Western Michigan University administration is considering increasing the number of credit hours to be a full-time graduate student from six to nine credits.
A proposal was made last year to begin the new requirements at the beginning of the 2005-06 academic year, but was put on hold for further study and because the Graduate Student Advisory Committee expressed concern, according to Todd Ide, GSAC chairperson.
Ide said he and graduate students have many concerns if the change is implemented. One issue is that some departments in master's and doctoral programs do not offer nine credit hours of courses in a semester. Students would possibly be forced to take classes not directly associated with their degree program in order to remain a full-time student, which is the case in the public administration program.
“Our program only offers six hours of doctoral courses each semester and nearly all our students are employed full-time. In addition, this program is based in Lansing and so they couldn't just pick up additional courses from other WMU programs,” said Matthew Mingus, doctoral director in public administration.
Mingus said that while he has been in Ottawa, Ontario for research this fall, he has received concerns from students via e-mail, but has not had time to research the issue at length. He said he is disappointed this idea is still being advanced, and he had provided input in the earlier stages of this process.
Other graduate students, including those is nursing programs, are full-time professionals and in order to maintain a career and student-loan requirements, it would be unrealistic for them to add another course to their already full load, Ide said.
Many master's students working on assistantships who receive stipends would be using that to pay for the additional course, and this change may force students out of programs or cause them to postpone their degree.
“This also may have a very serious negative impact on international students,” he said, adding that they must be enrolled full time in order to maintain visa status, and with an extra class, costs could be unaffordable.
“Obviously if this change is made, we will do our best to figure out ways around these issues, including a possible program redesign that might stop targeting working students,” Mingus said. Still, enrollment could drop significantly, and state funding could be lost if this happens, he said.
Opposing responses from graduate students prompted Ide to start a letter-writing campaign to the administration, encouraging students to make their voices heard by contacting President Judith I. Bailey and Provost Linda Delene. Ide said an announcement on this issue is due in the near future.
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