Students entering the Board of Trustees Bachelor of Arts degree program in the fall 2002 semester will be taking more required classes and fewer electives.

The Council on Academic Affairs passed the request Thursday despite concern the Council may be exceeding its boundaries.

The BOT program, which is available to returning adult students over the age of 25, will now require students to complete six semester hours of communications and languages courses and one senior seminar.

Also, students will be required to take at least 20 semester hours at Eastern, which includes the senior seminar and six communications and language courses, where in the past they only had to take 15 hours from any of the five institutions involved in Board of Governors University System, which previously provided the program.

Despite the extra five hours, students will still only be required to complete 120 semester hours because they will only be required to take 15 hours of electives instead of 18 to 20, said William Hine, dean of the School of Adult and Continuing Education.

“We wanted to strengthen the program academically,” Hine said, “and put it in line with requirements of the rest of the university.”

Originally, the BOT program was part of the Board of Governors University System which included five universities.

In effect, the program was not actually an Eastern program therefore the CAA had no jurisdiction over it and could include the program in its agenda.

However, in 1996, the BGU system ended and the Eastern Board of Trustees kept the program and, in effect, made it an Eastern program without the council’s approval.

On Thursday, the BOT program asked the CAA to approve a change to a program which it had never approved.

Larry Helsel, technology professor and CAA member, questioned the council on whether it was appropriate to vote on the item.

“If we vote on this, we could be giving approval to a program we have never taken a look at,” he said. “This would be the first time we would be approving a program in which students do not have to complete the same degree requirements as every other undergraduate at the university.”

Loretta Woodward, BOT program director, said most BOT students do not complete the same requirements because they already have their associate’s degree, which gives them credit for general education courses. Also, adult students have different needs and therefore should be educated accordingly, she said.

Agreeing with Helsel, Tim Shonk, CAA member and associate English professor, asked “can we approve changes to something we’ve never approved before?”

Mary Herrington-Perry, assistant vice president for academic affairs, said the program has been approved by the Board of Trustees and there are many BOT degrees with Eastern’s approval stamped on them.

She added, “it is (CAA’s) bylaws which make you responsible for all undergraduate programs.”

Helsel replied, “for over 20 years we were told it was a BGU program and that we couldn’t put our hands on it.”

Despite the hour-long debate, the council approved the request by a 10-0 decision with two abstained votes made by Helsel and Shonk.