The Student Government Association voted to refer the “Faculty Handbook C-3 Proposed Update” policy to the Faculty Affairs Committee on Feb. 3, moving the resolution one step closer to being adopted as an official IUS policy.
“What this policy will do is to strongly encourage the faculty to specifically post their syllabus onto OnCourse by the first week of the semester,” Stephon Moore, journalism freshman and SGA press secretary, said.
With the bill, faculty will be strongly encouraged to include in their course descriptions the course requirements.
It will also involve how students will be graded, make-up policies and any required books or a reading lists.
“You think that would be common sense, but, actually, there are a lot of professors on campus that don’t do that — almost 60 professors on campus that don’t do that,” Moore said.
The Faculty Handbook currently encourages all faculty members to develop a syllabuses and post them on OnCourse but does not require them to do so. Moore explained that the policy cannot actually make faculty members post their syllabuses.
The wording in the Faculty Handbook would be changed from “encourage” to “strongly encourage” to promote the faculty to post their syllabuses by the first week of the semester.
However, the proposed policy has met with some resistance from the IUS faculty.
The provisions of the “Faculty Handbook C-3 Proposed Update” policy that was referred to the Faculty Affairs Committee was originally included in a broader SGA bill.
It would have strongly encouraged faculty to provide brief descriptions of their courses on the IUS course registration webpage, refrain them from using websites aside from OnCourse for course-instruction purposes and to use all of the features of OnCourse.
In addition, faculty would have to post their syllabuses by the first week of the semester.
Upon consideration of the broader bill, the Student Recruitment and Retention Committee of the Faculty Senate requested the SGA to divide the bill into two separate bills and introduce those bills individually to the Faculty Senate.
The faculty also expressed some concern over the wording of the “Faculty Handbook C-3 Proposed Update” policy, as it originally referred to “course descriptions” as “syllabuses.”
“The word ‘syllabus’ means something very specific to faculty,” Jay McTyier, program analyst for the Registrar, said. “It’s the implied contract between themselves and the students. Therefore, they are uncomfortable using the term to describe anything but their final syllabus, the one we’re asking to be uploaded into OnCourse by the start of the academic term.”
The “Faculty Handbook C-3 Proposed Update” policy must be approved by the Faculty Affairs Committee of the Faculty Senate.
It must also be approved by the full body of the Faculty Senate before the resolution can be officially adopted.
The SGA said they hope the adoption of this policy will also further spur faculty into implementing all of the changes they have called for in the original bill.
“The rationale is that, by the faculty having to post the [course description], they will ultimately start using OnCourse,” Moore said. “The rationale is that, eventually, faculty will use all of the features of OnCourse.”
Some members of the SGA have decided to focus their energies for the remainder of the spring 2012 semester on facilitating the adoption of the syllabus and course requirements policies.
As a result, Bill 49-10 “Constitutional Amendment: Elections,” which would have restructured the SGA organization, has been repealed.
In addition, the SGA Town Hall Meeting that was scheduled to take place on Feb. 7 in order to discuss the bill to the student body, has been cancelled.
By AMANDA BROWN
Staff
anb4@umail.iu.edu
