Undergraduate Senators unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the expansion of transfer credit policies for all students at their weekly meeting on Thursday. The resolution, which also passed the Graduate Student Council unanimously on Wednesday, is now expected to move to the Faculty Senate for consideration.
Authored by Glen Husman ’23, the proposed policy change would allow students to transfer up to 15 credits taken at other accredited institutions this year. Those credits would not count against the transfer credit limit.
The vote followed a discussion of the resolution at the Nov. 5 meeting, in which Husman said that the policy would be “especially prudent for international students” in conflicting time zones.
“I’m always in favor of more flexibility for students and I think particularly for international students,” Senator Jonathan Lipman ’21 said. “This could be really big.”
Husman wrote in a statement to The Daily that his experiences “juggling timezones … and finding a workable study” inspired him to propose the resolution.
“I believe making sure students have options to spend some of their time studying locally, while spending some time taking care of family or personal concerns, is both valuable and easy for Stanford to implement,” he said. “I also believe that forcing students residing abroad who want to make degree progress to live nocturnally is cruel.”
Senators also said they plan to prioritize updating the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) website over winter break. Senate Chair Micheal Brown ’22 said one element of the project involved ensuring that important files within ASSU’s Google Drive were easy to access.
Senator Emily Nichols ’23 inquired about what the Senate could do to financially support students during winter break. Senators raised concerns that some students who lived on campus in the fall and plan to continue living there in the winter may have to pay storage fees for their belongings if they return home over break.
Students who are leaving campus may pay $100 to store their items for the entire winter break. Students who are signed up for “partial winter break housing” that ends on December 12 may pay $50 to store their items for the remainder of the break. The expense will be charged to the winter bill. According to the website, winter quarter financial aid will cover the associated costs after it is disbursed.
Senator Tim Vrakas ’21 suggested that while the ASSU likely couldn’t support students in paying a University fee, they could talk to administrators about alleviating the cost to students. Nichols suggested asking if the University could reimburse students paying the costs out of pocket.
Lipman said that the University simply might not be aware of the issue and suggested contacting multiple individuals in R&DE and University administration.
Contact Sam Catania at samcat ‘at’ stanford.edu and Michaela Guo at mcguo ‘at’ stanford.edu.