The new regulation by the Board of Trustees should not count past “W’s”, it should allow the students to start fresh.
When this regulation takes effect, Summer 2012, it will leave students who do have withdrawals in unpleasant situations.
The ones with only one “W” in a class will be limited to the new number of three, but will leave the students with two W’s in a situation where if they happen to withdrawal again from the same class they will now have to appeal or take the class in another district.
The Board of Trustees wants us, the students, to be more responsible with our classes; which is great, but past W’s shouldn’t affect our current academic career.
None of us had any knowledge back then when we decided to withdraw, that there eventually was going to be a limit as to how many times we could withdrawal from a class.
That is not to say that it was alright for the student to accumulate W’s, but back when we did withdrawal we had no limit. We were only affected by non passing grades such as D’s and
F’s.
One could argue and state that this new regulation violates ex post factor laws, which states that if an action at the time was legal it cannot be made illegal by any new law.
Would that not mean that past W’s cannot count towards the limit count since this regulation did not exist when the student withdrew from class?
Students should be allowed to start fresh and be well aware of the new rule instead of being blindsided by their past mistakes.