Committee on Academic Status
The Committee on Academic Status meets weekly during the academic year and every other week all summer so that the petitions which keep rolling in year round can be heard in a timely fashion. In recent years the committee has dealt with about 1400 petitions annually, although some of the routine ones are handled in the Dean of Students Office according to principles developed by the committee. This committee has a strict quorum requirement because of legal issues, and all faculty members are almost always there.
Meetings last from 1 to 2 hours weekly, and the continuance meetings which occur once a semester are substantially longer than that. There is no doubt that CAS demands a high time commitment. Linda Reilly describes the CAS as "one of the one of the most demanding and intense" committees. There cannot be any advance notice about the cases CAS will hear because of privacy rules, and so there is no advance preparation possible or necessary. The chair is most demanding because she/he must follow up after the meeting and talk to chairs and individual faculty.
