meeting part 2

The Marshall University Faculty Senate met on Monday in the John Spotts Room of the Memorial Student Center. The Chair presented 2 major topics that were on their agenda, the current policy for a student’s grade to be marked incomplete and an attatachment to the student handbook regarding student discrimination.

            The senate committee reviewed the current policy for a student to have their grade marked as a incomplete, the revision that was presented to the committee was that for a student to be able to receive the grade of incomplete they must be in good academic standing. But that then presented the question that was posed by most of the members, what was the definition of good academic standing? Is there an actually definition given by the university that states what good academic standing is? Another issue the committee had was that it also stated that it was ultimately up to the professor as long as the student was in good standing.  Burnis Morris from the school of journalism then asked if that mean that even if the student isn’t in good academic standing could the professor still grant them a grade of incomplete? Sandy Prunty from the school of nursing then explained that yes, they technically could, but the main reason why they had to have that stated was because there are some courses, like some of her clinicals for example that are only either a pass or fail there isn’t a 100 to 60 grading scale.

            Ultimately the committee decided to fail the changes and sent it back to the Budget and Academic Committee for further corrections, which will be represented to them by their next meeting on Dec. 9.

            The senate committee then voted on a recommended addition to the student handbook regarding the code of a students rights and responsibilities. It would be a new section that followed the section of appeals and would be publicized by using all existing university information sources. More specifically the addition lines out a grievance procedure for acts of discrimination and harassment.

            The addition was passed with a positive vote from all members on the committee.

            The meeting lasted a total of 19 minutes with about 25 people in attendance. The senate is scheduled to meet again on Dec.9 following with a Jan. 11 meeting to start off the new semester.

Faculty senate meeting

experience of covering a meeting: I had covered meeting previously for my high school news station so i sort of knew what to expect. But this meeting was a little harder to follow, although im sure if i had done research before it wouldn't have been as bad, but i didn't. So it was hard for me to follow along whenever they were talking about the revisions to the incomplete policy because i didnt have a copy in front of me to see what they were talkng about nor did i know what the old one said , and i had the same issue with the addition to the handbook.

date: nov 29 time:12 noon location:student center city:huntington

name of governing unit: faculty senate committee

members of the body:11 number of people in attendance:25

voting: yes

2 majors issues voted on: incomplete grade and student discrimination