Faculty Council

Hill 19 at 3:45

Oct. 3, 2000

Announcements:

1.       Board Reports - liaisons will share happenings of the recent BOT meeting:

·         Gretchen Skidmore updated the faculty regarding the future of the director’s residence.  The school is in the process of selling the property on Wilson in Watts Hillandale neighborhood. There has been an agreement reached to purchase the adjacent lot to the school at Maryland and Woodrow in order to facilitate the construction of a director’s residence closer to school with greater functionality.  Other campus upgrades will be possible if NC voters in the upcoming election support the November bond package.  A more complete budget description is available.

·         Julie Graves served as replacement liaison and gave a brief update concerning the school budget on the Foundation side

Other: 

§         Anthony Reid and Julia Tyson gave a Spectrum update regarding the gay-straight alliance at school.  Stickers for faculty who sense themselves to be “safe” people for gay/lesbian/transgender youth to talk to will be available soon.  Additional information regarding gay/lesbian issues for National Coming Out Day and the Day of Silence will be made available by Spectrum.  More information is yet to come.

·         Gloria Barrett gave the faculty a heads up that VCRs are in demand/short supply in the dorms for folks encouraging/assigning videos.

·         The previous meeting’s minutes (9/19) were passed.

2.  Discussion Items:

·         Student workload.  The results of recent surveys were tabulated and shared.  Compared to the survey executed in the spring of 1998, the results were markedly similar.  Debate centered on whether or not students had, generally, too much, too little, or just right amounts of homework. Average course hours per week totaled 21 and homework time totaled 24 hours, combining for a cumulative 45 academic hour work week for students.  Now the faculty needs to decide what it will do with the information and feedback.  Several questions arose surrounding this topic, including: Are students overworked?  Should the faculty set guidelines as to how much work teachers may assign on average per week?  Does stress surrounding homework contribute to student withdrawal from NCSSM?  If so, should work load be adjusted to remove this barrier to students choosing to stay here?    No general consensus was reached, however several suggestions were made, including: Give students time guidelines for how much time they should spend on assignments.  Encourage/mandate that students attend tutorial after experiencing difficulty with work.  Give students positive feedback frequently that they belong here and can, indeed, do what is being asked of them.  In total, we, as an institution, may need to make systemic change regarding workload to better serve students.  Several faculty pointed out that systemic change for faculty regarding faculty workload might be beneficial as well.

·         Admissions Interview Process: The interview process for applicants will change this year.  The committee working on this new procedure shared their thoughts and sought input to the process.  Interviews of semi-finalists will no longer be done on an individual basis, but rather as a group of 6-8 students with two faculty members facilitating a conversation.  The interview committee thinks that this new method, while experimental, will be a more natural and accurate process for scrutinizing student entry into NCSSM.  The faculty expressed concern as to how the new interview would be weighted, whether it would elicit the desired data.  For example, how will students be allowed or encouraged to reveal why they might really be applying to Science and Math?  (Some faculty currently ask about parental pressure kids might receive to attend NCSSM.)  There was also uneasiness expressed by faculty regarding the added training that would be required, and whether or not a teacher (and partner) could create enough comfort and space for each student to respond to the admission question adequately with other students present.  Would students be competitive in such a way as to hurt the process?  In the course of hearing faculty voice their concerns, it was clear that faculty have their own individual style in conducting the semi-finalist interview and deviate from the scripted questions.  Faculty training for group interviewing is upcoming.  Please watch for details.