The Liberal Arts and Sciences Representative Assembly has rescinded its resolution to block further discussion of ISUComm’s curricular plan, allowing the plan to be debated at the Faculty Senate meeting Tuesday.

ISUComm, an ad hoc committee of the Faculty Senate that proposed change in undergraduate communications requirements, met with the LAS Representative Assembly on Wednesday to discuss the criticisms brought up by the assembly at the last Faculty Senate meeting.

Michael Mendelson, director of ISUComm and professor of English, said many criticisms were worked out and agreed upon, though the LAS Representative Assembly will not endorse ISUComm’s proposals, and many criticisms still exist.

Carl Roberts, associate professor of statistics and member of the LAS Representative Assembly, said the assembly’s main concern was whether the implementation of new communication requirements college-wide would be worth the money that it will cost.

“If it ain’t broke, don’ t fix it,” Roberts said.

He said the advancement in technology may take away from the message that students should have better communications skills.

The LAS Representative Assembly understands that there are certain outcomes desired with the new communication requirements, Roberts said, but ISUComm did not provide enough evidence and research in its report to show the outcomes were achieved.

ISUComm committee members agreed that some test samples were too different and the comparisons of the new courses to the traditional ones were too small, Mendelson said, but the pilot tests were valid.

Sanjeev Agarwal, president of the Faculty Senate, said a criticism of ISUComm by the assembly was that there may not be enough focus on writing skills if other forms of communication are added to the foundation courses.

“The evidence shows that there is no decrease in writing skills with the new courses,” Agarwal said.

He said the Faculty Senate will vote to get the basic principles into the catalog. He said the senate will also vote for the foundation courses to include written, oral, visual and electronic communication skills with an emphasis in the first year on writing. Agarwal said there will be a vote on the upper-level courses to include written, oral, visual and electronic communication skills.

“This program has been tested for a long time,” Agarwal said. “It needs to be decided upon.”