Senators approved three resolutions associated with the semester conversion, which outline standard course hours, minimum hours needed to graduate and general education requirements for undergraduate degrees. The guidelines will affect students who begin their courses at Ohio University in fall 2012, when the university will start operations under a semester calendar.

The three resolutions set these guidelines:

• The standard semester course will be three hours (one hour on Monday, Wednesday and Friday or one and a half hours on Tuesday and Thursday).
  
  
  
• The minimum needed for a bachelor's degree is 120 semester hours; for an associate's degree, the minimum is 60 semester hours.
  
  
  
• General Education requirements are one course for Tier I quantitative skills; one first-year composition course, one advanced junior-level composition course; 21 credit hours total in six different areas that include Applied Science and Mathematics, Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Fine Arts, Humanities and Literature, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences; complete at least three hours in Tier III or Tier III-equivalent courses. In addition, no more than two approved Tier II courses in the student's major department/school or area of concentration can be used toward partial fulfillment of the Tier II requirement.
  
  

Student Affairs Committee Chair Scott Titsworth noted the guidelines are needed to provide departments, schools and colleges a basic outline so they can begin their course conversions for the transition to semesters. However, they could be revisited if needed.

Also approved Monday was a resolution clarifying Faculty Handbook language on search procedures for executive academic officers, such as the provost. The language spells out the size and which constituent groups make up search committees, who appoints the committee, and states a faculty member will chair the committee if the search is seeking an academic appointment.

Senate-approved resolutions go to Executive Vice President and Provost Kathy Krendl for her approval, unless they are Sense-of-the-Senate resolutions.

In her report to the Faculty Senate, Krendl spoke of the Quarters to Semesters transition, academic restructuring, and faculty salaries, among other things. You can view her full report online (requires OAK login).

During the meeting, a number of new resolutions were introduced, including two that would restrict the number of department chairs and school directors on dean evaluation committee to no more than one, to reduce potential conflicts of interest, and remove the catalog rule relating to repeating prerequisites.

The current rule does not allow a student to re-take a prerequisite class to boost their GPA after he or she has completed a higher-level course in the same subject area. However, that practice is not enforced and Titsworth proposed the resolution to eliminate the rule until it is uniformly enforced. The resolutions will be up for a second reading and vote at the May senate meeting.

A resolution related to health care contributions was removed pending further discussion at the committee level.