Senate approved “the School for Arts and Creative Innovation” as the name of the merged music, film production, visual arts and urban ecology programs at its meeting November 9.

“The new name recognizes the leadership of the arts in the digital economy and the evolution of a new culture,” says Cecil Houston, acting director of the new school. “Our graduates are creating the visual and sonic codes and designs that support the innumerable technical creations of our times.”

He says creative innovators are guiding society through an uncharted technical phase in human history and imagining new ways to organize human communities.

The change in name anticipates the re-organization and the 2014 relocation of the schools of music and visual arts to the renovated Armouries and bus depot buildings downtown.

Senate approves medical notes from nurse practitioners

Students will be able to request consideration for a missed academic responsibility due to medical reasons specified by nurse practitioners as well as doctors, under a policy change approved by Senate at its November 9 meeting.

Students must submit a Standard Medical Certificate form; previously, they required confirmation by a doctor. Now medical notes may be authorized by a doctor or a nurse practitioner.

Senate also asked its Academic Policy Committee to develop and bring forward a policy that will allow students to take advantage of a much broader range of health care professionals.