Minimum progress

Dear Editor:

For 15 years, the UC Davis administration has refused to enforce minimum progress. When the Academic Senate accepted to revise the minimum progress rule and make it more lenient as a condition of seeing its own rules enforced, the administration was still fearful that too many students would not be able to meet the requirement.

Last week, Provost Virginia Hinshaw let us know that there was good news onthe minimum progress front. She wrote: " ... the results were far more positive than originally anticipated. The undergraduate students clearly responded by taking more units to meet this requirement, and this should lead to improvements in our four-year graduation rates."

Surprise. Students are people who respond to incentives.

Quirino Paris

professor of agricultural and resource economics