AP Report on Minors & Double Majors

Background Date: 10/22/12 Authors: Francelina Neto, Patricia de Freitas, Alex Rudolph, Ruth Guthrie TITLE OF REFERRAL: Policy that allows for minors and double majors.

Background  Referral is a response to conflict between current catalog, indicating that minors/double majors are available, and recent policies that restrict ability of students to declare them.  Most minors and all double majors will take students above the 180 unit cap, recent policy effectively denies student s minor/double majors.

AP Report on Minors and Double Majors Recommends: 1. Students may declare up to two minors in addition to their primary major if all academic programs can be completed within 40 units above the number of units required for their primary major. Students must receive the approval of the chair of the department offering the proposed academic program. 2. Students may declare one major in addition to their primary major if all academic programs can be completed within 60 units above the number of units required for their primary major. Students must receive the approval of the chair of the department offering the proposed academic program. 3. Minors or double majors may be declared at any time in a students' career but students are strongly encouraged to declare minors and double majors early in their career. After earning 135 total units, students may declare a minor or additional major only if they are in good academic standing and have the approval of the chair of the department offering the proposed academic program.

Response to AP after first reading 1.Limits for minors – AP report recommends 40 units - suggested change is to 24 units. 2.Limits for second majors - AP report recommends 60 units – suggested change is to 36 units. 3.Limit for adding new minor, new major, or change of major* – suggested change is to add text to deal with changing majors* “students who are within 20 units of completing their major degree will be prohibited from changing majors or adding a new minor or major, unless the change can be completed within 20 units.” *We do not address change of major in our report (it’s not part of the referral), this is similar to AA , which was voted down in the senate.

AP Committee response: 1.Limits for minors – AP report recommends 40 units - suggested change is to 24 units. The AP committee feels that the 40 units for students doing minors is a negotiable number, but 24 is too low, our committee recommends 36 units. 2. Limits for second majors - AP report recommends 60 units – suggested change is to 36 units. The AP committee accepts the change to 36 units with a caveat to be discussed on the next slide. 3. Limit for adding new minor, new major, or change of major* – suggested change is to add text to deal with changing majors* The AP committee does not accept this change. There has been no recent study of this issue and when it came to the senate as AA it was voted down in the senate.

Issues with Music Music has pointed out that they have many double majors, so even though campus wide double majors are 1% of all CPP students, this is not true for them. Iris Levine (Chair, Music) states that out of 31 graduating seniors from last year, 6 were double majors. This is 20% of the population in Music. Any policy for double majors has programmatic impacts that we need to pay attention to.

The AP committee feels that in extreme cases where double majors would exceed the 36 unit limit (such as Music), students should be allowed to ask for an exception to that limit. But the AP committee also recognizes that this bears further study and should be its own referral at a later date.

Proposal for a friendly amendment is: 1. Students may declare up to two minors in addition to their primary major if all academic programs can be completed within 36 units ( was 40 units) above the number of units required for their primary major. Students must receive the approval of the chair of the department offering the proposed academic program. 2. Students may declare one major in addition to their primary major if all academic programs can be completed within 36 units (was 60 units) above the number of units required for their primary major. Students must receive the approval of the chair of the department offering the proposed academic program. 3. Minors or double majors may be declared at any time in a students' career but students are strongly encouraged to declare minors and double majors early in their career. After earning 135 total units, students may declare a minor or additional major only if they are in good academic standing and have the approval of the chair of the department offering the proposed academic program. No changes to #3