Committee on Academic Policies Report

November 21, 2002, Faculty Forum Meeting

The committee on Academic Policies has met three times since the October forum meeting. The committee will present the proposals on restricting the use of pass/fail in core courses and the first year drop policy at the forum’s November meeting for vote. The committee has also reviewed the Guidelines for selection of academic dean or chief academic officer and will hold a hearing on them at the November forum meeting. As Jackie will be out of town at a conference and unable to attend the November forum meeting, Jack Soper has agreed to handle these issues.

After discussion the committee has returned the proposal in Interdisciplinary Studies

( IS) designation to the sponsors with suggestions for resubmission. The committee also met Dr. Santa Casciani on the Italian/American Concentration. After discussion the committee returned the proposal with suggestions for revision. The committee has gathered data on changing the drop policy from the 13^th week to earlier in the term. Drs. Baumgartner, Navratil, Beadle, Miller were contacted and drop dates from the Jesuit universities and colleges were collected. After discussion the committee decided that our current drop policy is fairly consistent with other schools and we would not continue to develop this issue. Our findings will be sent to the executive committee.

The committee did have one new issue, the development of guidelines for interdisciplinary concentrations. We will discuss this issue at our next meeting.