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There was no place left to park, Schneider said, so he pulled onto a sidewalk to make it easier to load a refrigerator and microwave oven from her dorm. People were parked illegally all over campus when he got nailed, Schneider said.
When his wife, Georgia, died about three years ago, one of his daughters experienced academic difficulty while attending graduate school at UW-Stevens Point, Schneider said. An instructor treated him rudely and hung up on him when he tried to discuss the situation by phone, he said.
Schneider's reaction? He introduced legislation to require an instructor to meet with a parent or guardian who wants to discuss academic performance within a week, as long as the student approves in writing.
While most parents can only stew over such concerns, Schneider decided to take action, introducing a "student bill of rights."
Assembly Bill 578 includes about a dozen proposals that would regulate everything from parking and stadium naming rights to the weight of textbooks and the time a student gets to study for an exam.
Most of the proposals stem from Schneider's personal experience or the experiences of friends or family, he said.
When the father of his niece's fiance was murdered, Schneider said a UW-La Crosse instructor wouldn't allow her to make up work missed while attending the funeral. Schneider's bill would require that opportunity.
Schneider's bill will get a hearing, and many of the proposals stand a good chance of becoming law if system administrators don't address them first, said state Rep. Rob Kreibich, R-Eau Claire, who heads the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities.
Kreibich said system officials have had time to address many concerns raised in the bill, which also was introduced but not acted on last legislative session.
"Their inaction has prompted this legislation," said Kreibich, a bill co-sponsor.
Many of the examples Schneider offers represent isolated cases, said Margaret Lewis, associate vice president of university relations for the system.
But state law should not be used to dictate policies that in many cases now are handled at each campus, she said. Some of Schneider's ideas, such as suspending parking rules, are just impractical, she said. Suspending parking rules would likely create a safety hazard by potentially blocking emergency vehicles, she said.
Schneider's niece apparently was the victim of a mistake at UW-La Crosse, and she should have been allowed to make up work she missed because of a funeral, Lewis said.
Without a doubt, students who lose family members should be allowed to make up missed work, but that type of situation should be decided at the campus level, Lewis said.
"There's an awful lot of dead grandparents and ill family members before exam time," Lewis said.
Kreibich said he favored at least seven of Schneider's ideas, but he wanted to hear more from system officials and members of the public. The committee may alter or reject some of the proposals after a public hearing in September or October, Kreibich said.
If problems are widespread, system officials would hope to hear about it at the hearing on Schneider's bill, Lewis said.
"His (Schneider's) heart is in the right place. He wants to put the interests of students first, and we do, too. We just want to go about it in a different way," Lewis said.
Assembly Bill 578 would require the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System "to guarantee certain rights to students and to regulate the academic conduct of instructors."
Specifically, the bill would:
- Require an instructor to approve or deny a request to add a course within five days of the request.
— Require the suspension of all parking rules for the week preceding and following each semester.
— Require grades to be submitted no later than 10 days after the final examination for the course.
— Prohibit an instructor from requiring students to purchase or use a textbook the instructor has authored unless student government approves.
— Require the chancellor to revoke tenure of a faculty member or deduct six months' pay for an untenured instructor whose academic advising causes a student to be enrolled at least one semester more than he or she otherwise would have been enrolled.
— Prohibit an instructor from requiring students to complete a course evaluation until after the final examination is given.
— Requires by 2012 that audio or video recordings of all lectures and course sections be made available for downloading on the Internet.
— Require an instructor who adopts the policy of reducing the grades of a student due to illness resulting in absenteeism to state that policy in writing, and permit a student to appeal any decision based on that policy to the appropriate academic dean.
— Require an instructor to excuse the absence of a student whose family member, fiance, or fiancee dies or becomes extremely ill, and to allow a student to take any examination missed because of a funeral of a family member, fiance or fiancee.
— Require an instructor to meet with a parent or guardian who wants to discuss academic performance within a week, as long as the student approves in writing.
— Limit the work day of a medical intern to 16 hours.
— Prohibit the Board of Regents from entering into a contract that grants naming rights to a university arena, playing field or stadium.
— Direct the state Department of Public Instruction, the UW Board of Regents and the Technical College Board to adopt maximum weight standards for textbooks.
Tom Sheehan can be reached at tsheehan@madison.com or (608) 252-6198.
