Members of the Council on Academic Affairs face curriculum restructuring in the coming weeks to comply with federal financial aid law, according to Chris Mitchell, chair of the CAA.

“This law will create a bit of business as a lot of departments may be affected by the law as it prohibits financial aid from being offered to students who need to take a course more than twice,” Mitchell said.

According to the Standards of Academic Progress Policy, “Students are allowed to take the same course twice if they receive a failing grade and receive financial aid. Financial Aid will not pay a student to attempt a class for the third time.”

Mitchell said, in order to comply with the law, class course numbers could be changed so students will not be penalized by the policy.

He said the process of this starts at the departmental level.

“It will then go up the chain to individual curriculum committees and, after that, it will be brought up to us,” Mitchell said.

The first CAA meeting this semester is at 2 p.m. today in Booth Library Room 4440.

Doug Klarup, a member of the CAA, said he does not expect the meeting to include much discussion because in the agenda, there are no new items to be acted upon.

“There will be an orientation to begin the meeting, which is just a way to show members the ropes for CAA,” Klarup said.

Mitchell said the orientation will involve reminding members to review the CAA bylaws and templates.

Mitchell said the agenda for today’s meeting is relatively short and they will be reviewing reports that have accumulated over the summer, but there are no issues up for debate.

“There will be a more substantial agenda next week as courses come up the pike,” Mitchell said. “It has been very interesting work to see the ins and outs of how courses are structured.”

Rachel Rodgers can be reached at 581-2812 or rjrodgers@eiu.edu.