Faculty Council Meeting of Tuesday, 3 December 2002
President: Joe Liles; Vice-president: John Woodmansee; Secretary: Floyd Bullard
Minutes
Announcements
The meeting began at 3:51PM.
Steve Warshaw announced that over the next two weeks some of our students will discuss their interest in an exchange with Japanese students during Miniterm. Go to At-A-Glance to find out more.
Joe shared that one anonymous email and one anonymous U.S. mail letter were recently sent to various members of our Board of Trustees, UNC Board of Governors members, and state legislators. Joe said that after reading the two anonymous letters, in his opinion, the writing style and certain details that pointed to the author(s) being someone other than a faculty member at NCSSM. Joe encouraged us to discourage this in whatever ways we can. Actions like this cause a downward spiral in the relationships among faculty, administration, and trustees.
Agenda Item: Conclusion of the Discovery Day Discussion
It was suggested that if a prospective student is interested in visiting classes at NCSSM, they could go to classes with a student ambassador. After very brief discussion, a motion was made that the faculty support this, with the proviso that if it ever got out of hand (i.e., with too many visitors), we would revisit the issue. The motion was seconded and voted upon: 27 in favor, 0 opposed, 3 abstentions.
Agenda Item: Emergency Suspensions
Joe asked Steve to speak about the emergency suspension policy at NCSSM. Several of these occurred earlier this year both for disciplinary reasons and for students' health. The code of student conduct allows for emergency suspensions, pending resolution of the situation, if an administrator feels that the student is a threat to herself/himself, someone else, or to school property. The administration understands and acknowledges that this creates a burden for the teachers. He asked how it could be made as "unburdensome as possible" if and when it occurs in the future.
It was suggested to make the suspension period as short as possible. Another suggestion was to allow, when possible, students still attend class during the day but otherwise stay at home. A faculty member recalled that when this was first proposed by the administration a year ago, it was stated that this would be very rare and that speedy trials would occur, while now there are almost too many to count and trials are not speedy. Suspensions should truly be rare--only in real emergencies--and also limited to three days (as they once were). Another suggestion was that a program be created to help get those students up to speed by, say, having them attend a special study session from 3:30-8 every day until they got caught up.
Agenda Item: Psychiatric Emergency Procedures
Gail Hudson shared via a handout what the procedures are for dealing with psychiatric emergency procedures at NCSSM. She gave a brief summary of that procedure and shared some information (without giving names) about cases that have occurred here this year. One faculty member asked why there were more of these problems this year than in the past, but Gail said Counseling doesn't know.
Agenda Item: Discussion of Stress Reduction Initiatives for Students
Joe asked Jerry to lead a discussion on "stress reduction initiatives". Ideas on the table are to limit students to one special study option, to cut of Internet access at night, to encourage a lights out policy, and to create a homework policy. Any of these may be implemented during the spring semester of this year, but they are still viewed as possible intermediate steps toward a solution to the problem of excessive stress, not as total solutions.
Reactions to limiting special study options: one faculty member said that some of our best students find this to be the only chance to study things they really like. Another faculty member concurred and suggested that stress would be released by offering many, many more opportunities for students to play--possibly with adults--during evenings and weekends (e.g., dances, etc.). He also suggested that change was itself a stress agent and that perhaps we should slow down the changes at this school. It was suggested that academic advisors have to approve special study options; that some special study options become clubs and not courses (e.g., yoga, exercising); that teachers indicate how long homework should take and that students see their teachers if the homework is taking too long. Someone suggested that many students are involved in too many clubs. A faculty member volunteered that GPAs and AP courses were major sources of stress and that the proposed solutions were really band-aids.
At 5:08, Joe asked how we might address the homework issue, since something might be implemented for next semester. We will plan to meet again to discuss this issue in two weeks; expect an announcement from Joe about the time and place.