President John Kolena called the meeting to order at 3:46 PM with five faculty members present. Guests in attendance included Steve Warshaw and John Friedrick.

John Kolena reported on the smoking policy to be presented to the Education Practices and Policies Committee of the Board for their approval. The EPPC could present the policy to the entire Board at their next meeting for their approval. The proposal is coming from the cabinet and basically says " Possession of tobacco products on or off campus while students are under the jurisdiction of the school is a violation of the Code of Conduct. " The cabinet and EPPC will be asking the Board to approve this policy in concept and leave details to the school.

President Kolena also reported on the Exam Schedule. He stated that Dr. Warshaw and the Department Heads have looked at the schedule, but are not ready to make any recommendation for change at this time. John asked for volunteers, one per department, to look at the options that the Department heads considered and that the students in the Math Modeling class addressed and to make a recommendation to the Faculty Council. The Students' modeling proposal had the option to leave 1/2 day open for students to reschedule an exam in case of overload. This idea originated with the Department heads. In the brief discussion that followed, it was stated that no better options were found, that pure rotation was not ideal, and that limiting us to the weekdays, even though this is a residential school, severely limits our options. Volunteers to serve on the committee were encouraged to email John Kolena.

John Friedrick announces that the Education Advisor Council had met and had begun a discussion about the future directions of the school. They would like faculty input, and although they met back in December, Dr. Friedrick was asking for faculty input prior to Friday's meeting of the EAC. President Kolena expressed his dismay that we were just now being asked for this input. The questions and partial answers that the EAC had made are recorded in the minutes of their December meeting and can be found at http://courses.ncssm.edu/council/decade3q.htm. Faculty are urged to respond via the Faculty Council Bulletin Board. Dr. Friedrick stated that this would not be the last time the faculty would have input. The EAC Meeting will be held from 10:00 AM till 2:00 PM on Friday, February, 26^th. John Kolena suggested that they committee might each lunch at some other time so that faculty who wanted to come and address the committee could do so during their lunch period.

Gail Hudson announced that in the junior college sessions, juniors were given guidelines for writing recommendations and asking teachers for recommendations. A copy of the handout given to juniors will be placed in teachers' mailboxes. Gail stated that the counselors write summary letters for each student. In this letter they include comments made by individual faculty about the student and information from the student's self-assessment form. On the self-assessment form there is a place for students to list the names of teachers that they intend to ask to write letters of recommendation. Currently too few teachers are perhaps writing too many of the recommendations. Also, students often ask faculty too late. It may also be the case that a student asks a faculty member and that faculty member cannot write a positive recommendation for the student. Gail stated that faculty can limit the number of recommendations they will write and for whom they will write. Faculty can also state their own restrictions concerning deadlines and number of recommendations that they can write. Juniors are aware of this and may be asking teachers very early to include them on their list.

The main agenda item for the day concerned Advanced Placement. There has been some concern expressed that by not offering courses with AP mentioned in the title of the course, we might be hurting our students in the college admission process or scholarship competition. Failure to list AP courses might also have some negative effect on our applicant pool.

Steve Warshaw reported on AP test data for the period from 1989 to 1998. From the data it appears that the number of students taking AP exams has gone down a little but the number of exams has increased. Thus, the ratio of exams to students has almost double from 1.54 to 3.09. Individual scores have increased at upper limits while remaining about the same otherwise.

John Kolena reported on physics credit and placement for 7 colleges that our students attend. He suggested that similar data for other departments might also be or interest to students, faculty and parents and that we should post this information.

A recent article in Newsweek implied that AP's were a significant measure of a school's worth and that students from the "better" (as measured by the number of AP courses taught and exams taken) schools had an advantage in the college admission process. Colleges want to see that a student is taking the most challenging curriculum available to the student. At most schools this means AP course. A student competing to get in to quality colleges at other schools may take 2 AP courses/exams their junior year and 3 to 4 their senior year. Obviously their scores on the AP's taken their senior year could not be considered in the admission process. The Counseling Office does work with colleges to inform the colleges about the kinds of courses we offer and their difficulty level. Our counselors are confident that the colleges know that our courses are at or above the AP level.

Bob Everhart reported that the percent of our students who apply to quality schools and are accepted is higher rate than the same ratio for the general applicant pool. For example, 18.6% of our students who apply to Harvard have been accepted while the average of all applicants is only 12%. This is similar for other colleges.

Duke, UNC, NCSU, and Wake Forest have all told us that AP test scores are not considered in the admission process, but that taking the most challenging schedule available, usually the AP courses, was important. These schools know that nearly all of our courses are at the AP difficulty level. However, the Siemans Corporation, which has taken over to old Westinghouse Talent Search, has initiated scholarships that are based on the number of AP exams and the scores on those exams.

The question was asked about schools (or someone like ETS or Siemans) requiring or encouraging students to take exam as they get more expensive? It seems unfair and unethical for ETS to push an exam for which they get paid. There are waivers for student who cannot afford the exams. Students must apply to the school and the school may use some of the money they make from administering the exams to reduce fees. Students and parents at NCSSM are informed of this in January when the semester grades are distributed.

It may be true that students who stay at their home school may be getting more credits at colleges by taking more AP exams. We do not have hard data to back this up.

There is some concern about the AP name being attached to the name of our courses. In some cases this limits what we can do and teach in our classes. By covering what we want to cover and then asking students to commit to extra work outside of class, the students, not us, take responsibility for passing the exam. Some of our courses do adequately prepare students for AP exams with little or no extra work outside of class. A quick poll of faculty revealed the following: