the old requirement was 60--out of the 120 minimum required).
I haven't done the research necessary to determine whether this lowering of our requirements for upper division courses is in keeping with our peers or not. Nor was I privy to the discussion about this change that took place in the Faculty Senate (which presumably took place before my election to that body). So I'm hoping for some informed comments. I did find it odd that the email came out at 4:43 on a Friday afternoon, the traditional time to hide things, and then, upon reflection, found it a bit odd that it came out at all. I at least had no idea of how many upper level hours were required for our undergraduates, so this one could have gone under the radar as far as I was concerned.
The question to ask, obviously, is whether or not lowering our formal graduation requirements will seriously undermine academics. It may not. Student can now graduate with four fewer upper-level classes--but these classes will be replaced by lower level classes, of courses, classes which may be valuable in their own right. On the other hand, the change raises the specter of dumbing down the curriculum. It is in keeping with removing the requirement for a core interdisciplinary course (a 300 level offering) and replacing it with University College 101.
The Chancellor triumphs this move as one that will help us attract more transfers, but does not in her message say anything about any potential downsides--she does not say why it took "thorough and careful study" to reach this decision. She does, at the end, throw in a bit about continuing to ensure academic integrity of our degree programs. "Our degree programs" may be the key phrase here; perhaps the idea is that individual programs will need to safeguard academic integrity, as the university as a whole won't be doing it, at least to the same degree it had in the past. But just as SIUC faces competitive pressures with other potential hosts of transfer students, our academic programs vie with one another for students. So don't be shocked if you hear a Friday afternoon suggestion that your program reduce the number of upper-level offerings it requires.
The Chancellor's email is pasted after the break.
January 20, 2012
Dear Colleagues,
After thorough and careful study, I am announcing an important policy change that will improve our past success and future ability to attract qualified transfer students from other higher education institutions, particularly community colleges. Effective with the start of the 2013/2014 academic year, the number of required senior institution hours has been revised to 42 credit hours in upper division courses. Our current requirement of 60 hours, at any level, has placed us at a significant competitive disadvantage with many of the institutions that our prospective transfer students consider attending.
I wish to thank the Faculty Senate, the Dean's Council, Provost Nicklow, Associate Provost Allen, the Enrollment Management staff, and others who worked diligently to review the proposed policy changes and offer input and support for the revised policy. Underlying this policy is the goal of making SIU more competitive for transfer students while continue to ensure the academic integrity of our degree programs. See the revised policy at the following link:
http://policies.siuc.edu/policies/GraduationRequirements2013-14.html
Thank you for your combined effort to advance our university.
Sincerely,
Rita Cheng
Chancellor
Sunday, January 22, 2012
13 comments:
I will review and post comments as quickly as I can. Comments that are substantive and not vicious will be posted promptly, including critical ones. "Substantive" here means that your comment needs to be more than a simple expression of approval or disapproval. "Vicious" refers to personal attacks, vile rhetoric, and anything else I end up deeming too nasty to post.
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The Faculty Senate talked about this requirement in July and September.
ReplyDeleteThe July minutes indicate, "In order to maintain the academic rigor of programs, there is an add-on requirement that says those 42 hours must be 300 and 400 level courses. Currently, the senior institution hour requirement can be met with any classes to reach a total of 60 hours."
Would requiring the 42 hours be at the 300 and 400 level, then, somewhat reduce the need for SIUC to offer 100 and 200-level courses (which presumably transfer students will have taken elsewhere before coming here)? That opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities. Like Dave, I would like more information about why this policy change was made, and the likely implications of the change.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this one is a big deal. It came up in our department several faculty meetings ago (and again one or twice), the rub being that 300/400 level requirement. I think it at least partially arose out of the fact that some transfer students were able to avoid sufficient rigor with the past requirements, and this was put in to batten things down. Unfortunately, an unintended consequence was that a lot of majors have requirements that involve a lot of (technically, by their numbering only) lower level courses (say, a science major with a lot of pre/co-reqs in sister sciences in mathematics) and that this was causing difficulty in making the numbers work out somehow. It's already a bit hazy for me. I remember it made my head hurt (and that our department's curriculum committee was dealing with it to make recommendations--which they may have already made--to deal with any possible conflicts). Meh.
ReplyDeleteI think it is related to performance-based funding. Our transfer students were finishing their degrees with too many overall hours which makes us look inefficient. Also, (my understanding is that) our new standard is in line with our peer institutions which makes us more competitive to attract those transfer students. I don't think that one can fairly assume that a Friday afternoon announcement is necessarily intended to hide something.
ReplyDeleteA key word here might be 'announcement'
ReplyDeleteDave's comments are disgusted. I believe SIUC offers better upper level courses than those provided by local community colleges.
ReplyDeleteI think Dave didn't understand that the 42 had to be upper level classes at the time he wrote the post.
DeleteAnonymous 2:52 is correct. I didn't catch the 42 hours have to be 300/400 hours, while the 60 hours did not. I should have read the Chancellor's email more carefully. And of I believe that SIUC courses are, on average, more rigorous than those at community colleges. Whether I am disgusted, or disgusting, is another matter. Or two matters.
Delete“Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about students and it is not because we have a vision of a great university for every student. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power.”
ReplyDeletehttp://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2011/02/flashback-video-nea-union-bigshot-not.html
I am an Academic Adviser. My concern I have about this change is that students will be forced to take superfluous courses to meet this requirement or departments will simply be encouraged or forced to arbitrarily change the numbering of courses to facilitate students meeting the requirement. This seems to undermine the the whole Illinois Articulation Initiative (IAI) which is an inter-institution agreement on how certain courses get transferred from 2 and 4 year institutions (for instance, HIST110 is a core course which routinely is also articulated as HIST301--a major level course). The former policy required students to have 60 hours of 4 year institution credit. In the college I work in, we require 39 hours of 3-4 level credit, based on transferred articulation or ANY (whether it's from a 2 or 4 year school) other senior level credit. This will completely invalidate senior level credit from a 2 year school (and the IAI agreement). Some majors already do not offer very many 3-4xx level courses, so the outcome will be that students will have to take more senior level courses that do not meet any specific requirement. So be it, but the result may be in many cases that students will be here a lot longer than they anticipated (longer than 42 hours). If this what we want, that is fine. I just want to offer a perspective from an advisement point of view and bring to the fore some possible unforeseen consequences.
ReplyDeleteAdviser,
DeleteAccording to the July Faculty Senate minutes, your college is unusual. "The majority of programs already have in their course requirement above the 42 hour requirement, so the change will affect them very little, if at all. However, there were about 10 programs that actually had less than 42 hours at the 300 and 400 level."
I agree, however, that this change could have unforeseen consequences. It's good that Provost brought this topic to the Faculty Senate to think and talk through the possible consequences that we can foresee. It's unfortunate if the advisers didn't also have the opportunity to advise the Provost about possible consequences of the change.
We advisers are used to not being heard or consulted in matters that we deal with on a daily basis. Hence, we post anonymously on blogs.
DeleteBut, as I understand this poorly explained new policy, a student could transfer MORE credits from other institutions, schools perhaps not so rigorous as SIUC. So the graduation gpa might be inflated. Further, the institution "clears" little money on transfer students (the general formula is that the first two years of tuition and fees pretty much covers the costs of processing the student; thus, transfer students are a cost of productivity). Finally, how does this fit within the chancellor's continued talk about SIUC being one of the 199 U.S. research universities? I don't see how it is anything more than accounting tomfoolery.
ReplyDelete