A proposal to offer winter session to students for two more years received the unanimous backing of senators May 4 at the last Urbana-Champaign Senate meeting of the 2014-15 academic year.
The campus hosted a pilot winter session this year, with 764 students taking eight courses for four weeks.
Initial surveys of the students and teachers involved in the session show it was successful. Students had an unusually high pass rate and said the course was manageable, while professors said the students taking the session were high achievers.
“It’s another opportunity for students to take high-level courses,” said Charles Tucker III, the vice provost for undergraduate education and innovation. He said the extra session gives students more scheduling options.
Tucker said the winter session would be studied over the next two years to see if it continues to be well received and effective.
The session will not be offered over the 2017-18 academic year because the winter break consists of only three weeks.
Other business
- Senators finished what has been a yearlong effort by all three campuses to review the documents that codify university policies and procedures.
The senate approved text revisions made made by the University Senates Conference in an effort to reconcile suggestions from the campuses.
The senate’s University Statutes and Senate Procedures Committee provided a side-by-side comparison of the changes made during the senate’s original review.
Senators also approved moving provisions regarding intellectual property from the General Rules to the statutes.
The move does not change university intellectual property rules, said William Maher, university archivist and chair of the USSP.
He said transforming the rules to statutes would ultimately give campus leaders the ability to lobby the U. of I. Board of Trustees for changes. As it stands, only the board can initiate changes in the rules.
“If you want to change them, then it has to be done through the statutes,” Maher said.
- Senators endorsed a “Statement on Budget Planning and Reform,” a letter prepared by the University Senates Conference and already delivered to the university president’s office.
The letter suggests that proposed campus financial cuts be targeted in order to protect core educational functions, and cuts should start with administrative functions. It also asks that short-term reactionary budget planning be replaced with a more long-term strategic plan reflecting ongoing budget conditions.
“Undoubtedly, some short-term strategies may be required to pave the way for long-term structural changes,” the letter says, “but the review and reform processes of developing these longer-term strategies needs to begin without delay.”
