The Citadel Faculty Council
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of April 26, 2003
Board of Visitors Room, Jenkins Hall

1. Prof. George Williams, chairperson of Faculty Council, called the meeting to order at 11:07 a.m.



2. Members attending: Profs. Allen, Andrade, Bishop, Bloss, Briggs, B. Carter, Chen, Davakos, Foley, Lally, Lipscomb, Murray, Pilcher, Snively, G. Williams, Woo, Zuraw, Peeples for Dunlop and Lipovsky for Matthews.



3. Members absent: Profs. Foster, Kelley, Niksch and Woolsey.



4. Prof. Zuraw moved and Prof. Andrade seconded that the minutes of the meeting of Feb.20 be approved; this was passed unanimously with a correction as to attendance.



5. Prof. Williams apologized for having such a full agenda at such a busy time in the term, and briefly went through the Committee on Committees report of having finished their list of committee assignments, the necessity to finish revising all committee charters for approval at the May 1 meeting, and the fact that Prof. Tom Mahan will be the speaker at the Graduate Commencement. The issue of the new ad hoc parking committee was raised; Prof. Bishop reminded the Council that when she had sent an e-mail to Col. Tomasik expressing the Council’s wish for more faculty and campus resident representation after the last meeting, Col. Tomasik sent back an e-mail to all of Faculty Council explaining that the new committee was only to discuss special-events parking problems, a question of logistics, and therefore the suggested additional members were not necessary and would not be added.



6. The ad hoc subcommittee for the Academic Integrity Statement reported on its revision of Provost Carter’s proposed policy of having students submit all research papers in electronic form. Prof. Bishop, as head of this subcommittee, pointed out how the committee had addressed the two main concerns that had been raised: by specifying that it was only intended for word texts and not things like graphs or lab reports, and by specifying that it was not required for faculty to adopt the policy. Prof. Bishop moved and Prof. Briggs seconded that some emendations suggested by Prof. Greim be accepted, altering "disciplines" to "courses" and further clarifying by specifying "the text portions of" student papers. This was passed unanimously. This left the motion as follows: "In all courses in which assigned papers make use of the words of others, faculty are strongly encouraged (though not required) to include the following statement in their syllabus as course policy: The text portion of all papers required in this course must be submitted as electronic text. The purpose of this requirement is to promote academic integrity and facilitate record keeping for the course."
   
   A lively debate ensued about whether the word "strongly" should be taken out of the motion so that it only said faculty were "encouraged" to do this. Prof. Murray felt that the "strongly" would put pressure on junior, untenured faculty to adopt the policy. Prof. Briggs opined that it should be kept as a political concession to Provost Carter, who had probably intended that the policy be required for all professors and thus had now had his original vision compromised. Prof. Zuraw moved and Prof. Bishop seconded that the word "strongly" be removed; this passed by a vote of 10 to 9. There was then a debate about the motion itself, with Prof. Snively noting and Prof. Bishop agreeing that the Corps of Cadets saw it as a huge slap in the face; this was denied by Prof. Allen, who said that if everyone was checked out there was no insult to any one person or group, and by Prof. Pilcher, who said it would greatly facilitate the onerous task of building student portfolios. Prof. Lipscomb asked whether the new policy would be in the catalogue; Prof. Williams said this had not been mentioned, but that plagiarism issues would in future be strongly emphasized in CIT 101 and English 101 courses.
   
   Prof. Allen moved and Prof. Bishop seconded that the amended motion be approved; this passed by a vote of 18 to 1.



7. The Council took up the issue of The Citadel’s desire to adopt some sort of intellectual property policy: the method proposed was first to adopt the brief one sent to us by Dean Metts and then to work out a more detailed one in the fall term. Prof. Allen moved and Prof. Lipovsky seconded that the first, short policy be considered for adoption. This reads, "Ownership of Intellectual Property: Ownership of intellectual property will reside with the originator, whether a member of the faculty, a member of the staff, or a student, unless (a) the property is created at the direction of the College or (b) the originator has made exceptional use of College resources in creating it."
   
   Prof. Pilcher opined that this was a huge issue and the policy should be checked out by a lawyer; Prof. Zuraw said the policy should be tabled until fall while the Council made sure what they meant by "exceptional use". Prof. Lally objected that such scrutiny was reinventing the wheel, in that "work for hire" was an established exception to the rule of ownership of one’s own writing. Prof. Briggs noted that this issue had been all but ignored at The Citadel for the last quarter-century, mainly because no Citadel employee had come up with a sensationally profitable piece of intellectual property that The Citadel might want a piece of; the only reason it has come up now is because SACS wants us to have one. Prof. Allen said the college would look stupid if we did not have one when SACS comes to inspect us; Prof. Zuraw said she could live with that because it had arrived too late and should have been sent to us months ago. There were comments about the school being too driven by SACS anxiety and about the brief first policy being set in stone in the catalogue if the Council approved it, or even if not. Prof. Ann Jennings, at the meeting as a guest and part-time substitute, noted that she had worked with Dean Metts on the brief policy and it had been eight pages long when they started. Prof. Peeples then pointed out that, in his extensive experience of intellectual property policies, this was the most benign one he had ever seen: the "exceptional" in "exceptional use of College resources" was the issue, but exceptional use was hard to prove and the effect of a policy like this would be that the originator really owned the property. He opined that Dean Metts wanted to leave the question vague because The Citadel never had tried to get revenues from intellectual property and was now making a policy only because SACS said to. This impressed many on the Council, and after some further questions it was decided that an ad hoc committee would be formed to weigh the brief policy and bring a version of it back to the next meeting. Profs. Jennings, Lally, Peeples and Pilcher volunteered for this committee, and Prof. Zuraw said she would like Kevin Crawford to be on it too if he would agree. Prof. Lipscomb suggested that Profs. Peeples and Jennings have a round table discussion to enlighten and reassure the faculty in general about the intellectual property issue.



8. Prof. Williams passed out the draft version of the Faculty Ethics Code which the Ethics Initiative subcommittee had been working on all school year; he described the subcommittee’s work and how a general e-mail had solicited comments from all faculty. He asked other Council members to comment on it. Prof. Lipovsky noted that her department thought it was much too specific; Prof. Chen agreed and asked if it could be shortened to one page. Prof. Lally reported her department’s desire to have three out of four principles about ethics in community relations removed. Profs. Lipscomb and Bloss asserted that it was not a code of ethics but a code of conduct; Prof. Lipscomb brought up the issue of the relations of the college with the African American community and said he would get Prof. Williams a history thereof. Prof. Williams asked for as much feedback as possible before the next meeting.



9. The meeting was adjourned at 12:27 p.m.