Garry Gordon, vice president for academic affairs, asked Faculty Senate on Thursday to support a policy change allowing students who entered the University under the LSP and who will graduate before May 2002 to take only two writing-enhanced courses instead of three, one of which must be a Junior Interdisciplinary Seminar. We hadn't really thought of those students coming in with a lot of credit hours. He wanted them to endorse the action. Gordon said at the senate meeting that the University initiated the policy change because few writing-enhanced courses were offered when students entered the University in 1998 and students may not have had sufficient opportunities to complete the requirement. Heckert agreed course availability was a definite problem.
Some students also are pleased with the change.
Sophomore Eli Gaghen said he thinks the change is unfair. The change is only one step the administration has taken to make LSP requirements easier to fulfill. A bill was passed last spring approving retroactive credit for writing-enhanced, intercultural and communicative classes. Students can look on the University Web site to see if a course they have taken in the past has since been approved for filling a requirement. These changes attempt to answer students' complaints.