The Faculty Senate reviewed Thursday a definition of credit hours and passed a resolution to review the University’s make-up procedures through an ad-hoc committee.
The newly revised Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges’ guidelines for a credit hour dictate that for every one hour of time in the classroom, there must be two hours of out-of-classroom work each week over the course of 15 weeks.
This means that there is an expectation that students taking 15 hours will spend 45 hours a week on school.
Some faculty members were upset because of the potential backlash from students over additional work, but others liked it because they thought it would force students to study more.
The Faculty Senate has no authority to change the new rule, said Courses and Curriculum Committee Chair Larry Rouse.
“We don’t have a choice,” Rouse said. “Faculty members are going to have to show that the course is not just three hours in class sitting on your butt.”
T. Gilmour Reeve, Vice Provost for Academic Programs, Planning and Review, said it should not incite problems.
“There’s going to be some students that do it very quickly and some that won’t do it anyway,” Reeve said. “We are responsible that the course, through its face-to-face and out-of-classroom work, approximates this definition.”
The new ad-hoc committee will review what make-up procedures will be followed in the cases of excused absences.
Committee Chair Bill Demastes said he has found “irregularities” from instructors refusing to give make-up work.
Demastes said he found that some instructors do not allow make-up opportunities for labs, quizzes or tests. Instead, some professors add weight to sections of final exams to make-up for missed exams during the semester. He also denounced reformatted make-up exams and tendencies to drop exams and avoid a possible make-up test.
Faculty Senate President Kevin Cope said the committee’s decision will give students protection in the event of a faculty member refusing to allow a student to make up missed work.
“Faculty members are going to have to show that the course is not just three hours in class sitting on your butt.”
