EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MINUTES

 

Present:          Alloway, Bolin, Bradford, Flowers, Ledder, Rapkin, Zimmers

                       

Absent:           Alexander, Beck, Hachtmann, Moeller, Scholz, Stock

           

Date:               Wednesday, April 11, 2007

 

Location:        Academic Senate Office, 420 University Terrace

 

Note:   These are not verbatim minutes.  They are a summary of the discussions at the Executive Committee meeting as corrected by those participating.

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1.0       Call to Order

            Bradford called the meeting to order at 3:01 p.m.

 

2.0       Interview with David Manderscheid, Dean of Arts and Sciences

The Committee interviewed David Manderscheid from the University of Iowa for the position of Dean of Arts and Sciences. 

           

3.0       Announcements

            3.1       Meeting with New ASUN Officers

Bradford reported that he, Moeller, and Alloway met with the new ASUN officers.  He stated that the students are interested in working with the faculty and want to meet with the Executive Committee. 

 

Alloway stated that he asked the ASUN officers whether any faculty member from the Senate attends the ASUN meetings.  Bradford stated that it might be interesting to have someone from the Senate or the Executive Committee attend the ASUN meetings, particularly if they are discussing something that the Senate is working on.  He suggested that members of the Executive Committee could take turns attending the meetings.  Alloway and Bradford both agreed that they would be willing to attend the meetings.  Ledder pointed out that anything that would help promote a common sense of purpose between the faculty and students would be helpful. 

 

Alloway stated that there is a lot of experience with the new ASUN officers as several of them served in the previous administration.  He noted that the new officers understand the issues and process on campus. 

 

Bradford reported that the ASUN officers stated that one of their priorities is to work on national issues.  He stated that they want to work with Senators Hagel and Nelson on financial aid for students. 

 

Alloway stated that the officers raised the issue of the RIAA going after students on campus for illegally downloading music.  Bradford stated that he suggested to the students that they contact President Milliken because he is developing a policy on this issue. 

 

Alloway stated that the ASUN officers still have concerns with the Safe Assignment policy.  Ledder asked if students have to submit a paper in Word in order for Safe Assignment to work.  Flowers stated that a pdf file would work as well. 

 

Ledder stated that the hard part about using Safe Assignment is knowing whether students do not understand what constitutes plagiarism or whether they are just blatantly plagiarizing.  He suggested that as a teaching aid a paper could be written using varying lifting techniques that students use and then run the paper through Safe Assignment.  The paper, along with the Safe Assignment report, could be posted on a website so students have examples of what constitutes plagiarism. 

 

Bradford stated that some students are not clear where the lines are when citing information.  He stated that a revised academic dishonesty policy could provide examples of plagiarism. 

 

Bolin stated that the libraries have an interest in plagiarism and instructors can bring classes over to the libraries to have the staff talk about plagiarism.  She noted that Libraries 110 might be covering some of this.

 

Flowers stated that he recently encountered some problems with Safe Assignment.  He submitted papers for the program to run a report but it did not catch all of the plagiarized passages but a search on Google identified the papers which the students used to plagiarize.  Alloway asked if there was anyone on campus that communicates with the makers of Safe Assignment so this can be brought to their attention. 

 

3.2       Sending out Executive Committee Mintues by Email Announcement

Zimmers asked if a link to the Executive Committee Minutes can be sent out in the general campus announcements.  Griffin stated that she will check on this.  

 

3.3       Library Service Quality Survey

Bolin reported that the libraries are conducting a service quality survey but those people in the random sample were sent the wrong URL.  She noted that the libraries might put a link to the survey on their home page and is notifying the people in the random sample of the error.  She asked that those included in the random sample please fill out the survey.  She noted that the survey will remain open until May 4th and takes only about 10 minutes to complete. 

 

4.0       Approval of 4/4/07 Minutes

Ledder moved and Flowers seconded approval of the minutes as amended.  Motion approved. 

 

 

 

5.0       Unfinished Business

5.1       Executive Committee Elections

The Committee discussed possible candidates for the Executive Committee and the possibility of needing to run an election in the fall if there are still open positions on the Committee.         

 

6.0       New Business

            No new business was discussed.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 4:41 p.m.  The next meeting of the Executive Committee will be on Wednesday, April 18th at 3:00 pm.  The meeting will be held in Academic Senate Office, 420 University Terrace.  The minutes are respectfully submitted by Karen Griffin, Coordinator and Rick Alloway, Secretary.