Provost's Task Force on the Academic Progress of Undergraduates

Meeting Notes

August 19, 2003

Meeting Agenda

• Overview
• Summary of Peer Survey
• Review of Barriers Survey
• Discussion of Data on Progress and Academic Performance
• Discussion of Data on Course Demand
• September Meeting Plan

Summary of Peer Survey

• Strategies used by peers to address progress issues
  - Term Limits
  - Contracts
  - Minimum Credit Policies
  - Major Declaration Policies
  - Advising Policies
  - Degree Completion Plans
• Implementation of Policies
• Contact UCLA, Berkeley, Irvine, Minnesota, WSU, WWU, Virginia
• What motivates universities to move in the direction of firmer, less flexible policies
• Questions regarding implementation, multiple degrees, individual colleges, competitive majors?, freshmen admitted into majors?, capacity in major

Barriers Survey of Departments/programs

• Draft Letter from Provost
• Draft Questions for Departments - revisions suggested about bottleneck courses, admissions requirements, criteria,

Data on Progress and Academic Performance

• Academic Performance of 210+ credits group.
• Failed or repeated courses contributes significantly to taking more credits (and average of 15 credits more than others) for students with lower GPAs.
• What does this suggest about repeating courses? Should we enable students to unilaterally repeat courses?
• What is the number of students that repeat courses? Do students do better?
• Faculty need to inform students about progress early enough to allow them to drop.

Course Demand

• Bottleneck courses and enrollment demand.
• Access initiative courses
• Data to task force as pdf file on these courses.

Overview