Academic Planning and Admission Requirements

Senate is engaged on two key projects for the remainder of this year, revision of the academic planning process and revision of admission requirements.

The academic planning process was reviewed by a shared-governance task force jointly appointed by the Interim Provost and Senate. It delivered a report on the revision of processes for new program development, program revision, and program review. The report was turned over to a Senate subcommittee to finalize the recommendations and design an implementation plan. The subcommittee's intention is to implement the new procedures for new program development and program revision in fall, 2011. The revisions to the program review process need to be aligned with current college practice. Therefore, the subcommittee, and Senate, are considering suspending program reviews for next academic year while the program review process is reconsidered in light of college practice. The intent is to create a unified system of rigorous academic review that is non-duplicative at college and university levels, in order to simply the number of reports programs have to develop each year.

Admission requirements are being reexamined collaboratively with the office of the registrar, Senate Academic Standards Committee, and college-level bodies (e.g., college admission and retention committees). This work is ongoing and we anticipate it will be ready for Senate's attention at its May meeting.