In the final Student Senate meeting of the semester, the senate passed legislation that encourages the university to require information about the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and the academic appeals on class syllabi.
Both resolutions passed by unanimous consent, meaning no senator objected to the legislation. Senate resolutions differ from Senate bills and only recommend action be taken. Resolutions cover parts of campus that SGA does not have control over, and the university does not have to comply with the request.
FERPA
The resolution for FERPA suggests that language explaining students’ FERPA rights should be included as part of each class’ syllabi. The resolution suggests the following language be included in syllabi:
“Wichita State University complies with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. FERPA gives students the right to inspect and review their education records, request amendment of inaccurate or misleading information, and provide written consent before the University discloses personally identifiable information from their records, except where FERPA permits disclosure without consent.
“In this course, your grades, assignments, and personally identifiable information will be kept confidential and will not be shared with anyone other than you, your instructor, and authorized university officials. Student work may be used anonymously for educational purposes unless you request otherwise in writing.”
Academic appeals
The resolution for academic appeals suggests language be added to class syllabi explaining how students can utilize their rights to academic appeals if they feel their grade or treatment is unfair. The language the resolution suggests is as follows:
“The process of Academic Appeals is available for students who believe they have been treated unfairly in grading. Any student may use the appeals procedure. All student Academic Appeals are coordinated by the Provost and Senior Vice President. All efforts should be made to resolve the issue with the instructor. If this issue cannot be resolved with the instructor, the student should contact the chair of the department where the course is listed before submitting an appeal to the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs. Please review the policy carefully to ensure that you have taken all of the necessary steps before submitting the appeal.”
It also includes a link to the complete academic appeals documents.
Engineering Senator Andrew Beam was a primary sponsor of the Association Resolution for Academic Appeals, and Liberal Arts & Sciences Senator Josh Mallard was a primary sponsor on both. Primary sponsors are typically the authors of bills and resolutions and present the legislation to the Student Senate.
A recording of the Dec. 4 meeting is available here.
