This year, the Baker University Faculty Senate decided it was time to look at professors’ and students’ views on interterm.

The last time interterm was assessed was in 2005 and surveys were only given to the faculty. This year, the focus has been on students.

“This year, there were some changes made to interterm. There were less graded courses and some classes that had been graded were no longer graded,” Cassy Bailey, dean of students and member of the Ad HOC committee, said. “We wanted to see how students and faculty felt about this.”

The Ad HOC committee was created to administer surveys to all the members of the Baker community, including students, and then look at potential changes that could be made in the upcoming years.

The committee is composed of five faculty members from faculty senate and one student representative from Baker University Student Senate, senior Brandi Dority.

“I try to give the students’ overall opinion about what students want in interterm, what they don’t like about interterm, what they would like changed, if they want it, if they don’t want it,” Dority said. “Basically, I am the students’ voice.”

Dority said she talked to a wide variety of students from different groups so she could gain an understanding of the students’ viewpoints. She also asked student senate members to discuss what they have heard other students say about interterm.

“I wanted to hang out and talk to as many students as I could,” Dority said. “That way I could understand how the students feel about interterm.”

Bailey said for the past five weeks, the committee has met and administered faculty, staff and student surveys.

She said some of the things the committee will be looking at for the future are changing more classes to have a graded system and offering general education courses to take during interterm. One of the main questions that will be addressed is whether interterm should be required or not.

As of now, the committee has tabulated the results and is looking at the comments from the participants. During the faculty senate meeting Tuesday, Judy Smrha, assistant dean of institutional effectiveness and member of the Ad HOC committee, presented results and plans to faculty senate.

“At this point, we have quite a bit of data, and the goal now is to come up with a recommendation for (Educational Programs and Curriculum),” Smrha said. “It may not be a specific recommendation for the upcoming years, but more of a consensus.”

Bailey said due to time constraints, no changes will be made to interterm in 2011.