By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Staff Writer

A proposal to shorten UB's "drop/add" period-during which students are able to enroll or cancel their enrollment in courses—from two weeks to seven days for enrollments and six days for cancellations—sparked strong debate at yesterday's meeting of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee.

Barbara Rittner, associate dean for external affairs and director of the graduate program in the School of Social Work—who at last week's meeting spoke in favor of keeping a two-week drop/add period in place for graduate students—suggested a one-year limitation be placed upon the proposal so that it could be re-examined in 2010 after upgrades are completed to the university's scheduling software that could accommodate a differential policy.

"This truly is an undergraduate, predominantly general education, issue," she said, "not a graduate issue."

But William Baumer, chair of the Faculty Senate Grading Committee and professor in the Department of Philosophy, College of Arts and Sciences, remained firm in his support of curtailing the time limit on drop/adds for all categories of students.

"I find it startling that you can look at a graduate seminar that's scheduled to meet 14 times in a semester and say that the first two are so unimportant that it doesn't make a damn bit of difference whether the students get there or not," he said.

In response, Rittner said that most faculty members conduct courses the same whether or not students are dropping and adding, and pointed out that graduate students—not instructors—are responsible for ensuring they're up-to-date on the material covered in the first several weeks of a course.

"It's disrespectful to us and it's disrespectful to students to imply that we aren't teaching for two weeks and they're not learning for two weeks," she said. "That is not what's occurring."

Baumer replied that statistics from previous semesters suggest the number of add/drops among graduate students in the second week of classes is not significant and pointed to a clause in the proposed policy in which faculty can force-register students in a course after the clock runs out on the time in which they can enroll or cancel their own enrollment.

But Gayle Brazeau, associate dean for academic affairs, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, said forcing students into a course after the drop/add period expires under the current system is a "nightmare" in terms of time and paperwork.

"I'm a little concerned about cutting this down to six or seven days, unless there is an easier way to add [students] to these programs," she said. "Right now, it's not easy."

Kara Saunders, assistant vice provost for undergraduate education and project manager of the Student Systems Transformation Project, replied that faculty will be able to drop/add students to courses electronically under the new scheduling system coming online in fall 2010. A unified drop/add policy also is preferable from an administrative and advising perspective, she added, noting that some members of the faculty, including some from the School of Management, have indicated they support reducing the time period on drop/adds for graduate students, as well as undergraduates.

"If the faculty as a whole ends up deciding that drop/adds should be different for undergraduates and for graduates," she added, "than rather than making one policy effective fall 2009 and a different one effective fall 2010, I would say that we simply hold off on the whole thing until we could implement the policy as you want to see it."

Robert Hoeing, chair of the Faculty Senate and associate professor in the Department of Linguistics, College of Arts and Sciences, said the changes recommended by the Faculty Senate Grading Committee will go before the full Faculty Senate for discussion at its next meeting on Tuesday.

In other business, Shelley Frederick, assistant vice provost for student academic processing services, addressed concerns regarding final exam scheduling.

Frederick's appearance before the FSEC was prompted partly by an incident in the fall semester in which a student was hospitalized with hypothermia after coming to an 8 a.m. chemistry exam on an extremely cold Saturday morning during which no transportation to campus was available, said Melvyn Churchill, professor of chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences.

"We haven't in the past coordinated with transportation, but we did inform them of [the schedule] this semester," Frederick replied. "We're hoping we won't have the same situation as last semester with Saturday."

Accommodating exam schedules for the entire campus is an enormous challenge, she added, noting that every exam requires a three-hour block of time and double seating. Alternate options, including reducing exam times to two hours and opening up more outlying classrooms for testing, are under consideration in light of the university's growing student population, she said. Only about 135 centrally located classrooms currently are designated as appropriate for exams, of which only one seats more than 450 students, she added.

Also during yesterday's meeting, Brazeau, co-chair of the Faculty Senate Athletics and Recreation Committee, offered a draft proposal calling for a fitness component to be incorporated into the undergraduate curriculum as a general education requirement.

"Perhaps it's time to rethink this and stand forward," she said, noting that physical education was dropped from the UB curriculum many years ago after the number of course hours required to graduate was reduced from 128 to 120. "We want to promote fitness and wellness in our faculty and staff, but there should be fitness for any individual who comes here," she added.

While support for the proposal was strong, senators raised a number of questions and concerns, including the possibilities of special considerations for nontraditional and disabled students, and exemptions for student-athletes. Concerns also were raised about the limitations of on-campus fitness resources and facilities, as well as the challenge of making a fitness component the first step on a lifelong commitment to wellness, rather than another obstacle on a long list of general education requirements.