Suha Saya
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Cal Poly’s Academic Senate is currently in the process of reviewing new unit count limits for science-based degrees, similar to what engineering unit counts experienced last quarter.
The unit count limits would increase to 198 units instead of the standard 180, a number set by the Chancellor’s Board of Trustees through educational code Title 5 in January 2013.
According to food science and nutrition professor Doris Derelian, science-based degrees tend to be more time-dense disciplines.
“I’m not discounting other disciplines, but for science, not only do you have the coursework, you have the labs that go along with it,” Derelian said. “When you have a limit, students who like to use electives to have a bit more science get no undergraduate specialities to put on their transcripts … When they’re competing for graduate school or jobs, they don’t have a transcript that looks as good as another student who did have the flexibility to pick and choose.”
Many Cal Poly faculty members have opposed the 180 unit cap since January of last year, asserting its impossibility to deliver quality education and inability to actually improve graduation rates.
“Now, don’t get me wrong; I have no argument with getting students through as fast as possible,” Derelian said. “However, this is not the right solution. It doesn’t take into account the disciplines themselves.”
The Cal Poly Academic Senate approved a resolution to amend unit count limits to 198 units for engineering programs late last quarter. While that resolution is now being sent to the statewide Academic Senate, a similar resolution for science-based degrees is waiting for approval from Cal Poly’s Academic Senate, Derelian said.
“We are bringing forth yet another resolution, the same way the engineers did,” she said. “What we’re asking in our resolution is the same thing the engineers asked, we want the Statewide Academic Senate to put pressure on the Board of Trustees to rethink the 180 unit degrees.”
According to Chair of the Statewide Academic Affairs Committee Christine Miller, the faculty opposition to Title 5 is not unusual for other, non-engineering majors.
“Deadlines have been extended where all majors who were above 180 units have to come down to the unit limit, unless there’s an exception granted,” she said.
Waivers granted for specific programs — something the bachelor of fine arts, bachelor of architecture and bachelor of landscape architecture programs already have — would allow for unit counts above 180 units. The deadline to send waivers to the Board of Trustees was March 31.
“It’s been a month since those exceptions (were) due,” Miller said. “We haven’t heard anything from the chancellor’s office about the disposition of those and how they’ll be decided.”
However, according to Derelian, the exception process isn’t working.
“You can’t have an exception for everyone; it’s not effective,” Derelian said. “And secondly, even the exception process doesn’t use faculty input … it goes to administration instead.”
As of right now, no exceptions have been granted to any California State University program, Miller said.
“The campuses are having to either meet the 120/180 unit limit or ask for an exception, and the process has not gone smoothly on quite a few campuses,” she said. “Some campuses have been told that they can’t submit exception requests.”
For science-based degrees, the issue of third-party accreditors also comes into play. Because accreditors in the industry have specific expectations for students when they graduate, the unit count cut becomes difficult, Miller added.
“One hundred eighty units is kind of an arbitrary number, all things considered,” Miller said. “These unit limits make it difficult to have a robust general education program as well as a high-quality major. In order to remain accredited, and in order to do what the industry wants them to do, we are finding it very difficult to change the majors.”
The first reading for the resolution was scheduled for April 29, but the Senate did not get to that agenda item. The resolution is now scheduled for reading on May 20. If it passes through the Cal Poly Academic Senate, the resolution will then go to the statewide senate, Academic Senate representative James LoCascio said.
However, because the resolution is being sent late in the year, it might not be deliberated until next fall, LoCascio said.
“There’s going to have to be some meeting of the minds between the central administration, the Board of Trustees and the faculty, and I’m not sure how that’s going to happen,” he said. “I think Title 5 is all money-driven and it doesn’t make much sense to me.”
Derelian added that the representative faculty body of the Academic Senate may help change the system.
“We’re not trying to make this a hostile take over, we’re trying to simply embed the faculty’s position on this issue in some form or way,” she said. “That’s why we’re going through our senate, then statewide, and then to the Chancellor … if we can get some energy on it, the Board of Trustees will finally see that they may think they made a solution for graduation rates, it’s just not a viable solution.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article labeled Christine Miller as the Statewide Academic Senate Chair. Miller’s title is Chair of the Statewide Academic Affairs Committee, while Diana Guerin is the Statewide Academic Senate Chair. Additionally, this article state the first reading of the degree resolution was on the Academic Senate’s agenda for April 29, but the Senate did not get to that agenda item.