Scope

At IU Indianapolis, IU Columbus, and IU Fort Wayne:
Tenured and Tenure-Track (ranks of professor, associate professor, assistant professor, librarian, associate librarian, assistant librarian) and Non-Tenure-Track (ranks of clinical, lecturer, professor of practice, research scientist/scholar).

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Policy Statement

Courses taught at the 100 or 200 level that either meet general education requirements or provide foundational/prerequisite knowledge for later degree progress are commonly understood as gateway courses. Gateway course performance is critical to student retention and graduation success and to the overall quality of a student’s academic opportunities and experience. These courses have high enrollments, frequently have large lecture components, and are often taught by adjunct and/or graduate student instructors.

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Reason for Policy

Student grades in gateway courses are meaningfully predictive of success in their chosen major. When students are struggling in these courses, early intervention is paramount, but not all gateway course instructors can be expected to outreach to students with the same dedication of time or awareness of campus supports. Student activity in Canvas can be monitored using embedded data on things like page views, assignment completion, and the like. However, not all gateway courses or course instructors utilize Canvas in the same ways, so there are cases where Canvas activity data provide a limited picture of student progress in these courses.

The Student Engagement Roster (SER) offers a means of communicating direct faculty feedback (positive and negative) to students and is immediately actionable by well-prepared student success staff across campus. Therefore, it is crucial that SER feedback be submitted at least once within the first third (by instructional time) of each gateway course to allow for an equitable approach to early intervention.

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Procedures

The IU Indianapolis Faculty Council endorses the expectation that all IU Indianapolis faculty (full- and part-time) who are teaching gateway courses submit at least one Student Engagement Roster (SER) report on student progress during the first third of these courses (typically by the start of Week 6 in a regular full-term semester).

Academic leaders (deans, associate/assistant deans, and/or department chairs) will determine which of their courses are gateway courses and how submission of reports will be monitored and reported. The content of the submission itself is at the discretion of the faculty member but should be crafted to allow staff to distinguish students who would benefit from time-sensitive intervention. It is recommended that at minimum, students who are currently not passing a course be clearly identified using that specific indicator in the system (that is, Not Passing Course).

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History

Submitted to the Academic Affairs Committee by Christina Downey, associate vice chancellor for undergraduate education and dean of University College with endorsements by the Undergraduate Affairs Committee and the Division of Undergraduate Education Faculty Council.

Endorsed and passed unanimously by the IU Indianapolis Faculty Council, April 2, 2024.
Effective Spring 2024 and beyond.

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