Academic Standard Committee Meeting
October 5, 2010
Present: Billy Barry, James Bernhard, Debbie Chee, Duane Hulbert, Betsy Kirkpatrick,
Emily Levandowski, Ben Lewin, Marcus Luther, Gary McCall, Sarah Moore, Amy
Odegard, Lori Ricigliano, Brad Tomhave, Paula Wilson, Bianca Wolf
Organization. The meeting convened at 8:00 am in the McCormick Room of the
library. The committee chair, Gary McCall, lead the meeting and facilitated the
discussion.
Business
Minutes Approved. The minutes from the 09/21/10 ASC meeting were approved.
Petitions Report. Brad Tomhave reported on petitions for the period 09/15/2010 –
09/28/2010
The Petitions Sub-Committee held meetings on September 21, 2010, and on
September 28, 2010, with the following results:
5 Approved Late Adds
1 Approved Registration Change from Graded to Audit
1 Denied Waiver of the Minimum Class Standing Required for an Internship
7 Total Petitions
Registrar Approved: 3
Preview Team Approved: 2
Sub-Committee Approved: 1
Total Approved: 6
Sub-Committee Denied: 1
Total Petitions: 7
For the year to date, 18 petitions have been acted upon, 7 involved late registration and
6 involving registration with a schedule conflict. Additionally, of the 18, 5 have been
denied and 3 of those denials were for schedule conflicts and the other 2 for
undertaking an internship prior to at least junior class standing.
Update of the ASC Charges from the Senate
The Senate reviewed the changes to the incomplete policies passed by ASC in 20092010, which would require students to finish any incomplete grades by the first Friday of
the next semester. The Senate did not act of this policy within the 30 day deadline. At
least one senator raised the following concerns: 1) faculty would have an increased
burden during the first week of class, 2) there would be less times for students to finish
incomplete work from the fall semester, and 3) the proposed changes assume that
students procrastinate completing an incomplete. The ASC has data to address the
Senate’s concerns.
Continued discussion of topics from the last ASC meeting: Changing the current
policy in which only faculty can report an incident of academic integrity.
Members of ASC agreed that the authority to report violations of academic integrity
needs to be expanded. Since the last meeting, Gary McCall drafted some revised
wording for the academic handbook to address the issue. Brad Tomhave drafted an
additional piece. After reviewing the drafted language, Sarah Moore pointed out that the
topic needs further discussion.
It was questioned whether there should be a separate procedure for staff to report a
violation. The idea would be that staff can file a report and then A) faculty would
determine whether it is a violation and issue the appropriate sanction (if any) or B) the
ASC would decide how to handle the report if the violation happens outside of a class.
The following questions were raised as to what would happen if a staff member reports
a violation and the faculty member chooses not act upon it: Would the report stay in the
student’s file? Would the next report be considered a second offense and go to a
hearing board?
For comparison, Debbie Chee reviewed the process by which violations to the student
integrity code are reported. She pointed out that anyone can report a violation, and
someone else investigates. Some members of ASC asked whether violations of
academic integrity that occur outside of the classroom should instead be treated as
violations of student integrity.
Currently, when a staff member witnesses an incident of academic dishonestly, the staff
member alerts the faculty member for the class and that faculty member is responsible
for filing a report and issuing a sanction. The problem with this current method is that
some professors may be reluctant to report something they have not witnessed directly.
In addition, some faculty may issue a more lenient sanction if they don’t see the incident
first-hand. Perhaps there are already many violations that are never reported because
faculty members deal with issue privately (by talking to the student or some other
means).
It was proposed that there could be a list of specific academic staff who have the
authority file a report. The problem was pointed out that it is hard to generate a discrete
list because there are many possible scenarios where a staff member may witness an
act of academic integrity. For example, a staff member may be proctoring an exam or in
another supervisory role. It was also mentioned that there isn’t a need for a specific list
of staff because it is unlikely that a staff member would make a frivolous report. In
addition, there are checks and balances in the rare case that a frivolous report is filed.
For instance, a student can appeal.
It was discussed that there are still some gray areas. What if a staff member witnesses
an incident, but it is not clear whether the incident warrants a report? A faculty member
may not normally report this type of incident. Should faculty be able to respond to the
report before it is filed?
Gary McCall concluded the meeting by proposing to draft a policy to for staff to report
incidents of academic integrity. This draft policy will be presented at the next meeting.
Betsy Kirkpatrick moved to adjourn the meeting.
Notes taken by Amy Odegard