The San Jose State Academic Senate held a Q&A segment with President Mary Papazian to address the possibility of bringing back the Credit/No Credit option for students and also discussed policy changes for the 2020-21 academic year during Monday’s Zoom meeting.
Credit/No Credit
Janet Kitajima, a child and adolescent development lecturer and Academic Senate chair, asked Papazian whether students will receive a Credit/No Credit grading option at the end of this semester.
“I was wondering, given the very stressful semester that many of our students have been facing, not only the election, but of course with the different circumstances in their home lives, whether we might offer them the opportunity for [Credit/No Credit],” Kitajima said.
Papazian deferred the question to Ravisha Mathur, a child and adolescent development professor and Academic Senate chair, who said the university was more prepared this semester compared to last semester.
“I think the [Academic Senate’s] discussion of our campus centered on the fact that the students actually this time around knew what they were signing up for when they signed up for fall,” Mathur said. “There has been significant training opportunity for faculty and that we were more prepared for fall than we were for the spring.”
She said students could’ve chosen the Credit/No Credit grading option for classes in the beginning of the semester, but to have it as a campus wide policy might create disruption, especially for students who need to have a letter-grade option.
“[Students] also don’t necessarily know that they might be losing financial aid or other implications,” Mathur said. “That doesn’t mean that the conversation can’t or shouldn’t continue on our campus about Credit or No Credit, but at this time we haven’t made movement for it.”
Mark Van Selst, a psychology professor and Academic Senate chair, asked Papazian what changes will be made at SJSU after the pandemic.
Papazian said she believes the university will have more hybrid classes rather than mostly online courses.
“I think we’re going to see that there are some things that worked very well in an online format and we’re able to expand access, reach or engagement . . . in the academic and nonacademic space actually,” Papazian said.
She said there were also aspects that didn’t work as well online and there will still be a need for in-person classes.
Policy Changes
Senators proposed a policy change on AS 1787, which allows students to add classes after advanced registration is closed.
This policy change would let students place themselves on a waitlist to enroll in a class that is full.
The department voted to use waitlists to automatically enroll in the course. Students who are on the waitlist will be automatically enrolled until the enrollment cap for the course is met.
The waitlist would remain active for nine days after the first day of instruction for the semester based on the academic calendar.
However, a lot of debate surrounded the AS 1787 proposal. Kenneth Peter, a political science professor and Academic Senate chair, was one of the people who requested a change to the policy.
“I’m concerned that when students pop into a class unannounced without the permission of the individual faculty member, they may be put at a disadvantage so there needs to be some way for the faculty members to require that [students] talk to the faculty member before they add in late,” Peter said.
He said faculty members should be making those decisions rather than the departments, because it would be unfair to have a student added to the class roster without the faculty member’s approval or acknowledgment.
Laura Sullivan-Green, a civil and environmental engineering professor and Academic Senate chair who proposed the policy, said the policymakers are discouraging the idea as it could lead to inequality across multiple sections.
“This policy is based on a survey that was sent through undergraduate studies to all the department chairs, faculty and advisors. Everybody had really positive things to say about using the waitlist,” she said. “We elected to keep the nine-day time period, which was used in the Fall because we felt like it allowed for classes to have at least [one] first meeting and sometime after that to manage it.”
After much discussion, the first reading of the policy was concluded and no vote was cast. At the time of publication, the Spartan Daily has no knowledge of when the Academic Senate will vote on this policy.
There was another policy change, this time to the Undergraduate Student Honors policy, or S17-13. This policy was finalized during Monday’s meeting.
Sullivan-Green said the policy change allowed for all major programs to create an honors track within the program and let honors be defined by the major rather than by the department.
Honors track is a way to encourage and reward a student’s outstanding academic achievements regarding their GPA and specified coursework related to their major, according to the S17-13 policy recommendation.
“[The Undergraduate Student Honors policy] is so that students in all programs have the opportunity to earn honors through a specific program within their majors as opposed to the departments having to find a commonality among multiple programs,” Sullivan-Green said.
The policy passed during the meeting with 38 senators voting out of the 61 members present.
