April 28, 2009

Busy Senate session closes year with various actions, reports

Senators also heard reports from the Retirement Plan Review Task Force and the Athletic Affairs Committee at the April 20 meeting.

John Grutzner presented a proposal from the Educational Policy Committee to clarify a footnote regarding transfer credits in the University's policy on scholastic indices. The Senate approved the new wording, which states that transfer credits may be used to fulfill degree requirements, but cannot be used to remove Purdue recorded grades from GPA calculations. The revision will take effect in the fall.

Grutzner also presented an EPC proposal that would allow readmitted students who have not been enrolled at Purdue for at least five years to reset their GPA to zero. If students chose to have their GPA reset, their credit hour total would also be set to zero as part of the process.
 
Students' original course grade records would remain unchanged on their transcripts.

"The committee established this proposal because, as you are well aware, the University policy says that every grade is factored into a student's cumulative GPA, no matter when it was obtained," Grutzner said. "This could be harsh for those students who have been out for a number of years."

Students interested in the academic renewal option would be required to petition the Committee on Scholastic Delinquencies and Readmission and maintain good academic standing while completing at least 12 credit hours within a year of their return to Purdue.

Senators suspended the rules in order to vote on the proposal, which was approved. The policy will go into effect in the fall.

Advisory representation

The Senate voted in favor of a proposal from the faculty Affairs Committee to increase advisory representation from the Clerical and Service Staff Advisory Committee and the Administrative and Professional Staff Advisory
Committee.

In the past, CSSAC and APSAC shared a non-voting advisory position that rotated between the groups on a yearly basis. Now, each group will have one non-voting adviser to the Senate. The Senate is allowed from six to 15 designated advisers.

IT committee created

The Senate suspended the rules in order to vote on a University Resources and Policy Committee proposal to form a Faculty Information Technology Committee.

In presenting the proposal, Charles Santerre, chair of the URPC, said the committee would help to improve communication between faculty and Information Technology at Purdue.

Senators voted in favor of forming the committee, which will consist of seven faculty members and six staff members. The vice president for information technology and the Senate's Nominations Committee will work together to identify the committee's faculty members, who will serve for staggered five-year terms. At the end of their terms, members may be reappointed.

The Faculty Information Technology Committee is expected to begin work in the fall.

Reports: retirement, athletics

In other business, the Senate heard a report from Mike Atallah, associate department head and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, on the work and recommendations of the Retirement Plan Review Task Force. Atallah is co-chair of the task force.

Morgan Burke, director of Intercollegiate Athletics, presented the annual report of the Athletic Affairs Committee. Burke reported that in spring 2008 and fall 2008 the student-athlete grade point averages were 2.98 and 2.99, respectively. The all-campus student GPA was 2.93 for spring 2008 and 2.91 for fall 2008.

Burke noted that fall 2008-09 was the 23rd consecutive semester that the cumulative GPA of Purdue's student athletes exceeded the all-campus cumulative GPA.