SA advocates for intro language courses to retain DI credit

By Cameron Wallace     3/5/19 11:27pm

The Student Association Senate unanimously passed a resolution Monday night to express support for the reinstatement of introductory language courses as DI distribution credit.

Introductory language classes are scheduled to become ineligible for distribution credit in May 2019, though classes already taken for distribution credit will continue to fulfill the requirement. Students first began receiving DI credit for introductory language courses in 2015. 

The change came after the accrediting body for Texas schools, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, recommended that the School of Humanities remove DI credit for first-year language courses.

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Introductory language classes were offered for DI credit from 2015 to 2019 because former Dean of Humanities Nicolas Shumway and the director of the Center for Languages and Intercultural Communications actively argued that CLIC courses were more than language acquisition classes, Eliza Martin, one of the proposers of the legislation, said. 

The SACSCOC only requires students to take one course in each of the three distribution categories. Therefore, Rice may be able to satisfy SACSCOC requirements while offering introductory language courses for DI credit if students take one DI course that is not an intro language, Eliza Martin, outgoing Baker College president, said. 

“The idea of humanities is that it should be open for all and we should all be well-rounded individuals,” Martin said. “So I think it’s more of trying to create well-rounded individuals across the board.”

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