The commencement participation rules may be recommended to be changed by the Council on Academic Affairs Thursday.

The recommendation of allowing all students who would have been eligible to graduate in August to walk through commencement in the spring is being brought forward by a CAA sub-committee of Fern Kory, English professor, and Julie Dietz, health studies professor.

The recommendation, if passed by CAA, must be approved by the President’s Council before its implemented.

Last semester, Bud Fischer, biological science professor, brought to the attention of CAA that students who have to finish an internship worth 12-credit hours cannot walk through the commencement ceremony.

This is a result of the current rule, internal governing policy No. 50, which stipulates a student can only have six credit hours remaining to walk through commencement.

The recommendation will not help those students who complete an internship in the spring and would want to participate in the fall commencement, according to the proposal.

The sub-committee reviewed practices of other public universities in Illinois, Missouri and Indiana, and the research revealed that those schools that have eliminated summer commencement generally allow summer graduates to participate in the spring ceremony, according to the proposal.

Eastern’s summer commencement was removed because of high costs and low participation.

In other business, CAA will vote on the revision of a sociology course.

The course revision is mainly to change the name and description to more accurately reflect the course content, according to the proposal.

The course, sociological social psychology (SOC 3650), focuses on how two or more people fit their behaviors together in cooperation, in competition and in conflict.

The course is and will remain an elective for sociology majors.