The Steering Committee of the Faculty Senate unanimously approved policies regarding special registration status and transfer credits for the 2020-21 academic year.
At a special meeting on July 30, the Faculty Senate approved new grading policies for the 2020-21 academic year, including one stating that all university courses offered for a letter grade must also give students the option of taking the course for a credit/no credit grade.
The Steering Committee of the Faculty Senate approved a one-year delay on a new academic policy – which had been scheduled to go into effect in the 2020-21 academic year – setting a 100-unit cap on undergraduate majors.
An administrative session of the Faculty Senate provided approval for four 10-week quarters in the coming academic year, along with a daily course meeting schedule for both online and in-person classes.
At a special meeting on Thursday, the Academic Council discussed but did not vote on a faculty resolution calling on Stanford to greatly accelerate its efforts to divest from fossil fuel companies and to transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2030.
The Academic Council convened its first special meeting in 50 years in response to a faculty petition requesting a “full and broad” discussion of a new academic policy recently approved by the Faculty Senate.
During the final regularly scheduled meeting of the academic year, the Faculty Senate discussed principal investigator eligibility, support for faculty during the pandemic, and the recently announced Community Board on Public Safety.
The Faculty Senate heard presentations on fossil fuel divestment from several speakers: Anthony Duarte, undergraduate senator; Paul Brest, professor emeritus of law; Gene Sykes, chair of the Special Committee on Investment Responsibility of Stanford’s Board of Trustees; and Mikael Wolfe, assistant professor of history.
At the Academic Council meeting, President Marc Tessier-Lavigne discussed how Stanford is pivoting its Long-Range Vision in light of COVID-19, and announced Stanford is designing a school focused on climate and sustainability.
In his address to the Academic Council, President Marc Tessier-Lavigne announced a school focused on climate and sustainability that will help the university address the urgent challenges facing the planet.
