Faculty Council Meeting of Tuesday, 9 April January 2002
President: Joe Liles; Vice-president: John Woodmansee; Secretary: Floyd Bullard
Minutes
Announcements
Query: Do we have guidelines about projects/papers due during exam week? Joe: "...provided that [the alternative exam] does not unduly prevent students from preparing for their other exams..." (From the student handbook)
Sally Adkin shares with everyone the summer workshops that are being offered this summer. Our own faculty can register for any of the workshops, by going to the Outreach web page and clicking on Summer Workshops. She particularly emphasized Loren Winters' workshop about using technology to improve classroom teaching, which Loren will be happy to tailor to people's needs. He and Sally both would like to see our own faculty taking advantage of this (and other) workshops offered here.
Sally also shared some of the plans that the Outreach department has in the short-term and long-term future as NCSSM continues to try to a
Diane Futrelle announced that next week is National Library Week. The talk that will be given on Monday by political cartoonist[?] will not be held in the Lecture Hall, but in [?]. Lit@com is making progress on getting classrooms hardwired with mounted projectors. The plan is for notebook computers to interface easily with them. Each year the library reexamines its journal subscriptions. If you have recommendations for new journals, send them to your department head. These are due on 1 May.
[Q-5 faculty present right now.]
Gail announced that many of 26 students waitlisted at different schools will soon be sending out "beefed-up" information to those schools. If they ask for a further, or more specific recommendation, please ask at the counseling office for help with the recommendation or endorsement, particularly since they may be able to tell why they were waitlisted.
Gail also told us that, oddly, even as an expectedly large number of our students were waitlisted at UNC, our students have done remarkably well this year at the most competitive schools. However, Duke in particular has had its most selective year ever. e.g., 45% of their admitted students have SAT scores of at least 1480. Some students waitlisted at UNC applied only to UNC. Some other UNC schools (but not NCSU) have agreed to consider some of our students as applicants even though it is late.
Joe announces that Asiafest is this weekend, which will include an Asian meal, Chinese Dragon Dancing, a fashion show, a shadow puppet show, etc. Come support Asiafest!
Agenda Item 1: The Pros and Cons of Being a Three-Year School
Joe says that he would like this discussion to focus only on the academic issues related to being a three-year school.
Donita begins the discussion. She and Steve Warshaw co-chaired the Curriculum, Standards, and Assessment Task Force. The group of about 15 people, mostly faculty (but not all) met 10 times since Halloween. At first it was hard for them to figure out what to do. Their charge from the Director was huge. They had many discussions about how they were to proceed and how to make decisions. They finally settled on the issue of sophomores at NCSSM, since that seemed connected to many other issues. That, too, was huge. So they decided to consider only whether adding a tenth grade to our program had academic merit. If the answer was No, then The End. If the answer was Yes, then the question would go further, looking at residential life issues, etc.
Elizabeth Moose continues the discussion. She shared (by talking and via a document) the experiences of four Consortium schools that enroll tenth graders.
Steve Warshaw then shared four caveats that would be included if the Task Force were to recommend becoming a three-year school. They are mentioned in the document he shared [insert link here].
[Q-2 faculty members present.]
Discussion ensues.
Are kids automatically accepted now? [Steve: No.] So the criteria would be similar for continuing enrollment? [Steve: Not necessarily. We might, for example, continue to enroll students who are reaching their potential.]
Some members of the Task Force would like to see a re-application process between 10th and 11th grade. [Steve: The Louisiana School has something like that presently, only it's for the senior year.] Re-enrollment is almost automatic now. It might become less so.
We also discussed how to offset the attitude of entitlement among students. We want to support and nurture students, but we also want commitment from them and evidence that they can exist and flourish here in an academic and residential way: that it's not enough just to get by for three years. They should be whole and healthy in all aspects.
Two kinds of seniors are (presently) worrisome to me: those who struggle just to pass, and those who do the minimal amount of work and don't reach their potential. I'd like to see us get rid off some of those students after their sophomore year.
Before we can decide whether a three-year academic program would be good, we need to see a specific academic program (how much English, how much math, etc.) We're putting the cart before the horse by discussing sophomores before discussing a specific academic program. Additionally, the argument that an extra year is better because we'd have them longer leads to us eventually taking 9th graders, etc. Finally, I'm concerned about the caste system that MSSM, for example, has, but which we don't have by admitting students only at the same time. Not having some students who come in as sophomores and others as juniors.
I'm in favor of admitting students at different times because some families move to the state while the student is a sophomore. We don't want to keep them from being able to enter in their junior year.
The science department recently voted 12-4 that adding a tenth grade would be academically beneficial to our program. But we're concerned about the potentially large changes to our curriculum that would be required.
I'd not say that admitting students at different years creates a caste system. But if we did so, then we would be creating a group (the earlier arrivals) of leaders who, by their senior year, could become "the great decision makers". They could be unifiers, but they could also be divisive.
Steve pointed out that we would, at least at first, have to have a smaller group of tenth graders, due to space limitations.
We have to consider the potential academic program in the context of what kind of tenth graders we'd be getting. Super-advanced tenth graders?
Dan (on the Task Force) said that what the Task Force is really considering is only: Is it possible to have a three-year program that is academically beneficial? If the answer is No, then The End. I think we all have three-year-schools in mind we'd like and others that we wouldn't like. But we're not at that stage of discussion yet. We want to know whether an academically beneficial three-year program is even possible.
If we admit a small group and a large group, I think it would make more sense to have entering as a sophomore be the norm and as a junior be exceptional, rather than the other way around, which is likely to create an elitist culture.
Becoming a three-year school would mean that it benefits fewer students, but it benefits them all more.
We need to try to make sure that the kids entering are not below Algebra II level. We have some juniors who aren't quite ready for precalculus so we put them in Algebra II. If we go to 200 kids (or fewer) we need to make sure that we don't have at-risk kids coming in at the sophomore level. That's just me speaking.
Is the fact that we are under an admissions mandate [congressional district requirements] going to be a problem? I think Yes. There is not a guarantee that we will not get at-risk students.
Our school's mission and admissions are not always in agreement. Some of our students are denied college admissions because they did not "take the most challenging courses available to them". But they didn't do that because we didn't let them. A three-year program would "level-out the field" better, helping students achieve their potential--and be able to show it--by the time they leave here.
It's hard for students to make adjustments and then also reach their academic potential in just two years.
Many NC schools have improved in the last 20 years. Our mission is to reach students who could not get great opportunities at their old schools. If this is an opportunity for us to focus more on students from poorer schools, then we should take advantage of it.
I want return to Dan's question about whether it is possible to do this right. The answer is clearly Yes, so we need to discuss How. I think the focus is to take kids with great interest in math and science and take them as far as they can go.
In one way, thinking about a three-years school is exciting and scary. But if we can move beyond our own territories and open up to each other, and ask what's better for the kids--not just for me and what I do--I think we could have a ball with this. It would be a way of energizing ourselves. It will be scary and risky, but if we trust that we have the brains and energy to make something wonderful happen, I'm willing to commit.
At most of these schools, do the same teachers teach 10th and 12th graders? [Yes.] I'm not confident in my ability to teach sophomores.
We need to think outside of the box regarding what's best for our kids. It will indeed be challenging for us to think about this, but it could result in a better program for our kids.
I know there will be a transition period with a smaller class, but we simply must avoid creating an elitist class. It gives some students a power trip and others an inferiority complex. Right now they find their own way among peers who are like them.
I want to clarify an earlier comment. Strong arts and humanities are essential to our school and must be continued. But if we do not take kids with an exceptional interest in math and science, then we are not being true to the mission of the school.
I want to point out for the minutes that there are few Science Department members here because they had something else going on.
The meeting adjourns at 5:05PM.