2008 Woodie Awards
Course repeat policy under review
David Abbott, News Editor
Issue date: 3/8/06 Section: News
eat a course in order to improve their GPA may soon have an easier time doing so if an Associated Students (AS) resolution passes through debate in the Academic Senate. In a unanimous vote AS passed a resolution on Feb. 21 that urged President Armiñana and the Academic Senate to reconsider a proposed course repeat policy.
The policy update was necessitated by the CSU Board of Trustee's "22 Recommendations for Facilitating Graduation," which seeks to "Assist students toward the achievement of their own highest-priority goal of attaining a baccalaureate by enabling them to complete their degree requirements in the most direct manner."
The proposed policy-which places a cap of 24 total units of course repeats in order to facilitate the "22 Recommendations"-was passed in the Senate at the Dec. 15 meeting, but awaits Armiñana's signature in order to become active policy.
AS took issue with the practice of averaging the grade from the original course with the repeat grade. Vice President Lindsey Simoncic sponsored the resolution which will go to the Senate after consideration by the University Standards Subcommittee.
"The issue with mandatory averaging is that a student's mastery of a subject is reflected in a grade, and therefore, the averaging of two grades does not accurately represent mastery of a subject," Simoncic said.
The double-averaging of grades could keep students out of graduate school and, according to the resolution, affect their "professional development." The AS Senate debated the issue at length in the Feb. 21 meeting.
"AS felt that [the proposed] policy, while addressing both the 22 points and compatibility with other CSUs, goes too far and adds too much complexity to a simple issue," James J. Reilly III, president of the AS Senate said. "We felt that if the policy was kept the way it is with the simple addition of a unit cap, the concerns about repeats standing in the way of a timely graduation would disappear."
The policy update was necessitated by the CSU Board of Trustee's "22 Recommendations for Facilitating Graduation," which seeks to "Assist students toward the achievement of their own highest-priority goal of attaining a baccalaureate by enabling them to complete their degree requirements in the most direct manner."
The proposed policy-which places a cap of 24 total units of course repeats in order to facilitate the "22 Recommendations"-was passed in the Senate at the Dec. 15 meeting, but awaits Armiñana's signature in order to become active policy.
AS took issue with the practice of averaging the grade from the original course with the repeat grade. Vice President Lindsey Simoncic sponsored the resolution which will go to the Senate after consideration by the University Standards Subcommittee.
"The issue with mandatory averaging is that a student's mastery of a subject is reflected in a grade, and therefore, the averaging of two grades does not accurately represent mastery of a subject," Simoncic said.
The double-averaging of grades could keep students out of graduate school and, according to the resolution, affect their "professional development." The AS Senate debated the issue at length in the Feb. 21 meeting.
"AS felt that [the proposed] policy, while addressing both the 22 points and compatibility with other CSUs, goes too far and adds too much complexity to a simple issue," James J. Reilly III, president of the AS Senate said. "We felt that if the policy was kept the way it is with the simple addition of a unit cap, the concerns about repeats standing in the way of a timely graduation would disappear."