The faculty has approved changes to university policy that reduces the number of hours students can transfer from other colleges.
The new policy increases the number of hours students must take from ACU to graduate with a degree from the university. Students will now be required to have earned at least 48 hours of credit from ACU to graduate, the old policy required only 32 hours of credit from the university.
Dr. Kim Pamplin, chair of the Faculty Senate, said the new policy will enable the university to have a larger influence over students who graduate from the institution. A total of 76 faculty members affirmed the resolution; five did not affirm and 10 abstained.
“Our policy says that if you want to graduate from ACU you need to have a minimum number of hours,” Pamplin, also chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, said. “We want to have a little bit of ACU’s stamp on students before they graduate.”
The faculty also approved a referendum changing the number of transfer hours students can earn after they enroll at the university. Enrolled students who have taken less than 30 hours from ACU will be allowed to earn 15 hours from other institutions. Students who have earned between 30 and 59 hours at ACU can now only earn 12 additional hours outside of ACU. Those with more than 60 hours of earned credit from ACU will only be allowed to transfer in 9 additional hours of transfer credit.
Hours earned previous to enrollment at ACU will not be counted toward the total.
“These are both efforts to say that if you are going to get your degree from ACU, we want to have at least a minimum influence,” Pamplin said. “Taking a bunch of hours from somewhere else is less of an ACU education.”
The faculty also made sweeping changes to the faculty handbook. Pamplin said an effort to consolidate the handbook had not taken place in several years. He said this year’s consolidation reduced the size of the book by nearly half.
“For the last several years, the handbook has had updates, but there has not been a comprehensive evaluation,” Pamplin said. “It cut down what was like 200 pages to around 100 pages.”
Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon chaired the faculty committee commissioned to evaluate the faculty handbook. Bacon, chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, said a main goal of the evaluation is to reduce redundancies.
“There had not been a comprehensive and up-to-date version of the handbook available for many years,” Bacon said. “Neither had it been clear who was making assorted changes in the handbook. So the Faculty Senate appropriately took the leadership role in setting the job.”
All approved referendums will become effective after receiving the approval of the provost, president, and Board of Trustees
