On Sunday night, the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) passed a resolution to increase the maximum total credits a student can take in one department. Currently, students are allowed to take no more than 14 credits in any one department during their Wesleyan career—the resolution suggested that that maximum be increased to 16.
The Academic Affairs Committee of the WSA plans to discuss the resolution with the Educational Policy Committee (EPC)—the faculty committee responsible for reviewing changes in the curriculum—to determine if the resolution’s recommendations can be implemented.
According to Cordelia Blanchard ’12, Chair of the Academic Affairs Committee, the resolution was drafted in response to both student and faculty demand.
“We recognize that there are certain majors where students are regularly oversubscribed, so we want to protect those students,” she said. “It’s also been brought up by some faculty members, particularly from those departments, that it’s questionable the way the oversubscription requirement applies to their department. That’s why we took it under our belt.”
According to the University’s website, the oversubscription rule is “designed to prevent a student from building a program of study that is too narrow.” Courses that students take in excess of the oversubscription limits will not count toward the 32 credits required to graduate.
The EPC is scheduled to discuss the resolution next Monday. Chair of the Committee and Professor of Classical Studies Andrew Szegedy-Maszak said he cannot predict how the EPC will react to the resolution; in the past, however, he said the EPC and the Academic Affairs Committee have worked together to make changes.
“We try to work closely with student interest,” Szegedy-Maszak said. “Earlier this semester, the WSA passed a resolution encouraging the creation of more certificates. This is something we take very seriously and, in fact, we have approved the creation of more certificates and have created a template for faculty who want to create new certificates in order to expedite the process.”
While Blanchard is hopeful that the resolution will ultimately be approved, she said it is unlikely that the process will be swift.
“I can hope and I can argue until the cows come home, but I don’t know what [the EPC members] are going to say,” she said. “I think it’s going to be a contentious issue. My guess is that we can get it settled definitely by the end of the semester.”
If the EPC endorses the WSA’s resolution, the next step will be to bring the proposal to the faculty for ratification.
“I hope that it gets passed,” Blanchard said. “I want to fight for this.”