Committee Minutes, Wednesday, November 7th 2007

Secretary Jeanne Chen submitted the following report to the Student Senate on Monday, November 12th 2007, on behalf of the Academics Committee, and pursuant to its Wednesday, November 7th 2007 recommendations:

Attendance:

There were eight (8) members (Briggs, Carter, Chen, Joyner, Parnell, Poteat, Roscoe, Warren) present.

There was one (1) member (Donnelly) absent.

The following officials were also present: Albaugh, Alston, Compton, Graham, B. Mills, Webb.

A quorum was present.

Meeting Overview:

We met with Dean Conway to discuss issues that we had talked about at previous meetings. Each committee member presented one issue, including:
- Dead week and "reading days"
- Student Advising/Mentor positions
- Creating classes to cover resume writing, internships, etc.
- 24-hour exam policy wording
- Grade weights in lab vs. core classes
- Registering for restricted courses

Meeting Minutes:

Topic of 3 consecutive exams in 24 hours
- Sen. Carter: Rewording the 24-hour exam schedule to make it more clear in terms of when a student can reschedule exams.
- Dean Conway: Putting different wording in the calendar, and asserting some way to make clear the start time.

Topic of absence policy
- Sen. Carter: Excused absence should be agreed upon between student and professor when having to make up an exam. There are problems with specific professors refusing to allow students to take the test after the normal test date, even if said student has an excused absence for a prolonged period of time. They usually suggest that this test be considered as the drop test. Student and professor should come to an agreement as to makeup policy without penalization.
- Dean Conway: Professors are supposed to determine policies for themselves as well as for the students; we would never be able to come up with a single statement to fit all cases. Jurisdiction of this falls with the department in which the course is taught. Talk to the instructor first, express that you want to take the exam instead of drop it, and if they say no, and you feel that you should take the exam, go to the department head. The challenge is to get to the point where a student can go to a professor and talk to them without feeling like it is a daunting task.

Topic of Dead week
- Sen. Roscoe: Bill [reviewed last year] states that the university should mandate that professors put in their syllabus what assignments are due during dead week; another concern is that students may be afraid to go against their professor about these types of assignments.
Another topic is a ‘reading day’ to give students a full day and a chance to study before final exams – maybe one day [such as last day of classes] so that students have a little bit extra time to study without having to worry about classes as well.
- Sen. Joyner: We could have 2 reading days so that students can have the chance to go to their teachers for help in case they need it or to study, instead of being in class and having other obligations.
- Dean Conway: This proposal is feasible and well-worth doing; with the new GER, there are many questions for flexible courses. Going back to the resolution, as long as it is set up front, then there should not be a problem. The goal will be to try to limit the kind of behavior of assigning homework during dead week. Filling out online surveys would be helpful to know what’s going on inside the classroom.

Topic of peer mentoring
- Sen. Warren: Everyone wants more advisors and better advisors; many feel that students can do a better job of advising because they have just been there. Advising positions for students within a college, paid or volunteer, could suggest better teachers and better timing in terms of courses and graduation.
- Dean Conway: There are already some mentoring programs that already take place; the only stipulation is that the students who do it should commit to doing it right, because matters can be made worse in certain situations. Students can endorse processes that they know about or have used around campus. Something students can do that neither faculty/professional advisors do is talk about what it means to bring a student into the culture of a department, telling them what is expected in certain areas.
- Sen. Carter: Having something like a student mentor would be a personal one-on-one to inspire students to get involved and show them what opportunities exist.

Topic of the general education courses
- Sen. Parnell: Many people have expressed interest in classes that can cover writing courses that teach you how to write resumes, get internships, find career choices, and use the new Pack Portal.
- Dean Conway: These things should be set by your junior year. Students could be taught from a deliberative perspective; if you think about it, upon graduation, students need to start getting experiences. These types of courses will come out very different than you are hearing about them now.

Topic of restricted courses
- Sen. Alston: There should be a way to establish that at some point, these types of classes can be opened to students who do not meet the restriction at the beginning in case of class conflicts.
- Dean Conway: Colleges have grown larger than they were resourced to do; we need to open up our capacities so that we can even out our overbooked programs.

Topic of progress reports
- Sen. Joyner: Dean Conway met with faculty senate to talk about faculty providing progress reports for students who need them. I met with Dr. Martin, who said that teachers have difficulty because they cannot individually generate a progress report per students.
- Dean Conway: If you are asking teachers to give specific grades at a specific time, it can be very difficult; some classes have technology that can give you a grade automatically, and students can get better feedback. If we can get more faculty to use these systems, there can be automatic feedback for students who need it.
- Sen. Alston: Maybe we could have a system that generates the class average, then sends out a medium, high, or low progress report to everyone who falls within a certain category of grades.
- Dean Conway: If we start to look at organizing student-to-student resources, we can go on watch for specific students who are struggling in specific classes. If there is another level that students can refer strugglers to, we could get that person reengaged by counseling. Most students do not want to admit that they are having a problem.
- Sen. Robinson: There is a computer software that can generate these types of progress reports; certain lab TAs are using it now. It adds a lot of extra work to the faculty, and does not agree with it.
- Dean Conway: It is about getting on the right track; maybe advisors and students can talk about their own experiences so that others can avoid trouble.

Topic of faculty getting textbooks turned in in a timely manner.
- Sen. Joyner: This was originally proposed by Seth Palmer.
- Dean Conway: The Provost is taking this as a special project, sending letters to faculty to get their textbooks in as quickly as possible. They are holding the department heads responsible for getting the textbooks in, because the earlier the order goes in, the cheaper they are. We will push to get them in earlier and earlier, but we do want to guard against the difference between electronic and classical sources.
- Sen. Carter: Instead of purchasing textbooks for classes in which the fundamentals don’t change, the faculty can put forth something like a PDF file with everything in it that the students are required to know that can be accessible to all students that need it.
- Dean Conway: Examples change constantly, and this is just another way of getting students engaged in these types of things; this suggestion would work if we have faculty that know where students want to go. The books change because we have to find what the best learning experience is for students. We already have Blackboard, wikis, and Webassign that help with the teaching aspects.

Topic of unequal lab grades
- Sen. Chen: Teachers teaching the same course in which every student has to take the same lab have unequal percentage of grades.
- Dean Conway: This is what we’re after concerning the syllabus project; these courses should be similar enough that they should be recognized as the same course.
- Sen. Carter: This is scratching the surface of a bigger problem in grade inconsistency
- Dean Conway: The fundamental components need to be the same concerning courses; this is a question that the department head needs to look at. If students did the end of semester course evaluation, we could document this and have some hard data to look at.
- Sen. Warren: I think it is fair because some teachers are easier than others, and they use the lab as a buffer because their lectures may be more difficult; the higher percentage the lab, the harder the lecture.
- Dean Conway: There should still be a way to standardize this; if there is that kind of variation, there needs to be a way to alert the students to this before going into the class so that they can match up the types of learning styles.

In terms of advising:
- Dean Conway: There is a survey that asks the advising needs of the students, and the quality of the types of advising that is taking place. It gives a set of information that compares the scores of an institution to the scores of other institutions; one drawback is that it doesn’t separate out research institutions, which for us says something very important, because even our lowest scores in FYC are above the national average in some areas. It is important to look at moving evaluating advising.

Next meeting:
TBA