Academic Governance Committee Report
Given to the University Senate 03-19-07
Submitted by Dr. Mike Gleason

AGC did not meet at the scheduled time of Friday, Feb. 23, so that we could instead meet on Friday, March 9.

On Wed., March 7 the Ad Hoc Academic Calendar Committee completed its work.  Due to revised instructions from BOR on how to carry out the process, they were only able to discuss, agree upon, and set the academic calendar for 2008-9. 

Major actions taken by the Ad Hoc Academic Calendar Committee:

1) Tanya Goette was elected Chair, Gina Peavy was elected Vice Chair, and Emily Prather was elected Secretary.

2) The committee agreed to forward the following Fall 2008 schedule to the AGC:

a. Faculty return August 14

b. Classes begin August 20

c. Labor Day Holiday September 1

d. No classes November 26

e. Thanksgiving Holiday November 27-28

f. Last Class Day December 8

g. Finals December 9-12

3) The committee agreed to forward the following Spring 2009 schedule to the AGC:

a. Classes begin January 12

b. MLK Holiday January 19

c. Spring Break March 23-27

d. Last Class Day May 4

e. Finals May 5-8

f. Graduation May 9

4) The committee agreed to forward the following dates to AGC for Maymester and the Summer terms

a. Maymester registration May 11

b. Maymester Classes Begin May 11

c. Memorial Day Holiday May 25

d. Maymester Finals June 1

e. Summer I/Full Summer Registration June 2

f. Summer I/Full Summer Classes Begin June 3

g. No class June 5, 12, 19, 26

h. Summer I Finals July 2

i. Independence Day Holiday July 3

j. Summer II Registration July 6

k. Summer II Classes Begin July 7

l. No Class July 10, 17, 24, 31

m. Summer II/Full Summer Finals August 5

Gina Peavy reviewed the Academic Calendar Report at our March 9, 2007 AGC meeting, and it is passed onto the Senate as an informational item.

AGC met on March 9, 2007 so that Beth Rushing could introduce the proposed “W policy” to our committee.   After a lengthy discussion a few friendly amendments to the original policy were made.  The policy was approved by a majority vote with one dissenting vote.  Majority and minority reports have been prepared and these and the approved motion will be brought to the Senate at its next meeting. 

Approved title and policy portions as amended:

• Title is now “Proposal to modify the Withdrawal Policy at Georgia College”.
• Policy is now:
  • Undergraduate students may accumulate no more than five W grades.  Once a student has accumulated five W grades, all subsequent withdrawals will be recorded as WF.
  • If a student withdraws from the university or from a class due to an approved documented hardship, those W grades will not be counted as part of the five maximum.

Roy Moore reviewed the Scholarly Misconduct Policy Proposal with the suggested changes made at the last AGC meeting.  Mike Whitfield and others raised the concern of the lack of faculty input on the Compliance Committee who comprised the policy proposal.  To this end an Information Gathering Group (IGG) was established to review and possibly revise the proposal.  It was decided that the IGG should report back to the AGC at our next meeting.  The IGG is comprised of Mike Whitfield (chair), Tom Moore, Craig Turner, B. Crews, Roy Moore, and Mike Gleason. 

The IGG met on Friday, March 16 and decided that the original policy needed to be improved in terms of the role of faculty in making a determination of misconduct, privacy for the accused, and restricting the policy to just cover scholarly misconduct.  Since that meeting, Tom Moore has drafted a new policy based on GSU and North Texas policies.  We will meet again to take up the working draft on Thursday, March 22.

Michael McGinnis updated the committee on the work of the General Education Committee. They have developed outcomes for all areas in the core, agreed on governance procedures and policies, and considered piloting the CAP test as a benchmark assessment.  Administration of the CAPP test was discussed and Autumn Grubb strongly encouraged the committee to consider some type of baseline assessment to compare with the CAPP data. A day specified for assessment was also discussed. Michael McGinnis stated his hope that the committee will have a full report to President Leland by the end of Spring 2007 semester.

Shaina McGill opted to postpone her information concerning advisement until our next meeting to allow more time to discuss other items on the agenda.

Next AGC meeting will be 12:30 – 1:45 pm, April 4, 2007, 2-51 A&S.