By Bleah B. Patterson
In the wake of controversy about the addition of EDUC 1300, Chancellor Bruce Leslie plans a closed-door session Friday with faculty at Northwest Vista College.
The meeting is at 10:30 a.m. in Manzanillo Hall at the college.
The Faculty Senate of the college tried to intervene with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to prevent a change to the core curriculum for the next academic year.
Additional controversy has arisen over standardizing textbooks across the five colleges, moving to e-books and rolling textbook expense into tuition.
This change would require students to pay for committee-chosen textbooks upon registration, most of which will be ebooks despite students’ preference for physical books.
The most divisive actions, however, was the almost total shutout of faculty input into the decision-making process.
Another issue is raising the student activity fee, which would double the $1 per credit hour charge.
The EDUC 1300, Learning Framework, course that has been approved to replace three of the six humanities hours required in the core curriculum.
Alexis Morrow, liberal arts freshman at Northwest Vista College, will be collecting additional signatures for a petition against standardizing textbooks.
She hopes to present the petition to the board March 18.
