The University Senate
of Michigan
Technological University
Minutes of Meeting 479
7 October
2009
Synopsis:
The
Senate:
1. Call to order and roll call. President Rudy Luck called the University Senate Meeting 478
to order at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, October 7, 2009. The Senate Secretary Marilyn
Cooper called roll. Absent were Senators Vogler and Koszykowski, and
representatives of Army/Air Force ROTC, the Library, Materials Science and
Engineering, Academic Services A, Academic Services B, and Auxiliaries and
Cultural Enrichment.
2. Recognition of visitors. Guests included Max Seel (Provost), Brad Baltensperger
(General Education), Deb Charlesworth (Graduate School), and Pat Gotshalk
(Student Affairs).
3. Approval of agenda. L.
Davis moved approval of the agenda;
Malette seconded the motion; it passed unanimously
on a voice vote.
4. Presentation: The University’s
General Education Program, by Brad Baltensperger
Baltensperger said he had received a
number of questions from Senators. He said he was not going to answer each one,
but instead would try to give a sense of where the General Education program
is, where we see it heading, and what some of the challenges are.
In the
1998 report from the task force that led to the revision of the General
Education program, the goals were not very well articulated (see attached
slides). (The report is on the General Education website, where all the
documents including the minutes from 2000-09 are available.) The statement of
philosophy listed concerns of General Education programs generally. The goals
aren’t really goals or skills, but a list of things we want covered in a
university education. Those aren’t the goals of the program; those are some of
the areas students might study to achieve whatever the goals are. We need a
better articulated set of goals because we can’t know what we have achieved
unless we state what we are aiming for.
The
structure of Gen Education program originally consisted of four core courses
(13 credits), a distribution requirement (15 credits), a
science/engineering/CS/mathematics requirement (16 credits), and a
co-curricular requirement (equivalent to 3 credits). The administration of the
program consisted of a General Education Council of 14 members representing all
colleges and schools, and four subcommittees: first-year, communications,
distribution, and executive. Originally there was a really big committee of 56 faculty which never met.
Baltensperger
offered a summary of the changes have been made over the last nine years.
During the last two years, we’ve attempted to address some of the requirement
issues and some of the administrative issues. How the members of the General
Education Council would be selected and by whom was vague. No changes have been
made in the core courses. The distribution requirement has changed a lot. The
five lists were shrunk to two, and then going into fall 2008, the two lists
were replaced by one Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) list which
stood in contrast to the Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
(STEM) list. The three-credit limit on activities was retained but renamed
creative endeavors to avoid confusion with physical education or ROTC physical
activities courses. A new supplemental list was created which enabled
departments to list courses that were more instrumental and less
“liberal-artsy” than courses that would normally be considered to be General
Education courses. All distribution courses were reviewed in 2007-08. The
Science/Engineering/CS/Mathematics list was renamed the STEM list. The
co-curricular requirement remained unchanged.
The
General Education Council was shrunk to 11 members who are appointed by the
provost. The council includes a representative of each of the four core
courses, four representatives of STEM disciplines, a representative of the
writing center, a representative of the distribution committee, and the
director of General Education. Three-year rotating terms on the committee were
established. The Perspectives committee is a group of faculty who vet
proposals; the World Cultures committee is a group of faculty who teach that
course; and the distribution committee hasn’t had much to do since 2007-08 when
they did an analysis of the courses that fit on the distribution lists.
Provost
Seel asked why there is no institutions committee. Baltensperger said that
we’ve had a difficult time identifying a core faculty who are regularly engaged
in and leading that course. He added that there is a process for the management
of the Revisions course within the Humanities department, where the course is
directed by the Writing Programs Administrator.
Baltensperger
said that one of the issues that has often come up concerns the role of the Senate relative to the
General Education Council (GEC) in making adjustments to the General Education
program. The genesis of the program is unusual; the ballot the faculty voted on
did not include a document we improved; it was a general agreement to move
forward with a new program based more or less on the report of the General
Education Task Force. The GEC’s position has been that the general outline of
the requirements is the responsibility of the faculty as a whole, as
represented through the Senate or through the whole faculty. It’s not up to the
GEC to make changes to the general outline.
Changes within that framework have been what the GEC has been concerned
with ever since it was established in 2000.
There
were some questions about Perspectives in particular, about the faculty who teach
the course and about the quality of instruction. In 2009-10 Perspectives is
being taught by 33 instructors: 16 tenured or tenure track faculty, 7 full-time
faculty/staff, 3 ABD graduate students, and 11 adjuncts. Of these, 27 hold
terminal degrees; 25 have taught Perspectives for three or more semesters, 2
have taught it once before, and 6 are first-time Perspectives instructors. It’s
a very stable staff. When the program was originally discussed, the idea was
that Perspectives would be taught by full-time faculty so students would get to
know the professional faculty of the University. That would have required that
roughly 60 faculty across the university would have to
teach the course every fall (unless some taught two sections). The colleges and
schools decided that they could not staff that course. The original plan was
that every unit had a quota; that was quickly eliminated. The Humanities
Department was left with a requirement of 16 sections, and a budget line was
added to General Education to hire staff, whether adjuncts or tenured and
tenure track faculty by transferring funds into departmental and school
accounts to pay for the instruction of however many remaining sections were
needed. There is no budget for hiring full-time faculty or of compelling
departments to assign full-time faculty to teach Perspectives. We actually have
quite good instruction with the system we have in place. We have stability in
instruction and good teaching evaluations. In Fall
2008 the average score for all Perspectives instructors on question 20 was
4.41, while the University average is 4.1 There is a minor difference in
average score between tenured and tenure track and full-time faculty (4.48) and
ABD and adjunct faculty (4.34). Last fall, in only 6 of 60 sections, did the
instructor received less than a 4.0.
World
Cultures is taught typically by tenured and tenure-track faculty. In 2009-10,
it is being taught by 4 tenured or tenure track faculty and 1 full-time
faculty, and all 5 hold PhDs. Revisions is taught by graduate students in the Humanities
Department. In 2009-10, Institutions is being taught by 6 instructors in Social
Sciences and Business and Economics, of whom 3 are tenured or tenure track
faculty, 1 is full-time faculty/staff, and 2 are adjunct faculty; 4 of these
hold PhDs.
Storer
asked how many Perspectives instructors hold PhDs. Baltensperger said 22-24
including most of the adjuncts.
He
then summarized the plans for review and revision of the General Education
program. There is a need to clarify goals of the program and for the core
courses. We are working on and will
complete the clarification of goals and common expectations for the core
courses this year. If we want to know if these courses are meeting their goals,
we need to know what the goals are. We need to articulate the goals of the
program as a whole. We don’t explain very well to students why they are taking
these courses. We would like to move Revisions to the first year. The goal
originally was, in the first semester in Perspectives, to gradually introduce
University practice and process to students; to bring them into a small class
that is discussion focused, writing intensive, and that helps them engage with
the intellectual atmosphere of the University. Then in second semester, they go
into the 240-student World Cultures classes. If the idea is a gradual induction
process, we’d be much better off with Revisions in the first year and moving
World Cultures to the second year. This is a goal, but achieving it is not
straightforward for two reasons. In the transition year, we would need more
Revisions sections to cover both sophomores and first-year students. Also,
currently we teach only about 45 sections of Revisions (due to attrition and
students taking first-year writing in summer at home), and we would need 60
sections. The advantage of moving World Cultures to the second year is that
then the students in that course would have a better understanding of what it
means to be a student at Michigan Tech and the level of effort it takes and the
level of concentration it takes to sit through a 75-minute lecture.
Another
effort is to find ways to increase the emphasis on writing in the University
curriculum. So we want to move Revisions to the first year, but also, as many
universities are doing, find ways to infuse writing throughout the curriculum
and throughout the four or five years of college. We want to infuse writing
into higher-level courses and especially into senior design courses where
students see the value of being able to write coherently. We will be
re-evaluating the STEM and HASS distribution requirements. The HASS list has
300 courses from which students choose 5. It’s unclear what learning outcomes
this is supposed to produce, or what priorities are important for a University
education. We are going to start working on this in the spring, possibly with a
group of faculty from the Senate Curricular Policy Committee, from departments
in HASS, and from the GEC. This has to be a university-wide discussion with the
goal of creating the outlines of a new set of requirements connected with HASS
and perhaps with STEM. A lot of universities now have a diversity requirement,
or an international requirement; some have an environmental science or a sustainability
requirement; lots have very creative writing requirements. We also need leaders
for the four core courses. One change that is taking place is a slight
modification of the description of Revisions and a title change to Composition:
Written, Oral, and Visual. The original idea that students would revise their
writing from perspectives in that course, but that never happened.
Barry
Solomon offered some comments and observations at the invitation of President
Luck. He has been teaching Institutions for 10 years and has been talking with
instructors and students in the core courses.
He said that there doesn’t seem to be a very clear process for General
Education reform. Problems with the core courses have been identified for years
and but no action has been taken (other than the modification of Revisions
proposed this year). It’s critical that the GEC actively solicit input from the
whole faculty and the University Senate. In the report from the GEC
there is a little too much emphasis on student course evaluations to determine
how courses are running. It’s one instrument, but it
shouldn’t be the only way we are assessing how the courses are working.
Perspectives needs faculty from a broader range of departments to make the
courses as dynamic and engaging as possible. The Perspectives course also
provides an opportunity to integrate stronger ethical education, which was
called for in the original proposal for the course. There seems to be some
opposition to this, but organizations such as the National Science Foundation
are increasingly emphasizing ethics in education including for undergraduate
students. Another concern is that with all the instructors for Revisions being
GTIs, this might telegraph to students that the course is devalued by faculty.
Solomon used to be the coordinator for Institutions and observed that there has
been a problem with buy-in from key faculty from the beginning that needs to be
addressed. One way might be to expand the pool of possible faculty to bring
dynamism to the course and avoid the narrow disciplinary perspective that often
arises. Since education is one of the basic institutions, faculty from
Cognitive and Learning Science might be included. In World Cultures, the course
assignments and films should be updated annually to keep the course fresh and
relevant; there is possibly too much emphasis on certain disciplines, e.g., on
history to the neglect of modern day cultures. This has been a problem in
Institutions too; these are supposed to be General Education courses, and yet
the faculty who teach them revert to focusing on a
particular discipline. And there is a pattern of misconduct on homework
assignments, which might be partly due the size of the classes.
Provost
Seel commented that Revisions is a remnant from the first-year writing course,
which at all research universities is taught by GTIs, so that’s not unusual.
Cooper
said that that’s true but before the new General Education program was put in
place a large number of faculty at Michigan Tech were teaching first-year
writing, but since the Humanities Department was required to teach 16 sections
of Perspectives, all those faculty who used to teach writing are now teaching
Perspectives.
Solomon
said the question is why this course is different. There are other universities
that have similar General Education courses and the rest of the core courses
are taught by graduate students as well.
Caneba
asked about the plan to teach Perspectives in the summer. Baltensperger said
that we have been teaching 2-3 sections in the summer for the last 3 years.
Boschetto-Sandoval
said that the report from the GEC mentions frequent student criticisms of WC
for being too large and for using a lecture format,
and she asked whether there is any quantitative data on how many students are
saying that. Baltensperger said no, it I based on impressions. We have done
very little true assessment of the General Education program as a whole and of
the core courses and once we shifted over to the new accreditation system, the
pressure to do that fell away. The dissatisfaction with World Cultures largely
results from the course being taught as lectures to very large sections.
Everyone who teaches World Cultures would say that their normal teaching
evaluations drops a half a point when they teach the course.
Boschetto-Sandoval
asked if there have been complaints about the multiple choice exams.
Baltensperger said no. The only complaint we get from students is about
inconsistency across sections, but that also happens with all multiple section
courses. Boschetto-Sandoval said that if you want to increase the writing
ability of students, then section size would be a factor. Baltensperger agreed
but pointed out that one of the clear goals for World Cultures to be a large
section course so that Perspectives could have small sections. There are resource
constraints. Scarlett added that
students in World Cultures are doing 20-30 pages of writing per student during
the semester. The problem is that there are a number of students who still
write on their evaluations, I don’t have to know anything about these things;
I’m going to be an engineer. These comments are a reflection of the fact that
in the larger atmosphere many students are picking up on the vibe that these courses are not
valuable to them. Clearly that is a minority of students, but we don’t have any
way of knowing how many students feel that way.
Johnson
asked whether we have looked at our peer engineering institutions to see what
they are doing. Baltensperger said we have not done any systematic
benchmarking. He said that there was no process of reform built into the
program. But he said that he doesn’t want to just benchmark with peers, but
rather with those institutions who are making creative
changes. Some are in our peer institutions and others are in large
multiversities. Solomon said that the consultant from WPI was very helpful; WPI
has a very strong global studies, international
involvement in their curriculum.
Luck
asked whether they had compared evaluation scores of instructors teaching
Perspectives with the scores the same faculty get in
other courses.
Baltensperger
said they have no data on that. The adjunct faculty are
mostly not teaching other courses, so we couldn’t get a comparison on them. He
added that that is one
of the advantages of adjunct faculty: they can really commit to their
Perspectives courses and spend a tremendous amount of time working on them.
Another advantage of adjunct faculty is that if they aren’t doing a very good
job, you can find someone else to teach the next semester. The high scores
might be because of the size of the course, or that these are first-year
students who don’t know how to be nasty to faculty, or that these are an
engaging courses that try to draw students in. Snyder commented that the score
might have something to do with the other courses they are taking in the fall
of the first year.
Smith
suggested that taking a really good survey of students would be better than
drawing on anecdotes. We don’t know what the students think, and yet we are
making decisions based on what we think they think. Baltensperger said we have
done some focus groups in the past on World Cultures, but we haven’t done it in
a long time. The University is not as driven by assessment as it once was.
Smith
asked whether attendance is good in World Cultures. Baltensperger said part the
issue is the individual faculty’s attendance policy; in classes where
attendance is closely monitored, attendance is 90 percent, while in others
where attendance is the responsibility of students, it isn’t as high.
Cooper asked whether the GEC has gotten advice from the Writing
Program about moving Revisions to the first year, because that goes exactly
against the trend across the country which is to require writing courses in all
four or five years rather than jamming them all in the first year and saying
that takes care of the writing instruction.
Baltensperger
said that the GEC’s interest in moving Revision to the first year is as much
because it is a small section course as because it’s writing. We are strongly
supportive of the idea that students should be getting a course in each year
that gives them instruction that improves their writing skills. It will take
resources and we need to especially work on getting writing into courses in the
sophomore and junior years, because in senior year, most programs have a senior
design or senior project where writing is or could be a major component of the
course. Solomon commented that there is writing in Institutions as well, so all
the core courses have writing to a certain degree.
Baltensperger
concluded by saying that what he sees the GEC doing this year is to discuss
some of these issues with departments teaching HASS subjects this semester, and
then next semester to move to a broader approach involving the Senate, the GEC,
departments. He doesn’t project bringing something to the Senate by
next fall, but it should not drag out to five years.
5. Approval of minutes from Meeting 478. L. Davis moved approval of the minutes; Smith seconded the motion; it passed unanimously on a voice vote.
6. Report of the President and Senate Committees
Luck said he has received some
suggestions to which he would respond. One suggestion was to use clickers to
register votes on the Senate floor. The executive committee discussed this
suggestion and rejected it because the logistics are complex and it would slow
down dealing with business. On some issues it would make sense, but if it’s a
proposal, it’s necessary to have open discussion and to express opinions
fearlessly so that we all know where different units stand. Another suggestion
that was agreed to was to ask those making presentations to the Senate to
distribute slides or other information to Senators two days before the Senate
meeting so that they could study it and have questions ready, as was possible
today after Senators received the report of the General Education Council.
Luck
discussed the difference between “laying on the table” and “postponing”: the
proposal tabled at the last meeting should have been postponed.
‘ He
announced that we will now list on the website the proposals as they are
received along with the date of receipt in the Senate office. The big benefit
is that everyone can track the progress of a proposal. Once a proposal goes to
the administration, it must be acted on in 90 days or the proposal goes into
effect. This will also hold true for unit charters that are submitted to the
Senate.
He
announced that the recommendations from the Benefits Liaison Group (BLG) are
coming soon. Next Monday, October 12,
the BLG will meet with the Senate Fringe Benefits Committee, the Deans and the
Compensation Strategy Task Force to discuss their recommendations on health
care and retirement benefits. On Tuesday, October 13, President Mroz will
address these issues at a campus-wide forum.
The Benefits Office have asked whether the
Senate is interested in a special meeting on October 14 to hear what these
recommendations might be. The Senate Officers discussed this issue, and we were
interested in having them come to this meeting, because the recommendations
would then be a work in progress. The Benefits Office declined to come to this
meeting. If we agree to the special meeting next week, it will just be a
discussion of what has already been decided. This could well be done in the
October 21 meeting. He asked for discussion of the merits of a special meeting
next week.
Seel
noted that the decline of the invitation
for today was mainly due to the people being tied up with Board of Control
members and donors who are in town this week in connection with the BOC
meeting.
Storer
asked whether the October 14 meeting could replace the October 21 meeting. Luck
said that he is considering canceling a later Senate meeting, but not the
October 21 meeting as we have scheduled a presentation from the winner of the
Teaching Award from last year. Snyder observed that whenever we hear this
presentation, it will take a full meeting for us to address its implications,
so that meeting should be a one-item agenda meeting. Pierce mentioned the
concern that having the meeting on October 14 would not allow Senators enough
time to consult their constituents to see what they think so that we could
discuss those concerns with the Benefits Office. Herbeck suggested that the October 14
meeting would be more for Senators to be informed in order to disburse the
information. After that there will be open forums to address all constituencies
across campus. Luck agreed with Herbeck’s assessment, and added that the open
enrollment period starts November 1, so the time is somewhat short.
Storer
moves that we have a special meeting
on October 14 and if there is no pressing business, we cancel the December
meeting; seconded by Smith. Luck said that it is an important decision. The big
problem is that if it’s just a report, we could just read it. If we could have
some input it would be better. But at the same time it is such an important
issue that the meeting might well be of some use in alerting you. The motion passed on a voice vote with two
dissents.
Christianson
asked if Luck would request that they provide information two days in advance
of the meeting. Luck said he would ask, but that he knows they still have data
they need to obtain. He could also ask for permission to distribute the data
from the BLG if it is available.
Storer
reported that the Curricular Policy Committee is working on Proposal 16-09
Double Majors at MTU that was returned to the committee at the end of last
year. They are also working on a proposal for a graduate degree in Sustainable
Water Resource Systems, a name change of the English BA degree in the
Humanities Department, and discussing methods of clarifying residency
requirements for certificate programs.
7. Old Business
a. Proposal 1-10 Revised Academic Policy, presented by the
Instructional Policy Committee
Snyder stated that objections voiced on
Senate floor centered around whether the
administrative officer, the deciding person in a case involving academic
integrity, could assign an F* grade to a student. The F* says that the student
failed the course for reasons of violations of academic integrity There was a
proposal on the floor that the deciding person should not be allowed to do
that; that they could only make a recommendation to the faculty member to
assign an F*. The committee considered
that proposal and disagreed with it. There are a couple of reasons for that.
First the violation of academic integrity is a University offense, and
sanctions and due process are University matters that are outside the
prerogatives of the faculty. Faculty members already exercise discretion about
how serious this offense is when they forward the case to the Dean of Students
or to the Graduate School for review. Second, the F* is not a grade in the
course but a sanction given to the student for a violation of academic
integrity. Allowing faculty the prerogative to accept or decline the
decision-makers recommendation could result in considerable lack of uniformity
in how sanctions were imposed. Individual faculty have
little way to know whether a violation of academic integrity is a pattern of
behavior on the part of the student. Putting the sole responsibility on the
instructor to assign or not assign an F* would subject the faculty member to
considerable pressure not to assign F*s. Faculty already get pressure from the
students about grades and it would be worse with F*s. We could also expect
calls from parents and threats of lawsuits, which the Dean of Students office
currently deals with. He said he would rather be evaluating students based on
their performances in my class and not having to be the judge, jury, and
prosecution when they violate academic integrity. For those reasons, the committee unanimously
recommends that we accept the proposal as it was presented.
L
Davis moved to approve the proposal
as submitted, and Solomon seconded
the motion.
Storer
said that the friendly amendment offered last week was to have the faculty
involved in the discussion, not be the one who makes the final decision, and my constituents were surprised and uncomfortable
with the current policy allowing administrators to assign grades, and they
wanted some other recourse to be possible if a faculty member did not consent
to an F* being forced on them. The other concern was that if faculty members
have no say in whether an F* is assigned, then faculty members are less likely
to report academic integrity issues. We are very concerned that there be an
updated academic integrity policy, but we would like to have the instructor
consent included in the assigning of F*s.
Stockero
said that her colleagues have also asked that she voice opposition to the
policy as it stands and ask that the amendment proposed at the last meeting be
reconsidered for the reasons that Senator Storer just mentioned. We are
concerned about faculty members giving up their right to assign a grade and
that faculty members might not report academic integrity issues, which would be
a larger concern, as then we wouldn’t know about these cases.
Wood
said that he is persuaded by Senator Snyder’s argument that we don’t want to be
involved in any of these lawsuits. I’ve been involved in them and that is just
sheer hell.
Onder
said that he and other colleagues have been involved in academic integrity
cases, and their experience is that faculty have ample
input to the process before the sanction is imposed. The administrative officer
tries to understand the seriousness of the violation in consultation with the
faculty. This being a university offense, I still think that awarding an F*,
which is not a grade but a sanction, is appropriately the decision of the
administrative officer.
Cooper
commented that the policy seems to stipulate that the instructor is involved in
assigning F*s, though it’s not clear how the faculty is involved. Snyder
clarified that the instructor is not involved in the decision to assign an F*,
but in the case of a grade reduction, there is considerably more discretion of
the faculty member than under the current policy.
Luck
asked Storer why he believes he should be the one to say what the punishment
should be for an academic integrity violation. Storer said that he doesn’t
believe that he should be the one who should decide the punishment, but he
doesn’t buy that the F* is a sanction. It’s recorded on the transcript, and
transcripts record grades of the student, not sanctions and actions taken
against the student. I don’t want to told, if I have referred a student on an
issue of academic integrity, but it was a marginal case, what grade to assign. Most of the time, faculty members will agree with the decision of
the administrative officer. But if the faculty member doesn’t consent to
the F* there are other actions that can be taken against the student that don’t
involve a grade.
Snyder
said that there are a variety of sanctions less serious than an F*. An F* is
only given for very serious violations. Storer observed that if Multiple faculty have discretion to lower grades for less
serious violations, then administration of the policy is not uniform.
Gotshalk
said that we’re trying to separate the punishment from the grading of academic
work. It’s a complex system we’re working with in trying to come up with a
system that balances everybody’s needs.
Caneba
asked whether a list of egregious violations could be constructed.
Gotshalk said that we do have criteria
for assigning sanctions, but a list of egregious violations would be really
difficult to put together. Snyder said that the proposal has very good
definitions of what academic misconduct is.
Luck
asked Gotshalk how many cases the Student Affairs office deals with in a year,
and how many would fit into the category of egregious violations. Gotshalk said
they deal with more than 100 cases, and those that
result in an F* mostly come out of just a few departments where their syllabi
have strict statements about collaboration resulting in an F. Maybe 10 cases in a year result in F*.
Stockero
asked whether a course syllabus with a clear statement of policy on academic
integrity trumps the policy. She said that her colleagues just want to be involved
in the process. Gotshalk said it doesn’t trump it; it reinforces it.
Instructors can define what is unauthorized collaboration.
But faculty are always invited to attend the hearings.
Some choose not to. We do consult with them.
Charlesworth
said that she agreed with Snyder’s arguments, and that her primary objection to
the proposed amendment is the fairness. She would hate to see two students come
in with the same offense and one gets a B in the class and the other gets an
F*.
Gotshalk
said she felt that this is a big problem, and that any first-year student who
does anything questionable should be sent to the dean’s office so we can nip
this problem in the bud. By and large, students will just get a warning, but if
the faculty handle it students will just learn who
will let them get away with it.
Onder
said that he won’t send a student to the Dean of Students unless he is
convinced that the student is cheating on purpose. When it comes to a sanction, he doesn’t think
faculty should decide what should be the sanction.
Snyder
called the question. The motion passed
on a voice vote with some dissent.
10. Adjournment. L. Davis moved that
the meeting be adjourned; Malette
seconded the motion; and President Luck adjourned the meeting at 7:14 pm.
Respectfully submitted
by Marilyn Cooper
Secretary of the University Senate