A-Senate approves revision to Curriculum Authority Document
After weeks of committee reviews, Central Michigan University’s Academic Senate approved a revision of the university’s Curriculum Authority Document at its final regularly scheduled meeting of the year April 21.
With a nearly unanimous decision, 93 percent of the Senate approved a list of various language changes, clarifications, additions and omission for the university’s CAD, a document that serves as a guide and authoritative reference for the preparation, submission and review of curricular proposals.
“Overall, I’m very happy with the revisions, but there is one small part in the graduate certificate section I don’t like regarding 50 percent of graduate certificate courses must be 600 level,” said Senator Benjamin Heumann before proposing to strike the requirement from the CAD.
Sen. Bradley Swanson said there are six or seven graduate certificates that would no longer be able to be awarded if the change were made.
After a brief discussion and vote, the 50 percent at 600 level requirement was removed from the CAD.
The Senate also briefly discussed the previously proposed acceptance of having the CAD’s language for undergraduate certificates cleaned up so there would be a clear understanding if certificates could be embedded in a major or minor.
Senate chairman Andrew Spencer said he wanted to discourage the possibility of postponing the vote on the CAD revisions so the Senate could debate embedding certificates.
“The Degrees Admissions Standards and Honors committee has already come back saying it’s okay to embed certificates in majors and minors,” Spencer said.
Spencer added there will be much to debate on the embedding and it can wait until next Academic Senate meeting in the fall.
A complete summery of all the changes can be found online under the Academic Senate’s Curricular Information tab, Curricular Authority Document.
