Report to Faculty Council

Board of Trustees – Academic Policies and Practices Committee

Friday, December 2, 2005

Reported by Faculty Liaison – Jim Litle

Faculty Present at the Committee Meeting – Dan Teague, Dot Doyle, Noreen Naiman, Julie Graves

Faculty Presenting at the Committee Meeting – Elizabeth Moose, Representing Humanities to report on the Humanities Writing Program

Minutes of the previous meeting were approved as written.

Action Items

#1 – Discussion of an Exception to Policy on Residency following Hurricane Katrina

A policy was presented, discussed briefly, and formally approved for consideration by the entire Board of Trustees to allow an exception to the residency requirement for attendance at NCSSM for one student displaced and currently residing in North Carolina. All costs of this student will be defrayed by an alumni gift.

#2 – Presentation for a first reading of a copyright policy to cover the use of materials within the educational program of NCSSM. Initial faculty training sessions on this policy have already taken place. Additional sessions will be scheduled throughout this academic year. There was a discussion of the need to stay away from policing within any formal guidelines, so that the school is not liable for the action, but the individual. A second reading of this policy will take place and a vote of the Board of Trustees is expected at next scheduled meeting.

Reports

Admissions – Letita Mason reported on the admission’s process of the class of 2008. As of December 1 there were 964 students who had initiated the online admission process. This number far exceeds the previous number of initiated applications at this point in the process. There were nearly 1200 people in attendance at the Open House. This number also exceeded the attendance at prior Open Houses. The members of the EPPC complimented the Admissions Division and expressed some concerns over the workload burden of handling this increasing number of applicants. Letita discussed plans to handle the increased workload and also talked about the recent hiring of the new Minority Recruiter.

Research Experience – Tom Clayton presented the three options currently being discussed for the implementation of a research experience at NCSSM. It was stated that there would be a pilot program implemented for 2006-2007. I expressed the faculty’s desire that a very thorough evaluation of the pilot program be undertaken to consider at least three issues: changes in faculty workloads, impact on current curriculum offerings, and time commitments on the part of the students. The members of the EPPC viewed the implementation of a research experience as a positive step, but endorsed the need for careful study of the pilot program to assure that adequate resources were present to implement the program for the entire student population.

Writing Program – Elizabeth Moose gave a presentation of the implementation of the Humanities Writing Program in the America Studies course. She emphasized the holistic scoring system of the adopted academic essay rubric and talked about the teachers’ involvement in a blind scoring session at the conclusion of the grading of the first essay. The Humanities Department was pleased with the outcome of the scoring session as there was general consensus on most of the essays read. The Humanities writing committee is working recommendations for the extension of the writing program into the core Senior English course for 2006-2007. The members of the EPPC were complimentary of the writing program and will be awaiting the report on the statistical analysis of the four rubric-based papers in the American Studies course. There followed a brief discussion of the potential implementation of a required Intensive Writing course for those students not reaching a certain level of mastery on the American Studies essays. A concern was addressed about the impact of rising class sizes in the American Studies and senior core English classes and the potential detrimental impact on the implementation of the Humanities writing program.

New Staff – The new members of the NCSSM staff were presented to the EPPC. New staff members were not present, but were presented by Joan Barber, Vice-President for Residential Programs and Steve Warshaw, Vice-President for Academic Programs.

Trimester Curriculum – One of the EPPC members asked for a report on the trimester program. As time was running out on the meeting and there would be a longer presentation for the entire Board of Trustees, this item received approximately 4-5 minutes of discussion with Steve Warshaw presented a highlight of some of the statistical information on courses, numbers of new electives, student pass rates on trimester exams and APs, and student withdrawals. He also mentioned the issue of content rigor and the divisions that exist within the school on this discussion item.

The EPPC adjourned.