Faculty Senate held their weekly meeting on April 21 through a Zoom conference call.
Big-ticket items:
- Provost’s Report
- Interim Provost Torrey Lawrence addressed Senators’ concerns about the university budget in relation to COVID-19.
- Lawerence said, despite the $3.45 million the university will have to spend from The Department of Education, a lot of money has been lost due to the pandemic.
- The Provost believes enrollment in the fall will be critical.
- Admission Requirements
- With the introduction of the Vandal Gateway Program (VGP) pilot cohort in the next academic year, admission requirements for all students were revised.
- The VGP allows students who did not pass UI’s minimum admission requirements will enroll in a separate cohort with additional academic support.
- The Admissions Committee will be adding three additional members to better evaluate petitions to the committee. One member will be a faculty member from the American Language and Cultural Program to help with non-English speaking applicants.
- Petitions to the committee must now include a written statement by students discussing their goals, explaining past academic performance and anything else the student would like to be considered.
- Some senators were concerned the VGP was being treated as permanent despite only the upcoming academic pilot year being confirmed.
- Repeating Courses
- The Senate voted to clarify policy on retaking classes and GPA.
- Now, the second repeat of a course will replace the initial grade. For students taking a course more than twice, the grades will be averaged.
- Graduate students cannot retake a course more than once.
Haadiya Tariq can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @haadiyatariq