New Faculty 2001/2002

Please welcome Dennis Wilson to the Life Science Department.  He will be representing us at the Red Mountain campus, but will also maintain a significant presence at the main campus.  As a native of England, he did his undergraduate work there and his graduate work at the University of Oregon.  He came to Arizona as a postdoc at ASU continuing his studies of plant/insect/fungus interactions.  Most recently, he has been working on an instructional technology project documenting his 14 month, 24,000 mile trip from South Africa to England, which has been dubbed the African Edventure.

Please also welcome Randi Papke and Russell Ott to the department. Both will be doing OYO's with us this year. Randi is finishing her Ph.D. in butterfly sexual selection with Ron Rutoski at ASU.  She will focus on BIO 100 this year.  Russell is Linda Wegener's replacement (can anybody do that?) and is a molecular/micro-biologist. He did his graduate work at Stanford and taught several years at Boise State University before moving to Arizona.  Russell will teach 181 this fall and add 220 (microbiology) in the spring.

Recycling

Please point out the recycling bins in every lab and classroom to your students. Please advise them of the materials we can recycle and encourage them to do so.  Note that aluminum cans should be recycled in the bins that are on each end of the main hallway. We have been getting lots of trash in these bins lately, so please ask your students to do their bit for the environment.

Withdrawal Policy Proposal Adopted

At our last department meeting, we adopted the Withdrawal Policy that we had been talking about. Please modify your syllabi for future courses accordingly, and note that this may affect your attendance policy and/or procedures as well.

• All faculty are required to withdraw students (W) who stop attending before the 45th day.
• All faculty are required to record the last date of attendance for every student after the 45th day.
• All faculty are required to record attendance by some means sufficient to determine the last date of attendance.
• When students stop coming to class, faculty must withdraw them.
• Withdrawn students must be given a W (withdrawn passing) or a Y (withdrawn failing).

Thus, we will withdraw students who stop coming to class, give them a W or a Y, and record the last date of attendance. You can use the new drop/add forms or the final withdrawal rosters, which are due about two weeks before the end of the semester.  For GPA purposes, a Y is the same as an F.  However, a Y like a W clearly indicates that the student was withdrawn. Appropriate withdrawals prevent financial aid fraud. Many students have been requesting that they not be withdrawn, so they can continue to receive financial aid awards. This should never be allowed as it might jeopardize our financial aid status as an institution.  When a withdrawal is clearly indicated with a last date of attendance, financial aid is prorated to the dates actually attended.  A final point about attendance is that we are also required to prevent students who are NOT enrolled from attending our classes. Only enrolled students are covered by our insurance. Students who are not enrolled present a liability issue. It is not clear if we share any responsibility for allowing non-enrolled students to attend our classes. Thus, it is incumbent upon each of us to know who is attending our classes.  To do this, we need some form of attendance.

LS Enrollment Data

In conjunction with the SyRIS project, we collected enrollment data for the 2000/2001 academic year.  It is included here for your information. Data indicate high point unduplicated enrollment according to department records. Duplicated headcount would be approximately double these numbers as each student enrolls in separate lecture and lab sections.

Fall 2000 Srping 2001 BIO 100 713 605 BIO 105 252 159 BIO 108 90 93 BIO 160 99 98 BIO 183 0 23 BIO 109/110 0 14 BIO 181 406 392 BIO 182 98 116 BIO 201 261 212 BIO 202 114 142 BIO 205 105 113 BIO 220 11 7 BIO 245 0 7 TOTAL 2,149 1,981