MINUTES
ACADEMIC STANDARDS COMMITTEE
November 30, 1995
Present: Sarah Moore, Tanya Stambuk, John Finney, Inger Brodey, Martin Linauts, Ann Ekes,
Ron Van Enkevort, Jeanette Di Scala, Jack Roundy
1. Minutes: The minutes of the November 16 meeting were approved as written.
2. Announcements: Moore made two announcements:
a. Suzanne Barnett contacted her to urge ASC not to drop our consideration of grade
inflation this year. She also urges us specifically to consider reforming our transcript along the
lines that Dartmouth took, noting class averages alongside each posted grade.
b. Grace Kirchner contacted her to ask that we give feedback to the Senate on a
proposal by an ad hoc committee to reform ASC, primarily by dividing it in two, a petitions
review committee and a policy committee. Impetus for this proposal is the long-standing issue of
how much time faculty must give to ASC when they sit both in policy meetings and in petitions
meetings. Finney and Van Enkevort explained that this proposal is largely a result of meetings
they participated in last year. They both thought that ASC could remain a single committee, but
that membership could be arranged so that no faculty member would have to attend both sets of
meetings. Van Enkevort added that the proposal is timely in light of Vice President Potts' wish
to form smaller standing faculty committees; if ASC must be smaller, then let its membership be
divided so that time demands on faculty are not excessive. Brodey argued that the two groups
should form two separate committees, and suggested that if ASC were divided in this way, the
policy-making committee should be larger, considering the weight of issues brought before it,
perhaps 8 faculty for policy and 4 for petitions. She added, on reviewing the proposals for
change, that they were serious enough to warrant further discussion by the full committee.
Moore proposed that we distribute the proposal among the ASC membership and consider it at
greater length in a future meeting. Van Enkevort suggested that Moore contact Lyn Chandler
(chair of the group responsible for the proposal) and Grace Kirchner (in behalf of the Senate)
both to learn more background on the proposal and to find out how soon the Senate needs a
response from ASC. We can then plan our discussion accordingly. All assented, with the
presumption that if the Senate needs a speedy response we will meet again on Dec. 13, and if not,
we will take it up early in the coming term. Notification of the next ASC meeting date will be
circulated as soon as Moore has a response from Kirchner.
3. Petitions: Finney reported on Petitions Committee actions in Morgan's absence (due to
illness):
Date
11/14/95
YTD
Approved
Denied
No Action
5
1
1
66
17
1
4. Honor Code/Integrity Code: Ekes shared with the committee some Prelude exercises on
plagiarism she has sent to Carrie Washburn for consideration by the Prelude Committee. She
hopes to hear back from them soon. Brodey remarked, in this connection, that she is looking
into restoring the actual footnotes to the Logger's section on plagiarism, which currently includes
the superscript numbers for citation but lacks the footnotes themselves. Brodey added this
miscellany: 1) Di Scala should have a unified and simplified combined policy ready for review
early next term, a policy that will carry the name "integrity code."; 2) the Informal Committee on
Teaching has agreed to do a session on plagiarism next term; 3) the "Integrity Code Committee"
(their preferred new name) seeks clarification on the suggestion that students be involved in the
development of a new code. Roundy, who earlier made the suggestion, said that since the
original impetus behind reform seemed to be a wish to develop a new campus ethos of honorable
personal conduct, students should be invited to endorse and invest themselves in defining and
promoting this ethos. To that end, the Student Senate should be invited to join the reform effort.
5. Computerized, Decentralized Academic Records and Registration System: Moore began
an abbreviated discussion by reminding us of the what we'd agreed would be elements in a new
electronic advising file: transcripts, combined major progress report and degree progress report
(including current coursework), and an electronic "admission" statement for freshmen. She
asked whether we needed anything more.
Roundy suggested that Brodey's idea for having policy explanations accompanying our
registration program might be extended to the advising records as well, for the benefit of both
student and advisor. Brodey thought that this information might be provided by means of "help
files," set up much as they are in Windows. Moore, Brodey, Finney, and Van Enkevort then
focused the discussion on means by which students could be alerted to which core and major
requirements they had met, and warned against enrolling for courses they think would meet core
but would not (as in the case of the student enrolling for a SCXT course before completing
Natural World core). Moore summed up by saying we need to continue thinking about how our
electronic student records system can interact with our electronic registration system to let
students know which core and major requirements they have met.
As the time was growing short, we then adjourned.
Respectfully submitted by the ASC amanuensis,
Jack Roundy