A proposed Cal State University Board of Trustees policy that would limit most CSU bachelor degree programs to 120 semester units has faculty at Cal State Long Beach exploring options that would make their undergraduate degrees fit within the new unit limit.
Title 5, section 40508, which was adopted by the CSU in 2000, reduced the minimum number of units required to obtain a CSU bachelor’s degree to 120 semester units. The Board’s new goal is to now establish 120 units as a bachelor’s degree maximum, according to the Committee on Education Policy’ agenda from its Sept. 19 meeting.
According to the committee’s agenda, 19 percent of CSU undergraduate degrees currently require more than 120 units. Bachelor degree programs for architecture, music, fine arts and landscape architecture are currently allowed to require more than 120 units.
Programs unable to sufficiently reduce their units without eliminating requirements for professional accreditations or similar certifications would be allowed to request an exception from the chancellor. If not given the exception, the chancellor would reduce the units of program.
Degrees requiring between 121 and 129 units would have to reduce to 120 units by fall 2013 and be published in the 2013-14 catalogs, while degrees requiring more than 130 units would have to reduce to 120 units by Fall 2014 and be published in the 2014-15 catalog.
How undergraduate degree programs would meet the 120-unit cap is being discussed by campus faculty.
According to the agenda, reducing the number of units for majors would reduce program costs, make fewer students likely to pay the proposed third-tier tuition fee – which would charge students who are taking more than 16 units an extra $200 per unit – and reduce student debt and reliance on financial aid.
The agenda also said that reducing units allows increased accessibility to the CSU for freshman and transfer students.
Such an effort is meant to “improve graduation rates, protect academic quality, and support student efforts to obtain an affordable education,” according to the agenda.
Caroline Bremmer, chair of the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music, said she heard about the possibility of an undergraduate music degree 132-unit cap two weeks ago.
“If we have to do it, we have to do it,” she said, but she didn’t speculate how unit reductions would be executed. “My immediate concern is if we can offer enough classes in spring so that students can graduate on time.”
Mechanical engineering interim department chair Jalal Torabzadeh said that any further cuts would risk his degree program’s accreditation with the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.
“We have done what we can,” he said. “We can’t cut anymore.”
Torabzadeh said a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering required 138 units five years ago, and has since been cut to 130 units, axing nearly a semester’s worth of classes. He said the number of general education units is the main obstacle in reaching the 120-unit goal.
“There is no way to offer sufficient engineering degrees in 120 units if 45 are general education,” he said. “Some of the courses engineering majors cover the topics of GE classes.”
Martin Herman, the design department chair, expressed the same sentiment as Torabzadeh about general education.
“I believe in general education,” he said, “but we need to find a middle ground, a way to preserve the essence of GE’s without cutting the professional degrees to the bone.”
Jessica Pailliotet, a junior construction engineering management major, said she didn’t like the idea of further cuts to engineering degrees.
“It’s a nice theory, but if we’re not going to be prepared for the industries we want to enter then we should keep the extra units,” she said. “If we’re not properly prepared, we’re being set up for failure.”