Faculty Council Meeting of Tuesday, 20 August 2002

President: Joe Liles; Vice-president: John Woodmansee; Secretary: Floyd Bullard

Minutes

Announcements

The meeting began at 3:52PM.

Joe asked whether the proposed FC meeting dates for this semester were acceptable, particularly the Tuesday after Labor Day.  No one had any objections.

Joe asked whether anyone wanted more information about the incident on Saturday night (a female student was out alone at night and was assaulted).  There was concern about whether she is now all right, and Joe said that she is.  He said that the Durham Police planned in the next two weeks to pay particular attention to the neighborhood west of campus--but they regret that they simply cannot permanently solve the problem.

The new faculty present were introduced.  Leslie Brinson introduced Julie Brown (biology) and Emily Maxwell (chemistry).  Darlene introduced Anna De Conti (distance learning math).

Jerry and Ed and others told Joe that during all their trips to the Legislature trying to protect our budget, people commented to them that we were "non-confrontational lately".  And they think that has helped us to keep our budget--i.e., working out our differences internally.  Joe commented that we've been down the road before of giving a lot of press attention to our difficulties and conflicts--and it didn't help much.

Is this a lead-in to our discussion topics this year?  (Yes.)  e.g., we did not reach closure on our contract system last year, so that discussion will continue this year.  (A task force has brought forth a performance-enhanced term contract system, but faculty never compared this system to tenure.)  We'll take a look at this issue this year, along with all the ramifications of either system, including the consequences of bringing something to the board that they don't support.

Another item will be the interview format for Discovery Days--indeed, opening up this issue to how we can best use faculty on Discovery Days.  We may be able to improve the interview system, or we may come up with a way to make our school more attractive to prospective students. 

Another issue will be summer programs for incoming students.  These are not necessarily remedial, nor are they necessarily for minority students exclusively.  And we have a lot of summer programs not intended exclusively for incoming students.

Are there other agenda items?

Q: How do we stay up-to-date on what's happening in task force meetings?
A: Last year, representatives came to FC meetings and presented what they were doing.  And sometimes we voted on issues and made our opinion known to them.  Task forces this year are Discovery Center, Admissions, and Curriculum and Standards.

Someone suggested that we be reminded of what to do when we catch someone cheating.

Someone asked whatever happened with the Governance Task Force.  John Woodmansee, co-chair of that task force, responded that a long-term proposal was presented to the Board of Trustees, but they haven't responded yet.  What with new budget considerations that were not known at the time of the proposal, there is now no rush to push the issue.  It seems politic now to sit tight.  Jerry added that that committee produced more than just a report, that they were a model of how task forces should act.  e.g., there were conditions put on the recommendation ("we recommend A if salary condition B is met...").  John W: No action has been taken at the BoT level.

Someone suggested that we, as a faculty, think about how we can effectively use our time as Hall Parents to get involved in the residential life of students at NCSSM.

Agenda Item 1: Plagiarism Software

Richard Alston invited people to fight with him if they wanted to, and a math department chair asked politely when we could expect all the classroom projection hardware to be ready.  The answer is: soon--by Wednesday of next week Russell Robinson should be training faculty (by department) on the new hardware.

He added that student ID cards should be produced soon, which will include a library bar code and a chip that allows access to some doors, making the campus more secure.

Now about plagiarism software.  A userID and password will allow you try your hand yourself at checking papers for plagiarism.  But ITS will be happy to do it for us if we ask nicely, giving them an electronic copy of the suspect student paper.

Richard demonstrated the software available via turnitin.com.  During his presentation, a normally wild and crazy math teacher sitting in the front row dozed off and Richard regretted not bringing a ruler with which to whack him on the head.

We can put our own students' papers in the files at turnitin.com in many different ways, including even having our students submit papers there (something that would be more common in a large college section).  The software there will not only compare papers with existing texts published on the web, but also with other students' papers at our school (or others).

What about paraphrasing?  Can students thwart the software themselves--even electronically?  Answer: people are already writing software to do that, true "word processors". 

Obviously every textbook and journal article is not on the web.  These are only if they came from the web, right?  Answer: actually, most journals today are on the web.  Does a "pass" by the software guarantee that it is 100% original?  Of course not.

A minimum of 180 words are needed for the software to operate.

Steve Warshaw suggested that the faculty discuss how to use the software.  He also asked Richard to discuss evidence of this software being a deterrent to plagiarism.  Richard estimated that 90% of plagiarism would go away if students knew we had this software.  Someone commented that this required us to say we use it... and then use it.

No discussion to speak of ensued, but Richard demonstrated how we can access the software and submit our own students papers fairly easily. 

Someone regretted that so little discussion had ensued, and hoped that we would discuss it quickly (meaning at a date in the near future, not meaning that we discuss it in the four minutes remaining in this FC meeting).  Joe then suggested that an ad hoc committee discuss it, but the original proposer preferred discussing it in departments, and that was generally agreed upon.

Our next meeting is 3 September, right after Labor Day.  Meeting adjourned at 4:58PM.