TO: Faculty, Staff and Students
FROM: Brian Reed, Associate Provost for Curricular Affairs
RE: IMPORTANT: Expanded Course Descriptions, HEOA and Changes in Add/Drop policy
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There are three important curricular policy matters that require your attention: 1) changes in the Add/Drop Policy; 2) Expanded Course Descriptions; and 3) the Textbook Provision of the Higher Education Opportunity Act. Please review carefully the following information which has also been posted on the Provost’s webpage for your reference . Thank you in advance for your help in disseminating this information and implementing the changes.
Changes in the Add/Drop Policy
Changes in the Add/Drop policy that were approved by the Faculty Senate in May 2011 will take effect in the Spring 2012 semester. As in the past, students will be allowed to add courses through the first ten instructional days of the semester. Courses may be added freely, online (without faculty override) through the first five instructional days of the semester. However, adding a course after the first five instructional days will be at the discretion of the faculty member and will occur by means of faculty override. A “permission of instructor” restriction will be placed on every section at the end of the fifth instructional day and the instructor will need to submit an override to allow each student to add the section. The faculty member has the discretion whether to allow missed work to be made up. As in the past, courses may be dropped throughout the first ten instructional days of the semester.
It is important to realize that students who are prevented from adding a given course during the 6th-10th instructional days will need to seek alternative courses. The availability of Expanded Section Descriptions (see below) will help them make informed choices about the alternatives.
Faculty, please announce the changes in the Add/Drop policy in your classes.
Expanded Section Descriptions
Faculty need to post Expanded Section Descriptions for their courses. Expanded Section Descriptions (ESDs) provide a more in depth description of courses than is possible in the brief twenty-five word course descriptions in the University Catalog. This information will help students make informed choices, and this is especially important in light of the changes in the Add/Drop policy that will take effect in Spring 2012. The ESDs will be available via link from the course listings in the Look-Up Courses to Add application. The development of ESDs was a collaborative effort of the Faculty Senate, the Provost’s Office, the Registrar’s Office, the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Student Government Association.
Faculty should post ESDs for all of their course sections in each upcoming semester. The process is simple and is done through the faculty portal (the link is located under the Teaching header). N.B. It is not necessary to specify textbooks in the ESD but if they are specified the ISBNs (International Standard Book Number) MUST be included, and posting this information constitutes a commitment not to change the text(s). Faculty should post ESDs for all of their Spring 2012 courses starting October 10th and finishing no later than October 23, 2011. This will make the information available to students when the Schedule of Courses goes live on October 24th.
Textbook Provision of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA)
Please be aware of the textbook provision of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) and the mechanisms by which the University is working to comply. The HEOA of 2008 included requirements for both publishers and higher education institutions related to textbooks. The requirements were intended to hold down textbook costs. The Department of Education's Dear Colleague Letter issued June 8, 2010 provided the following guidance: "An institution of higher education receiving Federal financial assistance is required, to the maximum extent practicable, to post verified textbook pricing information for both required and recommended materials for each class on the institution’s online course schedule or linked to the course schedule from another site, such as a college-designated bookstore, in a manner of the institution’s choosing."
To comply with these provisions the University has linked the online Schedule of Courses to textbook information provided by the University Bookstore . The textbook information is organized by semester, department, course number, and section as identified in the schedule of courses and includes ISBN and pricing information, where available. It is important to note the Bookstore site is the University’s source for full textbook information, not the Expanded Section Descriptions.