The following statement contains Faculty Senate policy regarding course prerequisites. Briefly, an instructor has the prerogative of deciding if a student is prepared enough to succeed in their course.
COURSE PREREQUISITES
Course prerequisites indicate what previous preparation is needed to enroll in a course. An instructor has the right to drop any student from the course if he or she does not meet the prerequisite or has not received a grade of C- or better in all prerequisite courses. An instructor also has the right to waive a course prerequisite if the instructor has documentation that the student possesses the background required to succeed in the class.
Therefore, should the phrase "or instructor's permission" be removed from the UAF Catalog course descriptions where it is included with the prerequisites for a course?
NOTE: Your feedback is being solicited through November 21.
NOTE: Your feedback is being solicited through November 21.
Seem like this is a needed policy statement because 'or permission of instructor' statement is redundant and the case for every course
ReplyDeleteI think that it makes sense to keep "or permission of instructor" because it signifies to the student that they can request permission to enroll in the course even if they do not have the listed prerequisites. Otherwise, they might not consider asking.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
DeleteI agree.
DeleteI agree as well. A course that says "permission from instructor" suggests to students that the prereq is frequently waived for students who are prepared for the course by some other method. I teach a course that requires students to draw, so a basic drawing course is required to sign up. But if they can already draw, then I give them permission. More than half my class has not taken the prereq.
DeleteI agree
DeleteIt seems like advising is often done outside the department, and thus a reminder to students and to advising staff that talking to the instructor directly can help seems like it would be useful at least for a little while (2-3 years?) longer.
ReplyDeleteCatalog descriptions are for students to read. Students don't read Faculty Senate policies.
ReplyDeleteI commonly encounter students who wouldn't bother asking the instructor for permission to register if the catalog didn't explicitly say that was an option. We need to keep that language for when we want that flexibility in enrollment.
ReplyDeleteI agree
DeleteI agree with keeping the "or instructor approval"
DeleteI recommend keeping the "or instructor approval" language for all the reasons noted above. We work with many non-traditional students and often the instructor approval is much more useful than the pre-req in deciding if someone is really ready. When a student signs up for a course and an instructor removes them when they find out the student is not ready this can be extremely problematic for students in terms of financial aid and scholarships since sometimes it is too late to find another suitable course.
ReplyDeleteI'm concerned that the current approach *adds* to the confusion because it creates the impression that this policy only applies to some courses. This is unfortunate because that isn't our policy, we always retain this flexibility nor do I think we want to move to a model where that was the policy. As I see it we have two options:
ReplyDelete1) Add this language to every course that has prerequisites, unlike the current situation.
2) Find some prominent places to explain the policy in the catalog.
I think option 1 is inelegant at best, and likely to devolve over time to the current situation where the language appears in an inconsistent fashion. Unfortunately, option 2 presents the difficulty of finding portions of the catalog that we think have a high enough probability of being read by students, and I'm not sure I could identify such places.
Anyone have a third option?
'or instructor permission' doesn't solve the above problem. If the prerequisites aren't enough, then 'AND instructor permission' is required. The proposal won't change that.
ReplyDeleteSo which do people prefer: global change to 'or instructor permission' to all courses or taking out 'or instructor permission' from those minority that list such?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm willing to bet that we could put 'or instructor permission' in numerous places in the catalog. Anyway, aren't advisors suppose to advise? Isn't that why we have advisors?
Deletefrom Jane Weber:
DeleteUAF DEVM faculty AT ALL SITES agree - remove this wording from the catalog course descriptions.
Thanks, jane
I suggest keeping the language. Instructors are (I hope) aware that they have the right to let a student register for a course without the pre-reqs, but a student might not know.
ReplyDeleteI agree with earlier comments that, if the instructor wishes, he or she should be able to add 'or permission of instructor' to make that option explicit. I believe it encourages qualified students to check with the instructor if the option IS listed (anecdotal evidence!), but they may be more hesitant to do so if the option is NOT listed (which may be the intent of not making it explicit?).
ReplyDeleteSO....add to all courses, right? Because we'd always like qualified students to sign up for courses.....
ReplyDeleteI think we should keep it because it means students have to talk to the instructor first, if they want to get into the course. I'd rather talk with them first and help them get situated in the right class before classes start than have them show up the first day and have to first start the process. It's hard for students to move around once they've figured out a schedule that works for them.
ReplyDeleteAre you saying by eliminating 'or instructor permission' students will sign up for classes for which they don't have prerequisites???? Most classes don't have the 'or instructor permission' tagged on....and don't seem to have problems with unqualified students signing up.
ReplyDeleteI have used "or instructor permission" effectively in two cases, and would like to retain that possibility.
ReplyDelete(1) Graduate courses. Prerequisite checking for graduate courses does not work, because only courses taken at UAF are checked. Most of our graduate students have taken the courses that would be prerequisites at other universities. So the only way to have a functional prerequisite check is to use Instructor permission to allow in those who are fully prepared. Yes, this is a work-around, but still needed in some cases.
(2) We have some (summer or wintermester) field-based courses that have limited spaces available and require advance logistics. A useful way to deal with this has been to set up an application process for these spaces, and give permission to students based on that.
There may be other means of taking care of these situations; the important thing is to make sure that we still have a way of doing so. Students can easily understand what "or instructor permission" means, so it has been a useful tool.
I have not had a chance to read the above comments, but I will try to do so.
I agree with those who've expressed a need for "or instructor permission" as an option.
ReplyDeleteLike the anonymous drawing instructor above, pre-requisite knowledge for the theatre courses I teach is often not solely determined by what courses they've taken previously, but also sometimes includes skill sets or experience that they've acquired outside of coursework.
However, I would like to draw attention to the comment above: "aren't advisors supposed to advise?" I think this raises a particularly valid question: do advisors (whether faculty or academic advisors) regularly call faculty about pre-requisite requirements when advising their students? If advisors are generally telling students "you don't have the pre-reqs, so you can't take that class," then I feel strongly that we need the "or instructor permission" to remain as is.
Lastly, several commenters above are assuming an all-or-nothing (either all classes should have "or instructor approval" or none should), and I wonder if this is necessary. Is the status quo (where individual instructors/departments list "or instructor approval" where they deem it necessary, even though this is true for all classes whether it's listed or not) really a problem? I'm new to UAF, and perhaps I'm not aware of what problems the current system causes? If it isn't causing problems and is really more of a semantic problem, is a change even necessary? Sure, it may on the surface be inaccurate to list it for some classes and not all, but if listing it as necessary brings students to contact their instructors and be allowed to take the class with the pre-reqs waived, I think that's better than students believing that because they don't meet the pre-reqs, they can't take the class and stop at that point.