Meeting Summary April13th

Present:
Bob Szafran
Pat Spence
Doyle Alexander
Lauren Scharff
Roger Bilow
Marty Turnage
Piero Fenci
Absent:
Mike Legg
Florence Elliot-Howard
DawnElla Rust

I. Old Business

A. BobSzafran gave a brief update and review of items previouslydiscussedby the committee.

1. Plansfor two public forums scheduled for Monday, April 19 from 3:30pm -5pm and Thursday, April 22 from 3:30pm - 5pm, held in the Regent'sSuite A, are confirmed. The address of the Faculty Web AdmissionsRequirementsSurvey will be announced out at the forums.

2.Approximately 200 student surveys will be distributed to SGA

3. Thefaculty will have an opportunity to participate in the AdmissionsRequirements Survey for faculty, which will be posted to the web. Thelistserve will notify them when the site is available.

4.Approximately 1,000 copies of the survey will be made available tostudents through their instructors. The survey will be distributed tovarious classes.

II. New Business

A. Bobinitiated an open discussion for the committee members to expresstheir opinions and views regarding admissions requirements.

B. Thecommittee expressed their opinions and views. Overall, the committeediscussed several points which included:

• Automatically accepting students in the top quarter
• ACT/SAT test score play somewhat less of a role in admitting student
• Raising SAT/ACT test scores for 3rd and 4th quarter students
• Establishing a multi-level review process, to include a variety of criteria
• Requiring instead of recommending a high school academic criteria for acceptance to the University
• Establishing a mentoring and advising program at SFA for the benefit of retention
• Make available additional scholarship dollars for incoming freshmen and transfer students
• Look at tightening the suspension definition
• Gradual implementation of admissions requirement changes

C. Thecommittee discussed several issues for and against changingadmissions requirements that would directly affect SFA. Raisingrequirements would lower attrition rates but could mean lessstudents, consequently, less faculty. The University needs to analyzeits positioning.

D. Bobstated that transfer students comprise one-third of the undergraduateenrollment. Information about the retention and graduation rates oftransfer students is needed.

E. Thepurpose of next meeting will be to identify and order the variousdecisions the committee needs to make. The committee will carry on anopen discussion of those decisions for several weeks. After that itwill revisit each of those decision points and take votes.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:30a.m.