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Minutes March 12, 1999, 2:00 p.m Present: Chair Barbara Balko, Deborah Lycan, Shannon Benfield-Blankenship, Dell Smith, Michael Sexton, Kristi Williams, Glendi Gaddis, Michael Ford, and Sharon Barnes (secretary) Absent: Micha Grudin, Kevin Holloway, Alicia Gilbert, Greg Caldwell, Dale Holloway, and June Jones Chair Barbara Balko opened the meeting. The minutes of February 26, 1999 were approved with corrections. Subcommittee Reports Barbara Balko reported that the Petitions and Waivers Subcommittee had not met. Deborah Lycan said the Honors and Awards Committee had reviewed 72 applications for the Mary Stuart Rogers scholarships and 7 were chosen, they reviewed 18 for the Pamplin and selected 2, reviewed 25 for the Freshman Cheney and selected 5, and reviewed 25 for the Junior Cheney and selected 5. Total applications reviewed were 141. Deborah suggested that it would be better to have fewer awards with larger amounts of money. Glendi Gaddis, Student Financial Services Director, said that the Cheney is funded by a grant from the Cheney Foundation. The awards depend on how the proposal is written. The College has been receiving $10,000 per year from this grant, but the amount may increase to $20,000 per year. Michael Sexton asked how deep the applicant pool was such that we should focus on five awardees with more money or give the money to a greater number of students. Deborah answered that the pool is not much deeper than the five that were chosen. There are maybe 7-8 at most who would really qualify for the award. The Cheney, Pamplin and Mary Stuart Rogers scholarships all have community service as one of their criteria. Deborah expressed concern that the students in the sciences generally do not fit into a category where their community service is obvious. People who choose to be community leaders are often very outgoing, extroverted, more people-oriented in personality than science students typically are. However, scientists contribute as much to the community, but in a different way -- by their scholarship and research. Is there some way that the criterion for these scholarships could be interpreted to be more inclusive of science students? Michael Sexton said that the community service is not considered with the Neeley, Trustee or Dean's scholarships. Registrar Dell Smith asked if these criteria are set forth by foundation? Glendi Gaddis said that the school has some measure of control over the criteria by what is written in the proposals. Donors who gave the money established the Mary Stuart Rogers scholarship. It is the responsibility of the student to frame the application in such a way to meet the changing nature of the committee each year. Deborah said that freshmen are hard to evaluate because there is little experience at the College. She suggested that the Cheney proposal be written in such a way to award sophomores instead of freshmen so there is more L&C experience to draw from. It was suggested that all of the scholarships should be reevaluated and their criteria should be reviewed. Michael Sexton observed that different criteria are given for various scholarships so that not all of the same students don't get everything. Glendi said that there are many endowed scholarships with specific criteria and students are solicited from their respective areas to apply for them. Michael Sexton said there have been some ongoing meetings with the development staff on scholarship criteria so it can be better regulated. A lot of the problems are getting cleared up. Dell said that this committee should have a say as to what the criteria should be when applying for various grants, and in deciding how to distribute the funds. Deborah likes the idea of having Cheneys distributed evenly by division. Different divisions could set their own criteria for the scholarships. She also feels the scholarships should be moved from freshmen to sophomores. Sophomores are easier to evaluate and they have more history at Lewis & Clark. Dell said that we could model after the Truman Scholarship, which is not limited to number of credits, but by the year in school, i.e., the second year here would be sophomore. Barbara said there are problems when determining a student's year in school by the number of credits since there are transfers and those students who enter with advanced credits who are in their first year but are designated as sophomores. Glendi said that under the current rules, those students cannot apply for the freshman Cheney. We have to determine who the top 10% of the "class" are, and it is a challenge to identify who is in which class. There also is a time constraint in that students are only allowed eight semesters of financial aid, so that the transfer students, double majors, and leave of absence students frequently need an extra semester to finish their degree. They have no aid for the ninth semester. Stafford loans are very clear in what the Registrar defines by entry date. Dell said he can develop categories by credit and by entry date and he can develop other large categories to put people in. Glendi said that we need to strip off some of class definitions and use their entrance date and when they are going to graduate (especially for transfer students). Glendi said a determination needs to be made on how broad or how discrete these categories will be. Deborah said she would be willing to work on this project in the fall. Glendi will work on getting the scholarships all together to see where the freshman and junior Cheneys would fall and also find out some history on them. Dell said there are still 588 undecided students, mostly freshmen. Deborah said that traditionally it has been the subcommittee chair's decision whether or not to accept late scholarship applications. She would like a College wide policy on how to handle late applications, so that the chair is not expected to deliberate each individual case for merit. Should late applications get copied and distributed late? This is a problem as we are under a very tight timeline and the applications were distributed this year the day after the deadline. Deborah feels it is not a good idea to promote a culture where a deadline is not a deadline by accepting late applications. It was suggested the committee send an e-mail reminder to faculty to get the recommendations. Barbara said that she worries when a student's application is in by the deadline and faculty recommendations are not in -- it is not the student's fault that the application is not complete. Glendi said that the time frame is extremely condensed for the committee to select scholarship recipients. Why is the time frame so tight? Notifying recipients by the end of March would give the committee a little more time. One hundred and forty one applications were photocopied in Student Financial Services. Michael Sexton suggested the students apply on-line. Deborah suggested perhaps the students could hand in two copies of their application to Student Financial Services, so the files would not need to be copied. Glendi suggested a differential deadline with a later date for faculty recommendations. Dell suggested the student submit the entire package all at once with the recommendations. The recommendations could still be confidential and delivered in sealed envelopes, signed on the back of the envelope. This met with general committee approval and a suggestion for implementation for next year by Student Financial Services. Glendi said that students overseas could have a separate approach. They could e-mail all faculty for recommendations. Glendi said she would like to continue the discussion on class standing. Michael Sexton said we need to determine if the statement can be made in uniquery. Dell offered to come up with some proposals in writing and see if Loubna can do them in uniquery for class standing. This probably can be done this summer. Glendi talked with the Dean of the College Jane Atkinson about the language in the catalog about giving warnings to Neeley and Trustee recipients who fail to meet the criteria at end of the semester. These warnings are a result of Student Financial Services and the AAAS Committee reviewing their files to determine the continuation of the students' eligibility to receive money. The Committee on Standards and Progress is referred to in the College catalog, but there is no definition for the committee. What is the role of AAAS in helping address students who failed to meet standards? Barbara asked if this would be a separate subcommittee or if it would be included in the Academic Standing Subcommittee. The Academic Standing Subcommittee meets at the beginning of May and they could also consider those students below standards and what to do about their aid at that time. Glendi said that appeals are where help is needed. They need someone to help look at the student's circumstances and at the reasons for their deficiency and at his/her subsequent plan for turning things around to get back on track. Input of the advisors is extremely important to appeal cases. Glendi would like to have a group of people including the Financial Services staff. Students receive eight semesters of financial aid. Those who fall below may need additional time to earn their degree. They can take classes in the summer, or an additional semester in the fall. The Academic Standing Subcommittee has three voting Faculty members who could be part of the Committee on Standards and Progress (which is a scholarship review subcommittee). The concern is the Faculty who are gone in the summertime. The three divisional deans were suggested as Faculty who can help with the academic part of the appeal process. Composition of the Committee on Standards and Progress would be the Financial Services staff, three Faculty members, Dell and Kristi. Glendi would like to discuss the issue of an additional semester of eligibility for financial aid. Some students who would fall into this category are overseas students, leaves of absences, transfers, and those who fell below standards. NSO Questionnaire Results Kristi and Dell distributed graphs for the NSO questionnaire administered this last fall. They will present them on overheads at a Faculty meeting. Results showed that group advising is not very successful. Dell and Kristi are not continuing the small group advising by Faculty. Dell, Kristi and Michael Ford will do group advising in the gym. They will work with the large group in describing the process, then have them fill out their forms. This way everybody is getting the same information. They will make their goals clear, then go to their advisor and build a relationship with their advisor over a period of time. Shannon said this sounds like a good plan. Kristi said they would do a separate mailing on advising including what to expect during the summer. Dell said that during the first two weeks of the add/drop period, Faculty members would be invited to be available at tables during the dinnertime for advising. This will be brought up at Academic Council. A follow up survey of Inventing America classes can be conducted on April 16. Dell would like to talk about: 1. The issue of suspending students mid-year vs. suspending the end of spring semester, and 2. Scholarship -- the practice of allowing Neeley recipients to be below standards for two years with no warning letter. This is the Progress Committee's responsibility. Students will generally have their lowest year their first year. Glendi said that Federal regulations do not require students to be monitored until end of their sophomore year. Out of the Neeley students four were below standards with one first year student; of six Trustees, three were first year students; of 24 Pamplin below, 10 were first year students. There is a student development issue here. Some kind of warning should be in the spring, but how will it be done? The policy needs to be made really clear to students who get these awards. There are not too many appeals and they are hard to evaluate. Meeting adjourned at 4:15 p.m. |
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Created by: barnes@lclark.edu Updated: 20-SEP-99 |
