This week’s Academic Senate held some big topics that caused some big debates. 
The main topic discussed this week was the Writing Proficiency Screening Test (WPST),  requirements for writing proficiency classes, who the burden is on to remove students who enrolled without taking the test, and possible alternatives to the test.
The WPST and its possible changes
It has been in recent history that a student must take the WPST at Stan State in order to take the Writing Proficiency (WP) course. The exception being that if a student transfers, they will have already taken a similar exam.  
In Stan State’s recent time, there have been student’s that have enrolled into a WP course without taking the test and have gotten in. Gender Studies professor, Dr. Betsey Eudey explained that the percentage of those students is small.
” In recent time, it has been on the instructor to remove students off of their enrollment who haven’t taken the WPST. There has not been many students that have still got into the class, the number is only 2 percent.” said Eudey.
There was also some discussion that there should be a way for a student to receive some feedback on their test whether they pass or fail to improve their writing skills.
Dr. Nainby (Communication Studies) expressed some of these concerns. ” A student just receives a score, but no feedback on their writing or reasoning on why they received that score.”
An alternative was also discussed for who to push the burden on when removing the students from enrollment who have not taken the WPST. 
With the current burden on the teacher, an automatic system was suggested. The concern of it was removing students who do not have to take the WPST.
Policy of Learning Experiences Opinions of students:
Another topic brought up was a possible change to how we can assess the opinions of students on their instructors at the end of a semester. 
Dr. Nainby expressed that he and a committee  are working on a possible new way to asses this by December 20, 2018.
We could see a new way to assess our instructors in 2019.
Student Perspective:
James Green (Sophomore, Biology) attended the Academic senate because hi is a tech assistant and has to make sure the sound system and microphones are working properly during the Academic Senate meeting.  
“The most interesting topic to me was the changes that could be coming to the WPST and the alternative assignments that could be given out,” Green said. 
Summary:
A very productive academic senate meeting comes to an end as heavy topics are talked about and debated. Solutions to the issues seem to be on the horizon.