Flex Courses
July 12, 2021
Subject: flex courses will satisfy pre-req requirements (they are UF courses)
Hey all, effective now there should be NO prohibition on Flex courses (UF courses) counting towards UF admissions. This was an inadvertent policy- I’m guessing an overcorrection but I’m not certain how this came about – out of Marchman’s shop as best we can tell. Basically the policy that stands is one focused on UF current students only: namely, current UF students are not to rely on Flex courses for their degree requirements but instead they may only do so on an exceptions basis with college approval.
Flex courses are UF courses; it would be inappropriate for UF to deem them to not count toward admissions and to instead require a student to take the prerequisite from another institution instead. UF does however want to ensure UF admitted students are not overly relying on Flex to meet degree requirements; that’s a UF policy stance we will continue to adhere to.
Going further, and just to be clear, no current UF student enrolled via UF Online as a degree-seeking student should rely on flex either – and if that does end up being a college recommendation to a student, I want to know about it. If a UF Online student (pace or otherwise) is in need of a course, a seat, etc. I do not want them reverting over to Flex unless in an emergency circumstance (and that would need to be defined by the college). Instead, I’d like our operations team to know about it asap to inform our seat management supports for colleges and advisors. And I’d also like to personally be engaged to understand why the student was referred to flex as their only/best option: we’d then make damn sure they had a UF Online seat to meet their degree requirements for timely graduation and we would take steps with the college to determine how to best prevent this from happening again. In addition, I would like Emma and team to also be engaged on any/all seat requests and “consternations” for UF Online (my term for..) --- i.e., where are students wanting in seats in courses their advisors support but yet UF Online lacks those courses or seats? That list would most certainly inform the Academic Strategies Team’s work on curriculum mapping and course production prioritization; plus UF Online department investments and funds.
Melissa, if you have any questions on this policy clarification you may wish to contact Rick Bryant – he just spoke with Dr. McCollough about this as of this morning. As a next step. Dr. M will be reaching out and over to the Flex program to get their external facing web content and student-advise updated asap.
Melissa, I’d ask that any decision made for fall that rejected an application based solely on their reliance on a UF Flex course to satisfy a pre-requisite be reconsidered by the college and/or EM. Let me know how I can help communicate this to colleges if you need me to do so.
Nico please make sure this information is reflected in all of our externally-facing materials and let’s get this on our next UF Online update agenda as an “update” for all advisors. I’ll also post in the UF Online advisor team room.
Let me know if you have any questions or if I can/should clarify anything above. You may wonder if UF Online has a policy manual to keep this policy and we certainly will have one by the end of the calendar year; to keep all these decisions in an easy to find, central location.
Thanks, all,
Evie
Evangeline J. Tsibris Cummings
Assistant Provost and Director of UF Online
University of Florida
302 Tigert Hall
Gainesville, FL 32611
P: 352-273-4478
http://ufonline.ufl.edu/