Approval of Previous Minutes —

Meeting minutes from Sept. 13, 2023. Motion to approve by Jordan Atkinson. Seconded by Chris Raithel. Motion passed unanimously.

New Business —

Excused Absences Policy Procedures

1. Joe Walden presented information about the Excused Absences Policy that was passed in Spring 2023, including some of the emergent issues and challenges.
   1. Joe shared some other universities’ excused absences policies, both from Big XII schools (University of Houston, Kansas State University, Texas Christian University) and non-Big XII schools (University of Maryland, East Carolina University, University of Arkansas, Purdue University). He gathered the policy text from each school and shared these with the committee before the meeting. Notable details were ECU’s centralized documentation of excused absences and UA’s requirement that attendance policies must be in syllabi.
2. Caty shared the two main issues that Governance has heard about regarding this policy, which are the increased workload on instructors and the increased caseload of the Office of Student Affairs and the Office of Student Support and Case Management. Students are being told to immediately go through Student Affairs and Case Management even if they are willing to talk to their instructor.
   1. Joe shared that he hasn’t experienced much of an increased workload. Weizhang Huang seconded this and mentioned that we do not have hard data on what instructors’ experiences are, but rather anecdotes.
3. Caty shared that the lack of data has come up in other Governance meetings, including SenEx, FacEx, and the Athletic Committee. There has been discussion of surveying instructors and students in these other bodies, but Caty has not heard of any progress on such surveys. She also shared that Case Management was receiving 3-5 emails from students per day. Governance has sent a reminder about the policy in a recent newsletter, which went to faculty, staff, and students.
4. Joe suggested that the AP&P Committee create a survey.
   1. Ideas for survey questions:
      1. What is working?
      2. What is not working?
      3. What is the workload like?
      4. What suggestions do instructors have?
   2. Joe asked if the same survey would be used for instructors and students.
      1. Caty shared information about a text message-based survey system that the Office of Student Affairs uses.
      2. Joe suggested surveying instructors first and students second, in addition to requesting updated data from Student Affairs and Case Management.
5. Sean Navarro noted that even though 3-5 emails per day may not seem like a lot, this is an addition onto a pre-existing workload for Case Management. He likes the idea of having a form to make the process more efficient and consistent. It will also be important to designate a single office that is responsible for the process.
   1. Caty noted that there is also no designated support for instructors in managing excused absences. The Student Access Center (SAC) Testing Center does not have capacity to add students making up exams for excused absences. Jordan Atkinson suggested that the survey can ask about desired resources and support.
   2. Weizhang and Sean discussed that it is also unclear as to how documentation should be handled. Are offices supposed to store this information? How secure is that storage?
6. There was discussion that Graduate Teaching Assistants should also be surveyed as instructors. Joe suggested incorporating the Jayhawk Academic Advising into the survey.
7. Chris Raithel noted that it will be important to capture the experience of students with disabilities. He has heard that it is oftentimes unclear to students what course elements qualify as “core” parts of the course.
   1. Caty mentioned that the Athletic Committee shares this concern as it pertains to student-athletes. Students need to know in the schedule-planning stage and before the 100% refund deadline whether they will be able to succeed in a course.
   2. Weizhang shared that this syllabus requirement is already in place, so perhaps the better question for students is, “Is the syllabus language working?” Syllabus language can also directly refer and link to the Excused Absences policy to improve education.
8. Next steps
   1. Joe will draft survey questions and send them to the committee for review. The committee will meet again to finalize the survey.
   2. Caty will facilitate gathering feedback on the survey from SenEx and the Athletic Committee.