Committee Minutes, Wednesday, November 28th 2007

Secretary Jeanne Chen submitted the following report to the Student Senate on Wednesday, November 28th 2007, on behalf of the Academics Committee, and pursuant to its Wednesday, November 28th 2007 recommendations:

Attendance:

There were seven (7) members (Briggs, Carter, Chen, Donnelly, Joyner, Parnell, Warren) present.

There were two (2) members (Poteat, Roscoe) absent.

The following official was also present: Rose.

A quorum was present.

Meeting Overview:

We decided to split up the advising surveys that we handed out. We also chose 3-4 items that we decided were most important that we will focus on for the Spring, including Textbooks and Registration.

Meeting Minutes:

***Splitting up advising surveys to tally – Academics will draft a report to take to Dr. Conway in the Spring.***

Registration:
- Force Add (Sen. Rose) – once a certain date hits, students should be able to add whatever classes they want regardless of whether or not they are restricted; as long as a course has an open seat, registration cannot refuse to let the student in.
- Course listings are wrong (Sen. Parnell) – correcting specific courses on the registration site that say that they are offered in the Fall or Spring, but are actually not.
- Insufficient number of sections offered – upping the number of sections offered in popular courses; mostly in psychology and communications.

Textbooks:
- recorded lectures
- online PDFs for courses whose curriculum doesn’t really change (Sen. Carter)
- Mimeos? (Sen. Donnelly) – notes that teachers can publish that they actually wrote on the board; so that students can use them to study

Freshman retakes:
- Instead of doing freshman retakes, you can have up to any (3) or (4) drops throughout any semester; there would be a week or so where the student can drop without using one of these drops, and another week where other students can sign up for classes that people have dropped out of.
*Might give students a chance to reevaluate teachers and advisors; people would take it more seriously.

Idea:
Sen. Carter – Have a student’s webpage that students can access forums, what’s going on within the student body, activities going on around campus or with student body officials, etc.
*Suggestion will be taken to Campus Community.

Sen. Parnell: A school in Texas has biology courses that are specific to a person’s major so that students who are required to take a certain number of science/math courses will learn to appreciate it as it applies to their major.

Sen. Joyner: 8 AM exams – if the class is not an 8 AM course, it should not be an 8 AM exam – 8 am exams will not be gotten rid of.