Subcommittee to vote on removing parent-specific question from core application

A committee member said the core questions subcommittee will vote to recommend removing a parent-specific question from the application after an institution asked why the question was being asked.

The committee member said the request prompted a review of the entire set of core questions and that the planned vote would decide whether the subcommittee recommends removing that single question. A staff member said co-chairs will be asked to join an upcoming meeting and that, if the committee recommends removal, the change would be put into a sprint for implementation.

The discussion matters, committee members said, because removing the question would require updates beyond the form itself. "It isn't necessary," the committee member said, describing the institution's feedback about the parent question. The committee member added that the review broadened to all core questions rather than focusing only on that item.

Staff flagged two specific implementation concerns raised during the discussion: first, removing the question could require edits to the program's EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) collection fields; second, it could require changes to a tool the participants called Quick and Easy. A staff member said the team does not yet know whether Quick and Easy would ignore the removed field harmlessly or whether the change would cause an error: "If it's gonna crash it, then we're in trouble," the staff member said.

Committee members said the next steps are (1) get co-chairs to join the conversation, (2) hold a committee vote to recommend removal, and (3) if recommended, schedule the work in a development sprint. The transcript records the plan to vote but does not record the result of any vote or any formal decision.

No statutes, ordinances, resolutions, or formal policy citations were mentioned in the discussion recorded in the transcript.