One semester after implementation, the transition to the University’s new policy of continuous enrollment for graduate students has gone as anticipated, according to University officials.
The policy, which was initially proposed about three years ago, requires all doctorate students to enroll and pay tuition every semester. Students are allowed to take approved leaves of absence as well as one semester off during their time at the University for non-approved reasons. Previously, doctorate students were only required to pay tuition for semesters when they were enrolled in classes.
Though the policy was sharply criticized by some on campus before it was officially implemented last semester, Rackham Dean Janet Weiss said in an interview last week that the switch to the continuous enrollment policy has gone according to plan.
“We’ve worked really hard to make the implementation go smoothly,” Weiss said. “ … We’ve had to make a variety of adaptations in situations where personal circumstances required, but we’ve gotten huge cooperation from lots of people, and that’s allowed us to be flexible when we’ve needed to be flexible and accommodate individual circumstances.”
Weiss said 500 more doctorate students enrolled in Rackham Graduate School for the fall 2010 semester than the previous year. Still, Weiss said, the increase in students doesn’t mean there are actually more doctorate students at the University.
“Those of course are not new students, those were students who were here and working, but previously not enrolled,” she said. “So it looks like there is a big growth in the doctorate program. There is not. There’s just a growth in enrollment.”
Despite more students paying tuition, the policy has been revenue neutral for the University, Weiss said, as tuition was lowered to ensure the University wasn’t profiting from the added students enrolled each semester.
University President Mary Sue Coleman said in an interview in December that she hadn’t heard any complaints about the new continuous enrollment policy.
“I think the fact that I haven’t heard anything about it is a really good sign,” Coleman said. “As I understand, we’ve had a pretty smooth transition. We’ve protected those students who would’ve been affected adversely by this. We have many more students now registered so we can monitor them and follow them and make sure they’re making progress. My sense is that everyone is happy.”
University Provost Philip Hanlon said in an interview last month that he spoke with Weiss in late December about the policy, and she told him everything was going well.
“What we had when we instituted continuous enrollment is they had modeled a growth in enrollment of doctorate candidates, and the actual growth is dead on to what they predicted,” Hanlon said. “That part seems to be working really smoothly. Dean Weiss reported almost no sort of complaints, problems or issues in terms of students having the support they need to be enrolled.”
But before the implementation, some students were upset they would only be allowed to take leaves of absence under certain approved circumstances like health problems, family emergencies, pregnancy and military service.
However, Weiss said only 74 students took a leave of absence last fall.
Students who want to take a leave of absence that isn’t approved can petition the Rackham administration to get consent. They also have the option to resolve the dispute in front of an appeal board of students and faculty. The board — established by the school’s administration and Rackham Student Government — has yet to hear a case, Weiss said.
“So far we have not had even a single dispute, so I’m hopeful that that means people feel like the policy is being implemented in ways that are fair and reasonable,” Weiss said. “If they’re not, they’ll come forward because we have people who can help.”
However, several faculty members, including Gina Poe, an associate professor at the University’s Medical School and vice chair for the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, raised concerns to Weiss and other University administrators when the policy was proposed.
“The problem is that these boards don’t know the students and their life situations and the reasons why the students might feel like this is the best decision for them and their community,” Poe said at SACUA’s Dec. 17, 2009 meeting. “It puts them in an ivory tower in these very personal, very difficult and sometimes complicated decisions of whether someone should take leave from their studies.”
Weiss said that a small number of disputes were resolved before the appeals process was created.
“There have been issues that have come up, but we’ve been able to make sure that students are in their right status,” Weiss said. “So if they should be on leave, they are on leave; if they should be enrolled, then they are enrolled; and if they need to be supported, then they get the support they need. So there’s been a lot individual problem solving that needed to happen, which we expected and we’ve been prepared for.”
A survey of graduate students conducted last September revealed most students were content with the continuous enrollment policy and said they anticipated it wouldn’t affect them, according to Weiss.
“The policy was sort of just coming into implementation at that moment (the survey was taken), and we wanted to know whether students knew about the policy because not all students know about all the academic policies,” Weiss said.
A few of the students surveyed did express some concern that the policy would affect them, specifically by preventing them from researching or studying abroad, Weiss said.
“We are working with those departments to make sure that is not the case and that those students have exactly the same opportunities to do their work abroad as they always had and that the departments are providing the necessary tuition support so students can do that,” she said.