The Cal Poly Academic Senate approved six resolutions on Tuesday, including one that will end “Cal Poly Time.”
“Cal Poly Time” refers to classes and meetings beginning 10 or 40 minutes after the hour.
The Academic Senate believed the switch to a semester system was an opportunity to change the traditional scheduling start time, according to Academic Senate Chair and Experience Industry Management professor Jerusha Greenwood.
“This is a good opportunity to change something that has actually created some issues in the past related to both on-campus and off-campus logistics,” Greenwood said.
According to Greenwood, meeting start time variation because of “Cal Poly Time” scheduling is a major reason for the change.
“If a meeting time for a class goes from 9:10 to 11:00 and a meeting might start at 11 o’clock, there’s no opportunity for a student or a faculty member who has an 11 o’clock start meeting to get from class to the start of that meeting because the meeting starts on the hour,” Greenwood said.
The Academic Senate surveyed 381 faculty members and found that nearly half favored the change, according to the resolution.
An ASI representative on the Academic Senate Instruction Committee and consultation with other ASI officials represented student sentiment on the resolution, according to the author of the resolution and Kinesiology professor Kris Jankovitz.
“[ASI representatives] viewed it quite favorably,” Jankovitz said, “This is what better prepares them for professional life because the world operates on a common clock.”
The Instruction Committee also consulted the Office of the Registrar, Advising for Student Success Counsel, Instructional Department Heads and Chairs, Steering Committee, Academic Senate Executive Committee, the Office of the Provost, Center for Teaching and Learning and Transportation Services, according to Jankovitz.
Among the approved resolutions, one will extend the deadline to choose credit/no credit grading from the eighth day of instruction to up to 80% of instruction, effective as of Summer Quarter 2024.
Another resolution now “discourages” faculty from requesting doctors’ notes or other verification of illness after student absences. The resolution encourages respect for mental or physical illness and affordability barriers.