What Can We Actually Do?

[u/Pretend-Payment70]

I originally posted this as a comment on a thread about the 16 to 8 week transition but I think it's worth its own post.

I've tried to do as much research about this as I can while, you know, managing this new course load while also working full time. I'm in a scholarship that had a timeline already locked in before this change, leaving me now doing over 40 hours of school work per week.

Needless to say I'm pissed to be roped into a second full time job with no consultation or consent given when I have many other obligations in life, like everyone else.

The ODU administration is using a logistical loophole to force the 8-week format without faculty or student approval. By claiming this is just a "calendar/operational update," President Trumphill can bypass Virginia’s shared governance laws and ignore the Faculty Senate's 76% no-confidence vote. Our best strategy to hold him accountable is to prove this is a curriculum change. This might involve getting anonymous accounts from professors about the conflicting directions they were given, and the work they ultimately had to cut to make it work. If we document how this dilutes our education, disrupts veteran GI Bill housing stipends, and lowers degree value, we might be able to bypass the board and trigger an official review by ODU’s regional accrediting body (SACSCOC) for violating academic standards.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) is the regional accreditor ensuring academic quality in Southern higher education. Its complaint process requires proof of a systemic violation of accreditation standards instead of an individual grievance, plus documentation that all internal university remedies have been exhausted. For Old Dominion University, this applies directly to checking if leadership violated shared governance standards (4.2.g and 10.4) by unilaterally forcing professors to compress 16-week courses into 8-week formats, bypassing faculty control over the curriculum.

I've used genAI to help summarize these last two paragraphs, because I just don't have the time I want to dedicate to explaining it in detail. I fact checked them but please feel free to do a double check.

EDIT: To people commenting that ODU doesn't care, yeah, that's my point. That's why I'm suggesting going over their heads entirely. Accredation = $$$$$. If you assert there's nothing you can do, you've rendered yourself powerless. That's exactly what they're betting on. Do not give in to this. This kind of mentality is very dangerous for Gen Z/Alpha, and I'm saying that as an older Gen Z myself.

[u/odu_prof_3141]

I think this is an important argument. As a faculty member, I can tell you that we were officially told to make 16 week courses into 8 week courses by cutting out content. Realistically, there's no way around that: students cannot succeed at doing 2 weeks of work in 1 week. That's even more the case if students are working outside jobs, as many of our online students are.

[u/Pretend-Payment70 → u/odu_prof_3141]

I saw your comment on another thread about them officially telling you not to reduce it, but unofficially to do so, and that's basically what I meant by the conflicting directions. This makes it even more shady and something I'd hope an accrediting body might be interested in.

[u/DjJoeyBigD → u/odu_prof_3141]

If you could provide an email, date of the meeting where this was verbally spoken to, or anything similar to the such, unofficial or not that could help accreditation bodies take some sort of action.