The Citadel Faculty Council
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Nov. 16, 2000
Computer Lab, Daniel Library

1. Prof. Tom Thompson, Faculty Council chairperson, called the meeting to order at 11:08 a.m.

2. Members attending: Professors Bishop, Briggs, E. Carter, Chen, Gordon, Kelley, Lally, Matthews, Moody, Silver, Skow-Obenaus, Thompson, G. Williams, Woo, Zuraw, and Steed for Britz.

3. Members absent: Professors Brown, Dunlop, Jones, Lineberger, McDowell, Pages and Templeton.

4. Prof. Silver reported on the most recent Academic Board meeting (there were a couple, since due to a scheduling glitch Faculty Council didn't meet in October). There is a proposal that The Citadel take a whole week off at Thanksgiving and an issue of whether Maymester has too many courses and eats into summer registration; both of these will be investigated.

5. Prof. Thompson reported on the Vice-Presidents' meeting. They are moving forward on getting more parking spaces by paving Kovats Field and the old Alumni House lawn as well as adding some on WLI Field; the Board of Architectural Review gave its permission to tear down and replace Padgett-Thomas Barracks; commandants' boards for delinquent cadets have been replaced by faster and better suitability boards; and our publicity in the Post and Courier has been nice lately.

6. Prof. Lally announced that the board to run the Faculty House will be elected soon after good responses to a survey about it.

7. A quorum was achieved at 11:20, at which time Prof. Zuraw's motion, seconded by Prof. Chen, to approve the minutes of Sept. 21 was acted upon and passed.

8. Prof. Bishop volunteered to be Faculty Council's representative on the Coeducation Council.

9. Prof. Lally brought up the fact that Kovats Field is a garden space and paving it over seems like a "bad Sixties joke". There was some discussion about this, with Prof. Gordon pointing out that increased traffic on it would be unsafe for children; Prof. Thompson said he would see whether faculty and staff would have input before this deed was done.

10. Prof. Thompson called the Council's attention to Prof. Del Mastro's letter of concern about company files in the barracks. A lively discussion about company files ensued; Prof. Del Mastro felt they ruined current assignments by enabling students to copy, occasionally leading to a tragedy like a recent expulsion for cheating. Prof. Skow-Obenaus backed up his position that language assignments often didn't change for years due to getting good workbooks and students should not be able to see old ones. People in other disciplines like History, where the questions can change easily, displayed a more relaxed attitude toward the existence of company files, Prof. Gordon noting that the issue of plagiarism should be dealt with in the process between professor and student. Prof. Lally noted that looking in the files was not an effective way to study, and drew a distinction between learning testing styles from old tests and copying old papers, which she has seen. Prof. Briggs noted that honour violations are based on what is in the syllabus and that the expelled student had actually copied, not just used old papers for a study guide. Prof. Thompson summed up by saying our sense seemed to be that the faculty does not need an official stance on company files, but just that each professor should clarify with his or her students his or her policy on them. Faculty can go into the barracks and look in the files themselves, and he would make sure academic officers and faculty knew this.

11. Discussion of the proposed reorganization into schools was postponed because Gen. Carter's cluster meetings on the topic were still going on; the discussion will take place in December and everyone should solicit comments from their departments. It was decided to discuss the plan among ourselves first and only then invite Gen. Carter to the January meeting to talk to him.

12. Prof. Lally raised the issue of getting only a summary of the Student Evaluation of Instruction forms or getting the original sheets. Prof. Moody pointed out that a new layer of error was added by wasting an employee's time typing up the comments and (as happened to her) getting them to the wrong professor. It was decided to invite Col. Metts, whose topic this is as Dean of Planning and Assessment, to discuss this issue with the Council; he will come third and last, after Col. Holland about allocation of supplies and Gen. Carter on the schools thing.

13. Prof. Williams asked if there was any action on tuition remission for children of faculty; Prof. Thompson said no, Gen. Carter was preoccupied and hadn't answered yet on this issue.

14. The meeting was adjourned at 11:55 a.m.