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news:
CSU committee
carries three motions
By Christine Shin
On-line Forty-Niner
The California
State University board of trustee's Committee on Educational
Policy approved motions on Tuesday to adopt new alcohol policies,
revise Title 5 regulations and adopt new policies on student
involvement in program development.
The board of trustees
moved to adopt and implement the recommendations of the Alcohol
Policies and Prevention Programs Committee consistent with
individual campus missions.
Initiated after
the alcohol-induced death of a student at CSU Chico and incidents
of alcohol poisoning at San Diego State University, the committee
reviewed the CSU's alcohol policies and prevention programs
and concentrated on broad policies that would be realistic
and effective at CSU's 23 campuses.
"The adopted
comprehensive approach is characterized by the expectation
of each campus to agree to develop educational programs that
seek to reach the entire campus," said CSU Fresno President
John Welty, who chaired the committee on alcohol.
"We believe
that this comprehensive approach will contribute to reducing
the abuse of alcohol and more importantly build a campus community
in which individuals are encouraged to make responsible choices
in regard to the consumption of alcohol," Welty added.
Every two years,
campuses will be expected to submit a report of their efforts
and an assessment of the progress they have made with regard
to the committee's guidelines.
"I think this
process will assure the rise of campus accountability and
also will allow the campuses to learn from each other,"
Welty said.
The next action
item was an adoption of revisions to Title 5 of the California
Code of Regulations. The revision authorizes campuses to allow
students who have been admitted for a fall term to enroll
in the summer term immediately preceding their term of admission,
said Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Academic Officer
David S. Spence in the proposed revision.
Students admitted
under these provisions will be identified as summer early
entrants and will not be regarded as matriculants until they
enroll in the fall term for which they have been admitted.
"It's important
to us now that we have more campuses on year-round operations
utilizing the summer term," Spence said.
The move will also
generate more revenue from more students attending during
the summer.
"It's extremely
important to us for two reasons: We get more students to fully
utilize the summer and get their degree quicker and also get
more students to come in as freshmen needing additional help
to encourage them to enroll in the summer before they start,"
he said.
This will apply
to all incoming freshmen and transfer students.
The last action
item at the meeting was clarifying the role of CSU students
in the development of campus and system-wide policy affecting
students. The approved proposal includes participation by
students in developing recommendations to the board of trustees,
CSU Chancellor Charles Reid and the campus presidents.
"The effect
of this policy would be to establish a formal expectation
for each campus president and the chancellor to provide opportunity
for students," Spence said.
Draft proposals
of the policy were shared with the executive council and the
California State Student Association board of directors. The
committee approved proposals in the Cornerstones Report, which
calls on "students to demonstrate greater involvement
in academic program development and assessment through regular
surveying, identification of priorities and assessment of
needs."
This Cornerstones
Report calls on the CSU system to make greater strides toward
student participation in policy development in order to enhance
institutional effectiveness and responsiveness to student
needs.
The CSSA is recognized
as the official representative of CSU students so that students
may have a formal and effective means of participating in
the formulation of system-wide, state and national policies
that affect students.
One informational
item was addressed at the meeting.
The Multimedia
Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, also
known as MERLOT, was developed by the CSU to help solve the
problem of inadequate search engines on the Web.
"This program
has really broken tradition to teaching and learning and incorporating
technology," said Sonoma State University President Dr.
Ruben Armiñana. "We can achieve great things for
our students and our country."
Originally developed
at SSU, MERLOT was designed to improve both the quality of
learning materials available and to help institutions avoid
duplications of effort. MERLOT is a continually growing collection
of online materials and support resources that help faculty
enhance their instruction.
Any individual
user can now access MERLOT at merlot.org.
Faculty can join
other faculty who are collectively building MERLOT to meet
their needs. The resource include links to online learning
materials, sample assignments, evaluations and ratings of
the learning materials by other individual users and panels
of faculty.
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