University of Idaho Faculty Senate presented a new version of the emergency withdrawal policy on Tuesday, shifting away from the prior iteration that would have increased the number of credits.
Under the prior iteration of the emergency withdrawal policy, Faculty Senate proposed the maximum number of undergraduate withdrawal credits be increased from 21 to 33 to account for academic difficulties stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. With the potential for confusion arising from a limited-time withdrawal credit increase, the need for a new framework quickly became more clear.
“We decided increasing the total number to 33 was logistically going to be a nightmare,” Faculty Senate Chair Barbara Kirchmeier said.
Instead of temporarily increasing the withdrawal credit limit, Faculty Senate proposed an exemption of withdrawal credits for designated semesters.
“The (withdrawal) credits from the terms we select would not count toward withdrawal credit regulation processes,” Kirchmeier said. “This would include the hold that gets placed on student records and the display of the number of W credits on Degree Works.”
The current framework would continue to list withdrawal credits on students’ transcript, but they would not count towards the credit limit outlined in the standard withdrawal policy. An idea that was previously floated suggested a removal of withdrawal credits from transcripts over designated semesters.
The new change wouldn’t require an opt-in process and would instead be immediately applied to all undergraduate students under the selected semesters, Kirchmeier said. Under the current proposal, the semesters encompassed in the emergency policy are spring, summer and fall of 2020
While the emergency policy is yet to pass, the majority of senators expressed support for the proposed iteration, allowing senate leadership to move forward in updating the language to be aligned with the selected-semester framework.
Royce McCandless can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @roycemccandless