UMBC Undergraduate Drop Date

The drop date issue describes the discussion to move the last day to drop a class without a “W” from 20 school days (four weeks) after the semester starts to 10 school days (two weeks) after the semester starts. This conversation started in spring 2009, and the drop was changed to 10 school days before the fall 2010 semester.

History
This conversation began in enrollment management, and then the proposal was presented to the Council of Deans. There was an upset when the UMBC website suddenly changed during the spring, saying that students had 10 days to drop a course, not 20. Yvette Mozie-Ross (Office of the Registrar) responded that they were not aware of the change, and the website was then changed back. The issue was later discovered to be that there was a miscommunication between the administrators talking about this issue and those in information technology, resulting in the discrepancy in information.

On April 20, 2009, Mrs. Mozie-Ross, Dr. Janet Ruteledge, and Dr. Diane Lee met with the SGA Senate (including Jennifer Kent and Amber Spry) to discuss the issue. The students present at this meeting were generally opposed to this change, the general argument being that 10 days is not long enough to assess one's status in a class. This seems to accurately reflect the feeling of the student body (ex. there was a Facebook group opposing the change with over 900 members). The seemingly spontaneous emergence of this issue was attributed to the fact that UMBC did not have anyone reviewing academic policies until recently. Late in spring of 2009, the issue was brought before the undergraduate program directors. Mrs. Mozie-Ross presented the administration's argument, while Richard Blissett presented the students' argument. The response here was split. Faculty supporting the change cited difficulties for students needing to add classes and possible grade inflation. Those opposed to the move repeated the student concern that 10 days is insufficient time to evaluate how well a student is doing. Numbers from fall 2008 show that over 4,500 classes were dropped total, and over 800 (18.3%) of them were during the second two weeks after class started (the third and fourth weeks).

Students Richard Blissett and Nathaniel Kim (then the Director and Assistant Director of Academic Affairs, respectively) met with administration several times throughout time and researched the history, reasoning, and possible implications of this change. Additionally, with the help of Jennifer Kent and Mrs. Mozie-Ross, they hosted a public forum on the drop date. Student feedback at this event was initially negative. However, after the discussion, the questionnaires showed that a significant number of student had changed their opinions. On the Senate side, Senators Naina Khandelwal and Mark Gradoni, led the discussion of whether or not the SGA should put forward legislation to support the change. Originally, as was the original discussion in spring 2009, the general sense was that the change would be detrimental to student success. However, upon the presentation of research and information from the Office of Academic Affairs, opinions began to shift (reasoning explained below). Eventually, on November 2, 2009, the SGA Senate voted on legislation, authored by Mark Gradoni and sponsored by Toby Le, to support the change in the drop date under certain conditions:

1. That the Administration and the Faculty Senate of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County support and encourage the implementation of measures to assist students in the gauging of their course workload within the course prior to the drop date, including that instructors make public and readily available the syllabi for their respective courses on or before the first day of instruction, whether by means of online publication, email, providing students an opportunity to pick up syllabi before the first class from the respective departmental office, or in hard copy during the first meeting of the course, and

2. That students be allowed the later of either two academic weeks or two class meetings to drop a course, and

3. That the Student Government Association, in conjunction with the administration, creates a campaign to educate students about the drop date, and

4. That after this change, there will be a comprehensive review of the effect of this change on enrollment and grade point averages.

During spring 2010, the Faculty Senate passed similar legislation.

Reasoning
One of the reasons that the policy had been reviewed in the first place was because of the realization that UMBC’s drop date was extremely atypical of college and university schedule adjustment periods. Most colleges and universities had 10 day drop dates and 10 day add dates. While this was not necessarily a factor in the decision as to whether or not to change it, it was a consideration as why UMBC’s date should be reviewed.

The initial primary reason cited by administration was that state guidelines require that UMBC facilitates inventory of where students stand on their enrollment status after the institution's freeze date. The 20 day drop date is after the freeze date, requiring administration to go back and look at the drop date to make adjustments. In addition, they cited synchronization of practices for graduate and undergraduate students, more available seats in classes, simplification of schedule adjustment dates, more accurate assessment of course demand and availability, preservation of the primacy of academic records. After communication with students, most individuals working on the issue found that the issue of class seats was much more compelling than the administrative issues (see statistics above). Proponents of the change also often discussed possible grade inflation as a result of the tendency of students to use the 20 day drop date to drop classes in which they are not doing well, rather than making the decision primarily based on interest and/or workload.

Opponents to this change argued that 10 days was not sufficient time for a student to get a real sense of what a course is like, and thus would either (a) trap students in courses that they later find they would have rather dropped or (b) intimidate students into not giving courses the chance to improve later in the semester. Administratively, there was the possibility of a substantial drop in full-time equivalencies (FTEs). (The state provides money per FTE student. If students opt to take less classes because of shorter drop period, the number of FTEs decreases.)

Other Information
The Retriever Weekly posted two articles on the drop deadline issue, one entitled “UMBC campus debated change in drop date policy” and one entitled “Semester drop date changed from 20 days to 10 days.” Additional contributors to this conversation were Tim Topoleski (Faculty Senate Chair), Nicole Roop (Academic Standards and Policy Specialist), Stephanie Ward (Office of Academic Affairs Executive Staff), and Simmi Singh (SGA Senator).