Dear Editor:

On Feb. 28, Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef addressed the Academic Senate on the topics of shared governance and time-to-degree of undergraduate students. On the latter problem, he stated that UC Davis is last among all the UC campuses, indicating that something must be done. (For the address transcript, see the March 4 Dateline online.)

For more than three years, I have attempted to call the neglect of the minimum progress Regulation A552 to the attention of the leadership of the Academic Senate and of the UC Davis College Associate Deans. The regulation mandates a minimum of 13 units per quarter. In 1993, under the strictures of a state financial crisis, the College Associate Deans unilaterally and without notifying the Academic Senate decided to not implement Regulation A552.

It should be obvious that a minimum progress rule is the single most important mechanism for accelerating the time to de-gree of our undergraduate students. Hence, the administration would have done its job if they had supervised more closely the college associate deans for the past 12 years, in the spirit of shared governance.

-- Quirino Paris, professor, agricultural and resource economics