The University of Memphis, Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR), and the Tennessee Department of Education are setting plans into motion that could mean big changes in the future, such as reduced graduation requirements and reduced enrollment.
A TBR subcommittee is looking into the possibility of reducing the graduation requirement from 132 credits to 120 credits for a baccalaureate degree as a possible way to reduce costs.
According to Kay Clark, who works for the TBR in Nashville, reducing the credits needed to graduate is a “strong possibility,” but added that there would definitely be exceptions with some programs at universities that have certain accreditation needs. Still, the lower graduation requirements would take a few years to implement, if at all, Clark said.
Several concrete changes should be happening soon, however, such as moving remedial classes, classes for those at or above eighth grade level, from The University of Memphis to community colleges.
Interim Director of Education David Sigsbee said removing these classes reduces costs for The U of M.
“It just costs more for a larger university. We have a larger physical plant, equipment, different pay for professors,” Sigsbee said.
Remedial classes are mostly for those needing to catch up and adult students who need to review. U of M president Shirley Raines said that while she didn’t want to turn her back on these students, the removal of remedial classes from The U of M seems imminent.
Sigsbee said there has been speculation that high school deficiencies, the courses required for U of M admission that were not offered in every high school, will become obsolete because all Tennessee high schools are now required to offer classes to fill these deficiencies. Over 600 students are currently working on fulfilling their deficiencies.
High school deficiencies specialist Nancy Sellers said she is not worried about losing her job yet.
“Not all students who come to The U of M are from Tennessee or are coming straight from high school,” Sellers said.
But for those coming from high school, the new, more stringent Gateway test, mandatory for 2005 high school graduates, will raise the bar.
The TCAP tests that were required for graduation from high school were set on an eighth grade competency level. The new Gateway tests for high-schoolers tests for the 10th grade level. Anyone not able to pass the test is given a certificate of attendance instead of a regular degree.
According to Treva Berryman, associate vice chancellor for Academic Affairs of the Tennessee Department of Education, state universities require regular diplomas to enroll.
“Because these Gateway tests are at a higher level, there will most likely be more students leaving high school unable to attend a university,” Berryman said. But she added the hope was that high school teachers would rise to meet the challenge and prepare students to pass.
Despite the higher standards and the fact that every Tennessee student will have to have proven a certain level of competency, the required general education classes are not likely to change either in number or in curriculum, according to Sigsbee.
The general education courses are set by the 1984 Tennessee legislature’s comprehensive education reform act’s minimum standards for college courses laid out in the “Academic Preparation for College,” otherwise known as the “green book.” From the basic requirements, The University decides what other courses should be mandatory for graduation.
“To eliminate courses like English 1010 would be, essentially, against the law,” Sigsbee said. However, he said the university-mandated classes such as computer literacy and others like it may be changed in the future.
“There will always be a need for remedial (classes),” Berryman said, “But I certainly hope it reduces the need for remedial classes (the proposed plans), and to allow students to move through (education) faster.”
