New Policies at SJSU for Fall 2009
There are several updates to policies for Fall 2009. Among these changes are policies regarding Graduation, Repetition of Courses and Grading Symbols (Incompletes and Withdrawals). Please read the following information carefully to become familliar with these policies.
Graduation and Change of Major Policy Changes - 10/09/09
PD 2009-05 Implementation Guidelines
New guidelines have been released that provide detailed implementation instructions for Presidential Directive 2009-05 (Graduation and Change of Major). Given the level of funding received from the State, we are unable to continue to allow students the freedom to change their programs or add units to their programs as we have allowed in the past. For more information, visit Presidential Directive 2009-05 Guidelines.
Changes to Graduation Policies
Presidential Directive 2009-05
Due to budget reductions and to ensure the ability of the CSU to provide access to qualified applicants, changes were made to Title 5 (California Code of Regulations, Title 5, Section 40411) which allow SJSU to establish a new graduation policy.
- Starting Spring 2010, any undergraduate or graduate student will not be able to enroll in additional state-supported courses when that student has already met all requirements for his or her declared degree.
- Students who have met all requirements for graduation prior to any semester in which they are enrolled can drop all their courses, with little or no penalty, and to graduate at the next available date.
- Students who have earned more than enough units to graduate but have some remaining requirements to complete, will be advised and will not be able to register in any courses not needed for graduation.
- All students must declare a major by the time they have earned 60 units.
- Effective after the final day of the Fall 2009 semester, students who have earned 90 units or more may not change majors except by special permission.
- Read the full text at the Presidential Directive website.
Changes to Repeating Courses
Grade Forgiveness
- The former term "Academic Renewal", is now referred to as "Grade Forgiveness."
- Undergraduate and Post-Bacc students may only repeat 16 units for Grade Forgiveness: up to nine units can be from lower division coursework, and up to nine units from upper division coursework. These limits apply only to courses taken at SJSU.
- Grade forgiveness is an automatic process - there is no form to fill out to request a course be retaken for Grade Forgiveness. However, students must still request an add code at the beginning of the semester to be able to add the course.
- Students may repeat a course for which they receive a grade of C- or less (including WU and IC) for Grade Forgiveness ONLY once.
Grades Averaged
- Undergraduate students may repeat a maximum of 28 units for graduation credit - these units INCLUDE the units taken for Grade Forgiveness.
- Once a student runs out of units to apply to Grade Forgiveness, a repeated course will automatically be averaged as a separate courses for the calculation of the GPA.
- Any units repeated over the maximum of 28 total units must be petitioned.
Changes to Incomplete Grades
- A grade of 'I' (Incomplete) cannot be repeated, unless the 'I' grade reverts to an 'IC' or a grade is assigned.
- The conditions for completing the Incomplete must be specified in writing by the faculty member.
- The faculty member has the option to assign a specific letter grade at the time the incomplete is assigned, and this grade will replace the 'I' if the work is not completed. If the faculty member does not specify a letter grade, an 'IC' grade (equivalent to an 'F') will be assigned to the class.
Changes to Withdrawing from Courses
- All W (Withdrawal) grades given for courses in which a Late Drop or Withdrawal from the Semester petition was received and approved will now show as either 'WA' or 'WB' on the student's unofficial transcript. These grades will show as 'W' on the student's official transcript.
- A 'WA' (Withdrawal Authorized) grade is given to students with serious and compelling reasons to have withdrawn from the course(s).
- A 'WA' will only be given to approved requests turned in during the first 80% of the semester. The deadline for Fall 2009 is Friday, November 13th, 2009.
- Undergraduate students may receive a maximum of 18 'WA' graded units. Post-bacc students have a limit of 12 units.
- A 'WB' (Withdrawal Beyond the student's control) grade is given to students with serious and compelling reasons clearly beyond the students control (ie. serious illness or accident) to have withdrawn from the course(s).
- There is no limit on how many 'WB' units a student may receive, and a 'WB' may be given at any point during or after the semester the course was taken.
More information about these policy changes is located at the Academic Senate's webpage.
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