The first monthly meeting of the Arts & Sciences Council for the 2006-07 Academic Year was called to order at 3:35 PM by Professor Lee D. Baker, Chairman.  Professor Baker gave a “welcome back” greeting.  He gave an overview of the accomplishments of 2005-06 and stated that “last year was busy, exciting, and productive.”  He congratulated the recipients of the Arts & Sciences Council Conference Grants and the Faculty Research Grants for 2006/07.  He encouraged his colleagues to take the time to congratulate the recipients also.

 

Professor Baker then called for approval of the minutes of the April 13, 2006 meeting.  The minutes were accepted as printed.

Professor Baker then mentioned the two Arts & Sciences Council’s Ad Hoc Committees—Ad Hoc Committee to Distinguish Trinity College Degrees and the Joint Committee for Student Affairs and Athletics.  Copies of lists of the members of these committees were distributed as an exhibit.  Professor Baker stressed how the committees are related.

 

Professor Baker stated that at the first session of the Council’s Meetings, the Dean of Faculty is invited to give an address.  With that, he introduced Dean George McLendon.

 

Dean McLendon welcomed everyone back.  His speech centered on the following three points:  the physical Duke; the mind of Duke; and the heart of Duke.  (To read Dean McLendon’s address, visit the Arts & Sciences Council’s Website and click on the link Dean's Address).   Dean McLendon stated that last year he had worked with the Council to discuss new ways to “recognize and reward” faculty for their service activities.   He expressed, “this year I would like to extend that dialog to explore additional approaches to recognize and reward exceptional undergraduate teaching, mentoring, and service.”

Dean McLendon ended his address by mentioning the strategic plan.  He indicated that the University’s Strategic Plan will go public “this week”.  He talked about the title of the plan—“Making A Difference”—and commended the Arts & Sciences faculty by saying, “You should know you are succeeding and have unlimited opportunities to expand that success.”

Following Dean McLendon’s address, Professor Baker introduced Dean Robert (Bob) Thompson.  Dean Thompson role was to introduce a new policy—“Exclusion of Disruptive Students From A Course”.  Professor Baker indicated that the Executive Committee of the Arts & Sciences Council had already read through this proposed policy and recommends approval by Council body.

Dean Thompson stated that he had worked on this policy over the past summer with other deans concerning this issue.  He explained the dynamics of the policy.   He indicated that it is recognized that faculty has responsibility for what happens in the classroom and that the Dean’s office must work with Duke’s faculty in supporting the responsibilities the faculty members have.  Dean Thompson indicated that students need to know the processes and have a way to resolve disagreements.  He emphasized that faculty has the responsibility and right to ask a student to leave the classroom. 

Once dismissed, when would the student(s) be allowed back in class?  This policy is written to have a formal, written understanding of what the conditions are.  Each student’s Academic Dean will be responsible for working with faculty and student(s) to enable them to return to the classroom.  If no agreement is reached, then there has to be some resolution to remove the student from the course.  The student’s academic dean is also responsible for this and determines what to do concerning the student’s grade for the course.   Dean Thompson reiterated that the policy covers all these issues.

Ron Grunwald (Biology)  - “I suspect that the faculty will want a few examples of what might precipitate this.  Gather case studies if helpful.”

Dean Thompson’s response is that “it is really good judgment.”  The faculty has the responsibility for the class and for the quality of what is going on and maintaining a respectful learning environment.   He expressed that if the faculty member’s judgment is that something is transpiring that is interrupting his/her classroom, it is the faculty member’s call to enforce this policy and that he/she will be supported in his/her decision.  “This speaks to what to do about the student in that situation.  It’s a judgment call at the moment.”

James Bonk (Chemistry) – “Concerning the assignment of grade—WP or WF—is that after event has occurred?”  What is the grade going to be recorded as? 

 

Dean Thompson responded that it is up to the instructor.  He suggested that an instructor should assign a grade that reflects whether a student “was passing or failing the course immediately preceding the exclusion.” 

  

It was noted in Paragraph 3 of the policy that “the decision of senior associate dean in such a case is final.”  The dean involved will be an academic dean.  An appeal  goes to senior associate dean of the college.  This is not an endless appeal process, but if the student does not like the response of the first, one can appeal to the Senior Associate Dean.

There was a motion from the floor to accept the policy.  It was moved to accept this policy with the words “immediately preceding the exclusion” added to the wording, and it passed unanimously.

The next item on the agenda was the Review of Proposed By-Law Changes.  Professor Baker stated that changes to the by-laws must circulate for two weeks among faculty. 

             

A new dean of Information Science was chosen last spring.  The Committee on Information Technology was on hold for a year while this process was in progress.  Molly Tamarkin (Associate Dean, A&S Information Sciences & Technology), Professor Baker, and the Executive Committee updated the language and revamped the charge of this standing committee which becomes a part of the by-laws.  Committee will be known as Technology Advisory Committee.  Professor Baker asked attendees to review by-law proposal and bring changes to next Council meeting.

Moving forward on the agenda, Professor Baker introduced Judith Ruderman, Vice Provost for Academic and Administrative Services and Chair of the Academic Integrity Council (AIC).  Dr. Ruderman, along with two undergraduate members of the AIC, presented a report entitled “Academic Integrity in Undergraduate Life at Duke University:  A Report on the 2005-06 Surveys.”  The student presenters were Joe Fore, Executive Vice President of Duke Student Government and Jimmy Soni, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Duke Student Government.  Dr. Ruderman noted that a subcommittee of the Acadmic Integrity Council had worked on this project; that she and Elizabeth Kiss, Director, Kenan Institute of Ethics (and now President of Agnes Scott College) were co-PI's; and that Matt Serra, Director of Academic Assessment, Trinity College of A&S, provided technical support.

A slide presentation provided highlights of the presentation (See Power Point Presentation), the focus of which was ther three academic integrity surveys conducted in Fall 2005.

The survey of upper-class undergraduates indicated that there was a decline in almost all forms of academic dishonesty sicne the last survey in 2000.  The two major areas of dishonesty that remain as areas for attention (even though their instances have declined) are unauthorized collaboration and falsification of lab data. 

 

Joe Fore (Duke Student Government, Executive VP) and Jimmy Soni (Duke Student Government, VP for Academic Affairs) explained the survey results.  They emphasized the importance of the faculty’s role in promoting integrity in the classroom and repeated the recommencations made to faculty in the report:

 

Recommendations to Faculty

 

• Recognize your influence on student behavior and campus culture.
• Promote academic integrity by referring to Duke Community Standard on syllabi and in classroom discussions.
• Assign assignments and modes of assessment in ways that encourage meaningful learning and honest work with special attention to lab and group work.
• Seek opportunities for greater intellectual engagement in classroom with students and in co-curricular settings.
• Designate departmental resource person for academic integrity to provide support  and information for all faculty (adjunct, TA, Grad instructor, undergrad TA)
• Follow reporting procedures as outlined in the Faculty Handbook that require faculty to bring forth cases of suspected academic dishonesty.

The presenters noted that the "lacrosse incident" of last spring had raised questions about the efficacy of the Duke Community Standard in the non-academic realm of student behavior.  The Provost asked the AIC in Summer 2006 to review the report of the President-appointed committee on the honor code and related judicial policy and practice.  A fundamental question posed was "how does one create a code or system of policies where our priinciples are in line with our practices?"  This question and others were evaluated over the summer and the report of that committee--called the Duke Community Standard Commiteee-- was put up on the A&S Council website to supplement the report on academic integrity.  A few of the recommendations of the DCS Committee are as follows:

New version of proposed version of Duke Community Standards (DCS)

Series of Educational and communication initiatives

Contextualization of Duke Community Standard (DCS)

 

Final Thoughts

Encouraging news:  in only two (2) years since the inauguration of the Duke Community Standard and related initiatives, Duke has made progress promoting academic integrity as suggested by the results of the surveys of students and faculty.  Academics is only a part of integrity, however.  At the end of the day, we are all investing in the process of building citizens.

 

Questions Concerning Integrity Report

Rebecca Stein (Cultural Anthropology) – questioned if there is a sense of accuracy of self-reporting.

 

Dr. Ruderman responded that they are waiting on McCabe’s report (Don McCabe is the director of the national survey project).  She stated that most likely, the answer is that instances are “underreported,” but noted that it has been underreported across the line, in all our comparison schools and across the years in which the surveys have been condicted by McCabe (every five years since 1990).

 

Dean George McLendon  mentioned that sometimes responses may need to be tossed and not included in the report.  There is some difficulty in figuring out what to do with the responses of those who admit, “of course I lied.”  Sometimes standard questions are used to determine what is reliable.

Dr. Ruderman responded that Don McCabe does not do this (have standard questions).  She asked Matt Serra if he had comments on this.

 

Matt Serra stated, “we wanted to follow Don’s lead on this because we wanted to keep in step with what we have done over the last 15 to 20 years with Don.  ’Lie’ items are a very useful tool.  I’m not sure that just because we don’t have them in there that this would invalidate the responses.”

Dean McLendon responded that he thinks that they compare, at this time.  He stated that he also had two comments.  The thing he liked best about this entire survey was “the 3 % figure on a project that you had intellectual ownership of, our students appear to show as high integrity as is feasible in such a project.  And so, I think that speaks well to the underlying issue.  I am concerned, using the labs as an example, that there be a better dialogue between the instructors and the students.”  He expressed that if the instructors believe an exercise to be meaningful, it should be communicated why it is believed to be meaningful.  Instructors should make sure assignments and requisite work have  sufficient, clearly articulated meaning.  “I do think that’s a challenge for us as faculty.”  If work gets viewed as “busy” work, standards may lax.

Dr. Ruderman made two comments.

1. She stated that they didn’t have a chance to talk with ASC about the survey of first year students.   But one of the messages heard over and over in that survey was that in high school everybody cheats because they are faced with “busy” work.  Assignments are not meaningful.  Students expect more of college work.
2. She also noted that in the year 2000, and the five years before that, McCabe did not ask about research per say, that is falsifying data in research.  He lumped lab and research together.  In 2005, he separated them.  Where research is concerned, Duke is comparable to the other schools that have honor code systems of some sort ranging from very traditional to modified, like ours.  It’s only in the falsification of lab data where we seem to diverge from them in evidencing higher rates of cheating.

 

Caroline Bruzelius (Art & Art History) asked the following question:  “I wonder if there isn’t some, or whether it wouldn’t make sense to have a university-wide training for TA’s for graduate students who are teaching who are in fact beginning their careers in teaching and who really need an overview of all these kinds of issues”

   

Dr. Ruderman’s response was as follows:  “When the new honor code was going to be instituted, Dr. Bonk and I and other members of the Academic Integrity Council went two-by-two to each department to talk about all these matters that you are talking about.  One department asked its TA’s to come.  That was Math.”  She expressed that it is better department by department, and if necessary, and if the Academic Integrity Council members would be helpful in that process, they would be delighted to offer assistance.

 

Stephen Bryan (Associate Dean, Student Development; member Academic Integrity Council) stated that he attends the RCR (Responsible Conduct of Research) workshop every year and talks with them and reviews all of this information.  This year he also began going to departments that will have him and talk to all of their TA’s sharing with them about issues he has seen specifically in their department.  All graduate students are required to attend the RCR.

Güven Güzeldere  (Philosophy) questioned, “would it be accurate to say that we’re having a harder time having these Codes of Conduct and Standards penetrate the social lives of students in contrast to their academic lives?

Dr. Ruderman questioned, “Harder than other schools?”

Güven Güzeldere’s reply was “no”.  “Harder to penetrate their social lives than their academic lives.  If so, what can be done?

Dr. Ruderman suggested that he look at the report on the Council’s website (Duke Community Standards and Judicial Policies) which deals with discussions of these issues.  Many students said that they do not want their social life invaded upon.  She stated that very few schools have an honor code that embraces both (social and academic life). 

Jimmy Soni responded that students do create a division that does exist between their social lives and their academic lives and “just in terms of pure hours alone, the latter is going to exceed the former. So we’re talking about a code that is going to have to be much more comprehensive.”

 

Ron Grunwald (Biology) – “Faculty Resolution was one of the concrete reforms in the last round of the community standard.  You indicated on your slides that there was some misapplication and problems with that.  I’m wondering if conversely, if there was any indication that there was actually any good that came of faculty resolution, if there is any measurables that were associated with that.  I guess the thing that I note is that only 15% of the faculty are actually reporting infractions to the honor code.  I would have thought and one would have hoped that one of the roles of faculty resolution would have been to increase that rate of reporting.  Was that in fact the case?  Are there any other measurables?

 

Dr. Ruderman’s response that a lot of the faculty’s comments were ‘I don’t want to hurt anybody’s career.’   If infractions are reported, they feel they are ruining a student’s life not understanding that some of these students really do need to get their priorities straight or else they will cheat in every class.

Stephen Bryan quoted statistics from the 2003-04 Disciplinary Statistics that indicated that the faculty is showing a greater awareness.

Ron Grunwald (Biology) wanted to follow-up on the reply from Stephen Bryan.  He said, “so what I’m not clear about [is, do] the statistics indicate that there is an increase in the rate of the adoption of faculty resolution?  Do you think or do you know that there’s a basis that would not have gone to judicial review otherwise, and therefore this represents an increase in the number of cases that are seeing some kind of resolutions or are these cases going to affect the resolution in lieu of judicial board and therefore, it is just a shift?”

Stephen Bryan stated that they really have tried their best to reach out to all the departments to disseminate messages to the faculty. 

Dr. Ruderman thanked everyone for their attention during the Committee’s report presentation.

Professor Baker indicated that there was no new business and asked for a motion to adjourn.  It was so moved.

Meeting was adjourned at 4:42 PM.  He welcomed all to a reception in the lobby of the Allen Building.

Respectfully submitted,

 

Michele L. Jones

Administrative Assistant

 

Iris Alfonso, Work Study Student