Drop Date Dilemma
Septimius sends in an update on the discussion to change the official drop date…
The SGA Senate is debating whether they will support UMBC changing the drop date from 20 days into the semester to 10. They are saying that they will only support the change if the following conditions are met (taken from a meeting on Monday, 10/26):
- That the Administration and the Faculty Senate of the University of Maryland Baltimore County support and encourage the implementation of measures to assist students in the gauging of their course workload within the course prior to the drop date, including that instructors make public and readily available the syllabi for their respective courses on or before the first day of instruction, whether by means of online publication, email, providing students an opportunity to pick up syllabi before the first class from the respective departmental office, or in hard copy during the first meeting of the course, and
- That students be allowed the later of either two academic weeks or two class meetings to drop a course, and
- That the Student Government Association, in conjunction with the administration, creates a campaign to educate students about the drop date, and
- That after this change, there will be a comprehensive review of the effect of this change on enrollment and grade point averages.
So what do you think about changing the drop date?
Wishful Thinker brings us an official SGA update; the senate has voted to support the proposed change.
Either leave it at 20 or give us something worth reducing our time to decide on a class by half. The only thing worth it in my opinion would be requiring every single class to have a course website that included an up to date syllabus. That way you could look at the requirements for a course before you even signed up or attend the first day. The requirement that it be given out “somehow before the first class” isn’t very convincing.
I would even be willing to personally assist with setting up course websites if professors are too busy to learn a few html tags.
I’m disapointed in the SG senate for losing their backbone in this situation. 20 days is enough time. Folding with 10 is bullshit
All things considered, I’m happy they included #2. If you have a class in the Fall semester that only meets on Monday, you’d be in trouble. At least they would leave it open for examination if it doesn’t work out.
@ Yuck Fou
Right, we’re only losing out on this current deal.
I have sat in on senate meetings here and there and my personal opinion on the topic is that changing the drop date was not an SGA vs Admin battle. It was more of “Admin is doing this, SGA is trying to lessen the potential blow to students”
I have a class during senate meetings and can’t attend as many as I would like to, but if you feel strongly on the subject, show up at 5:30-7:30 on Monday nights in commons 318
Just to clarify, this is the last day to drop a class without a “W.” You can still drop a class after this drop date. There will just be a “W” on your transcript.
Just to add some sort of context, the two main reasons for this proposed change are:
1) UMBC is required to report on student enrollment information by the institution’s freeze date, which is 10 days after the semester starts. Having a 20 day drop date requires the university to go back and make adjustments to compensate for the classes that are dropped after the freeze date. However, this point is less tangible for students than the second one.
2) During the Fall 2008 semester, over 800 (20%) of dropped classes were dropped during the 10 - 20 day period. The same is probably true for other semesters. With the add date being 10 days earlier, this makes for a lot of class slots that students, who needed to get into those classes, couldn’t fill.
There are a few other reasons as well, such as simplification of dates and more accurate assessment of course demand and availability, but those two are the major ones.
Also, take into account that UMBC is one of the only schools with a drop date this late. Yes, being unique is one thing that a lot of students value about UMBC, but it is still a point to consider.
@ Wishful Thinker
Also, thanks for your thoughts. That idea is actually one that has been brought up, and it is something that the SGA may be looking into.
I’m thinking that I don’t like my Senate this year.
Based on what I am hearing from SGA kids our opinions don’t really matter and the decision is already final.
@ 8 track
UMBC is also one of the only schools around with PE requirements. When are we getting rid of those?
re: Topic At hand
Isn’t it sad that the administration can announce such things and that the student body/government has no real choice on the matter or recourse. In other days student’s may have protested over things like this. Today we just bend over…
@Wishful Thinker re: PE requirements.
- It’s a way for UMBC to hire athletics coaches without increasing the athletics budget too much. I think the swimming coach teaches swimming classes. Randy Monroe teaches a basketball class… etc… etc… It’s a way of getting around the budget… I think…
@ Students Have No Power
I am guessing the SGA doesn’t really care considering this is passing on their watch. I am also guessing that most students don’t know this is going on and if they do they have no idea what to do about it. It’s not like students can complain to their “elected representatives.”
Not that I find that an acceptable reason to require random PE classes, but I was mainly pointing that out because 8 track mentioned that we should do what other schools are doing. If we are just trying to be College Park Jr. we might as well throw out silly stuff like PE requirements.
@ Wishful Thinker
You bring up a good point with the PE requirements; why should we have to take PE if other schools don’t?
In response to that, I hope you will note that you’re not the only one that has brought that up, and that it is something that has and is still being looked at by the student government.
Also, students have plenty of opportunities to complain to their elected representatives. As Mike said, Senate meetings as open to the entire student body. You can contact the Office of Academic Affairs at umbcoaa@gmail.com, and the ENTIRE student government roster, plus contact information, is on the SGA website. In addition, efforts HAVE been made to inform students about this. Two articles have come out in the Retriever talking about this, information was posted on the SGA blog, and a Drop Date forum was held a few weeks ago.
What does me not being the first to bring it up have to do with the fact that it’s still a requirement? It looks like proceedings went pretty quickly for the SGA to decide to take away 50% of our drop/add period. How long does it take to determine that we are the only institution around with a high school style PE requirement and that students really don’t want to spend time/money playing billiards or jogging around campus?
I have brought my issues to SGA members. It seems pretty clear that the SGA has no power and that the administration pulls the strings.
I don’t recall the forum resulting in glowing reviews about changing the drop add date. Also, from TRW:
http://www.retrieverweekly.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=4681&format=html
http://www.retrieverweekly.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=4767&format=html
I certainly don’t get the impression that students are in favor of losing half of their drop add time.
Good quotes:
“The UMBC community is working together to resolve this issue. Dr. Nicole Roop, Academic Standards and Policy Specialist, noted that a decision would be made on what would be best for everyone, including students, faculty, and staff. She added, “A change of this type, if pursued, will require education for these constituent groups, a thoughtful and deliberate implementation plan and, eventually, a shift in the academic culture at UMBC.”"
“The date has not been changed yet, and Kent noted that it is “unlikely that it will happen next semester.”"
Before addressing the issue at hand, I have to say that the PE requirements make no sense to me at all. They exhibit a paternalistic high-school attitude in an institution that is supposed to be catering to adults pursuing higher education. I’m working on my last few credits before graduation, and the last thing i need is to waste valuable time walking around the loop to satisfy a meaningless requirement completely unrelated to my academic pursuits. I could go on about the inanity of this situation, but there are more interesting topics at hand.
Mike said he has “sat in on senate meetigns here and there and [his] personal opinion on the topic is that changing the drop date was not an SGA vs Admin battle. It was more of Admin is doing this, SGA is trying to lessen the potential blow to students.” If this is the case, what is the point of having a “Student Government Association” anyway? What makes it a “government” if its purpose is simply to present opinions to the administration, rather actually make concrete policy decisions? Is this for real, or is it just something for aspiring bureaucrats to tack onto their résumés? Let’s call things as they are, here. It has been clear for quite a while that students, and their supposed government, are opposed to moving back the drop date, but none of that seems to factor into the equation at all. I don’t think I am out of line to expect more after dumping close to $20,000 a year into UMBC for three years and going on a fourth.
I appreciate that the purported advantages to moving up the drop date have been presented honestly, but having seen them, my thought is that it boils down to “moving the drop date up makes the paperwork easier.” Sure, but considering all this fanfare and press coverage we’re getting, isn’t UMBC supposed to be striving for excellence, rather than just falling back to the least common denominator because it’s easier? “Everyone else does it this way” doesn’t hold water when you’re touting your status as a top-rated “up and coming” university. We’ve had a better drop date policy than other universities for years, so what has suddenly changed that makes it necessary to retreat to the lower standards of others?
Speaking of PE Requirements, it’s kind of a pain that you have to spend an absurd amount of money to take a class that involves bowling two games or walking around a loop. At least some of the classes, like tennis, offer some meaningful use.
I admit I like having he drop and add dates out of sync, since the chair forces my classes to overload anyway, so I can try to get a few students to then drop in the next week or so to bring the load down to a manageable level.
There are several people not turning in work who I really hope will drop before the drop-with-W date.
PE requirement — replace it with a danger room! Have a UMBC elite geek-rescue team with snazzy uniforms.
@ Sonic
The discussion of PE requirements is a legitimate one, however, I’m not sure that this comment thread should turn into a criticism of those requirements, since that really isn’t a part of the issue. (You’re free to contact your SGA representatives through a variety of methods, as I mentioned before.)
By mentioning that we should consider what the majority of other schools are doing, I wasn’t saying that UMBC has any need to copy other institutions just because. The idea is that it is something to consider, as there may be some reason why other institutions don’t have a drop date like this.
@ SS
Thanks for your thoughts.
You are right - part of the reasoning is to make some paperwork easier. But the more tangible benefit to students is that they will be able to get into needed classes because of the alignment of the drop date with the add date.
I agree that UMBC shouldn’t just go to the “least common denominator because it’s easier,” as decisions should be made in a way that they have a net benefit for the student.
Again, as I mentioned above, looking at the difference between our drop date and the drop dates of other institutions was probably part of what raised this question. This isn’t to say that UMBC should be copying other institutions. This just says that if UMBC has a policy that is very different from that of other institutions, you have to ask the question, “Why?” If we decide to remain unique for a particular policy, it should be because our policy has an overall net benefit for our students.
The idea here is that the current drop date policy is a detriment to students’ academic success, as they are unable to fill those 800+ class slots. This has been a large part of the discussion within the student government. Yes, it was pretty apparent that the Senate was against this change when it was first raised during Spring semester. But after more than 5 months of discussion and research, the general opinion within the Senate shifted in the other direction.
I suppose I’m in the minority, but I’m not particularly bothered by this change, and the SGA stipulations that Septimius sent in to us seem to smooth over any qualms I have over it (assuming they’re granted).
I’ve always been puzzled over how some students will “window shop” for classes [supposedly; I don't know anyone who actually does this]. When there are a limited number of seats, shouldn’t the seats be prioritized for somebody who really does intend to follow the course through to completion from the get-go?
@ 8 Track
My favorite thing about writing for UU is that the discussion always does seem to go off on a tangent. Students, faculty, passers-by all contribute to the topic and help shift the focus where they actually want it. The PE requirement is a stretch, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say we should not discuss it here. If I may, however, I’d suggest that those who wish to discuss that maybe create a thread in our forum and direct their interested peers to it?
@ 8 track
We might as well turn this into a discussion against the PE requirement. Our “elected representatives” have already given into the administration and voted for the 10 day drop/add period.
http://umbcsga.tumblr.com/post/232952360/die-drop-date-die
Besides, the point of me bringing up the PE requirement wasn’t necessarily to handle that issue…it was to point out that your logic of “other schools don’t do this” doesn’t work when we have laughable things like PE requirements.
@ SS
I agree you with 100%. This is exactly what I brought to the attention of the senator I spoke with. For SGA members it’s basically just something to stick on their resumes and for the administration it’s a way to claim we are represented but still do whatever they want.
I feel that getting students into unfilled class is a BS answer by the administration based on what prof X said. If classes are overfilled waiting for people to drop then classes are not going unfilled.
@prof X, I encourage you to talk to the faculty senate about your opinion to leave the drop date where it is.
@Daedalus
I often did window shop for courses. Despite good resources, such as ratemyprofessor.com, word of mouth, and experience with professors, sometimes I would find myself signing up for more courses than I knew I would take in order to gauge which ones to take.
This is a strategy I recommend to any and all who want to take a chance on a course. The drop deadline allowed me to take chances on courses. I often times stayed in these courses & graduated with a second major as a result of the chances that this policy offered me.
I see the administrative value of reducing the deadline, but there are other repercussions that should be considered.
As a previous SGA Officer who opposed this idea from the very beginning, perhaps some background would be helpful. This idea first was proposed by Vice Provost of Enrollment Management Yvette Mozie-Ross, the same administrator responsible for everyone’s favorite transcript fee. She along with the Registrar at the time, Steve Robinson who has since left UMBC I believe, came to the SGA to gain student support. This was by no means an SGA proposal.
Yvette and a few other administrators came to the SGA Senate last year to present their case. In short their arguments for the fee consisted of a number of advantages that would ease the job of the administration: not having a separate deadline for student aid, not having a separate deadline for the graduate school, protecting the integrity of student records since students could take a class for 3 and half weeks, drop, and leave no record on their transcript (which in my opinion is utter nonsense), and a few others. Basically nothing that would benefit the student body at all.
The only claimed benefit to students would be that by making students drop classes sooner (which by moving up the drop w/o a W date, the policy would) that more classes would be open to students. We asked Yvette for some evidence or statistics of this, which she failed to produce. Basically the claim was that so many students drop during the third and fourth week of school that by not allowing those students to drop w/o a W, that many more classes would open up.
Personally I am opposed to the policy, but I think credit should be given to the SGA for taking a stand and hopefully guaranteeing that some of the benefits of the 4 week drop period will be preserved.
The best possible thing for students to do is keep voicing their opinions about this, post on this blog, post on the retrievers blog, post on the SGA’s blog, email your SGA Senators, email Yvette Mozie-Ross (mozie@umbc.edu), based on my previous conversations with her she is very removed from what students think and could really use the input.
@ Past SGA Officer
Unfortunately, I don’t think your successors fought a hard battle. I spoke with a current senator who basically said “this is what the administration wants and there is nothing we can do.”
The SGA senate voted for this? Who are they working for, anyway?
The way I look at all of this is that we as students really need to stop being lazy and just suck it up. How does it make sense to have a drop date 20 days into the semester anyway? 2 weeks should be more than enough to give us enough time to see the professor for their office hours, check out the syllabus, look at the course material, talk to kids that have taken the class, read up about the professor on other sources.
If you just stop looking at this issue as a admin vs. sga/students thing - its kind of ridiculous we even had a 20 day drop date.
I’m not saying that I didn’t like the fact that it existed - anything that can buy me more time to make any decision is good, which is the case with all of us. But I mean, lets be honest, we just need to suck it up. 10 days IS enough.
On the same lines, it annoys me that so many people that post on UU have this “always complaining” attitude. Any issue that gets brought up, becomes a complain fest. Why can’t we just think about things and come to educated decisions instead of being 2 year olds, complaining about everything.
Also, why the constant attacks?! I guess it comes with the complaining - have to find someone to blame constantly i suppose. If its not the admin, then its students or the SGA.
Anyways, point is. Suck it up adn actually think about the issue at hand instead of complaining.
I agree with the above comment. Just suck it up and leave it be.
@ Freshman, Hot Food
Haha. No. Why should we sit quietly while the administration and SGA (who is supposed to be elected to represent the student body) do things that the student body disagrees with?
and your reasons for disagreeing are? give me one other than, i’m lazy and would rather have 20 days to put off a decision i can make in 10 days.
Wow, you seem pretty upset by the fact that us students want the 20 day drop/add period that we’ve had for years. What’s your affiliation with the SGA/administration? I find it hard to believe you’re just a random student who really dislikes the luxury of having a 20 day drop/add period.
Also, we already have (had) a 20 day drop/add period. We shouldn’t have to justify why we want to keep something we already have (had). The argument that “if you can’t convince me why you should have this then you can’t have it anymore” seems kind of silly to me. The administration needs to justify why it wants to take it away and as of yet the only argument I see is that they are too lazy to do additional paper work.
Everyone is taking all the negatives out of this. A day 10 period will make us better studious students. We elected SGA, thus put faith in them that they’re doing the right things. Stop hating. We’re college students, go study instead of making irrelevant comments.
Here is the full text of the resolution the SGA voted on at their latest meeting:
Resolution of Support for Drop Date Adjustment
Whereas the drop date is the last day for students to withdraw from a course without receiving a “W” on their transcript, and
Whereas the administration of the university has expressed a need to synchronize the add date and drop date with the institution’s freeze date, and
Whereas the reduction of the drop date to 10 days will enable the university to more accurately report student enrollment and financial aid status, and
Whereas the aforementioned synchronization of the drop date and the add date with the institution’s freeze date will allow students to better pursue their academic goals by permitting students to enroll in necessary courses,
Be it resolved that we, the 2009-2010 Senate of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, support the moving of the drop date from 20 academic days into the semester to 10 academic days into a semester, conditional upon the implementation of the following:
That the Administration and the Faculty Senate of the University of Maryland Baltimore County support and encourage the implementation of measures to assist students in the gauging of their course workload within the course prior to the drop date, including that instructors make public and readily available the syllabi for their respective courses on or before the first day of instruction, whether by means of online publication, email, providing students an opportunity to pick up syllabi before the first class from the respective departmental office, or in hard copy during the first meeting of the course, and
That students be allowed the later of either two academic weeks or two class meetings to drop a course, and
That the Student Government Association, in conjunction with the administration, creates a campaign to educate students about the drop date, and
That after this change, there will be a comprehensive review of the effect of this change on enrollment and grade point averages.
Also, rather than simply complaining on an anonymous forum, we should be speaking to the SGA.
Mark Gradoni and Simmi Singh are the two senators responsible for academic affairs the SGA senate deals with.
Better yet, here are their emails: magrado1@umbc.edu and singhs1@umbc.edu
They are the people you should talk to.
@ Freshman
“2 weeks should be more than enough to give us enough time to see the professor for their office hours, check out the syllabus, look at the course material, talk to kids that have taken the class, read up about the professor on other sources.”
should be. its not. a class thats only once a week? I had one class this year that didn’t meet for 3 weeks until school started. 3 weeks. wtf professor.
@ yuck you
Awesome point actually and i was worried about that too. but I just looked at what the senate passed(posted by septimus and on the SGA blog) and apparently they took that into account:
“That students be allowed the later of either two academic weeks or two class meetings to drop a course, and”
makes my argument even better.
“Hot Food: A day 10 period will make us better studious students.”
Bullshit. The school administrators are not our parents. Getting a university degree (in most cases) is not easy, and the thinking going on up top should not be how to make us “more studious,” but rather how to get out of our way so we can think about schoolwork and making enough money to pay the bills instead of bureaucratic nonsense like this. To those of you saying “stop hating:” what would you rather talk about? Fairies and unicorns? This page is a discussion about the drop date change, and barely anybody seems to like it. If reading the thoughts of disgruntled students bothers you, go read a different article.
The SGA is a mixed bag. Some of them are careerists trying to score brownie points, and some of them really do care. In any case, they dropped the ball here. I seem to remember pretty much every SGA candidate who had something to say about the drop date issue during the election being opposed to moving it up, and they’ve been speaking against it since then, so I can only see one of two things happening - either they didn’t care enough to keep pressing the issue, or the administration told them it was going to happen no matter what they voted, and they wanted to save face. As people familiar with the process have said right on this page, nothing beyond vague untruths have been presented by administrative proponents of the change as to how this will be better for students. The SGA has no reason to support this beyond saving face with the administration, but representing administrative interests is not their job; the administration does that on its own. I hope the rest of you will join me in April by refusing to vote for any current SGA member who approved this change.
Well said, SS. I definitely will not be voting for any SGA member who approved this change.
PS: I’d also like to point out that the comment I made on the SGA blog has been deleted. I hope they were planning to disable comments before they deleted my post…
Who ever started this drop date thing will find out. I does not really work. College is stressful. Student should be allowed a say in their own life 10 days is not enough to see if a class is the right class.
Was it this blog? http://umbcsga.tumblr.com/ It looks like they switched from the one they had previously (maybe they got tired of all the comments that appeared on there).
I can’t see a place for comments on any of the articles, but looking at the post concerning the drop date, the wording suggests that they were just tired of dealing with the issue and voted it in so they would no longer be responsible for fighting it. “This final vote will at least put a temporary end to the SGA’s drop date dilemma,” it says. If that is the thought process behind what happened, I’m extremely disappointed. It takes more than candy to win votes (or at least, it should).
Yes, it was that blog. The blog that actually says “SGA is always looking for the input of students. Leave a comment below if you’re keeping up with the blog!” I guess they changed their mind…
This is my first semester at UMBC. I have two classes whose grades are heavily based on 2 exams and a final. The first test for the one (a terrifying class, that had lost probably half the class during the drop period) was on the last day to drop, the other was the next week. Both professors were purposefully vague about the focus of the exam and the structure of the exam up until the exam was on our desks. When we go to a 10-day drop period I doubt either of them will change to be specific about what those exams will be like enough to gauge the likelihood of success within the first 10 days. In my case I was able to see the first test in time to drop and receive a decent amount of feedback in time to drop the second class. The second class could be taken at a community college instead (with much smaller classes) and the other class a tutor could be hired to prepare to retake it the next semester.
As for the PE requirement. While I appreciate that they’re trying to get us to be active, it is a pain to have one more thing to schedule. Jokingly - commuters should be exempt due to the amount of walking from the overflow lots. Not jokingly - why do dance classes (the ones where the majority of the class is spent dancing) not count? It’s not my major, but it would be a nice alternative to the current offerings and is much more active than billiards.
The SGA Senate has made a willing and conscious decision to use our power to support changing the drop date from 20 to 10 days only if the conditions mentioned above are met with (the “That” clauses in the legislation posted above.) The Senate and the SGA has been talking about this issue for a few months now and after all of that education, research and outreach, the Senate came to this conclusion because of the following reasons:
1. It minimizes the number of cases where students sign up for classes with the intent of dropping the class later for the sake of convenience. As a result, it gives more students, especially those who register for classes later than others, opportunities to sign up for classes that they might not have been otherwise able to with a 20 day drop date policy. A large portion of dropped classes are dropped after the 10 day add period; so, when those classes are dropped, they are unavailable to be added by students still interested in taking the class.
2. It provides a more accurate assessment of course demand and availability.
3. It eases the process of adjusting financial aid reviews according to the number of class credits a student is taking. By changing the drop date from 20 to 10 days after classes begin, those who make determinations of financial aid can earlier adjust how much financial aid is given to students as many grants and scholarships are based on full-time student status and/or the number of credits a student is taking.
4. The university has to report enrollment status of all students by the freeze date, which is ten days before the current drop date. Changing the drop date from 20 days (the end of the 4th week) to 10 days (the end of the 2nd week) gives administration more accountability for those students who drop classes.
If you would like to reach any of the SGA Senators, our emails are all available on the SGA website. Our office hours are also posted in the SGA office in the student orgs space, 2nd floor of the Commons.
Xfer: I am also bothered by dance classes not being counted as PE requirements, even though it has nothing to do with me personally.
Sunaina: Thank you for coming here and participating in the discussion. Although I disagree with your (or rather, the Senate’s) conclusions, I appreciate that you have decided to interact with us and solicit our comments.
I’m not sure what I would ask of the SGA senators on this particular issue because the decision has already been made, although I am getting in touch with them on other things that are still up in the air. I’ll admit I didn’t get proactive on this one because following the campus news had me thinking the SGA Senate was opposed to the change until very recently. My concerns (this is addressed to everyone, not to Sunaina specifically) remain as follows:
We have had the 20-day drop date policy for as long as I’ve been here (a little over three years), and I assume far longer than that. Why is it suddenly an issue now? Did it not work in the past, and if not, why didn’t anyone in the administration say anything about it until recently? Considering that, I’m skeptical of the administration’s position that changing the drop date to 10 days is so important. The final resolution states that the administration “expressed a need to synchronize the add date and drop date with the institution’s freeze date,” but why is it a need now when it wasn’t a need in the past? Is it a need, or just a desire?
The claimed advantage to students is that having an earlier drop date would increase the availability of space in classes, and make more classes that people want available, but I have not seen evidence of this, and these claims contradict what Professor X and Wishful Thinker’s contact with an SGA senator who remarked “this is what the administration wants and there is nothing we can do” have indicated. I would like to see some elaboration here.
In light of the aforementioned statement by an SGA Senator (whose identity I will not ask for for obvious reasons), I would also be interested in hearing more details regarding the reasons for this change of opinion by the Senate, namely whether it was driven by a belief that the change will result in a marked benefit for students, or a “this is going to happen anyway, so we might as well take what we can get” outlook, or something else.
@Freshman- Im assuming by the name (there i go again making an ass outta you and me… well mostly you) that yer new. Its okay, we all make mistakes (Wow, I haven’t done condescending in a long time.. feels good!)
without 20 days, I would not have known that an art history 2 class I was going to take would most likely have brought my entire GPA crumbing down upon me. 3 weeks into the class, she pulls out what the schedule would be- something i would have never been able to keep up with. mind you this is an elective, something i took because it was required to get that degree.
Lazy my ass. 20 days give you the ability to not just research, as you claim would be the best way to find out, but the ability to get hands on time with your teacher. something no amount of ratemyprofessor time can replace.
in summary- please die in a fire.
You REALLY wanna hit the administration in the gut to get them to listen to the student body? your young alumni is where you need to go- talk to them, get them to NOT donate to the school without some changes.
what bullshit…
@ Freshman.
no its not, you’re talking like a fucking idiot. Why don’t you take a whole year here, see what a class can actually be like, what kind of professor do what kind of dick moves, and then see whats up. right?
@Sunaina
I can see your point but the SGA has no way to know that the University Administration is going to keep the conditions mentioned. Rather than treating the University Administration as an ally and partner on this issue, i think it would be better to treat them as a group that is holding UMBC students back through this policy.
Because honestly thats what it is.
In my opinion, 20 days is reasonable. 10 is not that reasonable, for me at least. The University is simply changing the policy because it makes things easier for them but fucks over us.
And again, how do you know UMBC is going to do what they say with the policy? Who holds them accountable?
Yeah, the SGA senator I spoke with kind of blanked when I explained that the “terms” that they agreed on had no way of being enforced. Especially that first one. What a joke…
“Including that instructors make public and readily available the syllabi for their respective courses on or before the first day of instruction, whether by means of online publication, email, providing students an opportunity to pick up syllabi before the first class from the respective departmental office, or in hard copy during the first meeting of the course”
Seriously, I am in classes right now that I still don’t have a real syllabus for. So what is going to happen then? Are these professors going to be fired? Are we going to go back to a 20 day drop/add period? I don’t think so!
“That students be allowed the later of either two academic weeks or two class meetings to drop a course”
So some classes will have different days to drop without a W? Yeah, I definitely can’t imagine students ending up with mistake Ws resulting from dropping a class that goes past the 10 day period but didn’t have 2 class meetings. I wonder how long the registrar will take to get THAT sorted out…
“That the Student Government Association, in conjunction with the administration, creates a campaign to educate students about the drop date”
A campaign? So like an article in TRW and a poster in the commons? I bet the SGA fought long and hard for that provision.
“That after this change, there will be a comprehensive review of the effect of this change on enrollment and grade point averages.”
A comprehensive review? Please define comprehensive review. Also, when will this review be published? Who will conduct the review? If the review shows that GPAs and enrollment changes then what?
Oh, and don’t hold your breath waiting for that review. I was told that the PE requirement was implemented because our campus was overweight and unhealthy (i’ll save the commons rant…) and received blank stares when I asked to see data showing the improvement in health since the PE requirement.
This part concerns me too.
“Including that instructors make public and readily available the syllabi for their respective courses on or before the first day of instruction, whether by means of online publication, email, providing students an opportunity to pick up syllabi before the first class from the respective departmental office, or in hard copy during the first meeting of the course”
Wasn’t there also a policy passed that professors were required to choose their textbooks by May 1st for this current semester? Yet, most of mine weren’t. One of my professors waited until a week before classes started to post the books for the class. I doubt that this syllabus policy will be enforced. After all, the professors have no consequences for not following the policy.
This is my third semester at UMBC, and I definitely believe that you need more than 10 days to decide whether or not to stay in a class. Just this semester, I dropped a class a few days before the drop w/o a W date because I realized how much work it was once you added the discussion segment in. Maybe the schedules should be adjusted so we don’t have another semester where we go two or three weeks without a discussion class, and thus not realizing exactly how much work and time a course takes.
I think we as the student body need to realize the power we hold and use it. We are paying money to receive an education, we are the ones supplying their paychecks (at least in part).
@ Concerned Student
The policy you’re talking about is the textbook policy passed by USM in the spring. It’s implementation started this semester, so it wasn’t in effect last May.
I was thinking this would be a change for later drop dates. This is ridiculous. I was talking to my friend the other day who goes to MIT and it was last week or the week before, I believe, and we were discussing this same issue because I’m in a class I wanted to drop, (but would get a W if I did so now) and he told me they still could drop without any repercussions at the time we spoke.
So I think this is completely unnecessary and it should be left at 20, if not EXTENDED.
I am sick of this school’s BS lately, frankly…and I wish I could use more proper language to describe my disgust, but it’s fitting for such a ridiculous notion.
@ 8 track: Thank you for clearing that up for me, I guess I was a little confused. There is still the point though that there are no consequences (that I have heard of at least) for the professors if they do not have their choices in by the required date.
Maybe they should fine the professors (not an extraordinary amount, of course) per day for everyday they’re late? They have no qualms about charging us when we’re late on tuition. And of course there would be exceptions for extraordinary circumstances, but there should be a notation of that up on the bookstore website. I would be very happy with that kind of system, as I want to get the textbooks I need for next semester early this time around.
I just wanted to point out that the first condition that needs to be met in order for the SGA to support (whatever that means) this utterly ridiculous move states that the administration and Faculty Senate should “SUPPORT and ENCOURAGE the implementation of measures to assist students in the gauging of their course workload within the course prior to the drop date…”
keywords: support and encourage.
So, some of the more, shall we say, disorganized professors in our wonderful academic community are going to have a drastic overhaul in the way they operate and prepare for their classes just because you asked them to with a pretty please and a cherry on top?
In case you’re keeping track at home, that’s Bullshit: 1, Reasonable Measures Taken By An Institution of Academia That Has Its Students’ Best Interests At Heart: 0
Also, on the topic of the 2 week vs. 2 class meetings proposal (I’ll let slide my thoughts on the aforementioned logistical nightmare in store for the registrar thanks to this debacle): What exactly constitutes a “class meeting?” I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve had a few classes where the first “class meeting” lasted about 5 minutes with a roll-call and/or the professor briefly introducing himself. For some reason, this didn’t give me a particularly accurate depiction of what lay ahead in the course. Moreover, what happens when the professor has an emergency and has to cancel one of these first “class meetings?” Hell, I know of one professor who downright FORGOT about the first day of class this semester!
Are we going to have some way of getting an extension in one of these extreme (or not so extreme, you decide) circumstances? Yeah, I got the Lions and Chiefs in the Super Bowl this year, too.
I am an SGA senator this year and I am confused as to why students decide to make their opinions on an issue known after the fact. Quick question, how many of you attended the Drop Date forum or expressed your concerns to SGA officials prior to our decision making? We work hard as a body to solicit the opinions of students before making decisions so it would be extremely helpful if we could get this feedback sooner rather than later. I have seen this with many issues the SGA is faced with, in that concerned students voice their opinions on here rather than to their student government. For the future, PLEASE contact your student government representatives if you have any concerns so we can include your thoughts in our discussions. Our goal as an SGA is to get students like yourselves involved so again, please if you have concerns or want to know more about anything we are working on feel free to contact us, either by coming to the office, email, or responding to posts on OUR BLOG (). Also, if there is anything we could do to get students more involved please let us know!
On a side note, I will also be working on revising the smoking policy for the remainder of this semester so if you have any thoughts on that issue please let me or another SGA representative know. (There are two posts on our blog about smoking so feel free to visit and comment there)
**Senate Meetings are Monday 5:30-8:00 in Commons 318 so feel free to stop by
Sorry, the website for our blog didn’t post so here it is:
umbcsga.tumblr.com
Pro Tip: More people read this than the SGA Blog. I don’t think many people were aware of the issue until it surfaced here.
I was not even aware of this until I saw it on the UMBC homepage.
Saying it’s our fault is ridiculous.
Clearly, you guys need to get more publicity or something. I find it laughable that such a huge issue almost passed under my nose. It’s almost a done deal! Have I seen any posters about it? No. Have I gotten any emails about it? No. Have I seen anything on campus WHATSOEVER in plain view that told me about this? No. Not everyone checks the SGA blog every day, and not everyone has the time to go to all the meetings.
Anyone who thinks most people on campus were aware of this and were supporting it since they said nothing is sadly mistaken, I believe. This issue isn’t even something minor. It applies to everyone, even those not making conscientious efforts to attend SGA meetings. It’s not our job to inform ourselves of every little detail that goes on; not everyone has the free time to even do so.
I am severely disappointed.
There shouldn’t be a “last day to drop” date. The class has already been paid for.. Students should be able to drop a class whenever they want and not be penalized for it. The existing platform works against the students.
Agree 100% with Chris. This blog was the first I saw of this issue. Granted, I don’t have the time to scour the Commons for shiny new posters everyday, but for something that could have this kind of impact, I shouldn’t have to.
Raises questions about the “campaign to educate students about the drop date” that they’re asking for.
@ Justin Donlan
As a student who voted for you, I’m really disappointed right now. Its not so much as disappointment, but rather, its disgusting. I can not understand how you’re throwing all of this outrage back on us, the students for whom you’re advocating.
You say you care about student feedback, but I don’t see it. The drop date forum? All forums I’ve ever been have been this 1. An administrator comes in, answers questions about the policy, then enacts the policy at a later date or 2. An SGA member educated people attending the forum about the policy.
I’ve been to SGA meetings voices. The concerns I’ve raised are looked at and then ignored. When my concerns are addressed, they’re addressed in such an assbackwards manner that it makes my head explode.
Here’s how I see it - members of the SGA can sometimes be complete pussies when dealing with the University Administration. As such, they let the administration trick them into thinking their voices matter. The “stipulations” in your vote are BULLSHIT because the actual policy will not have these stipulations in it.
Student’s have as much power as they’re willing to express and if we’re only willing to accept any proposal the administration brings us, we’ll have very little.
Fuck it i’m out,
-Anyone who knows me knows who this is-
In no way is this decision anyone’s fault. Our goal is to reach out as much as we can and raise issues that are of importance as much as we can as well. Currently we have the following methods to do the same:
Senate Meetings: 5:30 on Mondays at Commons 318 - Please come in today for an open hearing.
Commons hours: Senators in the commons from 12-1 every Monday.
SGA website/blog: sga.umbc.edu
Office hours: Posted on the SGA office and will be up on the website as well.
Work Groups meetings:
Finance and Operations: Fridays, 2-3
Campus Life: Tuesdays 4:30-5:30
Governmental Affairs: Mondays 4-5
Academic Affairs: Wednesday 7-8
Our email addresses posted on the SGA website
Please reach us in any of the following ways to voice any concerns you have. If you don’t find any of these ways helpful, we could really use your suggestions. We are constantly coming up with ways ourselves.
About the drop date policy, please know that we have supported the changing of the drop date ONLY if the stipulations presented will take place. With that said, we have continuously made efforts since Day 1 to get administration on board with our conditions and is the only reason we even took so long to pass an official stance. It is our job to fight for these conditions and we are and will. If you would like to help or want updates, please contact us.
The decision is the SGA’s fault, considering they supported it.
Those stipulations aren’t even worth mentioning. They are too vague and easy to side step. Plus you don’t even mention how they will be implemented or what the outcome for not following the stipulations will be.
It was implied that it’s our (the students’) fault. It’s not.
And Sunaina, none of you from the SGA have addressed my and several others’ concerns that these stipulations will likely not be upheld, because the way they are worded and what they can be taken to mean is too wishy-washy and loophole-prone.
Not with anything other than “Oh, you can contact us here”.
These comments ARE suggestions. They’re opinions of the students who go here. Something you said scared me a little, though. You’re implying that had you not made these conditions, (which are a good idea, but really need to be worded more objectively) we never would have heard about it? This drop date would change without our knowledge, our consent?
Ridiculous. You could have at least made online polls (and tell them about it through e-mail, not just “oh, it’s on the blog” or SOMETHING to get people aware, and get their views more accurately).
Silly question, but what does a W matter on your transcript? I’ve never withdrawn before, so I honestly don’t know if it’s a big deal or not.
Other than that, I just need to put out the opinions of a part time, non traditional student. We aren’t on campus all the time. We work full time, and we have way more important concerns (mortgages, family, etc) than showing up to SGA meetings. We don’t go into the Commons, because we arrive on campus at the last minute (to avoid having to make up time at work), go straight to our classes and then back to real life as soon as possible. How are we supposed to know about any of these issues? I found UU by accident through the myUMBC site last year. I have no idea if the SGA blogs are listed there or not. If not, you might want to, since that’s pretty much my only way, other than direct email, to know what’s happening on campus.
In the first ten days of classes, hardly any professor has any graded work, so it’s pretty impossible for students to know whether they will do well or not. Yes, we may have a syllabus saying that we have so many exams and so many papers, but if the teacher is bad, or vague, or incompetent, we still have no idea of how we’ll do, until we get something graded back. Heck, even 20 days isn’t really enough to know whether we’ll do well in a class. My last class didn’t even have any thing to grade until the end of October, well past the 20 day deadline. Add a night class that only meets 1 day a week to the mix (for us part timer, non traditional students), and we really have no idea how a class will go. In ten days, some students could have 6 classes already, while I’d only have 2. That doesn’t give me an equal amount of time to gauge whether the class is right for me or not.
But again, us nontraditional types usually get screwed by higher education, so we’re pretty used to it.
@Sarah
It’s not a silly question, but if you have several W’s, an employer might question you about it, and it can significantly hinder your chances of transferring/getting into the grad school you want.
It can look pretty bad, and I still fail to see why we should implement this change.
I think I should have the right to get some work back at least before I make a judgment to drop (and I am in a class right now that I would have dropped were it not for the W thing).
@ Sarah & Sunaina
I am a “traditional student,” and I have class or work obligations during the time these SGA meetings are going on as well. The right to be informed about what the SGA is up to does not belong exclusively to the students who live on campus and don’t have a job who can head over to the Student Orgs space whenever they feel like it.
I’ve noticed the SGA blog as a result of this discussion, and that is a step in the right direction, but I haven’t seen it advertised anywhere other than here. I was following the old SGA blog, Zwybak, but updates to it slowed down and eventually ceased, with no mention of there being a new blog, much less where it was, so I didn’t hear about the new one until Sunaina posted a link here. The blog is great, and I hope it will be successful, but it needs to be advertised, and it can’t be the only way for students to find out what is going on. The Retriever Weekly regularly carries articles about SGA activities, which is part of the reason I am bothered by this whole situation - SGA members seemed to be skeptical or outright opposed to the proposed change in TRW coverage, and then news suddenly broke that they had voted to support it. Without knowing about the new SGA blog, the newspaper was the only way I was getting information about the issue.
In short, students are responsible for getting this information, but the SGA is responsible for making it easy to obtain for all students, not just those who have time to sit in on the meetings or go to the forums. I didn’t hear anything suggesting that the SGA was going to go along with the change until after the fact, and I’ve been following things related to it fairly closely (or trying to). It’s been patently obvious for months that most students are opposed to this, but the SGA voted for it anyway. That alone is highly questionable.
Also, I’ve noticed these four conditions that SGA support for the drop date change hinges on being put up here and on the SGA blog as a counter to accusations that the SGA vote is harmful to students. I’m going to skip the whole debate over whether or not these conditions will be enforced and just say that they are completely inadequate, in addition to being vague. Even with these much-touted conditions, students come out with far less than they had going in, which makes me wonder what legitimate reason the SGA, intended to be a student voice in running the university, had for supporting it.
So what do you guys think we should do about this? I think either collectively email Ms. Mozie-Ross or go to the next SGA meeting.
I’m at work, but I encourage anyone who can to go. A mass e-mail might not hurt, either.
@ Sunaina
Someone caused this decision to be made, since you guys voted the fact the administration is led to believe that students at UMBC support this decision is your fault.
You post all of these events, times, meetings here. Who attends those? How are the people who attend treated? Are they treated as outsiders or as people who can help? In my experience, they’re treated as outsiders who have no say in the manners at hand.
Pretty much, i think your method of garnering student opinion is ineffective and it leads to events where the administration strong arm’s the SGA into accepting manners that severely hurt the student body
All of the reasons you give to support the change hurt students in my opinion. Its painfully obvious that administrators came up with those reasons and then told you guys about them. Did you even think of the reasons yourself?
“support and encourage” WHAT THE FUCK? This just reeks of bullshit in my opinion.
Individual students are not being paid $1000+ per year to attend forums. SGA officers are being paid $1000+ per year to represent the student body. When election season comes around, do SGA members sit in a room and wait for students to come ask them what their platforms are? No. SGA candidates scour the campus with laptops, fliers, and candy, asking anyone who will listen to vote for them (”it will just take a minute of your time!!!”)
There is absolutely no reason why the SGA Senate should have thought that blog posts on a blog most of the student body doesn’t read and a forum that most of the student body can’t attend was adequate enough to gauge the student body opinion on this issue.
If the SGA Senate really cared about getting accurate student input on this issue, they know what they need to do. We all did it together in April, and many students complained about how the only time of year they ever hear from us is during election season. And now that there is a real issue to be considered and election season is far away, SGA members are holding forums and writing blog posts rather than actively engaging students.
Passive engagement is ineffective and every SGA member knows it. There is no excuse for the passage of this piece of legislation by the SGA Senate.
@Minteh
y’know, I was going to rage about this particular stance of how “its not our fault we didn’t lead an active role in our community” but the your post is actually well informed.
Still.. man up people, only like.. 1000 of you actually voted for these people, you don’t really get to complain when you don’t even do THAT much
Based on just this blog alone, there is obviously more students against this than for it.. This matter seriously needs to be re-examined. The SGA needs to bring this voice of opinions to the administration’s attention before it’s too late (if they truly want to express the views of ALL students.) I spoke to several of my classmates yesterday regarding this and they were so surprised that they did not/could not believe me..
.. there are… (oops)
No to play devil’s advocate or anything, but only 25 or so people have actually posted on this thread…two of whom are Senators, and at least one who seems to be actively involved in SGA, or at least informed about the issue…
It sounds like a lot of people don’t even know yet (look at JT’s experiment talking to classmates). When the drop date change becomes official, starts going out in official communications, and starts affecting people, we’ll probably have another wave of outrage.
Hi all: Thank you for your comments, and your engagement in this issue. As one of the Senators who voted for the resolution, I want to provide a bit of insight as to why I advocated that the Senate take action as we did.
The main drive of the proposal by the administration was to ensure our course registration numbers on the 10th day of classes align with actual registration so that our federal financial aid dollars are maintained and accurate. UMBC has to report these numbers each year so that we can receive financial aid. With our policy, we were constantly out of compliance.
I also heard from a number of students with fewer classes that they were frustrated with “course-shopping” practices of students with more credits (who get to register first).
When I talked to other student leaders across the USM regarding this issue, we stuck out as a sore-thumb (in a good way). Drop dates across Maryland range between 1 and 2 weeks. While we shouldn’t act based on the practices of other campuses, I thought this was worth considering.
Primarily for the first reason, it become very clear that the administration needed at make the policy change. There is a reason that all other USM institutions have a drop date in the first two weeks…to ensure that financial aid for students is not threatened.
Instead of fighting a losing fight, I suggested that the Senate support the change with caveats. Mainly, we would address the greatest concern–a class that doesn’t meet at least twice in the first two weeks. Additionally, I thought working with the administration on this issue would provide us the bargaining ability to leverage faculty in being more transparent in class-expectations prior to the start of the semester.
Again, thanks to all for your thoughts and comments. Please feel free to contact me at 410-294-8581 or joshm2@umbc.edu if you would like to talk further. Also, let me know if you have thoughts or ideas on other issues.
@JLM
Nowhere do you mention any effort to ensure that you were accurately representing the opinion of your constituents. A Senate is supposed to represent its constituents, not the personal opinions of its members.
@Josh
So honest to god, and I’m completely serious about this, you guys have no way to hold the university to those compliance’s right? none at all. They’re just suggestions? What the fuck. We’ve asked this like 10 times here. HOW do we know that these suggestions will be taken into account.
You could of voted NO because these suggestions aren’t in place. Instead you said “YES, and i think you guys should do this too”
I see your reasons and I counter them with this: Students need to be informed of issues that deeply affect them academically. On an issue this important, everyone should of known. Everyone. You guys need to work your asses off on an issue like this and make sure you’re actually representing the people who voted you in.
that leverage comment was naive too i think. we lost here.
I’ve always wondered why you could only drop a class without a “W” until a certain time period. What JT said a couple days ago was right, in that since students are paying for the product, there should be no penalty for students opting out of a class. Now, what I never figured out during my time at UMBC was whether or not one was charged in some way for the class that was dropped. I never really dropped a class, so I never found out…
@ Anyone who knows… I think you underestimate the power of soft influence and overestimate the power of the SGAs ability to successfully stop an administrative decision through protest.
You correctly identify that we have no way of holding the administration to the outlined caveats. Likewise, we have no way of stopping them from making an administrative change like with the drop date. My strategy has been in the past and maintains to work with the administration together–I don’t see it as “us” and “them.” If we expect administrators to understand and consider our perspective, we must return the favor. When we do this, we can have honest conversations about how best to move forward.
@ Paula - you know very well that we have talked to students at length on this issue. During Commons Hours each monday, Senate members have been talking about this issue (since early September). The Office of Academic Affairs has been publishing information on the issue for quite some time. We spoke and heard from the students who took the time to come to the Forum in September. Could it be better? Yes. I’ll take responsibility for reaching out to students more on this issue and issues to come. But I challenge you and others to step beyond UU and join the cause.
and back @ anyone who knows…time will only tell on “winning” or “losing”. I challenge the thought that protest is more effective than calculated advocacy and educated compromise
So basically what you’re saying is that the will of the administration will be imposed regardless of how the SGA/student body responds? Well damn, why even bother having a toothless SGA?
Educated compromise? I challenge the thought that letting the administration steam roll over you in exchange for a few meaningless provisions is an “educated compromise.”
I couldn’t agree with you more, Wishful Thinker.
Obviously this is a complex issue and there are differences of opinion on how action should have been taken. There were SGA officers who disagreed with this decision strongly, but apparently none of them are senators, because the vote on this legislation was unanimous (with the exception of absences and the traditional abstention of the speaker). I spoke to at least one senator who was absent and he said he would have voted for the legislation had he been present.
There is a severe disconnect between the opinion of the Senate and the opinion of the student body on this issue. I don’t think that the senators are idiots. I think that they completely failed to accurately represent the student body on this issue and instead voted for whatever they thought was best.
And that is wrong. That is very, very wrong. The SGA Senate is supposed to represent students, and here it failed. Not only is this legislation a sad mistake, but it furthers the student body’s lack of faith in the SGA as a whole. A terrible misstep in light of the progress that the executive branch has been making.
@JLM
Also, I have reached out to several Senators this year about several issues. Thanks. You and I both know very well that my speech on this forum is not the scope of my involvement in campus issues. But not everyone has time to attend “Commons Mondays” or “drop date forums.” As a matter of fact, most students do not, and thinking that interactions with students through these venues is enough is sophomoric. All of the Senators, including (if not especially) you, should know better.
I think that it’s clear that this was an issue where the will of the student body differed dramatically from the SGA.
However, upon hearing JLM’s explanation of the events, where the administration, in fear of lost federal dollars, would have proceeded regardless of student opinion. Given this, it seems that the resolution that the SGA reached is perfectly reasonable.
Perhaps, one can fault the SGA with trying to sell this issue as a choice that it made, as opposed to selling it as a measure that it used to try to limit the damage caused by a decreased drop date window.
As to those yelling about a toothless SGA (at times including myself), the truth of the matter is that we have a highly effective & powerful SGA, relative to what other schools have. We often read about the follies of this organization and, unfortunately, not too often of its successes.
This is an SGA that has pioneered student initiatives like improve-it (a national first), that has spearheaded efforts to improve the campus (erickson field) and that has done countless other issues. It’s members are paid, but that compensation is not commensurate with the amount of time that people put into the organization.
Spearheaded efforts to improve Erikson field? Can you provide an example? Last year a lot of arguments were made against funding an effort to improve Erikson field. Some of them were doubts about the proposal in question, but a lot of them were also feelings that it wasn’t important enough or wasn’t the SGA’s job to fund that particular initiative.
As for imProve-It… don’t even get me started. Has anyone looked at the Green Space (next to Fine-Arts, on the opposite side as the Engineering building) and thought, “now there is $50,000 well spent- this makes me proud to be a UMBC student”?
I think that SGA has been given a lot of power by the university through our unique shared governance system- and with a great deal of power comes a great deal of responsibility. And when our elected leaders fumble, we have not only a right but a responsibility to call them out on it. A great deal of the legitimacy of a representative body lies with how accurately it represents its constituents, and it does both the SGA and the student body as a whole an injustice when opinions do not line up.
@ Short
“Perhaps, one can fault the SGA with trying to sell this issue as a choice that it made, as opposed to selling it as a measure that it used to try to limit the damage caused by a decreased drop date window.”
I do fault the SGA for this. It’s completely inexcusable.
Pointing to the imProve It! campaigns as evidence of SGA successes really needs to stop. Let’s not kid ourselves here; it’s little more than a feel-good project. Sure, it puts some student ideas in the spotlight, but the money involved is not enough to do anything significant; it would have been far better used supplementing something else, rather than throwing it at token projects designed to make students feel more involved. Remember last year’s SGA campaign? The candidates spent most of their time saying “look at Prove It! We did something!” or “I’m going to expand Prove It!” trying to score points with students instead of focusing on important issues. Hopefully the outcome of the first campaign has enlightened anyone who was swayed by that rhetoric.
Back to JLM - I appreciate his honesty in actually explaining in detail why this decision was made, and what the limitations are, without dressing it up like other SGA members have. Given that, I still disagree with his course of action. The conditions we got out of the SGA bill are flimsy and vague, and we would have gotten more out of sending a clear and public message to the administration that students do not want this than by given them something to point to as an example of student support for the change. I’ve seen this happen a few other times in the three years I’ve been here, and it gives me an impression that, when faced with an administrative action that is going to happen anyway, the SGA votes for it to avoid repercussions. I find it a bit disturbing.
I do agree that SGA officials need to be paid more, though. SGA members I’ve talked to give me a clear indication that these jobs take a time commitment on the level of any other job, but because they only get thrown $1,000 for the whole nine months, they have to bust their asses balancing schoolwork, the SGA, whatever else they’re involved in, and a job (or two?) that actually makes ends meet. Maybe if they were paid more, they’d be willing to spend more time slugging it out on issues like this…
Correction: For the whole year, not nine months - they have to do things during the summer, too.
@Minteh
With regards to improving Erickson field I will point you to the efforts of James McCauley who found a low cost way to improve the field conditions.
This effort was never really publicized, but if it was implemented (and I don’t know that it was), it would likely have made a great difference in whether Erickson field was soggy or for how long it was soggy.
In short, I don’t have the details, but he found a 2 or 3 thousand dollar (read: cheap) solution to a problem whose previous solutions had been estimated at 100 thousand or more.
@all
with regards to imProveIt. I think that while you have a good point about the end result being a lot less than dramatic, the true benefit of the campaign was that it provided ownership of this campus to many who previously did not have it.
my suggestion to improve imProveIt would be to allow the student body to vote one what projects would win, as opposed to a panel appointed by the SGA, but that is just my two cents.
My point was that yes, it makes people feel good, but I consider it a misappropriation of funds. The money put up isn’t enough to do any significant independent project (probably much of the reason why such an unambitious project was chosen the first time around), but it could be used to help out in other areas. This year, they’re putting up $30,000. How about replacing those stolen lab computers? Using it for a multitude of minor maintenance projects that are being ignored around campus? I’d be interested in discussing this issue in more depth, but that should be forked off into a separate article so we can continue talking about the drop date issue.
@JLM
I’m not underestimating the power of soft influence or overestimating the power of a student bodies protest actions against the Administration. I’m not saying your plan isn’t strategic and well thought out and might even work in the long run. I am saying however, that voting that way on this issue was WRONG.
I challenge you to this: SGA elections are in April. Why is that SGA senators are all upfront the student body then, but when an important issue arises, SGA senators are working behind the scenes. I feel as if they should treat their job with as much fever as they do when they’re getting elected. During the elections, students ask “Hey why are you coming to me now, when I haven’t heard from you all year?” Why haven’t they heard from you.
Its not that hard. Every senator, instead of sitting down in the commons during commons hours, why don’t you go to a random student and say “Hey, this is whats going on. What do you think about it?” THATS a way to gather student opinion. Not by holding forums, making facebook groups, and writing on blogs. By DIRECTLY ASKING the people who the issue affects the most. You can talk to 100 students in one hour. Think about that.
@Short
I know all about McCauley’s Erikson field project. James and I did a lot of our campaigning together last year. I sat next to James in the Senate meeting where his idea was completely rejected by the Senate. I was angry about their response and I blogged about it (if you click on my name you can find the post in my archives labeled [what exactly does your sga senate do?]. The SGA didn’t spearhead that initiative- James McCauley did, and the SGA Senate rejected his efforts and failed to fund the project; it was never implemented as a result.
I also strongly disagree that imPROVEit provided a sense of campus ownership to students. Most students who I have spoken to about it who are not involved with SGA are scornful about the fact that the chosen winner was the one with the LEAST support from the student body, and everyone who realizes what the green space is and that we spent $50,000 on it seems to either think it is a joke or be angry about the waste of money that it was.
imPROVEit was a cool initiative that was executed in a spineless way. Spineless. Toothless. Are we beginning to see a trend here?
I also kind of doubt that the lack of adequate stipend is a major contributing factor to the SGA Senate making decisions that the student body disagrees with, or even a major factor in the amount of work that they are willing to put in. We have had several SGA officers in higher-up positions who have been paid $4,000 per year who have done little or nothing of significance while in office. But the SGA is hesitant to impeach for the same reasons that it is hesitant to challenge the administration. Unfortunately, many students get into office and just ride out the school year without contributing much, but since elections are not based largely on platforms or accomplishments, some of these students are re-elected year after year.
Don’t get me wrong- I think most of our SGA Senators are working very hard and going above and beyond their job descriptions in terms of effort. I just think that their efforts are misdirected- their top priority should be accurately representing the student body- which means that they need to actively engage students on issues of importance. If I can survey 200 students in 2 hours, there is no reason why, with the combined efforts of 11 senators, they couldn’t be engaging 1,000 students a week. If each senator spend just one hour per week actively engaging random students, they could easily reach a very large portion of the student body, especially if it was done every week. Considering Senators are supposed to work about 10 hours per week (and most do that, if not more), it’s not unreasonable for them to spend one of those hours seeking the opinions of those that they supposedly represent in an effective way.
Instead of sitting in a room holding a drop-date forum that maybe 20-50 students can attend, Senators could each spend that hour talking to students or reaching out about these issues. Again, it’s not for lack of dedication on behalf of the senators, but there is a large disconnect in SGA culture where, for some reason, officers don’t see that the most effective engagement strategy they know of (which is used during elections BECAUSE it is so effective) is a strategy that they need to be utilizing year-round.
It’s one thing for the SGA Senate to support a proposal that I strongly oppose- it’s another thing for the SGA Senate to support a proposal that the vast majority of the student body strongly opposes. They weren’t elected to play strategy; they were elected to represent us. I’m far less angry about the fact that the drop date is changing than I am about the utter disregard of the voice of the student body by the SGA Senate. It doesn’t matter if the drop date would have changed anyway. Students were against this change, but it will go down in UMBC record that students supported this change. If that is not a failure of representation, I don’t know what is.
You’re exactly right, minteh. It’s not ALL about the drop/add date. It’s a lot bigger than that. Specifics aside, what happened here is that the student body disagreed with an issue and the SGA ignored us and voted how they wanted (or how the administration wanted).
Now I see a new reason popping up. Now we were going to lose our federal money if we didn’t change? Come on guys. Get your story straight. Did the administration pressure you into it because of money or did you all come to the conclusion that this was somehow better for us? I am really getting the feeling that the SGA will regurgitate whatever the administration tells it to and then say whatever they have to to get the students to be quiet.
http://umbcsga.tumblr.com/post/237190926/lindseyondropdate#disqus_thread
The SGA and one of our “student advocates” both agree. What a coincidence…
The Erickson Field project was not rejected by the Senate, it was tabled with the request that I bring in a contractor to answer some questions about just how feasible it was. In hindsight, the Senate’s speculation is understandable, and I would go so far as to say its a good mind frame to have. The goal was not to make Erickson field the best place in the world, but to provide an interim solution to make it somewhat better until the much more expensive overhaul of the entire field happens somewhere down the line. They wanted proof that this wasn’t just going to be a waste of students money and would actually have some results. Its lack of implementation is completely a lack of follow through on my part. All this was happening near the end of the semester and the other person working on it with me, Michael Costello, graduated, the price tag of the project seemed to climb every day and I became busy with other projects so it never really came to fruition.
This is all quite a bit off topic from the drop date, but I just wanted to clarify that a lack of time on my part and other factors is why this idea isn’t anything more than an idea, and the Senate tabling the idea was a (now) understandably cautious measure.
@James McCauley
While tabling the measure due to being cautious was part of the story, there was plenty spoken about how the Erikson field initiative was not SGA’s concern, etc. The Senate was extremely negative toward the idea, whether the lack of follow-through was your fault or not. Regardless of whose “fault” the lack of implementation was, I don’t think it’s fair to say that the SGA ’spearheaded’ an Erikson Field initiative by any means…
@Wishful Thinker
I think what JLM wrote is an honest summary of why the vote went the way that it did. I have almost no doubt that it is accurate. It is just still, in my opinion, unacceptable.