Students petition progress requirements
By Colleen Honigsberg
Jan. 8, 2004 9:00 p.m.
Students frustrated with the recently implemented quarterly unit
requirements are now taking action.
Under the expected cumulative progress requirements ““
first implemented in fall 2001 ““ students must take at least
13 units per quarter, and must complete 29 units every two
quarters. The one exception is for students in their first two
quarters, who only have to complete 27 units.Â
The Stop ECP! Committee of the Student Retention Center is
currently circulating a petition to end the ECP requirements
implemented for all students entering in or after fall 2001.
Randy Bautista, a fourth-year computer science engineering
student, is heading the committee’s efforts. He has set a
target of 1,000 student signatures to present to academic policy
makers.
Bautista said the ECP requirements pose a risk both to the
quality of education and to student retention at the university
because the number of units required by ECP may be higher than the
number of units the student wants to take. The extra units may
negatively affect both the student’s grades and how well he
or she learns the information.
Bautista also stresses the importance of “learning outside
the classroom,” which is impacted by ECP because students may
not have as much time for extracurricular activities.
“Students’ opportunities are a lot more limited by
these requirements,” he said. “They make it especially
difficult for students in leadership positions in campus
organizations.”
Bautista said he hopes the petition will “show the
administration that students are disgruntled.”
But students’ mere dissatisfaction may not be enough to
alter the administrators’ decision.
More data is needed for a decision to be made about modifying
the requirements, said Robin Garrell, the current chairwoman of the
Academic Senate’s Faculty Executive Committee.
“We first monitor the effects following (the new
policy’s) implementation to determine both whether it is
helping to achieve the academic goals and also whether students are
being adversely affected. … At this point, we only have
preliminary data,” she said.
The committee will “re-examine the policy and its
implications” whether or not there is a petition, she
added.
Bautista is currently obtaining signatures for his petition by
passing it out to various campus organizations.
For example, he gave the petition to Chris Hauck, the former
president of the Inter-Fraternity Council, who passed it along to
each of the 20 houses in the council.
Hauck is not personally affected by ECP because he enrolled
prior to fall 2001. Instead, under the previous requirement, he
must take at least 12 units per quarter.
“We had much more reasonable requirements,” Hauck
said.
The new ECP requirement stems from state law. When students
reach the maximum number of units allowed by the university, state
funding for the student is cut off. The Faculty Executive Committee
of the College of Letters & Science changed the requirements to
fit this law.
Karen Rowe, who was chairwoman of the committee when ECP was
changed, said there are many advantages to the stricter progress
requirements. In particular, she said they will help counselors
target troubled students before they are in severe academic
difficulty.
“Before, counselors weren’t doing counseling, since
the students were coming in too late. The students were already in
academic crisis,” she said.
Students who are in violation of ECP are called into counseling,
so they are likelier to meet with a counselor when they begin to
have difficulties, rather than when they have already failed
numerous classes, she said.
She also noted that ECP “equalizes” unit
requirements for students on financial aid and those who are
not.
Before the new ECP was implemented, students receiving financial
aid were required to take 13 units per quarter, whereas students
not receiving financial aid only needed to take 12 units per
quarter. With the ECP requirements, these discrepancies do not
exist because all students must take at least 13 units per
quarter.
“UCLA should have, and needs to have ECP because of
financial aid,” Rowe said.
