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Ten to 20 percent of IT students are on academic probation, which requires that they explain their situation to their advisor and then set and meet goals for progress. The alternative? Expulsion from IT for one to three quarters.
IT uses the Coefficient of Completion (CC) to set guidelines for probation. The CC is a ratio of the number of courses a student has passed (C or higher) to the number of courses in which he or she initially enrolled. When administrators began using the CC in 1972, they were surprised by the results: too many students were placed on probation. IT officials have since lowered the CC, and today the rules are as follows: Students who have a quarterly CC of less than 0.5 for two consecutive quarters or a cumulative CC of less than 0.7 after three quarters are automatically placed on academic probation.
Students may view the CC as part of a red-tape bureaucracy, but administrators say it has boosted retention rates among first-year students. Paul Cartwright, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs, notes that IT has retained 90 percent of first-year students this year, compared to 55 percent just 10 years ago. He believes that the CC aids students by providing a warning flag about their academic progress and encouraging them to seek assistance. "A student with a consistently low CC might be wasting time and money by continuing in his or her present course of study," Cartwright says.
The CC, however, has produced some unusual cases. Consider "Scott," who has simultaneously been on the Dean's List and academic probation. By withdrawing from and taking incompletes in courses, he lowered his CC; at the same time, he was earning A grades in his other courses. Now expelled from IT, he plans to transfer to another university. Scott objects to IT officials' use of the CC because it penalizes students who complete their degrees at a slower rate than other students. "The University of Minnesota is a perfect American representation of a factory education," he says. "Henry Ford would have been proud."
(taken from an editorial)
Students responded to the early 1980s demand for engineers by applying in record numbers to engineering colleges across the country. Faced with a shortage of facilities and faculty, many of them, including IT, responded by instituting minimum grade point average (GPA) requirements. IT began these restrictions in fall of 1982, deeming them necessary "to limit enrollment due to lack of faculty and resources."
Eight years later, the demand for engineering degrees has diminished, due in part to fewer high school graduates and increased competition from other universities. Class sizes, too, have fallen, from 1,000 to 800. Still, the requirements remain and have actually increased in some departments. Students applying to upper division face minimum GPA standards ranging from 2.3 (for several majors) to 2.8 (for computer science).
Students, faculty, and administrators alike have criticized the GPA requirements for introducing inconsistency and unnecessary selectivity. The GPA requirements often rise and fall with each year's class, so that students entering next year cannot ascertain the minimum GPA they'll need to maintain. "I am personally bothered by a situation where we say a 2.0 is passing, but we say you must have a 2.5, 2.6, or 2.7 to continue into your junior year," says Associate Dean Russell K. Hobbie, chair of the Academic Standards Committee.
Physics professor Marvin Marshak, whose department has no minimum GPA requirement, has proposed that the University could handle increases in demand by having professors in departments with low student/faculty ratios teach certain courses (particularly introductory) in overburdened departments. "Otherwise, there's no point in having a college. The situation now is you have a bunch of departments, and the faculty don't communicate very much, and they don't have much common interest in teaching," he says.
Another option is to hire more faculty, clearly the most expensive solution but one that some faculty believe necessary. Says Richard Goldstein, head of the mechanical engineering department, "A student who has a 2.5 or a 2.6...Why can't they go on? Because we don't have the resources. We need more faculty."
The 1991-92 academic year had its share of the good, bad, new, and old. Among the highlights:
Ettore "Jim" Infante, IT dean since 1984, was named senior vice president and provost. Associate Dean Gordon Beavers was named acting dean, Associate Dean Sally Kohlstedt assumed some of Beavers's responsibilities, and Walter Johnson, a physics professor, became a temporary associate dean in IT. David Frank, a mathematics professor, was hired as the director of IT lower division programs, and Linda Bruemmer, previously the acting director of the Minnesota Waste Management Agency, joined the administration as an IT associate dean.
The $50 million cut in state funding over the next two years will affect IT. The Microelectronic & Information Services Center, Minnesota Geological Survey, Mineral Resources Center, Productivity Center, Underground Space Center, and the University of Minnesota Talented Youth Mathematics Program are all likely to see their budgets reduced.
First-year IT students were, for the first time, organized into six teams of about 100 students each. Each team had three advisors and official lounge space in either L Lind Hall or the Electrical Engineering/Computer Science building, and all students received a team directory. The concept, borrowed from a similar program in IT Honors, was introduced to increase students' sense of community.
