GradPact 'broken' by faculty

Seven years ago, a national crisis was mounting -- students seemed to be unable to graduate from state schools on time. To combat this, IU created GradPact, a University program to help students graduate in four years.\nNow it seems much of the program, which IU President Myles Brand once called "a key to our building of 'America's New Public University,'" was, and is unnecessary. \nThe Bloomington Faculty Council, the body that governs much of IU's academic policy, passed a resolution Tuesday night ending the GradPact program. The program, instituted in 1995, was a contract between IU and eligible undergraduate students that guaranteed IU would pay for the cost of extra classes if a student was not able to get specific credits in time to graduate within four years.\nDavid Daleke, chair of the BFC education policies committee, said in his presentation with the implementation of a new student information system, GradPact will become too expensive to integrate into the new software. According to IU's new system vendor PeopleSoft, GradPact would cost over $200,000 to be placed in the new systems, and nearly $60,000 annually to maintain because of the extra time and manpower needed to program GradPact-specific restrictions into the new scheduling software.\nCouncilmember Erik Bucy said he didn't want to have to make a decision on that fact alone.\n"Policy on any level should not be dictated by computer software," he said. "That said, maybe GradPact should be discontinued, but I would like to hear from advisers, those who use it on the front lines." \nDon Hossler, IU vice president for enrollment, said the new system from PeopleSoft, without the integration of GradPact programming, may cost IU upwards of $50 million.\nThe new software will be completely Web-based, and will integrate most of IU's self-designed information systems such as the INSITE systems and Automated Registration on the Web. The course selection guidelines that were created for GradPact will remain in use.\nHossler said that though GradPact will end in the 2003 school year, all students who have current GradPact contracts will stay in the program.\n"There is no plan to root anybody who has already signed up," he said.\nHossler said GradPact was created mostly to ease parents' fears in the mid '90s that students at large state schools could not graduate in four years because of overcrowded classes.\n"Much of the public perception of course availability was caused by the crisis at the University of California," Hossler said. "People thought that if you went to a state school you would not graduate on time."\nAccording to statistics presented at the meeting, since 1996, the first year GradPact was available, only around 35 percent of eligible students sign-up for GradPact every year. On average, one-third of those who sign up for GradPact finish the contract's requirements. During the seven years GradPact has been in place, IU has never had to pay a student for a GradPact claim.\nSome councilmembers referenced previous concerns that the tight course schedule that GradPact demanded left no time for students to explore different majors.\n"I can find very little in GradPact that is beneficial to students, minus the course maps and the Automated Course Exchange," said Bob Eno, chair of the BFC. "It is simply a mirage. I think we should have considered dissolving GradPact before this cost issue"