Alicja Baker asked if the senate has administrative faculty on senate committees and was told that we do not. Administrators are always welcomed and we invite them if needed. Jeff Wagnitz, Dean, often visits.

Rod Fowers brought up the subject of new prerequisites for different courses such as Psychology 100 now requiring reading pre-requisites. He also mentioned that recently, there were two instances of students forging instructor’s signatures as a means of getting into classes via the computer without actually going through the pre-requisites. There was much discussion of this issue as senate members are concerned that this issue might worsen in the future.

The topic of financial aid was discussed as some students might be running a "scam" to get financial aid. Some faculty members tried to obtain some data on this issue and felt they were not helped by staff in the registrar’s office. Faculty members felt they needed to obtain some records in order to get data that would substantiate this issue of forging signatures in order to falsely secure financial aid.

A case was cited of a student forging her signature last spring quarter and being caught. This case was referred to Toni Castro for investigation.

Also, students can’t take 100 level psychology courses until they take the basic psychology course. Some students have been able to bypass introductory courses and there has been no consequence for so doing.

Rebecca Sliger added that some students use the entry codes as a way of by-passing signatures for getting into some sciences courses.

She also emphasized that there is a system used by the State to share data and Alicja Baker said that reading and writing requirements mandated for getting into certain classes will be impacted more so in the future by the problems of forging signatures.

John Lindsay posed the question, should the Senate deal with this issue or should a committee or admissions work on the issue?

Phil Droke and Glen Avantaggio stated yes, this is our issue as we represent the faculty where administrative issues are concerned.

It was asked, could more efficient technology help with this problem?

Phil Droke asked if someone from registration and technology come to use and talk with us on the issue. Rod Fowers was told by registration that they don’t have time to pull files so faculty members could engage in problem solving concerning forgery. He mentioned that Gwen Spencer should also be involved with problem solving this issue.

Katie Gulliford suggested that departmental faculty meetings would be a place to disseminate information on student forgery and its use for bypassing prerequisites and entering into classes in a dishonest manner.

Frank Cunningham was mentioned as a key person who might be invited to discuss these issues with the senate and point out systems that could be useful to help end this type of dishonesty.

Phil Droke and Glen Avantaggio will attempt to get key people to talk with faculty senate members at our next meeting, Oct. 15, 2003.

A faculty senate member asked if a Vice President could change grades in exceptional situations and therefore override the instructor’s grade. The answer is that this can happen and there is a one year time limit on changing grades.

Policy location:

Members asked where we are able to get different policies as policies are often in different phases of being written and adopted.

Phil Droke stated that there are different web sites for locating policies in different states of formation and revision and now, there is a two week turn-over time to get a policy to the policy "clearinghouse." This way, faculty can trace where a policy is at any time. If a policy is not approved, it is mandatory that there be a reason given why it is not approved.

Dr. Laura Saunder’s office deals with policies and issues concerning policies. Connie Johnson, Dr. Saunder’s administrative assistant, tracks all policies so would be a good person to contact about the status of policies.

Glen Avantaggio suggested that we need a link from our Faculty Senate Web Site to policy web sites

Also discussed was the fact that students will often start out with different problem solving projects and then, two years later, they graduate and are gone. This means we so often start afresh on problems that were formerly addressed and worked on.