Wichita State professors may be required to provide more information about their courses upfront if a resolution proposed by Student Government Association Chairperson Nathan Atkison comes to fruition.

“The purpose of this resolution is to get more information in front of students when they’re selecting their courses during enrollment,” Atkinson said. “Currently, the only information you really get on a course is when it is and where it is.”

Atkison said that there are areas where students could view extra information about the course, but, in his experience “those are never filled in at the time of course selection.”

The resolution, co-sponsored by Sens. Josh Mallard and Noah Carter, would urge professors and other teaching staff to provide information on various topics on the course. These topics include letter grade distribution, the percentage of students receiving any letter grade and student withdrawal percentage. 

The resolution would also ask for teachers to provide how long they have taught a course, as well as syllabus and book requirements released at the time of the schedule’s release.

While it was the first reading of this resolution, meaning no voting or debating was done, several SGA senators asked what faculty reception had been to this proposed resolution. Atkison said he’d spoken to an adviser and gotten “generally positive” feedback.

“During the course of creating this legislation, I’ve also talked with a member of Faculty Senate, where I was told that there would probably be some controversy with this,” Atkison said. “But generally, it was a breakdown of, like, a third would support it, a third wouldn’t care and a third would be against it.”

At-Large Sen. Andrew Bobbitt asked if faculty compliance with this potential resolution would be achievable.

“The information I’m requesting on their syllabus is generally information that they don’t change that frequently, like professors generally don’t change how many exams they’re going to have … between (the time they teach) classes,” Atkison said.

The resolution will be sent to SGA’s Academic Affairs Sub-Committee and Student Services Committee before being voted on in the Senate.

Appointments

The Senate also approved several individuals for various positions in SGA. These appointments include:

• Lily Arens to be chair of the Student Affairs Sub-Committee
• Na’khiya Sanders to be chair of the Underrepresented Sub-Committee
• Lesley Hernandez to the position of associate justice in the judicial branch
• Lee Frank to the position of associate justice in the judicial branch

The body also appointed several senators:

• Shyla Cowles as an underserved senator
• Veera Venkata Hemanarayana Reddy Chamala as an international senator
• Derek Perry as an applied studies senator
• Gia Cardenas as an at-large senator

Agenda

To view the full agenda for the Oct. 4 meeting, go here.