Semester Conversion Policies & Procedures Sub-Committee

October 27 Minutes, Page 1

Semester Conversion Policy and Procedures Sub-Committee

545 University Pavilion

October 27, 2010

  1. Called to order at 8:37 am
  1. Present: Adrianne Lane, Wendy Lambing, Fran Meyer, Mark Bowers, Jean Griffin, Cecily Goode, Leigh Jackson, Rich Robles and Cindy Hedrick.
  2. Absent: Cheryl Cates, Michael Southern, Krista Maddox, Charlie Scruggs, Jill Collet, and Tina Whalen
  3. This meeting was the last scheduled meeting from the Doodle poll. For the remainder of the quarter, meetings will be held every three weeks on either a Tuesday or Wednesday. Meetings during the winter quarter will be held on a Tuesday.
  1. Review of Meeting Minutes. Minutes for the September 28, 2010, meeting were discussed with changes. One notable change was that the Board of Trustees has until summer 2012 to submit their updated rules, which, again, is considered too late considering how all other rules and systems need to be revised sooner.
    There was follow-up discussion on evaluating policies and procedures (PP’s). Specifically, there is concern regarding the establishment of a hard deadline for PP submission by units. There is question on whether the units have an understanding of the due dates and the implications of a non-response. Although there are no immediate consequences to units for not submitting PP’s by a deadline, it seems as though the PP revision process is placed in a lower priority at this point, after the advising, C-1, and P-1 processes.
    Considering the amount of PP submissions thus far, there was question on whether or not the sub-committee’s Gantt chart was still on target. With the intent to publish changes by spring 2011, the assumption was that submissions would be coming in at this juncture. Revising the Gantt chart will be a discussion topic at the next meeting.
  2. Semester Conversion Website. Wendy showed the PP section of the semester conversion website ( The PP portion includes the list of identified (by the sub-committee) and reviewed PP’s submitted by units. The goal is to update this portion of the page monthly. The PP’s reported to the Steering Committee will then be posted to the website. Once it is posted to the website, MB Reiley will evaluate the list of newly posted PP’s to determine whether more information is needed to communicate the changes to the various constituencies.
    The Registrar’s working calendar will be posted to the semester conversion website. The Communications SC should refer this resource to the various units.

4.Evaluating P&P that have been submitted to the P&PSC. There was discussion on revising our procedures to accurately reflect and report which PP’s have been submitted and reviewed by the SC, and reported to the Steering Committee. Monthly sub-folders will be created in the SC’s e-mail account. Reviewed PP’s in the monthly sub-folder will be reported to the Steering Committee.
Lately, review teams have been receiving submissions where units have been submitting student handbooks. The latest the School of Psychology’s handbook reviewed by Mark and Jean and the College of Allied Health’s handbook reviewed by Fran and Michael. The manuals have mere word changes but are not reflecting the actual semester conversion. For example, whenever Wendy reviews a handbook she initially finds the quarter-to-semester word changes, the course numbers reflecting the 4-digit numbering schema, and then phone number changes to reflect student services changes.
The discussion sparked an issue of how we should consistently handle handbook submissions. At the same time, has a unit fulfilled the submission process and adequately addressed the PP submission request by listing “TBD” or “TBA” for a semester change (e.g., the course sequence substitute for a current quarter course listing is “TBD”)? A general review checklist will be devised and discussed at the next meeting.
Finally, there was discussion on how policies are communicated on the semester conversion website. In general, ownership and responsibility of communicating changes are on the individual units and colleges. While this SC is charged with taking a broader perspective to insure University alignment, the Communications SC, specifically MB Reiley, has insight on constituency communication.

  1. Semester Conversion Summit. A contingency of UC faculty and staff participated in a Semester Conversion Summit held at Ohio State University on October 25. Cecily reported that the summit focused on a variety of topics and new issues to consider, including communication with the local authorities and municipalities as it relates to traffic patterns, consideration of local school calendar patterns (e.g., Cincinnati Public Schools’ academic calendar), and dealing with the mass number of students desiring to complete their degrees spring 2012. The next summit will be hosted at UC this coming spring.
  2. Meeting with Steering Committee Co-Chairs: No report

6. Update from P&P Sub-Committees: No report.

7. Next P&P SC meeting Tuesday, November 16, 2010