By Jason Klaiber
Contributing Writer
Clare College, which oversees the core curriculum of St. Bonaventure University, has employed a new course substitution policy for students since Oct. 3.
In the past, there were two types of substitution courses—permanent and temporary. Permanent substitutions proved to be sufficient. A temporary substitution required two years of assessment to ensure it fulfilled the guidelines of the Clare course it replaced.
After becoming the interim dean of Clare College in May of this year, Guy Imhoff asked the Faculty Senate if they would discontinue temporary substitutions as well as substitution forms and instead make everything permanent. The Faculty Senate acted upon this request and crafted the modified policy that is currently in place.
Now, a student’s advisor simply has to write an e-mail to the registrar asking to count the course said student is enrolled in as a Clare course.
“It’s just getting rid of documented paper forms to sign, so now we do it by e-mail to make it less tedious and less work for the registrar and for me,”said Imhoff.
Rather than implementing assessment periods, any course in which the professor is not following the proposed learning objective will be stripped of its label as a Clare course.
Now, the process is much less time-consuming, according to Imhoff.
“I like to make things easy for everybody,” said Imhoff.
It is no longer necessary for Imhoff to fill out forms or figure out what class counts for what Clare course. He added that the decrease in paperwork “saves trees.”
“We don’t have to send students running around campus trying to get signatures,” said registar Debra Loveless. “We don’t need to fill out a substitution form unless you’re using a course for a Clare and a minor.”
Depending on which catalog year someone enters St. Bonaventure as a student, some substitutions may or may not already be on a student’s degree audit. The substitution process’ only manual component pertains to the registrar’s office adjusting former students’ degree audits to accommodate the new Clare requirements.
“A program can’t stay the same for years and years,” said Imhoff. “Changes are good. It shows people are taking care of our programs and that we are updating what we do to facilitate staff members’ lives and the lives of the students. With all the technology we have today, we can make life a little bit easier for us.”
