ACADEMIC STANDARDS COMMITTEE MEETING 2/22/2008
Present: Mark Martin, Ted Taranovski, Seth Weinberger, Gary McCall, Bill Breitenbach, Brad
Tomhave, Carolyn Weisz, Bill Bradley, Debbie Chee, Jack Roundy, Mike Spivey, Kathie
Hummel-Berry
Chair Spivey convened the meeting. Minutes approved.
Announcements: Tomhave announced that thanks to Carol White the process of listing study
abroad courses as individual classes rather than blocks of classes on transcripts is nearing
completion. As usual, the number of credits being given are shown, but not letter grades.
Spivey announced that the Senate’s charge to the ASC to revise the Academic Honesty policy is
well under way. Next on the agenda, to be pursued during the four meeting remaining in the
semester, are the review of the WF policy and committee self study.
Chee announced that the new policy on harassment and sexual misconduct is finished, having
been revised last October by the board. There is now an ‘educational sidekick’ which could serve
as an example for revisions to the Academic Integrity statement.
Petitions report.
Approved
Regis.
2/07/080
2/13/08
2/24/081
2/20/08
9/07/079
2/20/08
Approved Approved Total
Denied
PPT
Comm
Approved
1
5
1
6
No
Action
0
7
3
0
4
0
0
4
34
69
112
22
1
135
TOTAL
Weinberger asked for clarification regarding whether medical withdrawals always go to the ASC
subcommittee. Tomhave replied that normally they do, given that it is important the
subcommittee is aware of the grounds for medical withdrawals when students later reapply for
admission, however in the event than an absolutely clear case is the only item for the
subcommittee to consider, the Petition Preview Team may approve the petition instead of
convening a meeting.
Moore announced a hearing board met last Friday to consider a 2nd incident of academic
dishonesty. Two more hearing boards are scheduled for the ensuing weeks.
Roundy shared a question posed by a member of the faculty whether incidents of academic
dishonesty going to the Hearing Board have been on the rise. Tomhave replied that they had
spiked this semester, but not after a steady rise. Weinberger requested that the numbers of ‘first
report’ incidents be determined, in order to see if a similar spike had occurred.
Spivey announced the next agenda item; revisions to the Academic Integrity Policy. A document
comparing the previous statement with the proposed revisions was distributed.
Weisz explained the committee’s work, noting that their original charge had been to tighten up
the language and make it more current. However, in doing so, the committee also made a few
more substantive changes. To tighten and clarify the statement, they changed the organization in
order to avoid redundancy, and created a bullet list of the different kinds of violations of
academic integrity. The other major change was the reframing of the policy as one based on
integrity rather than honesty, on the grounds that honesty has many different meanings, and
integrity creates a parallel with the Student Integrity Code that is not exclusively academic.
Weisz emphasized that the revised code is tightened, giving first a philosophy and description,
and then proceeding to responses and hearing board policies. Educational material on what is
plagiarism, etc. will be delegated to links.
While pleased with the document, particularly its appropriateness for a web environment, Moore
asked how the subcommittee envisioned these pieces would look on paper. Weisz replied that it
would not be very different from a series of handouts, with the ‘link’ material as an appendix at
the back (including disciplinary statements, quizzes, etc). Since there will be more information
on the website than currently exists, faculty members would be able to direct students to
particular links based on their discipline. An alternative would be to add ‘for examples, go to the
website’ to paper copies of the policy. Taranovski pointed out that some of the disciplinary
statements might be helpful to a range of disciplines. He emphasized that the subcommittee was
cognizant of the fact the printed version would not be as complete as the webpage version, but
considered this to be the price of improving the policy’s clarity.
Roundy expressed approval of the revisions, particularly the revised wording of the first
paragraph. Spivey and Moore agreed, expressing appreciation of the bullet point revision.
Breitenbach wondered whether we can add things to the bulleted list. In their examination of
other universities’ honor codes, Breitenbach and Weinberger had come across various statements
that seemed helpful, including violations of academic integrity that aren’t explicitly covered by
these bullets (falsification of results of study and research, purchasing papers, forgery or
falsification of documents to obtain course credit, etc.). Taranovski agree that additions could be
made, and requested that Breitenbach and Weinberger bring a list of suggested additions to the
next meeting.
Weisz then outlined some of the more detailed changes in the document. Wording was changed
to emphasize the student’s responsibility to know about plagiarism, rather than placing an
emphasis on the faculty member’s responsibility to tell them beforehand.
Weinberger and Breitenbach pointed out that the faculty needs to be involved in responsibilities
of reporting, given a recent problem arising from a faculty member’s failure to report an
incident. They wondered whether this could be included in the honor code. Roundy pointed out
that a faculty member IS required to submit a report if it has been established that academic
dishonesty has occurred. Tomhave noted that in the past faculty have asked for a hearing based
solely on suspicion, on the grounds a hearing board can serve as a fact finding body. Breitenbach
agreed that you don’t have to have a smoking gun to file a report. Stylistic comparison could be
enough, but that a hearing board could of course question the faculty member’s judgment.
Weinberger wondered whether in that case the incident report would be erased. But Moore
pointed out that given the fact in practice faculty members are loath to file incident reports, this
probably isn’t an issue – people simply do not file them with shaky evidence. Moore appreciated
the revision in the language of the document that emphasized the faculty’s obligation to file a
report, since this conveyed to students that in doing so the faculty member is following the rules
rather than making a personal attack on a student. It also would encourage faculty to file reports
rather than look the other way.
Weinberger expressed concern that the document did not make it completely clear that in calling
a Hearing Board the student can appeal the professor’s decision, and that the hearing board could
conceivably overturn the professor’s decision. He suggested the language could be clarified in
order to explain why a student would ask for a hearing board, and Taranovski agreed, noting
revised language for the next draft.
Roundy and Weisz explained how the nature of the Hearing Board was clarified in the new draft,
including the fact that the Hearing Board has access to prior incidents and the role of the faculty
member. The question of the faculty member’s role then inspired extensive discussion; in
particular, the question of whether the faculty member’s recommendations for sanctions under
the assumption that an incident was a student’s first then became less relevant when it became
apparent that previous incidents had occurred. Perhaps, for example, the professor would have
provided a different sanction had they known the student had been reprimanded in the past
(Weisz). Breitenbach and Weinberger wondered whether faculty members should take into
account incidents in the past in their sanctions, particularly given the fact the Hearing Board
could pose new sanctions based on the accumulation of incidents. Moore pointed out that
reassessing the faculty member’s initial sanction in view of an accumulation of incidents was the
prerogative of the Hearing Board, but that the faculty member could be consulted in an advisory
capacity during the creation of new sanctions. Taranovski pointed out that the wording did not
mandate the faculty member as a prosecutor. Tomhave clarified that there is often a need for
clarification from the faculty member, and McCall and Moore agreed on the grounds the faculty
member could provide more information. Tomhave also pointed out that students need to
understand that the Hearing Board will check their version of events with the faculty member
concerned; in other words, the faculty member thus becomes a witness.
The general consensus was the revised language of the statement is agreeable.
Weisz noted that a new committee with membership from the Center for Writing, Learning and
Teaching could help develop the web design and language that serve as supplementary materials
to the Integrity Statement (e.g., quiz, examples of plagiarism). She wondered whether these
supplementary materials would need to be re-approved each time the website is changed or a
new link is added. Moore offered that the ASC would want to look at revisions in order to ensure
they reflect the general statements regarding academic integrity, and to see what sort of links are
being added. Taranovski emphasized that the links should be internally produced, while we
could refer to published works on the grounds we know they won’t be changed. Roundy pointed
out that if we import and cite properly, links won’t change since they will then be in our own
web domain.
Breitenbach suggested the ASC pass the revisions before students for two reasons 1) to avoid
reactive suspicion that something harsher is being imposed, and 2) in so far as we are concerned
regarding how students understand the policy statements, we could then learn whether parts are
unclear. He pointed out that in methods seminars, students are surprised when they actually read
the policy and learn that things like submitting the same paper in two different courses counts as
academic dishonesty. Roundy agreed, and shared the results of a study carried out at Dickinson,
where students had to take a quiz on academic dishonesty prior to submitting their first paper.
Before taking the quiz only 48% of students thought they had committed academic dishonesty,
whereas afterwards the percentage jumped to 72%. Chee offered to help find students to look at
the revised document.
Spivey asked the ASC whether it was ready to make a motion to approve the revised statement
with the addition of running it by students.
Weinberger wondered whether language was going to be added concerning integrity and the
WWW and internet, to which Taranovski replied that the subcommittee thought a link could do
that. Tomhave noted he would like to discuss item 4 ( ). Given the time, Spivey referred
continued discussion to the next meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
Kristin Johnson