By Dennis O’Neil
The board of trustees for the University of Louisville is currently weighing on the issue of a potential establishment of a withdrawal fee. The withdrawal fee would be assessed to students when and if they withdraw from a class after the drop period.
The idea for the fee came about in order to combat “course shopping,” among U of L students. Furthermore, research conducted by U of L into other institutions discovered that withdrawal fees are becoming more and more prevalent.
Currently, U of L students are penalized with a “W” on their record when they withdraw from a class after the drop date.
According to Vice President and University Provost Dr. Shirley Willihnganz, the fee has yet to be implemented as an official university policy this semester, largely due to active opposition from university faculty and students.
Willihnganz said, “Some advisors feared that students would stay in classes for which they were not prepared and receive more failing grades. Some folks wanted there to be some number of classes that could be dropped before a fee would kick in.”
“Student Government definitely opposed the immediate implementation of the fee,” said SGA Academic Vice President Ashley Howarth.
“We voiced our opinions to the president and the provost, and they listened,” said Howarth, a senior biochemistry major. According to Howarth, the potential fee needed to be better explained to students before implementation, as adversely demonstrated by the ill-received health fee in 2006.
Because a number of questions were left unanswered, Willhnganz said, “We sent the idea back to committee for additional recommendation and fine tuning.”
