Faculty Council Minutes for September 9, 1997

The meeting was called to order by President Kolena at 3:50 with only 25 present, including the following guests and Administration, Sandy Rothschild, Steve Warshaw, Pete Goldberg, Eileen McSherry, and Doug Gray. Jo Ann announced the Faculty/SLI get-together at her house. Lacking a quorum, no action was taken on the minutes of the August 26th meeting.

Committee Assignments for 1997/98 school year were attached to the minutes and were called to everyone's attention. There was no discussion of these assignments.

A discussion of recent incidents of computer vandalism followed. John Borwick and David Byrnes, representing the SGA, outlined the steps that the SGA has taken and plans to take to address this issue. These include: posting signs communicate the severity of the problem and the penalties for computer abuse; hall meetings to discuss the vandalism and the consequences, and a request for faculty to reiterate in each class the severity of vandalism.

Pete Goldberg and Eileen McSherry pointed out that we are having serious outbreaks of abuse very early in the years. They listed some specific abuses as hacking in nearly every public area, some mouses and cables tampered with, removing software or software components, changing configurations, and tampering with boot sectors. Jane Shlensky questioned whether the tampering might be accidental. Eileen saw these incidents as deliberate acts of vandalism, not something that could happen accidentally.

It was pointed out that last year, some public areas were closed and reopened only when there were SGA monitors present. The SGA and ITS have met to look for solutions, and the advantages and disadvantages of locking the public areas unless they could be monitored was discussed at length. There was concern that we would be preventing those student who have no other computer access from getting needed work done, and that athletes and others with afternoon activities would suffer the most. Pete is currently monitoring computer log-ons more carefully to try to identify times and locations of the abuse. Jo Ann Lutz and others asked that the Faculty be kept informed of the frequency and types of abuses, and told what to look for. Suggestions about paying individuals to monitor the labs or assigning work service to these areas was discussed. Marilyn Link asked that we give the SGA a chance to take some action. Hugh Haskell stated that we are powerless to really stop this, that the students have got to handle this using peer pressure. John Kolena summarized that we think student meetings are good, but that all of us need to apply pressure in our classes. He asked the SGA and ITS to develop a plan which would stipulate what action the school would take if the abuse did not stop. John will appoint ATC members to work with ITS and SGA.

Jo Ann Lutz reported that the Subcommittee on Quiet/Study Hours, consisting of Steve Warshaw, Joan Barber, Marilyn Link, Laurie Cavey, Doug Gray, Sandy Sanford, Ginger Wilson, and Dot Doyle have met and will be looking for ways to get additional input. Faculty members with suggestions or comments should be in touch with one of the committee members.

John Kolena reported on the Board of Trustees' Meeting on September 5. Each Department head has a packet on BOT documents, etc. Minor changes to the Regulations on Faculty Employment, that the Faculty and Administration have passed on were submitted to the Board, however, under current regulations, they have to wait two meetings to vote on these changes.

Dot Doyle reported that the EPPC is again looking at our mission statement. The EFC and Leadership Project were also discussed. She reported that a visiting committee for the SACS 5-year review would be on campus on October 1. Julie Graves reported on the Personnel Committee, and Gretchen Skidmore on the Finance Committee.

Steve Warshaw made several final announcement concerning the Faculty meeting to review our new pay plan, our conflict of interest forms, and an new EEOC Committee. He asked for volunteers for this committee.

The meeting adjourned at 4:55. At no time during the meeting did we have a quorum.