Dropping the university-wide first-year seminar graduation requirement and instituting college-specific seminars will be two of the issues on the agenda today when the University Faculty Senate convenes for its first meeting of the spring semester.

The Senate will meet at 1:30 p.m. in 112 Kern.

In a report, the senate committee on undergraduate education will recommend dropping the current university-wide first-year seminar graduation requirement in favor of encouraging the individual colleges and campuses to continue their own form of the program, according to the Senate's agenda.

First-year seminars (FYS) have been a graduation requirement since the 1999 fall semester.

According the released report, there has been "a lack of consistency and clarity in FYS offerings."

In a separate report published on April 25, the committee noted that the expectations from first-year seminars are too broad.

"It is not just the learning objectives that are inconsistent -- rigor, format, and even the number of credits for first-year seminars are not standard," the report read.

Other issues discussed in the report included the availability of the first-year seminars and the number of these seminars not being taught by regular faculty.

"There have been mixed comments from all parties in the university," Joanna Floros, Senate chairwoman, said. "There has been debate for several years now. The fact that it's been debated all these years shows how mixed the reviews are."

In 2003, a specialized task force was organized to review the seminars. Debate over the requirement has continued since then.

The first-year seminar was intended to be flexible enough to allow for unique educational offerings, according to the committee's report.

Because of this flexibility, only a few broad principles were articulated in the initial legislation.

The agenda for today's meeting notes that "academic concern over consistency and clarity could be addressed by adopting a more specific set of University-wide learning objectives" but that there is "little support for this among faculty and administrators."

Among students, opinions of first-year seminar are also divided.

"I loved it," said Jes Matsick (freshman-Spanish and psychology), who said she took a womens studies course for her seminar.

Katie Neustadter (freshman-education) had a different opinion.

"Our class is harder compared to other classes," she said.

"I don't know why mine is three credits and others are one credit."