Sacramento State is considering a new policy requiring all students to declare a major by 60 units to better facilitate the process of graduation. An approval of the policy, which was brought to the Faculty Senate’s attention last fall, is due to be in place by the next academic year.

The policy is in response to a California State University systemwide Facilitating Graduation Initiative, that suggests campuses should negotiate a policy mandating a timeframe where students must declare a major.

“The Graduation Initiative was produced by the Board of Trustees to help CSUs make it easier for students to graduate,” said Thomas Krabacher, the Academic Policies Committee’s interim chair.

Krabacher introduced the idea at a Sac State senate meeting in fall 2005. Though the idea was appealing from the beginning, the committee is still debating details of wording and taking suggestions. The first reading was done Feb. 16.

The second reading is scheduled to take place in March and should conclude the debates. The policy must then be approved by the senate and passed on to campus President Alexander Gonzalez, Krabacher said. The senate is expecting the president to approve the policy.

Paul Noble, associate vice president for Resources and Planning at Sac State, presented research conducted by the Office of Institutional Research in fall 1998 that indicated that 43 percent of freshmen who came in undeclared remained undeclared after completing 70 units. Transfer students, on the other hand, showed a dramatically different trend: Only 2 percent of transfer students entered undeclared.

“We have students who didn’t declare a major even at 100 units,” Noble said.

The senate Academic Policies Committee said they feel late declaration of a major leads to students taking unnecessary courses for their degree; therefore prolonging their undergraduate career. Undeclared students don’t receive as tailored advising as declared students do, Krabacher said.

Because the senate agreed that a policy should be implemented for this cause, they began to discuss the particulars, but got stuck on whether students should have to declare by 45 or 60 units. The lesser of the two, 45 units, was preferable for majors such as engineering and other science programs because of their sequencing courses, while 60 units seemed more practical to ask of students and would avoid misdeclarations of majors.

Juanita Barrena, faculty director of Science Educational Equity, attended the senate meeting Feb. 16 where she raised concern about pre-major students, such as pre-nursing, who would be at a disadvantage under the new policy. Pre-majors also don’t receive as personalized advising as declared majors do.

Another issue is the Nursing Department’s inability to accommodate all of their pre-major students’ advising needs.

“We’ve got 1,900 students in the pre-major, but only 60 slots, ” Barrena said. This concern led the senate to re-word the policy, now stating that students must declare a major or pre-major by 60 units.

The senate and Academic Policies Committee are also considering making a policy to aid the overflow of students in programs like nursing, Krabacher said.

To put the policy into effect, the senate decided the ramification for students who do not declare a major by 60 units is to place an academic or registration hold on his or her account. Therefore, if a student does not declare a major or pre-major by the semester they reach 60 units, they will not be allowed to register for the following semester until they do.

Binde Rai can be reached at [email protected]