Oakland University Senate

Third Meeting
Thursday, 7 December 1989
Oakland Room, Oakland Center

Agenda

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

A. Old Business
        None

B.  New Business

1.   Motion from the Steering Committee to fill a vacancy on the Academic Conduct Committee (Mr. Braunstein).

a. MOVED that David Lau be appointed an alternate member of the Academic Conduct Committee to fill the unexpired term (1989-90) of Barbara Mabee.

Procedural Motion: Debatable, amendable, and eligible for final vote at this meeting.

Comment: A resignation and replacement action.

2 . Motion from the University Committee on Undergraduate Instruction to modify minimally acceptable scores for the award of credit by CLEP examinations (Mr. Appleton).

MOVED that:

a. Oakland accept credit for CLEP general examinations passed with scores of 550 or higher and subject examinations passed with scores of 55 or higher, except that no credit will be granted for examinations which cover material comparable to Oakland University courses which do not carry credit toward graduation, and

b. Five years after this is implemented the UCUI will review the composition of CLEP credit recipients to see what effect this policy change has had and will recommend to the Senate whether further action seems advisable.

First Reading:    Eligible for discussion but not final vote at this meeting.

Comment:  The manner in which this legislation will modify current policy is illustrated below. New language is in parentheses; language that would be deleted is shown lined through.

Oakland University will grant six credits for each general examination passed with a score of at least 600 (550), no subscore below 55, and with an average of subscores of  at least 60, provided that:

a.  The student has not accumulated 32 or more credits at the time of examination, and

b.  The student has not previously done work for college credit in the field of the examination.

Credit is awarded for subject examinations passed with a score of 60 (55) or above.  In the case of subscores, each of the subscores of the test must be at least 60. 

Also, the following conditions must have been met:

a. Non-transfer students must not have accumulated 64 or more credits at the time of the examination; transfer students must not yet have earned 32 Oakland University credits.

b.  The student must not previously have taken more advanced work in the field of the examination.

Oakland's passing score requirements to receive CLEP credit are very stringent. Only 151 students received such credit between 1975 and 1985. The following table summarizes the situation. The information is drawn from the transcript records of the 151 students receiving CLEP credit between 1975 and 1985 (seventy-three females and seventy-eight males).

NUMBER OF CLEP CREDITS AWARDED credits I - 5 6 - 10 11 - 15 16 - 20 21 - 25 26+ # of students 14 53 40 17 12 15 151 CUMULATIVE G.P.A. IN O.U. COURSES grade point av. 1.9 and below 2.0 - 2.49 2.5 - 2.99 3.0 - 3.49 3.5 - 4.00 # of students 7 13 31 54 46

OU students receiving CLEP credits follow a variety of majors, there are definitely concentrations of them in general studies, business administration, biology and psychology.

To compare O.U.'s score policies with those of comparable institutions, a survey was mailed in May, 1988 to 68 four-year public institutions in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin.   Forty-one of the 49 responses provided usable data. Summary of results:

1) Oakland is one of two schools accepting all CLEP exams for some form of credit. Many institutions are selective in the exams they will consider for credit.

2 ) When comparing Oakland with the other institutions that use score levels (rather than percentiles), to grant credit Oakland's current score levels always place us in the top three.

3 ) Of the 41 institutions that responded with usable data, nine use the same score requirement for all exams. Therefore, Oakland's practice of using the same cutting score for all exams is similar to approximately 25% of the sample. on the following page is a table summarizing the data.

*Indicates OU score requirement ties with that of another institution
+ In contrast to a percentile level to determine the passing threshold.

A sampling of Oakland faculty opinions concerning minimal passing scores confirms the committee's feeling that the (mainly non-traditional) students who present CLEP examination scores for consideration of OU credit are being held to a considerably higher standard than are students who take OU courses. Consequently, the UCUI is recommending a reduction in passing score levels. Because there is no reliable method for estimating how many additional students might seek and receive CLEP credits following any adjustment of passing scores, the modest change being recommended will afford the opportunity to evaluate the effects of change without introducing large perturbations.

C. Good and Welfare

D. Information Items