Academic Delivery Group Meeting
October 25, 2011
2:00 p.m.
Personnel Conference Room
(Revised 11/8/11)
Members Present: Jackie Blakley, Tim Bowen, Scott Harvey, Lynn Lewis, Gwen Owens, Donna Shannon, Sarah Shumpert, Brian Swords
Members Absent: Eugene Grant
Others Present:
Length of Meeting: 2 hours
Topics Discussed:
Dr. Buckhiester welcomed Amanda Blanton to the meeting.
Amanda and Scott discussed the Fall 2012 academic calendar. This calendar has been significantly revised to address several issues which include the following:
- Late registration and the large number of students who wait until then to register;
- Purge issues;
- Financial aid issues;
- Cancelled class issues.
Scott explained that a subgroup of the Post-Registration group comprised of Amanda Blanton, Bill Whitlock, Linda Driggers, Renae Frazier, Lisa Robinson, Lou Ann Martin, and Scott worked diligently on this calendar. They worked around 25 calendar considerations and, with a lot of compromise by many offices, were able to create this calendar.
In reviewing the calendar, Scott and Amanda noted the following:
- This calendar is contingent on everyone meeting deadlines.
- Double sessions of orientation/advising will run from July 23 – August 2.
- Grades are due on July 31. Student Records will complete end of term in one day, and students will have access to grades by 8:00 on August 1. If a student needs to register on August 2, he/she must see an advisor or the Director of Advising and Tutoring Services, if an advisor is not available.
- Transcripts will not be available until August 6.
- Registration deadline is August 2 at 8:00 pm.
- Three purge dates are strategically placed in the calendar (August 9, 17 and 24).
- Notify Student Records of cancelled courses by 5:00 pm on August 13. This is the first day back for faculty after their break, so the deadline was extended to 5:00 pm to give faculty time to review their classes.
- Gateway and dual enrollment students tend to trickle in. Late students in those two categories must go to Student Records to register.
- With the increase in the number of Bridge students, additional orientation sessions will be added this summer.
- Consider a “no show” fee for students who register for but do not attend orientation.
- Consider a contingency calendar with a backup late registration day. We may have a large number of students on July 30 and need additional time for testing, etc.
- The enrollment impact could be significant. Estimates are that 200 -500 students could be lost due to the registration deadlines.
- Communication is the key. The plan is to saturate this information in the schools, the community, and internally.
The group agreed that Scott and Amanda will present this proposal to the Executive Staff on October 26. Scott will attend Executive Staff on November 2 to present the Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 calendars. Dr. Buckhiester and members of ADG commended the work group for its excellent work on the revised calendar. Scott noted that the Spring 2013 calendar has no significant changes.
The minutes of the October 6, 2011 meeting were approved.
Scott noted that very few instructors are making use of the waitlist function. The group will discuss this issue at the next meeting.
Several policies and procedures were reviewed.
Institutional Review Board Policy and Procedure – This is the required three-year update. It is working well, and the only change will be to update the Administrative Responsibility to “Provost” to reflect our organizational changes.
Instructional Program Advisory Committees –
- Page one, change the wording in #1 to make it clearer about the occupations on the committee
- Add # 4 – “Student representatives may be included at the discretion of the department head”.
- Page three, second paragraph, remove the last sentence, “Annually, the Vice President…for verification of all information”.
- Page three, change the second paragraph to “Committee Member responsibilities may include the following”.
- Add # 14, “Provide guidance for accreditation issues when applicable”.
Grading System Credit and Non-credit Courses – Scott presented a revised policy.
- Change Administrative Responsibility to Provost.
- Scott will revise with additional changes and forward to Anne.
Repeat Grade Policy –
- Change Administrative Responsibility to Provost.
- First paragraph, change the wording “only one grade” to “the first grade”.
Anne will work with Scott to finalize these policies and procedures.
Scott discussed Standards of Academic Progress. He suggested the following:
- Eliminate the Warning 2, Probation 2 and Suspension 2 status;
- Use a cumulative rather than term GPA;
- Revise the scale from 1 – 20 hours to 1 – 24 hours.
He noted that he and his staff manually reviewed over 400 transcripts to determine the impact of these changes. He found that by using the new system the numbers improved for almost every category and students would benefit from it. The group agreed that, with the revised system, there would be more integrity in the process. Scott will revise the procedure and move it forward.
Dr. Buckhiester discussed security cameras. He has had a request to place a security camera inside a classroom, and he asked for Faculty Senate’s input on this issue. Donna reported three concerns from the Senate: the type of feed, legal implications, and who can request a camera. It was reported that the feed would be video only. Since the classroom is a public place there should not be any legal implications, and the department head and the dean would have to request the camera. Donna noted that while some faculty are already on board, she would like to take this information back to Faculty Senate for further review and input.
Scott briefly discussed RANS and noted that some RANS have already been set for future semesters/terms. Scott will determine which advisors are involved and will contact the deans.
Under Announcements, Sarah was pleased to report that the Title III external evaluator was recently on campus. She met with about 20 people and was very complimentary of her findings. Sarah also noted that a new Blackboard patch has been installed. The number of service-desk tickets has declined, and they seem to be isolated in certain departments.
Dr. Buckhiester noted that now a student on warning, probation or suspension does not have to wait until grades are in to register. Removing this delay will allow more classes to be open to the student, and he/she may be more successful in registering for appropriate classes.
Recorded by: Anne Bryan
Next Meeting: Tuesday, November 8, at 2:00 p.m., in the Personnel Conf. Room, RH 102
