Senate supports remedial ed

The Academic Senate of the California State University System unanimously decided Nov. 3 not to change admissions requirements as a means of eliminating remedial education.

"The faculty believed this would be punishing the victim," according to a message from Sylvia Navari, chair of the state Academic Senate.

Originally the proposed changes from the subcommittee's report included "requiring SAT or ACT scores of all freshman applicants," and enforcing the requirement that "transfer students complete GE English and math before admission."

This proposal was eliminated from the senate's response to the Board of Trustees' proposed policy changes in remedial education for admission to the CSU.

The senate resolved to continue to "admit and educate the upper one-third of the California high school graduating class," and "...oppose any changes at the present time which would establish new requirements for admission to the CSU, based on specified levels of achievement in writing and quantitative reasoning."

Gary Hammerstrom, professor of business and computer sciences and SF State representative to the subcommittee, said at last Tuesday's Executive Committee meeting that the trustees "were not comfortable with changes in admissions requirements," and "feared losing students entirely" if the requirements were changed. According to Hammerstrom, although SF State officials are "against changing admissions requirements," he said they are not putting enough resources into the problem of remediation at SF State.

Even though changes won't be made in admissions policies, there will still be changes in remediation.

The senate also proposed that each CSU campus "provide and enforce, for entering students, an appropriate and timely sequence (preferably within the first term of enrollment) of assessment, advising and placement in pre-baccalaureate and baccalaureate course work."

Another proposed change would be to "establish and enforce limits on remedial and developmental activity and to advise students who are not making adequate progress in developing their foundational skills to enroll in other educational institutions as appropriate."

The English as a Second Language program is not included in these changes.

Mark Roberge from ESL said even if there are changes in remediation, they won't affect the ESL program because they are not classified as remedial classes.

Today, SF State will be selecting members to join a task force which will give their proposal to the trustees in December.

According to Colleen Bentley-Adler, spokesperson for the CSU, The trustees still intend to phase out remedial education, but it will probably take longer than the proposed five years.

[ Golden Gater Online November 21, 1995 ]

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