Members Present: Javad Abbasian (ChEE), Patricia Bach (Psyc), Pat Corrigan (Psyc), Warren Edelstein (AMAT), Ali Emadi (ECE), Joel Goldhar (SGSB), Andy Howard (BCPS), Sanjiv Kapoor (CS), Robert Krawczyk (ARCH), Art Lubin (AMAT), William Newman (MSED), Victor Pérez-Luna (ChEE), Boris Pervan (MMAE), Ganesh Raman (MMAE), John Snapper (Hum), Phil Troyk (BME), Chris White (BCPS) Geoff Williamson (ECE).
Members Absent: Jeff Budiman (CAE), Howard Chapman (Kent), Bill Grimshaw (SocSci), Vijay Kumar (ID), David Rudstein (Kent), Catherine Wetzel (ARCH)
Student Observer Present: Avelo Roy.
Faculty Visitors: Greg Pulliam (Hum), Christopher Stewart (Libraries) Vivian Weil (CSEP),
Student Visitors: Serena Chacko, Scott Justus, Michael Morley
Call to Order: The meeting was called to order about 12:35pm on Friday 19 January 2007 in the ballroom of the McCormick / Tribune campus center after lunch.
Presidential Search:
Phil Troyk offered a report on the
Presidential search.
The search is going well.
Some interviews are completed, and Phil believes the
candidates on the slate are highly qualified.
The goal of the process is to converge by the 22 May Trustees'
meeting.
Chris White commented that he had been concerned that the
committee would be little more than a rubber-stamp for what the
BOT Chair wanted, but he no longer has that concern.
He believes that the process has been open.
Phil said he would draft a memo articulating recent progress,
and submit it for John Rowe's approval.
The Faculty Council then discussed the status of the search.
Proposed change from letter-grades to plus and minus grades: Andy Howard reported that several people have been recruited to get involved in a task-force to discuss changing IIT's grading system so that students might receive grades with pluses and minuses in them (e.g. A-, C+) rather than the unadorned letter grades they now receive. The taskforce has not met yet. The registrar, Rebecca Nicholes, has indicated that if the change is to take place, it would be much better if it were to take place before the rollout of the academic portion of the Banner software package in July; adding the + and - grades in as part of rollout would be straightforward; adding them in later would be harder. At least one Council member expressed skepticism that the process could be completed that quickly.
Proposed changes to undergraduate degree programs in Humanities:
Greg Pulliam acted as spokesman for two proposed changes to the
undergraduate degree programs in the Lewis Department of Humanities.
These proposed changes were approved at the February Undergraduate
Studies Committee meeting.
The first was the proposed elimination
of the current BS degree in Internet Communication and replacing it with
a specialization in ICOM within the BS in Professional and Technical
Communication.
Greg noted that the two degrees are very similar, and maintaining
two separate BS degrees is unnecessary.
The second was a proposal
to modify the current humanities degree to remove much of the
internal structure of it and leave the degree more flexible.
The degree is modeled somewhat on the Political Science and Psychology
degrees as far as numbers of courses are concerned.
Phil asked how this degree compares with those at other universities;
Greg said it involves more semester-hours of coursework,
but does not require a senior thesis.
The Council approved both changes by acclamation. As is typical with degree-program changes, these two will be distibuted to the full faculty for a 30-day consideration period. If fewer than ten faculty members request consideration of these changes by the full faculty during those 30 days, then the proposal will be considered approved by the faculty and will be forwarded to the President's office. Because spring break was to begin shortly after this meeting, the UniFC secretary was told to distribute the proposal on 19 March, after spring break. (secretary's note: the secretary's failure to do this in a timely way will have to be dealt with at the April meeting.)
IIT Code of Ethics
Vivian Weil of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions
spoke on behalf of CSEP's effort to develop a community-wide
code of ethics for IIT.
She noted that a ceremony celebrating the completion of the
draft code,
now at version 6.2, is planned for 5 April.
The Student Government Association has endorsed the plan.
VIvian noted that the development of a bottom-up, or grass-roots,
code of ethics at a university is unusual;
the University of Southern California is probably the only instance
of a similar development.
She described the process
by which the current draft developed, including the review
by Susan Feinberg (Hum) of the completed document.
Susan made a few stylistic edits and provided an overall evaluation
that the code was "clear, comprehensive, and coherent."
Vivian asked for the UniFC to endorse the code in its current form.
She also asked for expeditious action,
so that the developers can maintain their timetable.
A lively discussion ensued. Jack Snapper and others asked how this document was to be published: given that it is intended to apply to all members of the IIT community, it is unclear whether it should be incorporated into the Student Handbook, the Staff Handbook, and the Faculty Handbook; or published as a standalone document; or some other scheme. Vivian suggested that that decision was up to other deliberative bodies, including the UniFC. Joel Goldhar asked whether adoption of this code would imply adoption of a support or enforcement mechanism. Vivian said no, but welcomed continuing a discussion of that issue. Joel expressed a concern about paragraph 9 of the document, which states
We should give every member of the IIT community—administrators, alumni, donors, faculty, staff, students, suppliers, and trustees—opportunities to help improve IIT. We should not take a complaint about IIT outside until we have given those at IIT a fair opportunity to resolve it properly, unless immediate action is necessary for reasons of health, safety or legal obligation to report misconduct.Joel suggested that discouraging members of the community from speaking to outsiders was an inappropriate guidance. Phil proposed that Council members take this issue back to their Academic Units, explain the contents of the proposed code, and solicit feedback. This proposal was approved by acclamation. Joel asked that the issue also be deferred to the UniFC Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee (cf. Faculty Handbook, Appendix B, Article V, Paragraph B) for further consideration. This idea was discussed but did not receive a second.
Academic Integrity Committee:
Michael Morely, a BCPS undergraduate and a member of the
Student Government Association, provided a presentation on
a student initiative to deal with academic integrity.
He was joined by three student colleagues in his presentation.
Michael said that the SGA has convened an Academic Integrity Committee,
with faculty involvement;
its goal is to draw attention to the issues of academic honesty
and cheating,
to involve faculty members in the discussion of these issues,
and to provide support for students who resist and are opposed
to unethical academic behavior.
The Council listened to Michael's presentation and discussed
the issue extensively.
Phil said that faculty members should be required
report incidents in which they believe academic integrity
has been violated,
rather than having the option of keeping the issue private.
He suggested that some sort of intra-departmental Code of Ethics
would strengthen the system.
Michael said he believes that three approaches would reduce cheating:
(1) discouragement of the motives for cheating;
(2) making it difficult for students to cheat;
and (3) eliminating roadblocks to professorial enforcmeent of the rules.
Phil said that he believes motivation at the student level and peer
pressure are likely to be more useful than enforcement from above.
William Newman pointed out that if a student under suspicion of
having cheated denies the accusation,
it is typically very difficult to gather evidence from other students.
The discussion proceeded to consideration of how and how often students cheat. Joel Goldhar said that his undergraduate university used a West Point-style honor code, and that it worked there. Jack Snapper said that certain kinds of exams encourage cheating: badly written exams that involve large amounts of memorization and rote learning are more likely to engender cheating than concept-based exams. Phil said the fundamental problem is not that professors permit cheating; the fundamental problem is that students cheat. Geoff Williamson argued that faculty members who turn a blind eye to cheating do become components of the problem; so peer pressure should be exerted on careless faculty as well as tempted students. A UniFC member asked Michael what percentage of pre-medical students cheat: he estimated 40%. Victor Pérez-Luna affirmed that the prevalence of academic dishonesty hurts IIT. Phil said the Council would revisit this issue in April.
At the end of the discussion, the UniFC agreed by acclamation to (a) refer this issue to the Student Affairs Committee, and (b) arrange for some faculty members to attend the SGA's lunch meetings.
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 2:15pm.