EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MINUTES

Present: Alloway, Bradford, Flowers, Hachtmann, Ledder, Moeller, Rapkin, Scholz, Stock, Zimmers

Absent: Alexander, Beck, Bolin

Date: Wednesday, April 18, 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

Moeller called the meeting to order at 3:02 p.m.

2.0 Interview with Barbara Romzek, Candidate for Dean of Arts and Sciences

The Committee interviewed Dr. Romzek, candidate for Dean of Arts and Sciences.

3.0 ASUN – Safe Assignment (Greg Gifford and Kyle Groteluschen)

Gifford stated that the students have concerns that there is limited protection for students with the Safe Assignment policy because it does not require instructors to follow the policy, that students must have approval of a faculty member to have access to the program, that they are not guaranteed the right to view the results of the Safe Assignment report, and students may not be notified in advance of the instructor’s intent to use Safe Assignment and therefore may not be able to object to the submission of the paper to the local database.

Ledder pointed out that since the ASUN resolution opposing the Safe Assignment policy was passed in early March the policy has been revised. He noted that the first concern of the students has been dealt with in the revised version. He stated that the latest draft does address the personal sensitivity issue but he wondered whether the language was strong enough. He stated that he would offer an amendment to the policy to make the language stronger because he thinks it is important that the students be protected.

Gifford asked if the section of the policy that stated that students must go through a grade appeal process to appeal having a paper submitted to the local database was still included in the policy. Ledder stated that this has been taken out.

Moeller asked if the students are unable to use the program to check a paper if they do not have faculty permission. Gifford pointed out that the policy does not state that students have the right to see the Safe Assignment report that was made on their paper. Ledder stated that the policy specifically states that it is the instructor’s responsibility to decide whether or not to allow students to submit drafts and to allow students to directly view the Safe Assignment report.

Moeller asked if the students want to ensure that they see the report. Gifford pointed out that if students do not get to see the report the program will not be the learning tool that it is designed to be. Bradford asked why the students wan to see the report. He noted that if Safe Assignment detects no problems than the student would not be interested in seeing the report. Gifford stated that a student might not have quoted or cited something correctly in the paper because they did not know how. The report would point out the error.

Ledder asked why seeing the Safe Assignment report would be any different than a student seeing their final exam. He noted that students have the right to see their final exam and the Safe Assignment report should not be any different.

Moeller agreed and pointed out that if the faculty wants to say that Safe Assignment is a learning tool, then students should be allowed to see the report to see where they made mistakes. She stated the she allows her students to use it when they are writing a draft paper to the program. She noted that the bottom line is that the wording in the policy needs to be changed. She stated that students should be allowed to submit a draft of their paper. Ledder stated that the language in the policy should also state that students should be able to see the report as well.

Bradford asked if a student would need to gain approval of a libraries faculty member in order to be able to submit a paper through Safe Assignment on their own. Gifford stated that he thinks the student will need to go through a faculty member in the library to enter a Blackboard site that has Safe Assignment available. He pointed out that the report would then go back to the faculty member, not the student. He stated that he did not think it was realistic to have students go to the library and go through all of this process.

Bradford questioned whether the Safe Assignment contract only allows use by a faculty member. Moeller stated that she thought the program could only be used if it was tied to a course. Scholz questioned if there is a volume issue. He wondered whether the capacity of the system would allow for a lot of use.

Bradford pointed out that if a student goes to the libraries to use the Safe Assignment program they will have to go through an educational process on the proper way to reference materials but this may not always happen in a course.

Alloway stated that when he created a Safe Assignment project in a course last fall, it was listed as “Safe Assignment” in the Blackboard grade book list of projects, so he felt there was some notice to students that their projects were likely to be submitted to the program. However, he said that notification would be bypassed if an instructor chose to “quick submit” a student’s paper, which can be done for any project. Gifford agreed that it was this “quick submit” process that can cause notification problems.”

Gifford stated that one of the other concerns of the students is that a professor might want to submit papers from a previous semester through Safe Assignment and the students would not be able to object because they would not know this was being done. Ledder pointed out that this is factually correct.

Bradford stated that he would like to see the policy written so the instructor would have the freedom to submit a paper through Safe Assignment. Gifford pointed out that it should be in writing that the paper might be put through Safe Assignment. Bradford stated that this should not be included in the policy because instructors will just use a boilerplate statement in their syllabus.

Ledder asked what would happen if an instructor said nothing about using Safe Assignment and put papers through the program without submitting them to the local database. Gifford stated that instructors do the same thing now with using Google. He noted that he does not think ASUN would have any objections to this. He stated that he has no problems with an instructor scanning a paper into the program but he does not want to see papers loaded into the database after the course is completed.

Bradford pointed out that instructors should have the flexibility of being able to check papers if there are suspicions that the student is not writing the paper. Ledder stated that he would like to see the policy written that instructors must notify students in advance if they are going to be using Safe Assignment and putting the paper in the local database. Zimmers asked if there is a way to get papers out of the local database if needed. Gifford stated that he believes there is a way.

Bradford pointed out that there are still concerns with the language of the policy. He suggested that the vote on the resolution by the Senate be put off until September. Ledder stated that the people who drafted the policy should vet the concerns that are being raised.

Alloway suggested that Safe Assignment be contacted to see if the program could be tweaked to address some of these concerns.

Ledder noted that Professor Flowers and Dean Giesecke should be notified about the concerns raised and the postponement of the vote in the Senate.

4.0 Announcements

4.1 Budget

Bradford stated that Michelle Waite, Assistant to the Chancellor for Community Relations, told him that the Budget Committee is reporting out the 4.1% University budget raise to the legislature. He noted that the question is what will happen on the floor of the legislature.

5.0 Approval of 4/11/07 Minutes

Bradford moved and Rapkin seconded approval of the minutes as amended. Motion approved.

6.0 Unfinished Business

6.1 Sending out Executive Committee Minutes by Campus E-News

Griffin reported that she checked with Information Services to see if a continual announcement about the Executive Committees being located on the web can be put into the E-News announcements. She was informed that an announcement would need to be submitted each week. Zimmers stated that he will inform the faculty members of the extension centers that it cannot be easily done.

Bradford suggested that at least twice a year an announcement should be placed in E-News reminding people where the minutes of the Senate Executive Committee meetings can be found on the web.

6.2 Syllabus Policy – How to Deal with Violations

Griffin stated that she received an email message from Associate Vice Chancellor Wilson asking how violations of the syllabus policy will be handled. Bradford stated that the process would be the same as any other formal complaint. The students would speak to the instructor first, then the chair of the department, and on up until the complaint is resolved.

6.0 New Business

6.1 Virginia Tech Resolution

Bradford suggested that a resolution be made at the April 24^th Senate meeting regarding the incident that occurred at Virginia Tech. The Committee informally agreed that this should be done. Bradford stated that he would draft a resolution.

Alloway asked if the university is thinking of a rapid information system in case there ever has to be a lock down. He wondered if the venue for doing this would be through text messaging. Bradford pointed out that some peoples’ computers would not allow an email message to get through if the notification came through email.

Ledder stated that he has mixed feelings about whether it would be good to get notification out quickly. He pointed out that it would have been difficult for authorities to know what was going to happen at Virginia Tech after the first incident there.

Bradford stated that this would be a good time to get the Campus Police Committee active again to work with the campus police on security issues.

Ledder stated that another issue connected with the incidents is how much faculty members are hamstrung in reporting students that they may have concerns about. Stock noted that with creative writing it can be particularly difficult in knowing whether someone is just being creative or whether there might be real concerns. Bradford stated that legally unless someone poses imminent danger to themselves or others they cannot be reported. Rapkin pointed out that faculty members cannot anticipate every situation that can occur. He noted that the university needs to have the capacity to disseminate information to students, faculty and staff as quickly as possible.

Bradford suggested that one way of doing this might be through text messaging. He noted that the vast majority of students on campus have cell phones and the university could give students the option of providing their cell phone number to the campus police should a message need to be sent out quickly.

The Committee agreed to discuss the issue with the Chancellor at its next meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:45 p.m. The next meeting of the Executive Committee will be on Wednesday, April 25th at 3:00 pm. The meeting will be held in 201 Canfield Administration. The minutes are respectfully submitted by Karen Griffin, Coordinator and Rick Alloway, Secretary.