UAPC Meeting Minutes           Sept. 21, 2011

 

Attending:

Voting members: Diane Webber, Cathy Santos, Joanne Oliveira, Vicki Nelson, Tracy Wang

 

Sally Buckley, Jeff Lemberg, Jennifer Balboni

 

 

 

 

I.  Discussion of Academic Honesty Policy

 

·      Jeff and Jennifer expressed concern about general lack of consistency in the academic honesty policy and lack of culture/respect for academic honesty. They report that about 1/3 of syllabi don’t include or address the college policy .

 

IMMEDIATE ACTIONS RECOMMENDED:

 

·      Bring awareness of policy to the college this semester (Fall2011) – send out emails to students/staff/faculty noting the existing language – encourage postings on Blackboard

 

·      Discuss concern with office of Dean of Students and Library to cooperate and coordinate future initiatives (“light” lifting would come before the “heavy” lifting)

 

·      Discuss with FYS – faculty could address the issue in classes

 

LONG-TERM ACTIONS RECOMMENDED:

 

·      Add a policy statement to the first-year student pledge at Convocation

 

·      Use the U. of Indiana plagiarism tutorial –require its use, or move to develop one specifically for Curry – bring it to the Tech Center for evaluation

 

·      Hold focus groups with students to discuss integrity and honesty issues

 

·      GET SPONSORS: Involve faculty –e.g.  Ethics professors

 

·      Publicity – Currier Times, portal, posters, wikis, course assignments, TV panel discussion

 

·      Diane Webber will bring this concern to Dean of Students, FYS Director and Library Director

 

 

II.  Discussion of Academic Credit Policy

 

Issues:

 

·      The policy must be in compliance with Federal Regulations - UAPC

·      The structure must be in place – Calendar and Scheduling Committees

·      The practice must align with the policy – UCC, Departments, Deans

 

Background –

The credit standard is NOT new! (the Carnegie unit has been around for over 100 years)

We are only looking at a MINIMUM standard for the policy – it can be exceeded in practice

Policy was to be in place by July 1, 2011 – we MUST to have it in place before NEASC visit

 

DISCUSSION – evaluate, discuss revised policy language (Diane Webber (UAPC), Sally Buckley (Registrar) and Maryann Gallant (Calendar Committee) met previously to revise policy language, and brought it to UAPC for further discussion and revisions

 

ACTION – after thorough discussion and editing, the UAPC members voted unanimously to approve the new Academic Honesty Policy draft. Sally Buckley was in total approval of the revised draft.

 

ACTION RECOMMENDED:

Diane Webber will speak to Michael Miller about putting draft on faculty meeting agenda with caveat that we MUST get into compliance with federal regulations and the draft should be brought as information only. Sally will bring the draft to other constituencies (Deans).

 

Additional discussion items:

 

Policy items to discuss in the future, with Academic Credit Policy the priority

·      Repeat course policy

 

·      Academic Standing Policy needs revision