The University faculty voted Thursday at the March Faculty Meeting to require incoming students to be in academic residency eight full semesters in order to graduate. Beginning with the Class of 2007, students may apply no more than one semester of college credit from courses taken while in high school -- including Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate -- or during the summer toward their eight semesters. A student may still study abroad for up to two semesters, but if he chooses to apply outside credits such as the kind aforementioned, he may study abroad no more than one semester for credit at Brandeis.

Director of Enrollment Deena Whitfield said the change will bring the University in line with peer institutions.

According to one administrator who spoke at the meeting, Brandeis' peer group includes Brown -- which requires four semesters of residency -- Tufts -- which also requires four -- and Boston University -- does not have a residency requirement. Brown stipulates that a student entering as a first-year must satisfactorily complete 30 courses, although it does not require any more than 15 courses actually be completed at Brown. Tufts requires students entering as first-years complete six semesters either at Tufts or at an approved program abroad, but does require eight semesters of attendance at some university. Boston University simply requires students to complete 32 courses in order to graduate. Brandeis' new residency requirement is similar to Tufts'.

"The world is full of very successful Brandeis alums," said Dean of Arts and Sciences Jessie Ann Owens, "but I can imagine that as our students get more and more talented -- and that certainly has been the trend -- that we could see a situation where someone could come in and want to apply three or four semesters worth of AP courses and be at Brandeis only two years."

Last year, 87 students graduated early, of which 29 had taken fewer than 28 courses, according to one administrator.

Owens said the University must ensure earning the Brandeis degree means students have taken a sufficient number of Brandeis courses. "The reality is that there was only one student who graduated with fewer than six semesters at Brandeis," she said, "but the number of courses that people have been taking at Brandeis has been going down; the number of AP's has been going way up as our students get more and more talented."

"I don't think our requirements our now out of line with what our peer institutions do," Owens said. "And you can use AP's for more than just residency," she added, referring to the possibility of using AP's to skip an introductory course or other requirement. "I think those are more appropriate uses of AP."

Some faculty members at the meeting said they were concerned prospective students might perceive the Brandeis residency requirement to be more stringent than its competitors: because its language is more straightforward. The motion to change the requirement states, "Students entering Brandeis as freshman in August 2003 and thereafter are required to be in academic residency a total of eight full-time fall or spring semesters."

"When I look at what various schools do, some of them appear to have a very liberal policy, and then restrict the hell out of what students can actually do," Owens said. "What Brandeis has done is try to be more honest. I hope we haven't made a mistake in doing that."

"My default mode is toward honesty," she added.

"I think we could have done one of two things: have the requirement at seven and be very flexible within that seven or have the requirement at six and be really rigid about what we would accept and wouldn't accept," Owens said. "The consensus of the people I spoke with was that in the Brandeis context, it would be better not to go to something that was sort of strangely restrictive, that strange restrictions would set up requests for exceptions to the policy."

While the faculty voted to change the residency requirement by nearly a three-to-one margin, some professors expressed reservations. "I would have been more satisfied if the residency requirement had gone back to the level of six (semesters) rather than seven (and study abroad and AP credits not be linked)," Prof. James Haber (BIOL) said. "My colleagues obviously didn't agree."

Haber said, however, he does agree with the premise of the new requirement. "It's a reasonable concern that a Brandeis degree represent predominantly work done at Brandeis or sponsored at Brandeis," he said.

Professor Jacob Cohen (AMST) said he is in support of the change, saying, "I am persuaded by the financial benefits that will come from this."

One faculty member offered an amendment to the new requirements, asking that it be reviewed in three and a half years. "It's going to take a few years to tell even what the impact is going to be on one class," Owens said in agreement with the idea to review the change.

In response to concerns that changing the residency requirement came from purely financial concerns, Owens responded that in part it did. "If we have a system that enables people to stay here for a relatively short period of time, it stands to reason that we need to have a larger student body (for financial reasons), and I would hate to see us have 1,000 students entering in the fall," she said. "I think that would put a real pressure on the faculty, and on the quality of the student experience and on the dorms."

"My preference is to admit as few students as possible and keep them for the whole time and give them the very best that we could possibly do," she added.

Some faculty members said they worried incoming first-years might be upset if they were told only after matriculating of the new requirement. Whitfield said there are many things the incoming class will not know until they get here. "The new residency requirement will be part of the 2003-04 Bulletin that is prepared in the Registrar's Office," she said. "All students who are accepted into the class of 2007 will be subject to the policies as stated in that Bulletin."

"There are other factors that early decision candidates may not know until after they deposit," Whitfield added. "For instance, when early decision candidates deposit, they may not know the precise cost of attendance or about a change in the meal plan."

Owens said that students will remain at Brandeis for four years is most important. "I really want people to stay as juniors and seniors," she said. "I really don't want them to leave early, because that's the best of Brandeis.