Associated Students of Madison Vice Chair Maria Giannopoulos proposed a resolution at Coordinating Council Monday to create a policy that would allow students to reschedule midterms if they had more than three in two days.
The policy would function similarly to the existing final exams policy in that students would be allowed to reschedule midterms or projects accounting for more than 15 percent of their grade if they had three or more in a two day span, according to Giannopoulos.
She said the policy would be beneficial to students as many become “academically overburdened” during midterms. She also said she chose to expand the time constraint to two days because students also must work around class to study, whereas during finals time, students do not have class.
ASM Nominations Board Chair Sean McNally said he would support the resolution because students can easily get overwhelmed when juggling multiple exams at the same time as well as attending class.
However, ASM Shared Governance Chair Britt Moes said while she likes the idea of the proposed policy, she thinks faculty and staff would not approve it because 15 percent is too low of a threshold for percentage of students’ grade.
“I would personally support it, but at a higher percentage because you’ll get more [faculty and staff] consideration at a higher percentage,” Moes said.
ASM Legislative Affairs Chair Dan Statter said he does not think the proposed policy is needed since students learn valuable life skills while balancing midterms and classes.
“I think it really builds time management skills, I think it really builds self-responsibility and I think these are values that are very important for college students to build,” Statter said. “So I think it’s good to sometimes be overwhelmed because it forces you to take a step back and plan ahead.”
The council also discussed funding recommendations for the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group made by Student Services Finance Committee last year. University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor David Ward refused to sign SSFC’s budget recommendation because a separate contract must be created for non-university employees that work for WISPIRG.
SSFC Chair Ellie Bruecker said she is meeting with Ward March 20 to review the committee’s budget recommendations and said while she understands Ward’s perspective on the issue, she stands by SSFC’s recommendations.
