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EPPCO

As part of its duties this semester, the Educational Policy and Planning Com-
mittee was asked to review the BDU criteria developed by senior management.

The following report which has been forwarded to the College President and the
College Board, summarizes EPPCO's response.

After a series of workshops with senior management and separate
meetings of the committee on its own, TEPPCO is resolved that it
docs not and cannot approve the proposed BDU criteria nor the
plans for their application in the College.

Because EPPCO is a committee conposed of students, staff and
faculty, it cannot be involved in any process which pits one
part of the college operation against another iu a competition
for funds, nor can it make valuc judgments about the relative
worth of College offerings.

We have a number of concerns with the management proposal for
ranking BDU's. Our over-riding concern is that the current
proposal is attempting to use an objective system of measurement
to make decisions which, in the final analysis, are fundamentally
subjective, ,

We question whether it is even possible to develop an effective
system of objective measurement to rank the various units within
the College, but even if it is, we are still concerned about the
problem of comparability. Our workshops with the Deans have made
clear that they intend to apply different criteria not only tc
the different major units within the College which have been
identified, but also within their divisions and the departments
in those divisions. Sinee the decision about which eriteria to
choose for a particular unit and how to weight those criteria
is, ayain, Cundamentally subjeclive, we question the validity

of any subsequent comparison and/or ranking.

We are also concerned that the propused system might foster anc
reward innapropriate Laculty behavior. Instructors might try te
improve efficiency, increase student satisfaction and learner
performance, increase the number of applicants or the length of

a waiting list by lowering their academic standards, by political
lobbying, or by other unprofessional actions.’

As a result of these concerns, there is a strony feeling in the
committee that the effort to develop objective criteria to rank
BDU's is little more than an exercise in futility and should be
abandoned. Recognizing, however, that the College may nonetheless |
choose to go ahead with the proposal, we wish to indicate threc
further concerns,