Planning committee approves ‘university exit’ title, deadline changes

The Educational Policies Council voted to “tighten the screws” on a policy allowing students to withdrawal from an entire semester.

The council, a Faculty Senate body responsible for long-range academic planning for Kent State, approved a title and deadline change for university exit effective Fall 2007. The proposal still has to be approved by the Faculty Senate, Board of Trustees and Presient Lester Lefton before it would take effect.

University exit is a withdrawal from all the classes in a student’s semester. This is different from a course withdrawal, which occurs when a student drops an individual class.

The council voted to change the title of “university exit” to “complete term withdrawal” to avoid confusion.

“This is the first time I even heard about university exit,” said junior political science major Shiendel Schecter when asked about the change. “It sounds like students have to leave the university.”

A complete term withdrawal does not mean the student is actually leaving the university; it is just a withdrawal from that semester’s classes. The student is still registered and does not have to re-apply for admission to Kent State.

The council also approved that the deadline for a complete term withdrawal will be moved up from 15 weeks to 10 weeks from the first day of classes.

“We feel (the course withdrawal and semester withdrawal) should be merged into the same deadline,” said E. Timothy Moore, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Moore said exceptions, such as an emergency medical situation, would be taken care of as long as documentation was provided.

“If a student cannot contact us, their parents can,” he said. “They just have to provide documentation from the hospital. It will then be noted that the parent is the one who requested the withdrawal. We can accommodate these kinds of situations.”

Larry Duffy, junior geography major, does not think 10 weeks is enough time for a student to decide to withdraw from all of his or her classes.

“I would want to wait until I saw how I was doing at the end of the semester,” he said. “The 10-week period is not enough time for a student to make a big decision like withdrawing from a whole semester. You need more time.”

Schecter agreed with the council that the 10-week period is sufficient.

“Unless there is some kind of emergency, I think 10 weeks is a decent amount of time to decide,” she said. “By the 10th week, you should be able to decide. I mean you are either really bombing the semester, and there is no way out, or you have to kick it in to high gear and fix it.”

If the student wishes to withdraw from the semester after the 10th week, he or she would have to get permission from the dean.

“I think (having to go to the dean) will make people really think about why they are going to withdraw,” Schecter said. “If it is something important, I would not feel uncomfortable going to the dean and saying, ‘This is why I am leaving.'”

Contact social services reporter Desiree Bartoe at [email protected].