Kevin Freeman | Lariat Photographer
By Madison Miller
Reporter
Student senate unanimously passed a bill Thursday that recommending departments upload to Canvas or the department’s website a syllabus for each course prior to registration.
According to the bill, which was authored by Las Vegas junior Gilbert Ruiz and Coppell junior Dustan Dendy II, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Florida provide open syllabuses for students for the purpose of examining the class’s workload prior to registering.
There is already an established precedent of what implementing the bill would look like in the mathematics department that includes sample syllabuses for many courses.
The bill proposed that each department decides whether it wants to provide a syllabus for each class specific to the professor or a generalized syllabus for each specific course.
“It’s not going to give you any definitive information,” Ruiz said. “It’s there to give you a broad sense of what the class is going to offer.”
The syllabuses will provide information regarding books, what all the course is going to offer and the tentative course schedule.
Ruiz said he does not plan on it being a really complicated bill, but the implementation of the bill could be trickier due to possible technicalities such as website problems or willingness to provide the generalized syllabuses.
From here, Ruiz said the bill goes to Student Body President Dominic Edwards for approval.
If the bill gains Edwards’ approval, it will be forwarded to Matt Burchett, director of student activities, and Dr. Kevin Jackson, vice president for student life.
There is no set time for this bill to be implemented and for the departments to have the syllabuses uploaded.
“I didn’t want to make a timetable,” Ruiz said. “That makes it an extra task for professors and department heads.”
According to the bill, a better understanding of course expectations would lower overall class drop rates which would help with the freshman retention rate, and allow students to more accurately balance out their total course workload.
“I actually really like the idea,” said Austin junior Megan Lawyer. “It will help you get organized for the semester ahead of time as well as know what materials you will need for the course.”
While this was the only bill voted on during the meeting, the senate discussed briefly other initiatives within Student Government such as alumni and student career engagement, which include networking opportunities for students.
