MOHAMMAD ALAVI Faculty members expressed their views
concerning raising minimum progress requirements in the College of
Letters & Science at the Academic Senate meeting on
Tuesday.
By Noah Grand
Daily Bruin Reporter
The Academic Senate raised the College of Letters & Science
minimum progress requirements on Tuesday, increasing student
workload and reducing the amount of time for students to earn a
degree.
The regulations were approved by an overwhelming vote of the
legislative assembly after being approved 177-20 by a faculty mail
ballot vote.
Students must enroll in at least 13 units per quarter or a hold
will be placed on their future registration. The current
requirement is 12 units.
It also requires students to meet a higher expected degree
progress requirement of 180 units after four years. This is the
minimum number of units a student needs to graduate.
The change will affect new students in fall 2001 and transfers
in fall 2003. Students currently enrolled at UCLA will not be
affected.
“This will help make all students eligible for graduation
in 12 quarters,” said Elizabeth Bjork, chair of the Academic
Senate’s undergraduate council and psychology professor.
Earlier this year, Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education
Judith Smith formed a committee to “consider Academic Senate
regulations that would need to be changed,” she said in a
prior interview.
Smith said Tidal Wave II contributed to the changes, which would
help UCLA admit more students. Because of Tidal Wave II, UC needs
to accommodate an additional 60,000 students over the next 10
years.
“If we can achieve our goal of reducing average graduation
time from 13.7 quarters to 13 quarters, we can admit 300-400 new
freshmen per year,” Smith said.
Another contributing factor to the changes, according to Smith,
is the more than $17.6 million UCLA loses annually in state
funding. The state only funds UCLA for students who take at least
45 units in a year.
Some students questioned whether the administration was fully
aware of how students run their lives.
“School isn’t the only thing that students come to
UCLA for,” said Dennis Caindec, a third-year aerospace
engineering student. “They are forgetting that students are
involved in other things on campus.”
The proposals were approved by the Faculty Executive Committee
and the Undergraduate Council before coming to a faculty vote.
The legislative assembly also raised the number of units a
student can enroll in without a petition from 18 units to 19 units
to help accommodate students meeting the raised requirements.
At the meeting, concerns were raised over how a student could
reach 13 units per quarter. If a student only takes three four-unit
courses, they would not be forced to enroll in more units at that
time but their enrollment for the next quarter would be held.
“Most departments have mainly four unit classes. This
change would force students to take 16 units,” said Mark
Kliman, professor of policy studies. “That is not a good idea
for my students.”
Smith said it is wrong to look at the increase as a question of
12 units versus 16 units, because there is an increasing number of
classes worth five units.
Introductory language classes, GE clusters and classes filling
the writing I or II requirement are all five unit courses, in which
freshmen enroll.
When GE requirements are changed for the 2002-03 school year,
Smith said, all GE classes will be made five unit courses. But
proposed changes in the requirements have not been finalized.
Bjork said most freshman currently take 13 or 14 units, which
shows the changes are reasonable.
“We didn’t put these regulations into effect until
we thought that there were enough classes in place so that we
didn’t force a student to take four classes,” Smith
said.
The majority of upper division courses, especially in the
humanities and social sciences, are four units, according to Smith.
She expects this to increase as faculty re-evaluate the number of
units upper division classes are worth over the next two years.
If a student does not reach the minimum progress requirement,
they would have to meet with a counselor and justify their
courseload, Smith said.
If students do not meet the scale for expected progress in two
consecutive quarters, they will be placed on academic probation. If
this continues for a total of four quarters, students will be
subject to dismissal.
It is possible to meet the minimum progress requirement of 13
units per quarter but still fall behind the expected cumulative
progress. Students will have to take 15 units per quarter starting
mid-sophomore year and 16 units per quarter starting mid-junior
year, unless they took more units in advance.
Smith said students should consider summer school to make up
units if they fall behind or if they want to get ahead.
She said the only alternative to summer school is to ask for an
exemption from the College of Letters & Science and then enter
an individual contract outlining that student’s expected
progress after meeting with a counselor.
Up to 15 percent of students could need these contracts,
according to Smith. In addition to entering a contract if a student
cannot take summer school, a student would enter a contract with
the college if they were placed on academic probation or if a
sudden emergency caused a student to complete fewer classes.
“This will require that we have a larger, more interactive
counseling department,” Smith said.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the legislative council also
approved regulations to limit all students from accumulating 216
units before graduating unless an exception is granted. Students
with a double major or a minor can currently accumulate 228 units
without an exception. Smith said most double majors graduate with
fewer than 200 units.