MELA Meeting Minutes 2003 - 2017

B. Withdrawal Policy i. Jackie Bailey-Hall asked if during add/drop students are withdrawn or actually dropped. Ms. McCrimon and Mr. Smith both stated that it’s an individual school policy as to how this is handled. ii. Audra Kimble stated that students were confused by being told different procedures for withdrawing for online courses by instructors at different colleges. Ms. Shows stated that the student should contact the school where they registered to find out what their policy is. iii. Ms. Lofton asked how inter-college communication went as far as withdrawals. Mr. Yates and Ms. McCrimon stated that students should go to their instructor or the registrar (whatever the college policy is) and request the withdrawal, but communication should stay between DLCs. iv. Ms. Kimble suggested that we implement a statewide withdrawal policy. Most thought that the association would meet resistance with getting a statewide policy approved. i. Alicia Shows asked how the textbook policy was being implemented by colleges. ii. Mr. Yates expressed that MCC will propose a change to the policy because of the loss that colleges who originate classes incur. iii. Mr. Smith added that the reason bookstore managers were handed the policy for dealing with textbooks is because they did not come up with a policy on their own. Ms. Shows mentioned that this policy was not provided to bookstore managers until the last minute and that they were not adequately prepared. iv. Mr. Smith asked which Strategic Initiative books fell under. Most agreed Support. Perhaps this should be addressed further with this sub-committee. v. Letha Richards and Laura Lofton stated that their pilot testing with MBS was not successful. vi. Alicia Shows added that Jerry Acy works for a company called TotalCard. He writes interface programs for several colleges for their bookstore/cafeteria ID card readers. He has written a simple program that would use our textbook data, allow the students to request MSVCC textbooks online, and get orders/send information to the various bookstores. He has demonstrated the program to the computer center directors, but no one else has shown any interest . vii. Mark Smith said he would like to see a field added for bookstore phone numbers in the enrollment tool, or have this number auto-populated into course detail so that it would appear in the students’ profiles. viii. Mr. Smith mentioned that the MGCCC bookstore manager has considered purchasing Visa check cards for students to use to purchase their books when they cannot get their book(s) from the local bookstore. The Visa Check card allows students using financial aid to purchase the card from the bookstore using their financial aid and then order their books online if needed using the check card ix. Ms. Shows suggested that instructors not change books after pre-registration. Members stated that this would be a problem since pre-registration starts in early spring and many book change approvals are done over the summer. x. Ms. Lofton asked if bookstores issue refunds to students who register for “ghost” classes. Most said yes with receipt. C. Textbook Policy

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