Academic Senate votes to allow changes to academic calendar, eliminate eight programs
Central Michigan University’s academic calendar in years to come could see changes, including moving the fall semester's start after Labor Day.
Academic Senate approved the formation of an ad hoc committee to review the academic calendar to curb dissatisfaction among students and faculty. In addition to the post-Labor Day class start-up, proposed changes included synchronizing spring break with K-12 schools in the area.
The 14-member committee will give their recommendation by Oct. 20, when it will then be presented to the Academic Senate, and then to the Faculty Association, which will need to agree with the university on the terms.
Senate President Phil Squattrito, a professor of chemistry, said the academic calendar had not been examined in ten years.
“I’m hopeful we’ll come up with something that’s workable and incorporate some of the concerns people have,” he said, "and then we can make some of the changes."
Squattrito said the changes could be implemented most optimistically at the 2012-13 school year, because academic bulletins are published in April and the agreement would therefore need to be reached by this time next year. Thus, it is possible for the changes to be seen in 2013-14.
“The more major the changes, the longer it will take to implement,” Squattrito said.
Eliminated programs
Academic Senate also agreed on Tuesday to eliminate eight programs previously on hiatus.
The business teacher plans A and B for both the marketing and office education concentrations were eliminated. Also deleted were the general business minor in business teacher education, the master of arts in industrial education and master of arts in teaching mathematics.
The deletions were not related to Academic Prioritization, said University Provost E. Gary Shapiro.
“The programs were not offered for many years,” Shapiro said. “No students could enter, but they continued to be on the books.”
He said the affected departments were told if they no longer had plans to offer the programs they should remove them to avoid student confusion and clean up academic bulletins.
Also eliminated was the requirement for screening speech and hearing disorders as it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“You can’t require the student to be screened,” Squattrito said. "They can’t be required to submit to something that would show they had a disorder."
The act requires no compulsory disability examinations in public entities, unless such an examination or inquiry is shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity.
“This applies to any student currently and in the future,” Shapiro said of the senate’s action.
