2008 Woodie Awards
The Faculty Senate rejected the University's plan to adopt a four-by-four credit structure two months before their vote was scheduled to take place.
At Friday's meeting in the Marvin Center, the body passed a resolution recommending that the schools should not switch at this time from the three-credit, five-class system to the four-class, four-credit plan administrators have proposed. The Senate's resolution states that reduced class time will not lead to improved academics and that there is little evidence that the model will save costs.
Last November the Faculty Senate voted to wait until April to make a decision on the four-by-four plan, extending the original January deadline set by Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Donald Lehman. At the time, members of the Faculty Senate said they needed more time to study its benefits and disadvantages, but on Friday, the body decided to make the vote two months earlier than expected.
The deans of GW's individual colleges are still considering the plan and Lehman said he had expected that the schools would vote on four-by-four in April and make a recommendation to the Faculty Senate. He said he thought the Faculty Senate would at that point make a recommendation.
Lehman urged the Senate not to just dismiss the entire four-by-four plan and to consider the merits of each of its parts.
"Adopting a scenario is not a vote to make the change to a four-by-four," he said. "It is possible to change some parts of the scenario and to give up some parts but not all."
Switching to a four-by-four model was studied twice before in 1992 and 2003 and was rejected both times. The Senate resolution states that the 2006 four-by-four report does not present any new evidence that disproves the conclusions of the 2003 study group that found there is little empirical research about the connection between curricular structure and academic engagement.
In 2002 a Joint Academic Affairs/Faculty Senate Task Force rejected the plan and in 2003 a study group of students, staff and administrators again rejected four-by-four. The Educational Policy Committee of the Faculty Senate also studied the plan in 2003 and recommended that it not be implemented.
At Friday's meeting in the Marvin Center, the body passed a resolution recommending that the schools should not switch at this time from the three-credit, five-class system to the four-class, four-credit plan administrators have proposed. The Senate's resolution states that reduced class time will not lead to improved academics and that there is little evidence that the model will save costs.
Last November the Faculty Senate voted to wait until April to make a decision on the four-by-four plan, extending the original January deadline set by Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Donald Lehman. At the time, members of the Faculty Senate said they needed more time to study its benefits and disadvantages, but on Friday, the body decided to make the vote two months earlier than expected.
The deans of GW's individual colleges are still considering the plan and Lehman said he had expected that the schools would vote on four-by-four in April and make a recommendation to the Faculty Senate. He said he thought the Faculty Senate would at that point make a recommendation.
Lehman urged the Senate not to just dismiss the entire four-by-four plan and to consider the merits of each of its parts.
"Adopting a scenario is not a vote to make the change to a four-by-four," he said. "It is possible to change some parts of the scenario and to give up some parts but not all."
Switching to a four-by-four model was studied twice before in 1992 and 2003 and was rejected both times. The Senate resolution states that the 2006 four-by-four report does not present any new evidence that disproves the conclusions of the 2003 study group that found there is little empirical research about the connection between curricular structure and academic engagement.
In 2002 a Joint Academic Affairs/Faculty Senate Task Force rejected the plan and in 2003 a study group of students, staff and administrators again rejected four-by-four. The Educational Policy Committee of the Faculty Senate also studied the plan in 2003 and recommended that it not be implemented.
