“Some people would say that putting a unit limit is dictating curriculum, but as an administrative governing body, we sometimes have to limit certain things because we want students to graduate on time,” Associate Vice Provost for Academic Programs and Planning Mary Pedersen said.
Suha Saya
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Though Cal Poly’s academic senate intended to vote on an engineering unit cap resolution Tuesday evening, the vote was postponed to spring quarter because of time restraints.
The vote — now set for April 8 — will support a 198-unit ceiling for engineering degrees, a cap already approved by the Academic Senate of the California State University system.
The debate on such a unit cap, however, isn’t the true issue at hand, according to Academic Senate representative James LoCascio said.
“This is not about engineering unit counts,” he said. “This is about who controls curriculum.”
In 2013, the Chancellor’s Office issued an amendment on a California Code of Regulation Law named Title 5, where California State University (CSU) campuses were expected to align all program unit counts to 180 units in the quarter system. Programs in the Bachelor of Fine Arts and the Maritime Academy were excused from the ruling.
But programs with high unit counts — such as those in the engineering department — were forced to make a decision to satisfy the chancellor’s demand: either cut general education units or cut technical units.
But Cal Poly’s faculty protested. Many didn’t believe in cutting more units and disagreed with the administration’s right to rule on a cut in curriculum, LoCascio said.
“No one is advocating cutting GEs on the faculty side,” he said. “This resolution is all about governance, and we’re upset that curriculum isn’t being controlled by faculty.”
But the argument extends to whether putting a unit cap is even considered a curriculum issue, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Programs and Planning Mary Pedersen said.
“Some people would say that putting a unit limit is dictating curriculum, but as an administrative governing body, we sometimes have to limit certain things because we want students to graduate on time,” she said. “If your curriculum is huge, students can’t get through in four years, and the extra units may also affect the budget.”
Administrators say money is limited, and the only way to compensate is to cut courses, Academic Senate representative Manzar Foroohar said.
“My personal view is that if administration pushes it that way, they’re changing the university to basically a diploma mill,” she said. “We don’t want to do that as faculty.”
Though campuses across California are lining up in support of the statewide academic senate, the chancellor already stated his plan does not include implementing the statewide resolution, LoCascio said.
The chancellor, however, may review campus programs and offer waivers. Such waivers would be given to programs that have mapped their curriculum according to student outcomes.
“Either they approve or don’t approve it,” LoCascio said. “The final call belongs to the chancellor and Board of Trustees.”
Currently, the statewide academic senate is negotiating with the Chancellor’s Office, Foroohar said.
“The reason we’re pushing for local academic senates to pass this is so that the chancellor gets a strong voice from the faculty,” she said. “From every department, every college, we want the chancellor to hear that the faculty should rule curriculum — we are the ones who teach students, we are the ones who put the programs together and we are the ones who have the expertise to say which courses students should get to be graduating.”
But a resolution does not guarantee policy change. Cal Poly’s faculty voice will simply be added to the voice of faculty from other campuses, Foroohar said.
“The chancellor has the money; we can’t force anything on the chancellor,” Foroohar said. “But the only thing we can do is just give a very strong faculty voice … The stronger the voice of faculty is from 23 different campuses, the more chance the chancellor will listen to us.”
Today, most engineering programs at Cal Poly are 192 units. Cal Poly’s engineering programs were 210 units before any sort of unit count-cutting occurred.
“We feel that it’s important that our campus limit be 192,” Pedersen said. “But the campus as a whole still supports the idea that we decide and it’s our decision.”
All other CSU engineering programs are also working on the initiative to lower unit counts. San Jose State University and Long Beach State University are both working to lower all programs — including engineering — at 180 units. They plan to do so with “creative flexibility” in GEs, Pedersen said.
“The biggest issue is that when you compare our program with programs across the country, we have more GE units … that’s where we’re hoping to have more creative flexibility when looking at our GEs, because it’s a little bit high,” she said. “I think other campuses are being very forward-thinking and demonstrating general education based on learning outcomes.”
But some, like Foroohar, believe GEs are in danger because of this.
“Engineering programs know they can’t cut labs or whatever it takes to be an engineer, so they started cutting the general education,” she said. “If you really want to create good citizens who are well-rounded, educated people, we have to stop this … that’s why this resolution is so important for everyone who believes in a high-quality education.”
GE programs are currently under review and will be for the next year. During review, recommendations to adjust GE programs in all majors are considered.