Motion US03/04-7

Moved to, Allow students to fulfill a UO group requirement for the B.A. and B.S. degrees with coursework totaling 15 instead of 16 credits, given that their coursework fulfills the UO's breadth and depth requirements within Groups.

Students coming from schools at which courses typically carry 3, rather than 4, credits can find themselves in a situation that seems bureaucratic and arbitrary. For example, a student who has satisfied her/his school's Group requirement by taking 5 3- credit courses will be one credit shy of satisfying the UO requirement, and must therefore take a 4-credit course in that area at the UO. While taking more Group-satisfying courses is not necessarily a bad thing, the confusion caused by this credit-per-course inequality, and the staff and faculty time required to untangle the resulting problems, does not seem proportional to the gain. The Academic Requirements Committee (ARC) devotes a substantial fraction of its time each year to considering petitions from transfer students who have 15, but not 16, credits in a Group. Last year (AY 02/03), the ARC dealt with 75 such cases, and during the first half of the current term (Winter, 2004) alone, it has considered 27. An additional concern is that, in the absence of a logical framework within which to consider the petitions, committee decisions are inconsistent.

Therefore, we propose that students be permitted to satisfy UO Group requirements (for the B.A. and the B.S.) with 15, rather than 16, total credits per Group.