Procedure will be followed in future Harpur College academic matters, but a decision made last year that skirted bylaws still stands, according to Student Association Vice President for Academic Affairs Peter Spaet.
Spaet has received assurance from Dean Donald Nieman that Harpur College Council will have a say in academic matters, as prescribed by Harpur College bylaws.
Last April, students completing a minor in economics, a Harpur discipline, saw their course requirements increase from six classes to seven without the necessary approval from HCC. That decision hasn’t been reversed.
Nieman took over this year for Interim Dean Ricardo Laremont, who acted as chair of HCC and oversaw the addition of the seventh course to the curriculum. Laremont brought the issue to the Curriculum Committee, one of several bodies within HCC, but not the HCC as a whole as necessary, according to the SA.
“The interim dean was under the impression that the decision didn’t have to be approved by the Harpur College Council,” Spaet said, adding that he refused to bring it before them after he was told. “The main [issue] is to bring issues to the proper channels.”
The economics department deemed MATH 221, a calculus course, a necessary addition to the curriculum.
In response to the dean’s actions, SA President Matt Landau, last year’s vice president for Academic Affairs, tried to strike a resolution with Laremont in the hopes that the latter would reevaluate the situation and institute a vote.
According to Landau, Laremont ignored his requests and tried to “illegally not allow a vote to be taken.”
At the beginning of the fall 2008 semester, Nieman agreed that the bylaws should be followed, and that the HCC must approve all academic decisions.
“[The resolution] is a great success for Peter [Spaet] and for students as a whole,” Landau said.
Nieman could not be reached Monday for comment.
Spaet said that it wasn’t the academic merits of the additional class that bothered him last year, but the way in which the issue was passed outside of the democratic process.