Committee on Academic Freedom, and Freedom of Information,
and Community Responsibility
Minutes of the Meeting
Date: November 16, 2007
In Attendance:
Not in Attendance:
Joseph Aini, Career Services
Sanjay Goel, School of Business (Chair)
Gwendolyn Moore, Sociology
Malcolm Sherman, Mathematics
Lawrence Snyder, Chemistry
Bradley Armour-Garb, Philosophy
Dolores Cimini, University Counseling Center
Allen Israel, Psychology
Donald Keenan, University Libraries
Justin Smith, Office of Residential Life and Housing
Purpose: Discuss topics determined in previous meeting
1. Diversity Report
- Determined to be incomplete
- Will be reissued about 1 year from now (tabled until time of reissue)
2. Honor Code (Report of the Provost’s Task Force on Academic Integrity)
- Question
o Is Honor Code advisable? Is there something else that we can do?
-
General Feelings
o Try to structure work and exams so that people have to reveal process about what
they’re doing and how they’re doing it rather than trying to deduce after the fact,
e.g. also make a report on how a paper is prepared (not just content)
o Do examinations where concepts need to be understood instead of just rote
memorization of facts (design process of examinations so that cheating is not
really easy).
o Students should understand/be more aware of what constitutes academic
dishonesty (e.g. requirement of academic integrity statement on syllabus, clear
guidelines on assignments/exams)
o Websites make it easy to copy/cheat. Also paper mills can be used/people hired to
buy papers.
o Honor Code should be shared values by students and faculty (students and faculty
should work together to develop/enforce academic integrity).
o Do not think that students policing each other is enforceable (not cohesive student
body)
o Should be someone to proctor exams who students respect. Should be attentive to
what is going on in the class and able to answer questions (not just a GA).
o Faculties should enforce the rules associated with academic dishonesty
consistently
o Process for dealing with academic integrity violations is time-intensive
o Design of LCs make it difficult to control cheating
-
Discussions
o Judicial process for academic integrity violations
o Amount of work given per student (for multiple classes)
o Multiple submissions of an individual assignment (double-dipping)
o Does using plagiarism detection software/services violate privacy?
-
Action
o Larry and Sanjay will work together to develop a resolution with a statement of
the problem and the direction in which efforts should go. Sanjay will start writing
it first, send it to Larry and then distribute it, rest of committee will add comments
and revise.
3. Freedom in the Classroom Report
- Recent Current Events Discussion
o Whatever a specific discipline says is true is true for purposes of those classroom
and instructors can require their students to agree to that.
o Berkeley had organized about Poetics of Palestinian Resistance and said
“conservatives may not be comfortable”. Statement was changed, but was stated
that the content of the class would be determined by the professor.
- Action
o Malcolm will come up with a report on different views of academic freedom (will
send copy to Gwendolyn).
Future Discussion Topics
- Use of performance enhancing drugs (Next year)
- Next meeting December 7th