Grant Campus Academic Standards Committee Meeting Minutes

September 12, 2017

Members Present: Maria Alzugaray, Karen Carlson, Karen Dovell, Nancy Ellis, Jeff Epstein, MahinGosine, Lisa Hubbs, Yvonne Joseph, Alyssa Kauffman, Jill Malik, Zhong Wang

Meeting Location: HSEC A120

Meeting Call to Order: 3:45 pm; Meeting Adjournment: 5pm

  1. Welcome and Introductions
  2. Zhong Wang is replacing Padma Seshardi as representative from Physical Science Department.
  3. Finalizing representatives for CASC
  4. Karen Dovell, Nancy Ellis, Jeff Epstein, Alyssa Kauffman, Jill Malik, and Zhong Wang will serve as campus reps at College-Wide Academic Standards.
  5. Review of Minutes
  6. Minutes approved from 4/18/17 meeting with no revisions.
  7. Local graduation requirements-- Waiver Process
  8. Next CASC meeting is Thursday, October 5th and we are planning on discussing on it then. Accepting of waiver process, but no further input from where we left off last semester.
  9. Making process uniform, standardized and equitable. Issue raised with cross-campus department consensus should be met.
  10. Issues with regard to curriculum committee making the decision on waivers and exceptions. Revising that clause/taking that out may take care of some of those concerns from last semester.
  11. Academic Integrity Subcommittee—Pilot Program (regarding a uniform reporting form for all three campuses)
  12. Faculty discussed several specific cases of dealing with and the reporting of student cheating, and had issue when went to report that there was no standard form in Administration office. Faculty was given 3 choices: meeting/hearing with Dean; handle it oneself/give an assignment to the student; or redo assignment/fail class
  13. Issue of faculty not wanting to report because they are afraid of the outcome. Get more knowledge about options as to what can happen. Issue of faculty wanting control (they don’t want to HAVE to report, etc.)
  14. No known issue/pushback with standardization, but rather what happens with the form afterwards?
  15. Pilot program to gather information about issues related to faculty concerns about reporting academic conduct; and also utilizing more standardized forms for reporting and grievance policy.
  16. Gather data on how often it happens. Therefore, administration does not see this as a problem because there isn’t any data to back it up. Give it to chairs; or have it as a link when faculty enters grades about how many cases of plagiarism did you deal with this semester? How many cases of cheating did you deal with? Etc….
  17. Concern about legality of forms (fear of being sued).
  18. GASC members believe that is should remain the case that the final decision should be at the discretion of the faculty
  19. Faculty- Authored Textbook discussion
  20. There werewidely differing responses for the responses received from department chairs last semester. Subcommittee will take another shot at gathering responses this semester.
  21. Pushback from other faculty while gathering responses about academic freedom; however the issueis not about what one is assigning as a text, but rather if the faculty charges and collects money/royalty on their own book. Book also has to be appropriate for the course.
  22. Issue raised about assigning text that a spouse authored.
  23. Issue about packaging open source material and then charging for it.
  24. Every department operates differently (from faculty checking with chairs, to using a uniform book)
  25. Librarians have given some of the most robust responses.
  26. Ex: require that at least one desk copy (preferably 3) are on reserve in the library if faculty use their own text.
  27. Possibly have faculty provide written rationale as to why they are requiring their own textbook.
  28. Possibly come up with suggestions/guidelines instead of a formal policy
  29. Campus issues and concerns
  30. Academic Search Committees – outside search members seemed to have more input than people within the discipline. Who puts the committee together? Chair? Faculty suggests that Academic Standards should be involved in who is added to the committee.
  31. Maybe not a standards issue though? Maybe Union or HR issue? Faculty would like to draft a statement that this may be problematic.

Meeting was adjourned at 5pm.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Jill Malik.