Second Reading Item

California State University Dominguez Hills

Academic Senate Resolution

ASCSUDH Guidelines for Campus Implementation of

Title 5 § 40508 “The Bachelor's Degree: Total Units”

September 18, 2013 (MSP 9/18/13)

EPC 13-08

RESOLVED:

That the Academic Senate of California State University, Dominguez Hills (ASCSUDH) recommend the subsequent guidelines be adhered to when modifying programs to meet Title 5 § 40508 statutes.

Background:

In 2000, the Board of Trustees amended Title 5 to establish 120 units as the minimum number of units required for a CSU Bachelor’s degree.[1] According to the Chancellor’s office, “as of fall 2012, campus data indicated that 504 bachelor’s programs and concentrations exceeded the 120 minimum.”[2] Labeling such “excessive” program units as an impediment to timely student matriculation, the Chancellor’s Office launched an initiative designed to reduce the number of overall units required for CSU undergraduate degrees. Toward this end, in November 2012 the Chancellor’s Office proposed to eliminate the nine units of upper-division general education. As this proposal generated strong system-wide faculty opposition, the Chancellor’s Office advanced an alternative proposal to limit all baccalaureate programs to 120 units (based on a proposal from the Academic Senate at San JoséStateUniversity in consultation with its President). The California State University Board of Trustees approved an amendment to Title 5 that instituted a 120-unit maximum limit for most baccalaureate degrees in January 2013.[3]

In order to assist CSUDH programs in their efforts to comply with Title 5 § 40508, “The Bachelor's Degree: Total Units,” in a manner consistent with FAC 13-06 "Faculty Resolution in Support of General Education and Major Program Integrity” (4/24/13), the ASCSUDH has developed the following guidelines:

1.No program waivers of the campus General Education Breadth units will be considered.

  1. Reason 1: All waivers undermine the rationale, justification and integrity of General Education Breadth package.
  2. Reason 2: Waiving GE requirements for entire programs is unprecedented.
  3. Reason 3: Waivers will result in unintended consequences (e.g. other programs will expect waivers based on precedent, other programs will challenge future denial of waivers as arbitrary, prejudicial, unreasonable, and capricious.

2.CSUDH shall embrace shared governance and a deliberative process to ensure that affected parties have a voice in the campus effort to comply with Title 5, Section 40508.

  1. Policy review and correction will be based on procedures based on shared governance. The State of California’s Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (Article 1, Section 3561) recognizes shared governance as the “long-accepted manner of governing institutions of higher learning and is essential to the performance of the educational mission of these institutions.” Any flawed or outdated policies shall be corrected using current and approved procedures that recognize at CSUDH “the Responsibility for the intellectual content of the curriculum and its constituent courses, including the requirements governing curriculum and courses, resides with the faculty.”
  2. “Expediency” is not an acceptable reason to disregard approved policymaking procedures.

3.

While decisions of the General Education Committee and University Curriculum Committee and their subcommittees are normally final, under extraordinary circumstances they may be referred by the Academic Senate to the Educational Policy Committee for adjudication.[4]The chairpersons of the 120+ programs shall be the only authorities who may bring appeals regarding the decisions in question to the Educational Policy Committee.

  1. All requests for adjudication brought to the Educational Policy Committee under AAAP035-001 must include the data and explanations outlined below as evidence that all of the compliance strategies outlined in the Chancellor’s Office toolkit have been contemplated and/or applied.

A. Comparing Similar CSU Programs: “A review of the number of similar programs in the system will show a range of required units and may reveal patterns that could be helpful in considering where changes to unit counts may be appropriate.”

Number of Similar CSU Programs / Systemwide Range of
Max Units (lower end) / Systemwide Range of
Max Units (upper end)
(example) 11 / 124 / 136

This exercise may help CSUDH programs to demonstrate that other comparable programs also exceed the new 120-unit cap.

B. Responding to External Pressures: “Campuses are asked to review current requirements in place for accreditation, licensing, examinations, etc., if external pressures have caused programs to exceed 120/180 units. In recent years, accreditation processes have shifted focus from unit requirements to learning outcomes or educational content, which may give programs new latitude in curriculum design.”

External Requirements / Source of Externally Imposed Requirements / Number of Units Required Externally / Number Required in Campus Degree Program
Professional accreditation requirements
Licensure/certification requirements
Units required to sit for professional exam
Other

C. Other Chancellor’s Office Suggested Strategies for Reducing Total Required Units

Options for Reducing bachelor’s degree unit requirements / Number of units reduced and date on which reductions were approved / Date on which campus faculty concluded each option was not viable
Reduce the number of major core units
Reduce the number of required major elective units
Reduce the number of prerequisite units
Reduce the number of co-requisite units
Double count American Institutions with major course requirements
Double count American Institutions with general education requirements
Double count GE with campus-specific requirements (satisfy GE requirements through other courses)
Reduce the number of campus-specific graduation requirements (e.g. technological proficiency, cross-cultural competence, or language other than English)
Reduce number of units in concentration (“option”)
Eliminate required minor
Other reductions

5.Exemptions: If all of the compliance strategies outlined in the Chancellor’s Office toolkit have been contemplated and/or applied and a program still finds itself above 120 units, the ASCSUDH recommends that the program seek exemption from Title 5, Section 40508 as outlined in the “Request for Exception to Baccalaureate Unit Limits.”

  1. The ASCSUDH senate chair shall announce exception requests to the body in a timely manner so that all interested parties may have opportunity to answer questions from the body.
  2. ASCSUDH shall circulate in advance the Chancellor’s Office memo clearly identifying the four steps that may be taken to reduce programs if they are not granted an exemption so that programs requesting said exemption shall understand what may happen if exemption is denied.
  3. Per EVC Smith’s January 25, 2013 memo “Programs that have not been reduced to 120/180 units and have not been granted the chancellor’s exception allowing higher unit counts shall be subject to chancellor’s action to reduce unit requirements, including:

1.double counting requirements;

2.adjusting the number of required major courses and units to achieve consistency with comparable CSU programs;

3.adjusting campus-specific degree requirements (such as languages other than English, among others); and

4.Adjusting course and unit requirements for upper-division GE courses.”

  1. In its request for an exemption, the CSUDH 120+ unit program shall include
  2. FAC 13-06 "Resolution in Support of General Education and Major Program Integrity” (4/24/13)

[1]Cornerstones Report: Choosing Our Future, January 28, 1998.

[2]EVC Smith Memo to CSU Presidents, Provosts, January 25, 2013.

[3]Title 5 § 40508, “The Bachelor's Degree: Total Units.” “Each campus shall establish and maintain a monitoring system to ensure that justification is provided for all program requirements that extend the baccalaureate unit requirement beyond 120 semester units. As of the fall term of the 2014-15 academic year, no baccalaureate degree programs shall extend the unit requirement beyond 120 semester units, with the exception of the Bachelor of Architecture, Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Fine Arts, and Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degrees. The Chancellor may authorize exceptions to system or campus requirements for degree programs. In fulfillment of this regulation, the Chancellor may require adjustments to program requirements in order to achieve the 120 semester unit maximum. In fulfillment of this regulation, the Chancellor after consultation with discipline faculty and other appropriate individuals may require adjustments to program requirements in order to achieve the 120-unit maximum.

[4] Examples of “extraordinary circumstances” include, but are not limited to, decisions made contrary to normal procedures; decisions that are arbitrary, unreasonable, prejudiced or capricious; and decisions involving conflict of interest. The burden of proof that the decision was incorrect lies with the party making the appeal. Errors in procedure will normally be remanded back to the committee for reconsideration.