Undergraduate Student Congress representatives passed a bill at Tuesday’s meeting to initiate discussion with the Faculty Senate in hopes of making pre-finals week easier for students.
Congress plans to challenge the Faculty Senate’s March 9, 2009 rejection of pre-finals week policy changes that tabled the discussion.
The proposed changes would have prohibited professors from assigning coursework due during pre-finals week worth more than 5 percent of a student’s grade without department chair approval, according to Daily archives.
Tuesday’s bill, which passed 23-0-0, is a response to the 2009 Senate’s decision that rejected the presented changes as well as to table any further discussion of the project until 2014.
The bill was co-authored by Ways and Means Chair Sean Bender and social sciences district representative Joseph Ahrabizad, who expressed their displeasure with the Senate’s decision.
“Essentially, University of Oklahoma students complained about an unfair policy,” chemistry sophomore Bender said to Congresss. “And the faculty voted to ignore these complaints until all of these students graduated.”
Though the decision was made by the Senate last March, Student Congress decided to wait before it issued an official resolution.
“We decided to maybe let the hot tempers cool down a little bit before we started on a new approach,” political science senior Ahrabizad said.
Those who proposed the initial changes in 2009 graduated in May, and that may be one reason for waiting, Ahrabizad said.
“Well, I hope that it [the Senate] realizes it’s an issue that students still care deeply about,” Bender said. “And that it’s an issue UOSA is still ready and willing to work with Faculty Senate on.”
The bill asks the members of the Senate to revisit the discussion for pre-finals week policies before 2014.
“Discontent with the current dead-week policy will not disappear just because a few students graduated, and the shameful actions of the 2009 Faculty Senate will not be forgotten by 2014,” Bender said.
The meeting also passed a bill by unanimous consent that supports sending an updated version of the Student Congress constitution to the OU Board of Regents and a resolution thanking Bizzell Memorial Library for extending its hours to 24 hours a day during pre-finals week.
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soonerboomers 1 year, 5 months ago
Honestly, the present process is not that difficult. If you can't get through it, you probably should not be awarded a degree.
This shows more of a lack of creativity among the student congress in stamping out serious issues than it does anything really pressing. "Gees, we don't have any clue about things to do here, we didn't run because we had ideas, but because we wanted an office" --> "Oh, let's talk about dead week again."
Come on.
patch 1 year, 5 months ago
Want some cheese with that whine? There's nothing unfair about it.