Senate Bill
No. 0405-04
UNIVERSITY SENATE
UNIVERSITY AT ALBANY
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
Introduced by: Undergraduate Academic Council
Date: October 18, 2004
Elimination of the Pre-“Fall 2000” General Education Program
IT IS HEREBY PROPOSED THAT THE FOLLOWING BE ADOPTED:
1. That students under the “Continuing” (pre-Fall 2000) General Education
Requirements* be waived from those requirements except for the requirement to
complete an upper division Writing Intensive course with the grade of C or better
or S.
2. That this change become effective for students graduating in May 2005.
3. That this bill be forwarded to the President for approval.
Students under the “pre-Fall 2000” requirements:
(1) matriculated at the University Fall 1993 through Summer 2000 and/or
(2) transferred to the University prior to Fall 2002 and/or
(3) first matriculated at another college or school prior to Fall 2000.
Rationale:
In response to complaints of confusion from students and advisers concerning
how to identify courses meeting one or more of the Fall 2000 General Education
Program requirements in Writing Intensive, Oral Discourse, and Information
Literacy, new suffixes are being assigned to designate courses that fulfill these
requirements. To do this, it is necessary to retire the suffixes that were assigned
courses meeting the former (pre-Fall 2000) requirements.
Since the Writing Requirement and the criteria for that requirement are common
to both the Fall 2000 General Education and its predecessor, and since the Z
suffix will be retained to signify completion of that requirement, the UAC is not
recommending this requirement be waived. All of the other categories of the pre-
Fall 2000 program have either been eliminated or substantially changed.
It has been the practice at the University to phase out an older General
Education Program when a new one is adopted. The pre-Fall 2000 program was
approved in 1993, and two years later all students under the preceding program
were waived from any remaining category requirements. This time, the UAC has
waited until the last entering class of freshmen who were under the pre-Fall 2000
requirements graduated (May 2004).
There are only 189 undergraduates currently enrolled at the University who were
admitted as freshmen prior to Fall 2000, and it is anticipated many of them will
graduate this December. Of those students, 107 have already fulfilled all of their
General Education requirements as well as Writing Intensive before this
semester. Another 56 have also fulfilled their General Education but have not
completed an upper division Writing Intensive course. In other words, only 26 of
these freshman admit students have yet to finish their pre-Fall 2000
General Education requirements (10 of whom also have yet to finish their
Writing Intensive requirement.)
Of the 433 transfers who matriculated at a college or university before Fall 2000,
313 have completed all General Education and Writing prior to this semester and
another 84 lack only the upper level Writing requirement. Not counting work in
progress, only 36 of these transfer admit students have yet to finish their
pre-Fall 2000 General Education requirements (15 of whom also have yet to
finish their Writing Intensive requirement.)
The only other students who will be affected by the proposal will be the
occasional readmit who matriculated in the Fall 1993-Summer 2000 period
(students who matriculated prior to that are already waived from General
Education) and the occasional new transfer (but only if that student first
matriculated at another campus prior to Fall 2000).
The UAC therefore believes it is appropriate to allow these few students to
graduate without completely finishing the requirements of a General Education
Program that the University Senate supplanted nearly five years ago. The Dean
of Undergraduate Studies and the University Registrar have agreed that their
staffs will assist any students with questions or concerns about the waiver.
