Announcements:
Good
News:
Ginger
Wilson was named one of two instructors as national social studies teacher of
the year, a very distinguished award indeed.
Congratulations!
Jim
Nazzal married Jennifer Ross over Labor Day weekend in Washington State; he is
now Jim Ross Nazzal.
Bryant
Holsenbeck and Jim Haverkamp won North Carolina artist fellowship awards. In
recognition of their work, they received money to further their subsequent art
efforts.
Dot
Doyle was one of several math teachers nationwide to win a Tandy award.
Training:
Diane
Futrell informed the faculty of upcoming training on the ETC’s Lecture Hall
and Smartboard on September 18; other equipment, such as that in Hill 19 and
Beall 1 will occur on Alt Day, Sept. 22. Check
with either Diane or Russell Robinson for more details.
Also,
Willie
Painter will continue to offer copier-training sessions Mondays and Thursdays
3:45 – 4:30. Email him to make a reservation for either you or your work
service student. Work service
students must use photocopy passes; new ones will be in your boxes soon.
Students seen making copies without the passes are probably doing so without
permission.
Annual
Fund:
Joe
Liles discussed the rationale for giving to the Annual Fund.
He communicated very positively his feeling that giving not only of our
time, but also of our finances as NCSSM teachers, was worth the sacrifice.
Also, when telephone solicitors call in the evenings, Joe noted that we
could now say that we, literally, gave at the office, if we give to the Annual
Fund.
Communications:
Megan Francisco, interim Head of Communications, reviewed the guidelines for communication at NCSSM. Please inform her of good news (see above) pertaining to faculty and students that happens so that she can share this information with the community outside of NSCCM. Also, route publications and communications that are external through her office, as well as major internal communication that will be viewed by visitors. In addition to Megan, we may contact Dick Waghorn and Barbara Namkoong for input on publications, as long as Megan has cleared them first.
Discussion
Items:
Steve
shared the positive changes forthcoming concerning the Junior Experience
Committee (JEC). They are as
follows: probation will be implemented next year for rising seniors with
problematic fourth quarter grades; the library has been more conducive to study
as reported by the evening librarian and Steve; and juniors who are taking more
than seven courses are being watched by the JEC (there are seven who actually
enrolled in additional courses after inquiring).
Steve also shared some data with us regarding the type of students who
are declining acceptance to NCSSM as well as data on the “Saturday
students”. Of the fifteen
students who joined the NCSSM junior class on very short notice, thirteen are
still enrolled. Steve then shared
information regarding those students who declined NCSSM’s invitation to join
the class of 2002. Interestingly,
we rated those “decliners” higher than the remaining finalists on our point
scale. Many “decliners” were
enthusiastically rated 15s. The
following reasons for the declines were self-reported in descending order of
frequency: students did not want to leave their families; students felt there
were better educational opportunity at home; and students thought there were
better extra-curricular activities at home.
The
discussion of student work load continued.
Teachers decided to inquire of their students how much time, on average,
they spend on homework outside of a given class before the next faculty meeting.
This will be a topic of discussion at the next faculty meeting.