Opinion
Page 2/The Battalion/Monday, January 23, 1984
Issue to decide
balance of power
The recent furor over whether tgra-
duating seniors to take final examina
tions will have one effect that has been
largely ignored.
The Faculty Senate is a relatively new
organization at Texas A&M. The Finals
controversy is the first major issue it has
had a hand in.
The Senate’s First proposal must pass
through several more channels before it
can become University policy. But the
final decision will determine, to a great
degree, the organization’s future.
The current issue is a major test for
the Faculty Senate. If the outcome is
decided along the lines of its recommen
dation, a precedent will be set for its
active involvement in academic affairs.
It would be a major victory for the Sen
ate, giving the body, as it were, political
clout on campus.
On the other hand, if no change re
sults from the recent proposal, the Sen
ate may go the way of its student coun
terpart, the Student Senate. It will enter
into the vicious circle of studies, investi
gations, proposals, recommendations
and more studies, none of which have
had any major effect on the actual poli
cies and procedures of the University so
far.
Student Government also has a major
stake in the outcome of the Finals issue.
The Student Senate, with its all-talk-
little-action reputation among many
students and faculty members, could
improve its status with a decision in
favor of maintaining the status quo.
In other words, there is more at stake
than Finals for graduating seniors. The
eventual balance of power at the Uni
versity may be determined by the cur
rent controversy.
— The Battalion Editorial Board
Arguments against senior finals invalid
Last Monday, the Faculty Senate pas
sed a resolution recommending the poli
cy exempting seniors from taking final
examinations be changed by December
1985. After that time, according to the
proposal, seniors should be required to
take Finals along with the rest of their
classmates.
would be neglecting my responsibility as
a student representative if I did not pre
sent the student perspective. There is no
doubt that the student body is over
whelmingly opposed to the faculty’s deci-
professors who use the final as merely a
third exam instead of a comprehensive
wrap-up of the semester. Students often
complain of classes in which their entire
grade is based on only three exams, or in
some cases, only one exam, a project or
the authority to require classroom
attendance and participation as part of
the overall grade. Of course, this requires
some effort by the professor to keep track
of his students or at least notice whether
they are in class.
Un
In a separate resolution, the Senate
recommended that the administration
take appropriate steps to maintain timely
and meaningful commencement and
commissioning ceremonies.
The most serious charges that the fa
culty levels against the present policy are
that it is a serious compromise to acade
mic standards and that it requires eva
luating students on unequal bases. Many
professors complain that graduating stu
dents quit coming to class after their last
exams and miss valuable class time.
A recent editorial in The Battalion
criticized the Senate for timing the vote
on the resolution in order to catch stu
dents off guard. As one of the students
who was invited to apeak to the Ad Hoc
Committee on Academic Standards dur
ing its deliberation on the issue, as well as
to the Faculty Senate, I know that the
Senate took many steps to try to avoid
that situation.
Besides inviting a number of students
to present their perspectives to the com
mittee and the Senate, the vote on the
issue was intentionally postpoqed until
students were back on campus in order to
avoid the appearance that the faculty was
trying to “pull one over” on the students
while we were home on vacation.
The faculty further insists that many
students abuse the present policy by
“manipulating” their schedules in order
to postpone large numbers of courses un
til their last semester to avoid having to
take the Finals. Some students do take
unusually large course loads their last
semesters, but in most cases the students
are taking all that they need to graduate
on time or at least as soon as possible. It is
far more common for students to take as
light a load as they can their last semester
in order to have as much time as possible
to devote to job interviews.
\ ^ " Jf
m\ #
L : mk
joe Jordan
(Editors Note: Joe Jordan, a senior physics
major, is student body president.)
Most students tend to respond to what
is required of them by the professor,
especially if they know that their gradua
tion depends on it. It seems a bit unfair to
expect students to continue to attend
class after their last test if the professor
doesn’t require it and gives them no in
centive to do so.
For most of, us job interviews are by far
dt
more important during our last semester
than the prospects of being exempt from
an exam.
paper and the final.
Most students would agree more
grades whould be taken in order to fairly
evaluate student performance. It seems
unfair to have one-third of your grade
based on one bad test. The answer to the
problem is more frequent testing and
other forms of evaluations, not simply
requiring seniors to take final exams.
Although the faculty argues that the
present policy does not promote fair and
equitable academic standards and is
“anti-intellectual,” it presents no convinc
ing arguments that a change of policy will
make the education experience any bet
ter. There is no proof that requiring
seniors to take regularly scheduled final
exams will enhance their education.
The popularity of the commenci
ceremony is undoubtably tied tolhc
that students actually receive theiri
mas as they walk across the stage and
graduation takes place while sti
and faculty are still on campus,
change in the present ceremony'
undoubtedly cause a decline in para
tion at graduation, particularly if C
plomas are not distributed at thattim®™ 111
graduation is postponed, many
would have to choose between begiiB*. tes(
work or waiting around to receive
diplomas. ■merii
1 ^ ot
The administrative problems ;eonven
change in the system would cause nrss is
be enormous. A change would pirrf'aken
more of a burden on the deans’andl^ru;
istrar’s offices during the busiest
the year for processing grades. A^
ponement of graduation would | e
quire students to try to take careo!ge ntr
last minute details that may block
tion at the time when most faculty
bers would have already
The Faculty Senate is not obligated to
consult the students before making re
commendations to the administration,
just as the Student Senate is not required
to ask members of the faculty how they
feel before passing legislation of its own.
Both bodies are responsible for repre
senting the views of their respective con-
situtencies to the administration. Usually,
both bodies have at least solicited the
opinion of the other before passing legis
lation. However, this should not prevent
either group from accurately conveying
their opinions to the University com
munity.
As for the other arguments, objective
analysis shows that the basic problem is
one of classroom management and test
scheduling, rather than academics. It’s
rather hard to see what academic stan
dards are being compromised as long as
professors can evaluate their students on
all material that they choose to hold them
responsible for.
As far as students missing class is con
cerned, the problem is clearly one of clas
sroom management. Any professor has
However, there are many problems
that such a change of the policy would
create. Changing the policy would re
quire a change in commencement cere
monies. Presently, approximately 95 per
cent of the graduates participate in com
mencement ceremonies. The number of
visitors who attend graduation is also
considerably higher than at other univer
sities.
bers would have already gone on vacant ai a
or stopped keeping regular officeki a bill tc
| Buti
While the Faculty Senate realize™° n ^ r
the recommendation it has made will
doubtedly cause these problems,#*
decided that these are purely admins*
tive problems and should not bethel
cern of an academic body. Ithastl
fore suggested that the adminism
take appropriate steps to overcome
difficulties the recommended polio
The Faculty Senate has been accused
unfairly on some points. However, I
1 here is nothing in the present policy
that restricts a professor from scheduling
a test the week prior to dead week in
order to evaluate all students up to that
point in the class. Many professors do this
already for just that reason.
The complaint usually comes from
Letters:
Kerr martyred
protest in front of Westinghouse with
Student Peace Action and the other three
community organizations in the January
21st coalitions. I’m 37; I lost my naivete a
long time ago.
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Editor:
After watching the evening news on Jan.
19, I realized that a lot of people in the
war-torn country of Lebanon are con
fused about their position and objectives.
Students at the American University
saidey were “relieved” Dr. Kerr was mur
dered become he was “impartial to the
struggle.” Why should he be partial? He
was concerned with academics; it was his
duty to be “impartial.” He is supposed to
de<‘ ‘ ‘ '
Contrary to the conclusion Mecum
draws, the vast majority of those in the
peace movement reject unilateral dis
armament. He has made a misleai
generalization from the opinion of
one member of SPA. Perhaps Mecunt
consider this: it is precisely bed 1
peaceniks in the Soviet Bloc aren’t)
mitted to protest that we in the'lp
value highly — and make use of-
right to question the wisdom of our|||
ernments’ policies.
— Kristin'
$■
espouse knowledge, not ideology.
For all the Islamic people who are
“reed” Dr. Kerr is dead, understand this:
he is a true martyr. He died because he
wanted his students to receive know
ledge, not an ideology. Knowledge is uni
versal; an ideology is restricted in space
and fades rapidly with time.
Gary S. Hill
Geography Graduate Student
Views of SPA
misinterpreted
Editor:
B. Mecum bandied about the words
“naive” and “closed-minded” to describe
one Student Peace Action member’s
possibly misinterpreted comment on
bilateral disarmament, and made much
of the fact that peace demonstrations
don’t occur in the Soviet Union.
I, for one, welcome B. Mecum’s pers
pective; all of us who yearn for peace
must work together — the sophisticated,
naive, open-minded, and closed-minded
alike — to make clear to any government
(and supporting corporations) that the
arms race in which they are engaged
(profitably) is pure madness. I’m going to
{Two
I More
’one
iPIRE!
“I think this miserably cold weather began right after that governmf
weatherman got on TV and predicted that this was going to be a milder 0
usual winter.”