Policy Amendments
Pending Amendments
Specifying Graduate Student Representatives (CODE 10.2)
Proposed Change to Article X: Section 2: Membership of Standing Committees of University Senate:
Propose specifying “graduate student” for these committees:
- The Academic Policies and Procedures Committee
- The Athletic Committee
- The Calendar Committee
The proposal is to specify “graduate student” rather than the broader term “student” for University Senate committees. This serves the purpose of ensuring graduate students have a voice in shared governance.
The University Senate will discuss this at the meeting on Dec. 5 at 3:15 pm on Zoom.
Approved by University Senate on December 5, 2024.
Article X Sect. 2 e-mail sent out for 21-day campus notice on December 10, 2024. Closing date for comments is Feb 3, 2025.
Environmental Committee Identified and Membership (CODE 10.1 and 10.2)
The FY 2024 Student Senate Vice President, DaNae Estabine, made a recommendation to the University Senate Executive Committee (SenEx) to amend Article X of the Standing Committees with the addition of the Environmental Committee.
The rationale is that this committee will focus on environmental sustainability projects on campus.
September 5, 2024: Approved by SenEx
September 5, 2024: Sent out to campus for 7-day notice
International Affairs Committee Membership (CODE 10.2)
The University Senate International Affairs Committee made a recommendation to the University Senate Executive Committee (SenEx) to amend the committee’s membership in the University Senate Code.
The proposed change provides equal representation of faculty, staff, and students on the committee. The rationale is that this will enable the committee to have a greater perspective from staff and students and better address the charges which affect the various groups. The reorganization of the International Affairs Committee ensures equity in representation and is in line with the recent reorganization of the University Senate.
We are changing the number of staff representatives to four. Student representation will change to four, with the attempt to distribute representation evenly among undergraduate, graduate, domestic and international students. Faculty representation remains unchanged at four.
The Committee on International Affairs shall be composed of four faculty members serving staggered three-year terms, two four representatives from the staff serving staggered three-year terms, and two four student members serving one-year terms. Student appointments should attempt to distribute representation evenly among undergraduate, graduate, domestic, and international students, provided interest. andthe following ex-officio, non-voting member The Senior Internationalization Officer, International Affairs, or designee shall serve as ex-officio, non-voting member. Either a faculty member or staff member may be appointed as chair.
March 19, 2024: Approved by SenEx
March 21, 2024: Sent out to campus for 7-day notice
March 28, 2024: Discussed by University Senate
March 28, 2024: Approved by University Senate
April 3, 2024: Sent out to campus for 21-day review
TBD: Approved by the Provost and Chancellor
TBD: Submitted to policy library
Open Access Policy for Scholarship
One of the University Senate Libraries Committee's standing charges is to review the Open Access Policy for Scholarship every 3 years. The committee suggested several technical changes to the policy language.
Read the specific changes here.
April 25, 2023: Approved by FacEx
Sept. 12, 2023: Sent out to campus for 7-day notice
Oct. 12, 2023: Discussed by Faculty Senate
Oct. 12, 2023: Approved by Faculty Senate
Oct. 24, 2023: Sent out to campus for 21-day review
TBD: Approved by the Provost and Chancellor
TBD: Submitted to policy library
Finalized Amendments
Accrediting Body Technical Changes (FSRR 2.5.2)
In 2020, the United States Department of Education removed the distinction between regional and national accrediting bodies, meaning the Higher Learning Commission is no longer referred to as a regional accrediting agency, but rather an institutional accrediting agency. The FSRR uses this language and needs to be updated to align with the above-mentioned change.
These changes can be processed as technical edits, as per CODE 2.5.2(g).
2.5.2 Except as provided in Section 2.5.3, no course completed at another institution of higher education shall be recognized unless that institution has been accredited by the Higher Learning Commission or another regionalinstitutional accrediting agency of similar standing.
April 9, 2024: Approved by FacEx
April 10, 2024: Submitted to policy library
Credit Transfers Technical Changes (FSRR 2.5.4)
KBOR recently passed a policy that now allows more than 64 hours to be transferred from a community college, which eliminates the need for transfer agreements. On September 15, 2022, Faculty Senators voted almost unanimously in support of this policy. The current language in the FSRR needs to be updated to reflect the KBOR policy and current terminology. An additional edit was made by removing “or junior,” as this term in no longer used.
These changes can be processed as technical edits, as per CODE 2.5.2(g).
FSRR 2.5.4 No more than sixty-fourseventy-five semester hours may be transferred as credit from a community or junior college unless the University of Kansas enters into a transfer agreement in accordance with the definition of a baccalaureate degree in KBOR policy Ch. 3, Section 9b part ii (2).
July 31, 2023: Approved by FacEx
July 31, 2023: Submitted to policy library
Academic Forgiveness (USRR 2.8)
The Academic Policies and Procedures (AP&P) committee sent the University Senate Executive Committee (SenEx) a draft of an amendment to the Academic Forgiveness Policy.
Read the updated policy here.
The proposed changes to the University Senate Rules and Regulations will make it less prohibitive for students who previously did not do well academically, to have the opportunity to return to the university and complete their degrees.
- The proposed changes lessen the required break in attendance from four years to two years.
- The revisions change the requirement of the GPA the student had prior to leaving from 2.0 to 2.5.
- The revisions increase the number of academic terms a student can discount from three to four.
Read the technical changes here.
Feb. 14, 2023: Approved by SenEx
Feb. 16, 2023: Sent out to campus for 7-day notice
March 30, 2023: Discussed by University Senate
March 30, 2023: Approved by University Senate
March 31, 2023: Sent out to campus for 21-day review
May 9, 2023: Approved by the Provost and Chancellor
May 19, 2023: Submitted to policy library
June 15, 2023: Technical amendment approved by SenEx
June 15, 2023: Technical amendment submitted to policy library
University Senate Reorganization (CODE Articles 1, 6, and 17)
The University Senate is a senate structure that is distinctive at KU in that it brings together faculty, staff, and student senators into a horizontal space, as peers, to work collaboratively on a range of issues, including advocacy and policy matters. Because all aspects of the university are deeply interconnected and interdependent, our experience in this body suggests that this diversity of perspectives makes our policies stronger. After years of discussions with our staff and student senators, and to ensure that all relevant constituent groups feel that University Senate belongs to all of us and that all our voices matter in it, our University Senate Executive Committee (SenEx) formed an ad hoc committee this semester to consider equity of representation from the different constituent groups in the University Senate.
The committee has developed the attached amendments to the University Senate Code to address equity of representation. The proposal, which is informed by shared governance principles, advances equity of representation in the University Senate to ensure richness of dialogue and diversity of perspectives around policy making, while still noting that due to their academic credentials, faculty maintain roles as decision makers around specific USRR articles that pertain to academic policy. For this reason, on University Senate Rules and Regulations articles which address academic policies—Articles I, II, III, IV, VIII, and IX—we have added an approval step to the Faculty Senate that will take place concurrently with the 21-day campus review.
All other articles, which affect all of us, and do not explicitly require academic expertise to be amended, remain within the sole purview of the University Senate.
As you will note from the CODE changes, we are changing the numbers of senators in the University Senate to 18 for each constituent group—for a total of 54 members. This adjustment will expand access for the staff and student senators, while also reducing the double labor that faculty do in Faculty and University Senate. The University Senate Executive Committee has also been adjusted accordingly for equity. Finally, because we have worked across multiple months to achieve equity and balance around representation and roles and responsibilities for the body, and because the stability of the body is important, all future changes to the University Senate membership will also require a 2/3 majority of each constituent group.
March 30, 2023: Discussed by University Senate
April 7, 2023: Sent out to campus for 7-day notice
April 13, 2023: Approved by University Senate
April 14, 2023: Sent out to campus for 21-day review
May 9, 2023: Approved by the Provost and Chancellor
May 19, 2023: Submitted to policy library
Capstone Requirement (USRR 3.1.1)
In response to the statewide General Education package and in an effort to align our existing Core Curriculum with this package, we will amend the USRR code, Article 3, Section 1.1, to integrate the capstone requirement previously reflected in the core (what was Core Goal 6) into the Bachelor's Degree.
USRR 3.1.1 The minimum requirement for graduation with a bachelor's degree shall be 120 credit hours and at least 45 hours shall be in junior-senior courses (including a 3 credit capstone course or equivalent, as determined by the relevant academic unit), at least 30 hours of residence courses at the University of Kansas (as defined in Article IV of the Faculty Senate Rules and Regulations) and a 2.0 minimum cumulative grade point average for the coursework taken in residence at the University of Kansas.
March 24, 2023: Sent out to campus for 7-day notice
March 30, 2023: Discussed by University Senate
March 30, 2023: Approved by University Senate
March 31, 2023: Sent out to campus for 21-day review
May 9, 2023: Approved by the Provost and Chancellor
May 19, 2023: Submitted to policy library
Interim Leaders (FSRR 10.5)
Faculty and staff have articulated to us the importance of having administrative leaders in community-facing roles that undergo community vetting through formal search processes. Faculty and University Governance worked in partnership with the Provost and the Chancellor to develop an amendment to Article X of the Faculty Senate Rules and Regulations (FSRR) to address these considerations.
The new Section 5 of Article X of the FSRR reads as follows:
Section 5. Interim Leaders. Administrative leaders, with clarity of roles and responsibilities, vetted through search processes that give community members the opportunity for input, are always preferable. The use of interim or acting administrators is sometimes necessary. When the university must appoint an interim leader, selection criteria for the role should be publicized and every effort should be made to give members of the community, whose roles and responsibilities are directly impacted by that leader, input on the selection in the form of nominations. Administrative replacements should be appointed to fill vacant administrative positions as soon as practicable. Accordingly, the use of interim Provosts, Vice Provosts, Associate Vice Provosts, Vice Chancellors, Assistant and Associate Vice Chancellors, Academic Deans, and Associate Deans is not to exceed eighteen (18) months, by which time an administrative appointment should be made. If the position cannot be filled by this timeline, an exception should be made following consultation with the University Senate.
Feb. 22, 2023: Approved by the Provost and Chancellor
Feb. 23, 2023: Sent out to campus for 7-day notice
March 2, 2023: Discussed by Faculty Senate
March 2, 2023: Approved by Faculty Senate
March 6, 2023: Sent out to campus for 21-day review
April 14, 2023: Submitted to policy library
University Excused Absences (USRR Article 2)
The Faculty Rights, Privileges and Responsibilities (FRPR) committee has sent back to the University Senate Executive Committee (SenEx) a revised draft of the Excused Absences proposed policy for Article 2 of the USRR.
Read the updated policy here.
The proposed changes to the University Senate Rules and Regulations will provide guidance to faculty and students on excused absences. The policy has been drafted using language from other AAU institutions as a guide and edited with help from Student and Faculty Senate members including input from the Academic Policies and Procedure and Faculty Rights Privileges and Responsibilities Committees. The changes would replace the current policy sections that deal with exams and final exams and cover all work missed by an excused absence.
The goal of the revisions is to provide a concise policy that provides the definition of an excused absence, the scope of reasons for an excused absence, the responsibilities of the student and faculty in the event of an excused absence, and the process for appeal. This new policy will benefit students by providing the right to make up work that was missed for specific reasons that constitute an excused absence. The new policy will also benefit faculty by providing guidance on handling excused absence requests from students. Overall, the new policy will lead to better consistency across campus.
Nov. 3, 2022: Discussed by University Senate
Nov. 18, 2022: Sent out to campus for 7-day notice
Dec. 1, 2022: Approved by University Senate
Jan. 17, 2023: Sent out to campus for 21-day review
March 16, 2023: Approved by the Provost and Chancellor
March 23, 2023: Submitted to policy library
Ombuds (USRR Articles 5 and 6)
In collaboration with the Ombuds office, the University Senate Executive Committee is working to update the language about the required qualifications for the Ombuds role, as well as general information on the function of the office at the university.
Read the updated policy here.
We changed 5.1 to link to the Ombuds Charter and the charter principles in keeping with best practices of the profession.
We changed 5.1.1.1 to indicate that while SenEx remains engaged in helping the selection of the University and Faculty Ombuds, we defer to these individuals in additional hiring in the office.
We changed 5.1.1.4 to no longer require that an individual have worked at KU for 10 years in order to serve as Faculty Ombuds. The University Senate executive committee and the University Senate had robust discussions regarding this topic. We ultimately decided and the University Senate agreed that while we seek for the Faculty Ombuds to have comprehensive knowledge of the university, which we now define in greater detail in the USRR, 10 years of service are both neither required for, nor necessarily guarantee this comprehensive knowledge. At the same time, we felt that someone should have at least some work experience at KU before assuming the Faculty Ombuds role. Accordingly, the years of experience have now been reduced to 3 years.
Additionally, we interpreted the original 10-year requirement in the USRR to indicate that the faculty member had to have obtained tenure at the university, which we felt was an important safeguard for an individual in this role. This language is in no way a reflection on the profound contributions of our non-tenure track to the university. It is a reflection of our belief that in the occasionally hierarchical climate of a university, the job security that tenure offers, can and should be a helpful tool for advocacy in the Faculty Ombuds role. Moreover, as the University Ombuds role is open to all employee categories, we thought that having the Faculty Ombuds be a tenured faculty would bring necessary knowledge of the tenure and promotion, particularly when disagreement over promotion/tenure constitutes a frequent reason for why some faculty visit the office.
We changed 6.2.2 to indicate that the Ombuds Office aims to help faculty, staff, and students to resolve conflict informally and to provide further references to the ombuds charter.
Finally, the term Ombuds will replace the more dated term Ombudsman as a technical correction throughout the USRR.
Sept. 30, 2022: Sent out to campus for 7-day notice
Oct. 6, 2022: Discussed by University Senate
Oct. 6, 2022: Approved by University Senate
Oct. 21, 2022: Sent out to campus for 21-day review
Feb. 9, 2023: Approved by the Provost and Chancellor
Feb. 14, 2023: Submitted to policy library
Religious Observances and Exams (USRR 1.3.12)
The USRR identifies that for mandated religious observances that conflict with an examination and tests other than final examinations, students should be allowed to make-up the examination. The amendment also gives the same allowance to final examinations.
USRR 1.3.12: Students shall be excused from being present for the final examination in the event of a mandated religious observance. In order to ascertain if the final examination conflicts with a mandated religious observance, the instructor shall ask students who may be affected to identify themselves privately so that a make-up examination may be scheduled at a mutually acceptable time. It is the responsibility of the student to initiate discussion with the instructor prior to the examination. The instructor and student shall come to a mutually agreeable method of making up the missed examination.
April 5, 2022: Approved by SenEx
April 21, 2022: Sent out to campus for 7-day notice
April 28, 2022: Discussed by University Senate
April 28, 2022: Approved by University Senate
Nov. 2, 2022: Approved by the Provost and Chancellor
Nov. 3, 2022: Submitted to policy library
Academic Misconduct (USRR 2.6.5)
This prevents students who have been charged with academic misconduct to bypass the sanction of “Reduction of grade for the Course” by changing to credit/no credit.
USRR 2.6.5: Reduction of grade may include the assignment of an F in the course. If the charged student dropped or withdrew from the course prior to the outcome of the adjudication, the course will be reinstated and assigned the grade as determined by the outcome of the hearing. No student is allowed to change their grade to credit/no credit if found responsible of academic misconduct with the sanction of a reduction of grade for the course.
April 5, 2022: Approved by SenEx
April 21, 2022: Sent out to campus for 7-day notice
April 28, 2022: Discussed by University Senate
April 28, 2022: Approved by University Senate
Nov. 2, 2022: Approved by the Provost and Chancellor
Nov. 3, 2022: Submitted to policy library