The University of Oklahoma (Norman campus)
Regular session – September 13, 2010 – 3:30 p.m. – Jacobson Faculty Hall 102
office: Jacobson Faculty Hall 206
phone: 325-6789
e-mail: facsen@ou.edu web site:
http://www.ou.edu/admin/facsen/
The Faculty Senate was called
to order by Professor LeRoy Blank, Chair.
PRESENT: Adams,
Asojo, Atiquzzaman, Ayres, Baer,
Bergey, Blank, Bradshaw, Chang, Chapple, Chiodo, Cox-Fuenzalida, Deacon, Devegowda,
Gibson, Gramoll, Hahn, Jean-Marie, Kimball, Kosmopoulou, Lauer-Flores, Leseney,
Lifschitz, Marsh-Matthews, McPherson, Minter, Morrissey, Morvant, Moses, Muraleetharan,
Natale, O’Neill, Palmer, Park, Ransom, Sadler, Sandel, Stock, Strauss, Tabb, Verma,
Williams, Wyckoff, Xiao, Yi
Provost's office representative: Mergler, Heiser
ISA representatives: Cook, Hough
ABSENT: Dial,
Moxley, Taylor, Vehik, Weaver
________________________________________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Announcements:
Senate members for 2010-11 and schedule of meetings
Faculty Senate and Regular Faculty parliamentarian
2009-10 annual council reports
Faculty membership on committees
Disposition by administration of Senate actions for
2009-10
Faculty deaths
Course syllabi
Art museum exhibit
Human Research Participant Protection office
Recreational facilities
Senate Chair's Report:
Senate actions for 2009-10
Accreditation
Teaching Scholars Initiative
Budget
Meetings with Vice President for Research and with
Graduate Dean
Retirement fund record keeper, health insurance rates
Unit representation on Faculty Senate
Liaison with other organizations
Academic Integrity Code
Issues for 2010-11
________________________________________________________________________________
The Faculty Senate Journal
for the regular session of May 10, 2010 was approved.
A. A list of the Faculty Senate members is attached. The new
members were introduced at the meeting.
B. The regular meetings of the Faculty Senate
for 2010-11 will be held at 3:30 p.m. on the following Mondays in Jacobson
Faculty Hall 102: September 13, October 11, November 8, December 13, January 24
(tentative), February 14, March 21, April 11, and May 9.
C. The Senate Executive Committee elected
Prof. W. Murray Tabb (Law) as parliamentarian of the Faculty Senate and Regular
Faculty.
D. The compilation of the 2009-10 annual
reports of University councils was e-mailed August 24 to the Faculty Senate
members and to chairs, directors and deans to make available to the general
faculty. The reports are available
online at http://www.ou.edu/admin/facsen/cnclrep10.htm.
E. The 2010-11 list
of faculty appointments to committees is available on the Faculty Senate web
site at http://www.ou.edu/admin/facsen/commem10.htm.
F. The
summary record of the disposition by the administration of Faculty Senate
actions for September 2009 to August 2010 is attached.
G. The Faculty Senate is sad to report the
deaths of faculty member David Etheridge (Music) on July 21 and retired faculty
member Jay Smith (Educational Psychology and 1991-92 Faculty Senate chair) on
August 10.
H. Beginning fall 2010, instructors are
required to post course syllabi on learn.ou.edu. Information on how to upload a syllabus is
available on learn.ou.edu or the College of Arts & Sciences web page: https://casweb.ou.edu/ascs/tutorials.html. For
additional help, call 325-HELP.
I. The opening weekend of the Bruce Goff
exhibition (October 9-10, 2010) features a symposium with special guest
speakers, a panel discussion, opening reception and a bus tour of four Goff
landmarks in Oklahoma. For more
information: http://www.ou.edu/content/fjjma/home/main/exhibitions/upcoming_exhibitions/fall_20081.html.
J. The Office of Human Research Participant
Protection/IRB has moved off campus to 1816 W. Lindsey, Suite 150. It is on the CART route, and free parking is
available. Researchers may continue to
submit IRB materials through campus mail or deliver materials at the new office
from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday-Friday.
K. In May,
the Faculty Senate proposed that the University provide free use of University
recreational facilities (Huston Huffman Center and Murray Case Sells Swimming
Pool) for faculty and staff. The
President responded, “We will reduce the membership fee from $20 per month for
faculty and staff for Huffman and Sells to $10 per month to show our
appreciation for faculty and staff in these difficult financial times. It is not possible budgetarily
to go to complete free admission at this time, but I hope that our faculty and
staff will sense our deep appreciation for them by me and all of the OU
leadership.”
Elaborating on Announcement
F, Prof. Blank noted that 12 items were sent forward to the administration from
the Faculty Senate the previous year. Basically, nine were approved. One (tobacco-free campus) is still being
considered, pending input from students.
The President concurred with the Senate’s resolution opposing firearms
on campus, and he reduced the fee from $20 to $10 for both the Huffman Center and
Sells Swimming Pool (Announcement K). The
Senate had a fairly successful year in terms of the things it tried to
accomplish. The Budget Principles
document was very important because it calls for a major amount of input into
budget decisions.
The University’s accreditation
process has started and will be concluded in spring 2012. Prof. Michael Scaperlanda
from Law will serve as the chair. At the
request of the Provost, the Senate Executive Committee reviewed an HERI faculty
survey instrument and agreed that it would be useful for gathering faculty
input for accreditation.
The Teaching Scholars Initiative
will hold a workshop on November 5 with the theme of Technology and the
University. Dr. Michael Wesch will be one of the presenters (see http://ksuanth.weebly.com/wesch.html). For further
information contact Prof. Darren Purcell at dpurcell@ou.edu or 325-9193.
Major budgetary concerns are coming
up this academic year. The
administration estimates a five percent cut; however, several major issues
could have an overwhelming effect on the budget. State Question 744 would require the state to
fund public education to at least the per-pupil average of neighboring
states. If it passes, it could have a
major negative impact on higher education because large amounts of additional
funds would be required to support K-12.
It would take away a lot of flexibility from the state legislature. State revenues appear to be slightly ahead of
what they were in the past year, but it may be four or five more months before
we know where that will stand. If state
revenues increase too much, though, an automatic tax cut will go into effect. Another question is how oil and gas revenues will
affect the budget. We should know more
in January or February. In the meantime,
the Budget Council, Faculty Compensation Committee, and Faculty Welfare
Committee are considering various scenarios.
Prof. Blank reported on
several meetings he had during the summer.
One was with Vice President for Research Kelvin Droegemeier, who plans
to attend Faculty Senate meetings. He is
moving forward with Aspire 2020, a strategic plan for research and creative
activity. Prof. Blank talked with
Graduate College Dean Lee Williams about the changes that occurred concerning the
graduate status for various deans. Dean Williams
will appoint a committee to reexamine this aspect of what was approved last
spring. Since the research vice
presidency was separated from his position, he is able to spend more time
working on graduate student problems. He
may address the Faculty Senate sometime this year.
The Faculty Senate had major
input last spring into the retirement plan management. Prof. K.K. Muraleetharan, a member of the
Senate Executive Committee, was added to the retirement management committee.
Representatives from Human Resources may come to the October Faculty Senate
meeting to discuss that issue as well as health insurance issues. In the coming 2011 calendar year, the Blue
Cross Blue Shield PPO plan rates are expected to go up 4.3 percent and the HMO
11.1 percent because of higher utilization.
University support is based on the PPO plan, so employees on the HMO
plan need to be aware that they will pick up the difference and will need to start
planning for that.
Faculty Senate is a conduit
to the faculty and the units as well as a conduit from faculty in units. Senators should take issues to their
constituents and bring their concerns to Faculty Senate. Faculty Senate has four standing committees
and has major input into various councils and committees that exist on campus. Prof. Blank wants to increase the connection
that the senators have to the individual units.
Assuming there is no objection, he would like all units to be
represented. That means if a unit has
two members on the Senate, one of the members will be asked to communicate with
a unit that that is not represented. He said
he will try it this year and see if it works out.
Prof. Blank introduced the
members of the Senate Executive Committee.
For this year, he has invited the three past Senate chairs and Budget
Council chair to serve as active ex officio, non-voting members of the
Executive Committee. The committee meets
once a month with the president and independently with the provost. Guests representing various areas of the
university are invited to meet with the Executive Committee to answer questions. In addition, the committee has regular contact
with Oklahoma State University and the Health Sciences Center, along with the University
of Oklahoma Student Association (UOSA) and Staff Senate. The Senate office is continuing to maintain a
Big 12 listserv to communicate with faculty leaders at other schools. Prof. Blank said he welcomes ideas from the senators.
Prof. Blank introduced
Associate Provost Greg Heiser, Assistant Director of Academic Integrity Systems
Breea Bacon, and student members of the Integrity Council Elizabeth Miracle and
Zekiel Johnson, who were invited to come to the
meeting to discuss a proposal for a new Academic Integrity Code (attached).
Dr. Heiser began by reporting
statistics on academic misconduct cases for 2009-10. Out of 218 cases, slightly more than half
were admonitions. The other 95 went
through the academic integrity system.
About half of those were for plagiarism.
The rest ranged from improper collaboration to cheating off a
neighboring test. Dr. Heiser said he had
noticed that as some disciplines move to more and more collaboration of
students, it seems that students are unclear about what is proper
collaboration. Plagiarism is still a
difficult area. We continue to subscribe
to the plagiarism detection service, turnitin.com. Of the 218 cases, four were expulsions. Dr. Heiser said his impression is there used
to be more expulsions on this campus in the 1980s, but that fewer expulsions
seems to be a nationwide trend. Last
year, we had 22 suspensions, some only for the summer term. The spot of brightness is we now have an integrity
instructional class called DYUI -- Do You Understand Integrity -- up and
running. Instead of performing community
service at the library, students get instruction on what integrity is and why
it matters. There are more academic
misconduct cases among seniors than freshmen, and ten percent come from
graduate students. Mr. Heiser said he could
provide data for specific disciplines upon request. For the most part, the numbers are fairly
stable. Last year, there were considerably
more contentious cases. More students
are inclined to feel a disservice has been done, even in cases where the
plagiarism was quite obvious. Concern about
that was the basis for the proposal on the table. Instructors often notice misconduct first and
are then put in a position to be the prosecutor. Faculty members are uncomfortable with that
role. Typically, about ten percent of
the cases end in hearings. Students and
faculty should have confidence that the institution is doing everything it can
to encourage integrity and to have student input to the system. The student Integrity Council has 42 members
and has the tasks of encouraging integrity, serving on panels, advising the
provost on cases, and serving as peer educators in the DYUI program.
Ms. Miracle, chair of the
Integrity Council, said last year she had mentored a student who went from
being very suspicious of the system to giving presentations to high school
students about the academic misconduct system. Mr. Johnson, vice chair of the Integrity
Council, said DYUI is meant to be rehabilitative. Dr. Heiser pointed out that some students do
not understand plagiarism, so we need to pay attention to both the disciplinary
element and the educational element. We
must make it clear that integrity matters for this institution. The system we have has been in place since
the mid-1970s. A number of schools have
a more student-run system. Dr. Heiser
said he would like our system to be less confrontational. We should have a system that encourages
student buy in and creates a broader spectrum of educational options. The proposal is a distillation of student-run
systems that seem to work best. It is
quite short. The current system is a
regents’ policy. The idea is to have the
regents approve something like a constitution and leave the procedural matters
up to potential refinement. The proposed
document is similar to the systems at Kansas State, Colorado, and Texas A&M, in that there is significant input from students
and it is a less adversarial process that takes faculty out of the
prosecutorial position. The proposal
would not be in effect until the necessary procedural elements are in
place. Ms. Miracle pointed out that the
council is also talking to the various branches of the UOSA to try to get a
unified response from the students.
Prof. Blank called for a
motion to approve the proposal so it could be discussed this time and voted on
next time. Following approval of the
motion, Prof. Blank asked the senators to share the proposal with their colleagues,
either by distributing copies to them or by directing them to the web
reference.
Prof. Strauss asked, “Why
make a pledge that is only a reminder and not an actual pledge?” Dr. Heiser said that part of the proposal had
not changed from what we currently have.
The language was taken from a student government resolution that was
passed after considerable effort by a lot of people. The problem with a pledge that is binding is
someone who perhaps inadvertently violates some code can be nailed for
perjuring themselves by signing a pledge he did not fully understand. The feeling when it was discussed with UOSA
about five years ago was the pledge could be more important as a reminder of shared
community values than as a “gotcha.” He
asked, “Do we kick anybody out for refusing to sign a pledge, for example?”
Prof. Tabb said it would be
helpful for the document to include definitions of some of the terms and
phrases. Dr. Heiser agreed that some
things need to be considerably more defined but maybe not in a constitutional
document like this. Prof. Muraleetharan
noted that cases could still become adversarial between a student and a
professor in the proposed process. Dr.
Heiser responded that we have to honor due process, so someone would have the
right to vigorously oppose a charge. However,
the professor would be something more of a witness than a prosecutor.
Prof. Strauss said he would like
to see the changes between the current academic misconduct code and the
proposal. For academic misconduct
hearings that he sat on in the past, there was a well-defined process. For example, how would the faculty member know
if a student had received other admonitions?
Dr. Heiser replied that the Faculty Senate would be approving a set of
principles. Currently, any procedural
change must have regents’ approval. The
idea is the detailed procedures would be in another document that would be
approved by the President and Provost.
Nothing would happen until we have a set of procedures that had input
from faculty and the student body. Furthermore,
the proposal provides for an oversight board.
Prof. Gibson asked whether
data from other institutions indicated that a pledge like ours accomplishes
anything. Dr. Heiser said he has talked
to a number of instructors who say they use it all the time. It is another way to remind students of the
values that the community holds. It is
hard to say whether it works as a scare mechanism because institutions do not
freely share their data about academic misconduct. Provost Mergler commented that social science
research suggests that a warning or a reminder is sufficient to deter lots of
folks. Including the pledge on exams is
an effective deterrent for most of us.
Dr. Heiser said the pledge is one way to advertise integrity. Prof. Gibson remarked, “… does this become
another thing to ignore?” Mr. Johnson
noted that the pledge is used mainly on exams.
Ms. Bacon added that some professors also use it as a cover page for
major papers. Mr. Johnson said it is up
to the professor to determine how he wants to use it. Mr. Heiser explained that when the pledge was
created, the preference was to leave it as a reminder.
Prof. Palmer said the college
she went to had an honor code, and people had a lot of respect for it. Mr. Heiser said it is one tool, and it is
something that works. Prof. Ayres said
students are more willing to hold other students accountable when there is an
academic integrity pledge. Evidence from corporate America shows that the kind of message that
is sent out does make a difference.
Students need to know that we care about this. Prof. Muraleetharan suggested that in
addition to DYUI, we may want something that explains what integrity is. Dr. Heiser responded that the academic
misconduct code, a student’s guide to academic integrity, description of systems,
and forms for faculty were on the provost web site but have now migrated to a
new web page, http://integrity.ou.edu/,
which is student run.
Mr. Johnson noted that part
of the mission of the Integrity Council is to promote a culture of academic integrity
on campus. The integrity pledge is supposed
to be used as a tool by professors to remind their students of our community
values. Dr. Heiser explained that the
basic principle, scope, and definition are largely what we have now. The Integrity Council exists but would be given
regents’ approval. The integrity pledge
has existed in the past in the form of a UOSA resolution. The admonition, section 3, is identical to
what we have now. The main changes are in
sections 2, 4 and 5 – how misconduct gets reported and adjudicated. Adjudication is similar to the current policy,
but the point is to remove the professor from the prosecutorial role and instead
have the case pass through a sort of board of inquiry. Sections 6, 7, 8 are the same. Prof. Blank said the proposal will come up
for a vote at the next Faculty Senate meeting.
Prof. Blank announced that
any concerns about issues may be reported to him.
The meeting adjourned at 4:35 p.m. The next regular session of the Faculty
Senate will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, October 11, 2010, in Jacobson
Faculty Hall 102.
____________________________________
Sonya Fallgatter, Administrative Coordinator
____________________________________
Amy Bradshaw, Faculty Secretary