Motion may bring financial changes – Interterm Part 1

Changes may bring student life decline – Interterm Part 2

Reduction in interterm requirements considered

Faculty Senate debates interterm requirements

EDITORS NOTE: This is the third and final installment in a three-part series, which discusses the questions surrounding the proposed interterm changes.

Baker University requires 132 completed hours for students to graduate with a bachelor’s degree.

Darcy Russell, former Educational Programs and Curriculum Committee Chair, said in Kansas, state-funded schools only require 120 hours to receive a bachelor’s degree.

This means Baker students must take 12 more credit hours compared to students at public universities like the University of Kansas or Fort Hays State University

The EPC committee’s recommendation to lower the number of interterm requirements from three to one, and the number of credit hours from 132 to 126, is a result of that number difference.

An option some students choose to take advantage of during interterm is the opportunity to take a travel course.

Leonard Ortiz, assistant professor of history, is taking a group of students on a travel interterm trip to Mexico in January.

Ortiz said he is concerned how decreasing the number of required interterms may affect travel interterms.

“If (students are) not required, would they really put up (a large sum) of money to go?” he said.“(The decrease) might hurt travel interterms in the long-term. If there’s not enough students that are interested, they’d have to cancel (travel interterms).”

Student Senate President Caleb Watts said he has heard of some students say they would prefer two interterms instead of three or one.

“I know that the majority of the people I have talked to have said they want a decrease (from three) interterm requirements,” Watts said.

Russell said reducing the requirement by one instead of two wouldn’t make as large of an impact on students.

“If we only reduced it by one interterm, we’d only be at 129 hours to get (an undergraduate) degree from Baker and that didn’t seem like enough of a solution,” Russell said. “(The suggestion) was about trying to reduce the number of hours required to get a degree to make it more parallel with other institutions.”

Russell, who is also a Baker alumna, said EPC is trying to perfect interterm and bring the university into better alignment with national standards to have a degree.

“We’re trying to get (interterm) to be a valuable, interesting experience for students and we’re also trying to come in line with the standard of what it takes to be a college student,” Russell said. “We’re not taking those opportunities away. Those opportunities are still there.”

The Baker University Faculty Senate will vote on the interterm requirement reduction at 11 a.m. Tuesday.