Excess Summer Session Money to Return to Colleges

by Brittany Yingling
THE POST

The Ohio University Faculty Senate adopted a resolution at last night's meeting that will require students to add a class via the Touch-tone Registration and Information Processing System before the eighth day of each quarter.

Before, students could add classes using TRIPS as many as 15 days after the start of a quarter.

Heather Martin, OU Student Senate's academic affairs commissioner, presented undergraduate students' concerns before faculty voted.

Many students are concerned about how the add date change will affect their ability to drop classes, she said.

William Owens, the chairman of the Educational Policy and Affairs Committee, said the change has its benefits.

"It is not wise to allow students to miss 20 percent of classes," he said. "The time you spend in class is important."

This resolution will increase professor-teacher interaction by requiring students to discuss course changes with their professor, he said.

"I am disappointed, but understandably," Martin said, after hearing the senate's decision.

Faculty Senate Chairman Gary Pfeiffer said the resolution must be approved by Provost Sharon Brehm. If approved, OU Registrar Bill Jones will decide when the resolution will take effect.

In other business, Tom Shostak, dean of the Division of Lifelong Learning, discussed what will be done with a surplus of money received from OU's Summer Sessions.

"This past year, we tried to simplify it as much as possible," he said.

Revenue from this year's Summer Session exceeded OU's target revenue by about $30,000. An additional sum of about $230,000 became available when OU's colleges ran below their summer budgets.

Colleges will use the money during future Summer Sessions, said Shostak, who will meet with the deans of OU's Athens campus colleges in December to decide how the monies will be allocated.

Factors that influence which colleges receive money include number of credit hours each college has awarded during Summer Sessions and the efficiency of the college in awarding these hours, Shostak said.

Kip Howard, assistant vice president for enrollment services, spoke about OU's success in recruiting scholarly students to the faculty.

Yet, he said OU still is struggling to attract minority students.

Faculty can aid recruitment by making follow-up contact with accepted students and continuing to present friendly faces to visitors, Howard said.