Faculty Senate passed a resolution Monday that will add a policy for course retakes at the graduate level after incidents of abuse took place.
Betty Sindelar, chair of the educational policies and student affairs committee, said there is a policy on repeatable courses at the graduate level at Ohio University, but it isn’t formally written down.
That has led to incidents of abuse where students have retaken non-repeatable courses to boost their GPA or finish their graduate degree hour requirements. Students have also been green slipped into those type of classes when they should not have been allowed to under university policies.
“There’s a lot of things that we have assumed and then realized it wasn’t written down,” Sindelar said.
The resolution passed, which means the graduate student catalog will put a formal policy on non-repeatable classes into place. Graduate students will no longer be able to retake non-repeatable classes unless they fail the course. The passing grade for each of those courses is decided by the graduate program or college, Sindelar said.
Senators also heard a presentation from OU Executive Vice President & Provost Chaden Djalali. Djalali had some updates on OU’s budget. Djalali said the budget is a work in progress, but currently, OU’s expenses outweigh its revenue. Unless the budget is rebalanced, OU’s reserves would be completely wiped out in about five to six years, Djalali said.
The administration’s plan for combatting that problem is to both increase revenue and look at what can be cut. OU also wants to use a five-year projection when looking at revenues and expenses instead of a year-to-year projection.
“It’s tough, but I think we can do it, and we will come out of it stronger,” Djalali said.
Willem Roosenburg, a college of arts and sciences senator, asked Djalali if OU President Duane Nellis would stick to his promise of of cutting from both the administration and colleges in order to maintain equality in light of the budget situation. Djalali said the budget situation is mostly a matter of each college balancing its budget, not making cuts. Cuts will only be made when budget cannot be balanced.
“Equality means that everyone has to do their job in order to make this university better and move forward,” Djalali said.
Senators also voted on a new executive committee. The new committee will begin its term on May 1.
Robin Muhammad, the current secretary, will be the new chair. Vice Chair Sara Helfrich will serve another term and Ana Rosado-Feger, a senator from the College of Business, will be the next secretary. Those candidates all ran unopposed and were voted on in a slate ticket.
“I’ve had a chance to work with all of them,” Chair Joe McLaughlin said. “I’m just very pleased and confident in the leadership you will be getting next year. ”
