Announcements:
Students
explained the Day of Silence to faculty, stating that some students would not
talk on April 5 between 8 and 5 to symbolize the silence that others feel they
must maintain everyday about their sexual orientation. Faculty requested that next year students let
everyone know further in advance so that appropriate lessons could be arranged.
Joan
Barber introduced Linwood Stewart, the new office manager for Student Life.
Joan
Barber announced that the Board of Trustees has now approved the APC Student
Code of Conduct.
Dot
requested that a member of the science department volunteer to complete the
nominating committee.
Kevin
Currie encouraged faculty and students to consider research projects that could
be presented at the Research Symposium.
Registration deadline is April 10.
Presentations are 10-15 minutes in length. All disciplines are welcome.
Phil
Nelson announced that the Board of Trustees are being
encouraged to consider a capital campaign for the school. John Sanders of the Board of Governors will
tour the school and attend classes on Wednesday. He also encouraged faculty to eat with
students and take advantage of the free meals being offered by the
cafeteria. E-mail Chip Williams the
morning you would like to eat lunch or dinner with the students.
Discussion: Academic Program
as a whole unit
Dot
Doyle reviewed the statements the faculty put into its Third Decade Plan last
semester. The faculty began by listing
things that they view as positive; that is, things we are currently doing
well. Mentorship is good and could be
expanded. Research courses are also
excellent parts of our curriculum.
Mini-term was a good example of students making choices about what they
want to learn and getting to do independent research. This needs to be done more on an everyday
basis. In order to attract really strong
students we should expand our special study options.
At
this point, John Kolena reminded the faculty that we were still looking at the
pieces and not looking at the whole academic program. What do we want to accomplish?
Answers:
We
want to have a program that attracts, challenges, and motivates talented
students.
Beyond
that, we want students to leave here with a minimum level of knowledge and
hopefully also experience enrichment of this baseline knowledge.
We
also want them to have critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, and to
be able to apply what they learn.
We
want them to be able to synthesize the pieces of knowledge that they have
gained along the way.
We
want them to have fun learning and to discover the excitement about the
disciplines. We want them to think
instead of doing tasks.
We
want them to learn how to learn; we want them to be self starters.
Some
difficulties in meeting these goals arise when we recognize the different
levels of preparedness and ability within our student body. The balance between learning by doing tasks
and learning by exploration needs to be different for different students.
We might
be able to accomplish this balance more often by giving credit for courses that
students have taken prior to coming to NCSSM.
We
might be able to make learning more fun for faculty and students by adding in
more informal academic experiences in the evenings that utilize the resources
of the surrounding triangle.
Steve
Warshaw reported that the Interdisciplinary
Sub-Committee of the Curriculum Council has been looking at two ideas for new
curriculum models. These types of
projects will receive preference in the funding of curriculum development money
this summer. Project Idea #1 involves a
core group of juniors (70-75) who would have most of their classes
together. This would allow potentially
for more nuturing, retention, and commonality of experience
with faculty. Project Idea #2 would be
a Senior Capstone Experience. Faculty
who are interested in helping to develop these ideas would meet one of the
in-service days at the end of the year and would be paid to work on ideas with
curriculum development money after June 30.
A service learning expert will be available at the in-service meeting to
help educate faculty about this approach.
No product will be required until the 2001-2002 academic year. The goal is to
motivate, attract, and retain students.
We have had more withdrawals, more declines of acceptances, as well as
15 more applications this year.
Faculty
expressed concerns about making some students feel different than others. It may be better to propose solutions that
would involve the entire institution. If
faculty have other ideas that they think would also
meet the goals, should we not all work together to implement changes. Faculty asked if this will come to a faculty
vote, and Steve responded that this had not been decided yet although if the
majority of the faculty is against it, it would not be implemented. Faculty requested more information about the
decision-making process and also more information about what is happening in
the Interdisciplinary Committee. Some
stated concerns about the need to fund other curriculum development and about
the need to discuss school-wide changes in faculty council rather than in a
committee. Dot asked for a
representative group of faculty to meet one day off campus to discuss these
issues. Phil Nelson will facilitate the
discussion. It was proposed that the
group consist of the faculty council officers, the department heads, Steve Warshaw and some others.
Those present agreed with this plan.