Faculty Senate removes 60 credit hours outside major rule
The Faculty Senate voted to remove the requirement that undergraduate students complete 60 credit hours outside of their major coursework, at their Feb. 19 meeting.
The Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum presented this recommendation to the Faculty Senate for discussion in January. Their two other proposals, one to create a working group to study what a broad liberal education means for students at Rice and another to require CUC approval for any major department’s attempts to raise their required number of credit hours, were also approved at the Feb. 19 meeting.
The previous 60-hour rule affected some Natural Science students and a few Engineering students, driving the degree requirements for those students beyond the 120 hours normally required, according to David Caprette, co-chair of CUC and neuroscience professor. According to General Announcements, the previous exceptions to the 60-hour rule were students pursuing Bachelors of Science in Engineering, Bachelors of Music and Bachelors of Arts in Architecture, who were required to complete only 45 credit hours outside of their major.
At the January Faculty Senate meeting, Senator Dave Messmer said he thinks the working group should complete their research on broad liberal education before the 60-hour rule is removed. According to the minutes from this meeting, Caprette responded to this concern by saying that the rule should be removed immediately because of its negative impact.
More from The Rice Thresher
Gorman announces in-depth fall semester plans
Students returning to campus in the upcoming fall semester will have to adjust to a number of precautionary changes all subject to change, such as rearranged housing, bathroom schedules and mandated COVID-19 testing, implemented in efforts to protect against the spread of COVID-19, according to an email sent July 1 by Dean of Undergraduates Bridget Gorman.
Criticized over lack of Black O-Week advisors, Lovett coordinators reopen applications
The Lovett College Orientation Week coordinator team reopened advisor applications to add additional advisors and to create an additional O-Week team after some students raised concerns about a lack of Black advisors at Lovett. This comes after previous years in which residential college advising teams have been criticized for lacking diversity.
Students push for removal of Founder’s Memorial from academic quad, administration responds
“We cannot ignore the very real and very problematic history of the man who founded this institution,” Gabrielle Falcon (Martel ‘20) said. “Progress is inevitable and I would hope that Rice would do its best to join the wave of progress we have been seeing this summer, instead of making pointed decisions to prevent it from flourishing.”
Please note All comments are eligible for publication by The Rice Thresher.