Responsibilities of Faculty on Academic Standards Committee

Faculty (and administrators) on Academic Standards Committee (ASC) help ensure that Kalamazoo College upholds the academic policies and procedures of the College as set forth in College catalogues and other college documents. Members of ASC will endeavor to accomplish the following:

1. Recommend, to the faculty, candidates for the BA degree who have fulfilled all graduation requirements.
2. When appropriate, remind faculty, individually and as a group, of College policies related to academic issues.
3. Review all student grades at quarter’s end and instruct the Registrar to dismiss or
   place students on probation according to College policy.
4. Decide on requests for readmission by students dismissed for poor academic performance.
5. Hear student requests for exceptions to College policies and procedures and recommend exceptions to the faculty at the regular faculty meetings.
   
   With regard to some policies, the Academic Standards Committee has been given responsibility by the faculty for final disposition of certain classes of requests for exceptions. These include the following:
   
   • Substitutions for the graduation requirements,
   • Waivers of units needed for graduation up to 0.2 unit,
   • Approval of non-automatic course overloads,
   • Withdrawals from courses after the College deadline (including retroactive course withdrawals),
   • Waivers of the residency requirement,
   • Exceptions to College deadlines (including adding courses, changes in course schedules, dropping courses, SIP registration, SIP registration changes, extension of deadline for incomplete),
   • Exceptions to College deadlines for proposals to be considered by other programs or departments at the College (including proposals for Independent Interdisciplinary Majors, retroactive leave of absence),
   • Allowing spring SIPs,
   • Allowing independent studies above the limit,
   • Extension to 3/2 engineering contract,
   • Request for reconsideration of academic dismissal or probation.
6. Recommend to other College committees and/or to the faculty changes in College policies and procedures based on ASC’s experience with the above issues.
7. Annually review and update the Academic Policies and Procedures section of the College catalogue to reflect faculty and committee decisions during the previous year.

The Academic Standards Committee reviews petitions for reinstatement to the College for students who withdrew from the College while on academic probation or who were dismissed for academic reasons. Students applying for reinstatement must do so no later than thirty days prior to the start of their anticipated quarter of return. If reinstatement were sought for the Fall term, a reinstatement vote would be needed in August and a meeting of representatives for the Academic Standards Committee would be convened by the Dean of the First Year and Advising. A quorum for this meeting is defined as three administrators with faculty status – specifically Dean of Advising, Assistant Provost for Teaching, Learning and Assessment, and Associate Provost. In addition, FEC recommends that two voting administrators (Registrar and Dean of Students) and one non-voting resource administrator (Director of Financial Aid) serve (ex officio) at this meeting.

Note: all voting on ASC requires a quorum (one more than 50%) of faculty representatives.

Composition of Academic Standards Committee

Four (4) voting faculty will be appointed for service on ASC by FEC. In addition, FEC recommends that two voting administrators (Registrar and Dean of Students) and two nonvoting resource administrators (Dean of Advising and Director of Financial Aid) serve (ex officio) on ASC.

(ASC charge revised on 6/12/15)