The Student Government Association approved a proposal at the Oct. 27 meeting that will affect final exam schedules beginning in fall 2017.
The recommendation of alterations to the final exam schedule were proposed by Walker Byrd, Senator at-large, and Caroline Beauchaine, senator for academic affairs and mandated that teachers must have all tests, projects and assignments finished for that class the last Friday of the semester. The proposal also creates two review days, which would be a Monday and Tuesday, as well as one dead day, which would be Wednesday prior to beginning exams on Thursday.
The University would then hold exams that Thursday and Friday as well as the following Monday and Tuesday, essentially making finals week a two week long event, Byrd acknowledged.
Byrd said the academic affairs committee have been working for nearly a year and a half to find a better way to accommodate students and the issues they have with the current finals week schedule.
"For the past year and a half the academic affairs committee and senate has done research and gathered data and data mind to try and figure out how we can propose a better final exam structure that will better serve students and better serve Auburn," Byrd said. "This is the culmination of a lot of effort, a lot of time, and a lot of surveying."
Byrd continued on to say that the schedule will improve an array of areas, especially the four year graduation rate, something which President Jay Gogue recognized as diminishing in his State of the University address this past February.
"Our committee feels strongly that this is what's best for Auburn," Byrd said. "It is going to improve retention rate, improve graduation rate, improve four year graduation rate, going to improve GPAs and going to reduce stress levels."
The motion passed unanimously. The calendar committee must now decide how the schedule will be implemented in 2017.
In other SGA news, Logan Powell stood before the SGA senate Oct. 27 to clarify the sanctions that Senator Weir and Colson Smith, executive vice president of programs, would face for taking 1,000 issues of the Aug. 28 issue of The Auburn Plainsman.
"The first was an $800 fine that both parties have agreed to pay and will be submitted," Powell said. "The second is a written apology which has been written and submitted to The Plainsman and the third is an internal membership review of both Kohl and Colson. Those will be one-on-one meetings where we review their membership and how that act may affect their membership."
In more SGA news, Senators Kohl Weir, Patrick Michael and Charlie Welch asked for the amount of $25,000 to be allocated to the Organizations Board Fund as a Program Expansion Fund.
"Through reaching out to our constituents at O-Days, we saw a great need for greater funding to these different organizations on campus and we felt like this money could be sent wisely over on this side of campus," Weir said.
The motion passed.
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