Oakland University Senate

Fourth Meeting
Thursday, 8 December 1988
Oakland Center, Gold Room B
3:10 p.m.

AGENDA

Respectfully submitted by Keith R. Kleckner for the Steering committee.

A. Old Business

1.  Motion from the Academic Standing and Honors Committee to revise policies on probation and dismissal (Messrs. Dahlgren and Chipman). Item B.I. from the agenda of 10 November 1988.

MOVED that the following probation and dismissal policy be adopted to apply to all undergraduate, second degree(3!, and post-baccalaureate students at Oakland University, effective fall 1990.

PROBATION AND DISMISSAL POLICY
1.   Students with a cumulative GPA of 2.00 or above or without an established cumulative GPA are considered to be in good academic standing. See 4. below.

2.  Students in good academic standing will be placed on probation at the end of a semester when their cumulative GPA is below 2.00. They will be allowed to remain at Oakland University on probationary status for at least one semester.

3.  At the end of a probationary semester, students will be:

a. returned to good academic standing if their cumulative GPA is 2.00 or higher,

b. dismissed from the University if their cumulative GPA is below the minimum required GPA based on the total number of Oakland University and transfer credits earned (see the table below), or

c. continued on probation if a. and b. do not apply. For example, if at the end of a probationary semester, a student has accumulated 46 credits and has a cumulative GPA of 1.77, then that student will be allowed to remain at Oakland University on probation.

OU and Transfer Credit Earned	Minimum Required GPA
0-16	1.49
17-32	1.61
33-48	1.73
49-64	1.85
65-80	1.97
81+	2.00

4.  In order to establish a cumulative GPA a student must receive a numerical grade in at least one course at Oakland University, and in the computation of the cumulative GPA, only those courses at Oakland University for which a student has received numerical grades are used. If a course has been repeated, the assigned credits for the course are only counted once in the total number of credits attempted and only the most recent numerical grade received is used. The "Honor Points" for each course are computed by multiplying the numerical grade received by the number of credits assigned to the course. The cumulative GPA is determined by dividing the sum of the Honor Points for all courses receiving numerical grades by the total number of credits attempted in courses receiving numerical grades at Oakland University.

Second Reading:  Debatable, amendable, and eligible for final vote at this meeting.

B.  New Business

1.   Motion from the Steering Committee to establish a new standing committee of the Senate (Mr. Hough):

MOVED that the Senate establish a standing committee to be known as the University Senate Committee on Human Relations, with charge and membership as described below.

Although universities often consider themselves as idealized communities, they are seldom independent of, and are rarely immune from, deficiencies that exist in the larger societies to which they belong. Consequently, a university should be continually alert to those social problems that can impede its educational goals. Such a set of problems involves those that derive from racial bias, intolerance, stereotyping, and other like manifestations of human beings' inability to deal constructively with those  natural differences that exist among them. it is essential that Oakland University maintain continuous and systematic efforts to minimize the negative effects these particular deficiencies have upon the educational experience it seeks to provide, and it is the task of the University Senate Committee on Human Relations to give strong impetus to those efforts.

To that end, the Committee on Human Relations is charged:

a) to monitor the total educational climate at Oakland University, and to select for its particular attention those issues that are most directly related to instances of significant under-representation of various community groups wherever they may occur in all of the academic programs of the university,

b) to set priorities for possible improvements and develop biennial agendas of tasks to accomplish,

c) to assist university units in establishing priorities, developing approaches to achieve them, and evaluating their success in meeting their objectives.

In further pursuit of this goal, charged: the committee is also  charged:

a) to consult with, and to advise the President of the University, the Senior Vice President for University Affairs, the Vice President for Student Affairs, and the President of the University Congress how they might best use their senior leadership positions to promote an educational climate that treats diversity constructively,

b.  to recommend to, and cooperate with, Senate and other committees whose actions define the formal Oakland educational experience,

c.  to promote dialogue, and otherwise to heighten awareness among the larger groups of faculty, administrators, students, and other university personnel about how their individual actions contribute to the environment in which learning takes place, and

d. to maintain the committee's accountability, and that of the parties with whom the committee is charged to work, by reporting in open meeting to the University Senate on a biennial basis concerning the tasks that the committee has undertaken and the results that have been obtained.

Membership:
Eleven members consisting of five faculty members (one of whom shall be chair) nominated by the Senate Steering Committee; two members nominated by the Vice President for Academic Affairs; two members nominated by the Vice President for Student Affairs and two members nominated by the President of the University Congress. It is expected that minorities, including blacks, women and students will be represented. All members will be subject to confirmation by the University Senate. The term for non-student members will be three academic years, and the terms for student members will be not more than two years.

First reading: Debatable, amendable, but not eligible for final vote.

C.  Good and Welfare
        Private resolutions

D.  Information items