These minutes reflect
discussion and debate at a meeting of a committee of the
Minutes
238A Morrill
Hall
Present:
Emily Hoover (chair), Wilbert
Ahern, Roxanne Beauclair, Victor Bloomfield, Dale Branton, Vernon Cardwell, Shawn
Curley, Michael Edlavitch, Gretchen Haas, Frank Kulacki, Scott LeBlanc, Marsha
Odom, Martin Sampson, Karen Seashore, Mary Ellen Shaw, Mary Sue Simmons, Joel
Weinsheimer
Absent:
Geoffrey Meisner, Craig
Swan, Douglas Wangensteen
Guests:
Jason
Tangquist, John
[In
these minutes: (1) exceptions for
athletic teams from the policy prohibiting events during study day and finals
week; (2) calendars; (3) President's Day holiday; (4) misuse of 5xxx course
designators]
1. Exceptions to the Policy Prohibiting Student Activities During Study Day and Finals Week
Professor Hoover convened the
meeting at
The Committee inquired about the
GPAs of the members of the men's golf team; Coach Tangquist reported the
averages and said he had no concerns about those members of the team who would
attend. Professor Curley asked if there
was a plan for study time; Coach Tangquist said they are making arrangements
with instructors. Last year the team
members took exams before they left; some can take them when they return.
The Committee voted unanimously to
approve the exception.
Coach Holland noted that he also had
had to make this request last year; the national championship falls during
finals week. He reported the GPAs of the
team members. The regular season for the
team ends a week before finals, so the students have time to work with their
instructors.
Professor Weinsheimer asked if this
request would come every year (probably); if so, should the Committee grant a
blanket exception?
Professor Cardwell thought not; the quality of students varies each year
and the Committee should review each exception.
It is the Committee's obligation to review the requests, Professor
Seashore agreed. If it is a blanket
exception, other teams on other campuses might well expect to receive a blanket
exception as well.
The Committee voted unanimously to
approve the exception.
Next the Committee took up a request
from the Twin Cities Recreational Sports department for the men's Lacrosse
team. Since the last meeting, the
department provided academic information about the students participating on
the team.
Professor Kulacki wondered about the
policy implications when this team begins to approach the size of a football
team. Professor Sampson said he was
prepared to support the request. If
these were varsity athletes, recruited to the campus, receiving financial aid,
people would say this was a team of great quality that should participate in a
national championship. These are true
student-athletes, not recruited to come here to be athletes and not receiving
athletic financial aid, they have very good GPAs, they have no route into
professional sports, and this is a major spring sport in some other parts of
the country. He said he would be reluctant
to say "no" to a club team when the Committee would doubtless say
"yes" to a varsity team. These
are essentially student-athletes, not athlete-students.
Professor Seashore concurred but
expressed concern about the number of freshmen on the team, including one who
just transferred to the campus. Freshmen
are often poor organizers of their time and often take large classes; missing
finals could put them at academic risk.
She inquired if the freshmen should be allowed to participate.
Dr. Simmons said she would like to see the Committee
receive a report on how the students on the team performed academically after
the end of the year. Professor Seashore
suggested that if more club sports are going to compete nationally, the
Department of Recreational Sports should develop a policy on supporting
first-year and transfer students who face this disruption. Is there a minimum GPA students need to
achieve in order to compete, Mr. LeBlanc asked?
The students need only be in good academic standing, Professor Hoover
surmised.
Professor Sampson said he agreed that he did not
like freshmen competing; should the University institute such a rule for club
sports? If, however, these were varsity
teams, then freshmen would be permitted to compete. Professor Seashore said she meant to suggest
a policy for the future, not this particular team.
Professor Cardwell said he was not
overly concerned about freshmen, even though they are more vulnerable. What the Committee has not seen with this
team is documentation about plans to accommodate student study and make-up
exams, a question they have just posed to the two Crookston teams. There is language about this in the letter,
Professor Hoover said; Mr. Edlavitch, reviewing it, asked if the Committee was
comfortable with the idea that coaches would proctor exams. Coaches have a certain bond with athletes and
could look the other way. If the policy
allows exceptions for natural progression to national championships for varsity
teams, Professor Weinsheimer said, then not to allow this team to compete could
be seen as bias against club teams.
Professor Seashore commented that
many faculty would to consign the NCAA and its regulations to the third ring of
hell, but when the faculty are urging the President to encourage student
learning, this Committee shouldn't
in any way make blanket policies that would encourage athletics to interfere
with the regular classroom schedule rather than having national athletic
competitions accommodate regular academic obligations.
Professor Sampson noted that the
Twin Cities campus right now has two women's varsity teams that are
extraordinarily successful. Women's
sports teams have impressive GPAs and demonstrate that combining sports and
academics can work very well. Similarly,
these Lacrosse students have a B+ average, and like a lot of non-athlete
students who have to work a lot of hours, these students appear to be very good
at managing their time.
Professor Kulacki said that teams
aspire to national ranking, which means a lot; there is a "creeping
corporatism" in this. Once the
Committee allows favoritism for tour-bound teams, NCAA-like problems are going
to emerge.
Dean Bloomfield commented that in
his recent book, Universities in the Marketplace, former Harvard President
Derek Bok devotes one chapter to the commercialization of intercollegiate
athletics and how they run counter to academic values and how they cost
money. He suggested the Committee might
wish to read excerpts from the book.
Professor Curley suggested that for
the time being the Committee had to set aside the things it cannot change, but
pointed out that it has now had to deal with three exceptions to the policy and
has no consistent set of criteria in terms of the information it expects to be
provided. It would be helpful if the
Committee were to develop such criteria so it could tell people what it
expected to see and so that it would be looking at the same information for
each group.
Dr. Simmons recalled when the men's
basketball scandal was all over the newspapers, and that she had nagging doubts
about the proposal to have the coach proctor exams. She said she would vote in favor of granting
the Lacrosse team the exception, but said that in the future, she would not
favor allowing such a practice.
Professor Kulacki wondered if it would be possible to require that a
graduate student or faculty member travel with the team to proctor exams, which
would send a message about academic integrity.
Professor Cardwell said he would not allow a final exam to be taken away
from the campus and wouldn't care WHO proctored it. He agreed with the proposition that the
students should either take the exam before they leave or after they return;
the coach's role is to set up study time.
Students should not take exams on the trip. Dr. Shaw agreed, saying it does not make
sense to take exams on the road, and said she could not imagine any faculty
member would think that was acceptable.
Professor Sampson agreed with Professor Cardwell, and said the Committee
should convey to the faculty that they have an obligation to provide a make-up
opportunity. At the same time, that
obligation does not cancel the faculty member's responsibility to decide when
and how the make-up will be administered.
Mr. LeBlanc asked if the Committee
was being more strict with this team than it was with
the other two. If there is a concern, he
said, the Committee should develop a separate policy.
Ms. Beauclair said that the students
on the Lacrosse team were doing fine and should go to the national championship
if they qualify. She maintained that
when students are on a trip like this, they do not think about school. The coaches are "pumping them up"
for the event, and in the hotel rooms he or she is not going to be emphasizing
studying. It is not in the mindset of
students to study on a trip like this.
And the coach should not be proctoring a final, she concluded. On this last point, Professor Ahern said he
was concerned whether the team is NCAA or a club team--was startled that such a
thing might happen--and suggested that the Committee might wish to make an
inquiry of the directors of athletics about whether coaches proctor exams for
varsity teams.
Professor Curley said the Committee
should review the policies, develop criteria, and follow up on Professor
Ahern's suggestion. It had earlier been
moved and seconded that the Committee approve the request for the exception;
Professor Curley moved that the motion include a proviso that the coach and
anyone else affiliated with the team not be permitted to proctor exams.
Professor Curley's amendment and the
motion itself passed unanimously.
2. Calendars
Professor Hoover now asked Dr.
Falkner to lead a discussion of the calendars for 2007-08 and 2008-09. Dr. Falkner distributed copies of proposed
calendars that included three different options for the Twin Cities
campus. She also provided copies of
changes to the Crookston calendars for 05-06 and 06-07 because an in-service
day was added, creating a short fall break.
She also reviewed the calendars for the graduate/professional programs
that are not required to follow the standard calendar for the Twin Cities
campus; the Committee had no objections to those proposals. She also told the Committee that nothing was
out of order for the Crookston,
The three options Dr. Falkner
presented for the end of Fall Semester 2007 on the Twin Cities were as follows:
1. Classes end Dec 12 (Weds)
Study days Dec 13, 16 (Thurs & Sun)
Finals Dec 14-15, 17-20 (Fri-Sat &
Mon-Thurs)
2. Classes end Dec 12 (Weds)
Study days Dec 13, 15-16 (Thurs & Sat-Sun)
Finals Dec 14, 17-21 (Fri & Mon-Fri)
3. Classes end Dec 12 (Weds)
Study days Dec 15-16 (Sat-Sun)
Finals Dec 13-14, 17-20 (Thurs-Fri &
Mon-Thurs)
For the Twin Cities campus, Dr.
Falkner recalled, the Committee voted last year to make fall semester 70 days,
with a Tuesday start (after Labor Day) and a Wednesday finish, which provides
flexibility on whether or not to have a study day. Mr. Edlavitch wondered about having study
day(s) on the weekends. Professor
Seashore wondered how important study day is.
Both Messrs. Edlavitch and LeBlanc said it was very important and they
use it for studying. Mr. LeBlanc said he
preferred to have a study day before exams begin, so would prefer option 1. Ms. Beauclair said she also liked study day,
but wondered at what cost in terms of effect on the calendar. Dr. Falkner said that having a study day does
not mean the loss of any instructional days because the term always ends on a
Wednesday. The question is when the term
ends; with an early Labor Day, scheduling a study day is easier. When Labor Day is late, finals could still
end on December 22.
Is there any reason the University
does not have finals on Sunday, Professor Hoover inquired? Dr. Falkner said she believed the reason had
something to do with religious beliefs.
That could apply to Saturday as well, Professor Hoover pointed out.
Ms. Haas said she thought the
Committee had voted that it was acceptable for Fall Semester to exceed 70 days
and that finals could run through December 22.
For courses that use TAs and do not use machine scoring on exams, a late
final exam period creates a real crunch.
TAs want to get out, as do the students. This is a critical problem. For that reason, option 1 is best. Unsavory things happen when finals get later;
people end up carrying exams across the country to grade them, or faculty will
only give a final that can be machine-graded.
Or they may not give one at all.
Mr. Edlavitch suggested option 1 but
with Thursday-Friday study days and finals on Sunday. Mr. LeBlanc disagreed, saying that Sunday is
an all-around good study day; Friday is party day for many students and it is nice
to have a study day in the middle of finals week. Ms. Haas supported option 1 as well. Ms. Beauclair said she didn't care where
study day was, just as long as finals did not run an additional day.
Professor Cardwell moved that the
Committee approve option 1 for Fall Semester 2007. Asked about spring, Dr. Falkner said the
spring semesters are the same for all three options and are not a problem. Professor Hoover noted that Professor
Heller's subcommittee (on whether there might be a three-semester system) is
looking at the entire calendar and that a change could mean a shift in the
starting day of Spring Semester.
Professor Seashore said that she is on Professor Heller's subcommittee
and believes that it will not recommend a three-semester system.
Ms. Beauclair, noting that she has
never been involved in these calendar discussions before, wondered why her
friends at other institutions get a fall break but she does not. She also commented that the winter break is
too long. Professor Hoover explained
that the presence of the State Fair adjacent to the
Professor Cardwell's motion was
approved unanimously.
Ms. Haas then moved the Committee
approve Spring Semester 2008. Professor
Hoover said she would like a discussion of beginning the spring semester
earlier (before the MLK holiday). The
Provost's office has been receiving a number of calls from parents and students
complaining that the winter break is too long.
This idea elicited a number of reactions from Committee members.
-- Professor Kulacki said the break is
crucial in research-intensive departments and urged that the Committee not act
quickly on a change. Professor Hoover
said that
-- Professor Sampson said that in
evaluating that implications of short winter breaks, such as Michigan’s, one
must look at the quality of instruction--one should not look at the schedules
without also looking at the quality of what happens in the classroom and
whether final exams are disappearing because of the short break.
-- Professor Seashore said that summer
session could not start earlier because people have kids in school, so there
would be an awkward period between the end of Spring Semester and the start of
summer session.
-- Professor Weinsheimer commented that
many faculty thought the move to semesters was
faculty-unfriendly but that the long break between semesters compensated in
part for the change.
-- Professor Cardwell said that it is
clear students do not like the long break and would prefer to be out earlier in
the spring. The winter break is long,
but not long enough to get a job. The
interim session does not affect a significant number of people so should not be
used as a reason not to end the spring term earlier.
-- Mr. LeBlanc said he likes the long
break. He spends a week with his family
and then worked to increase his savings.
He said he needs the break to recharge after Fall Semester, which goes
without any break except Thanksgiving.
And with tuition increasing, students need more time to work. Professor Cardwell agreed that the tuition
problem is not small, but said it would be more likely students would have a
full-time job in summer and that they could make more money then, with 1-2
additional weeks, than they could over a break.
-- The Committee decided last year that
Fall Semester would be 70 days. If there
is talk about starting Spring Semester earlier, then it should be coupled with
a discussion about making it the same length as Fall Semester. Mr. Edlavitch said he could not understand
why the two were different lengths; he said if he were teaching a course, one
four days longer, he would regard them as different courses. The reason is that when the University
shifted to semesters, Professor Ahern recalled, the University would retain the
same number of instructional days (150), so there would be two 75-day semesters
(or as close as the University could come).
The University was concerned about legislative reaction to shorter
semesters, Ms. Haas remembered.
-- The Committee decided to waive the
rule requiring semesters be 70-75 days, Professor Seashore said, and there were
political accommodations to a legislative desire to have students in
school. Now the
legislature is not funding the University as much so that is less of a concern. The Committee can discuss this all it wants,
but it needs to know what students want.
She said she prefers the long break but the University needs to be
sensitive to students. Faculty have more control over their time than do students;
she said she did not know if students would prefer to be out of school two
weeks earlier. Mr. Edlavitch said
students would prefer to have the time free in April rather than January. Ms. Haas said it would also be helpful to understand
what the faculty want.
Professor Seashore suggested the Committee ask the administration to
design and conduct a survey of faculty and students about their calendar
preferences (a survey of faculty and students who are bound by this calendar).
-- Asked what the Heller subcommittee
would have to say about this, Professor Weinsheimer said that it would likely
not advocate a three-semester system but would instead recommend minimizing the
impediments to faculty teaching and students taking courses in the summer. The subcommittee has not considered the
length of the winter break. Professor
Seashore said that they have identified only one institution that has a full
summer semester; most of what they have learned is that universities are
offering slightly expanded summer sessions.
The University would be in the vanguard if it moved to a three-semester
system. She said she did not see either
an economic or pedagogical justification for making such a change.
When is the latest
time the Committee can do the calendars, Professor Hoover asked? There is no set time, Dr. Falkner said; the
Committee set as a goal having four years of calendars in place so that
incoming freshmen would always know the calendar for four years. Professor Hoover suggested the Committee
approve the 07-08 calendar but that it table the 08-09
calendar. And, although people do not
like it, the Senate can make changes in the calendars that have already been
approved, Dr. Falkner pointed out. If a
survey demonstrates that 90% of faculty and students say the break is too long,
the Committee could recommend that the already-approved calendars be changed.
Skipping ahead to the 2008-09 calendar, Mr. LeBlanc said it would be a bad idea to start
school on (Tuesday) September 2. Most
apartment leases start on the first and they do not let students move in early. Dr. Falkner said that with all due respect
for that problem, the University has little choice. But, she added, the Committee could recommend
that the semester start on Wednesday rather than Tuesday.
The Committee voted unanimously to
approve Fall Semester, 2008, which, like 2007, provides study days on Thursday
and Sunday. Finals would end on December
18. The Committee also voted unanimously
to support Professor Seashore's request that the administration survey faculty
and students affected by the Twin Cities campus calendar about their
preferences both about the length of the semester (should it be the same as
Fall?) and about the length of winter break and when Spring Semester should
end. Professor Cardwell observed that if
the break is shortened and the semester is shortened, students would have an
additional two to three weeks to work during the summer.
Dr. Falkner advised the Committee to
think about advising time and preparing students when it considers shortening
the break between semesters, in order that the University does not permit
students to enroll and then tell them they are on probation. That is a question of turning in grades on
time, Professor Hoover commented. Dr.
Shaw said it was also a matter of packaging financial aid and letting know
students if they have been suspended; they could manage if one week were cut
off the winter break, but not if there were two weeks cut off.
Professor Sampson said he endorsed
the idea of having calendars set for four years and agreed with Ms. Haas's
motion that the Committee approve the Spring 2008
calendar, but added that it should leave open the question of the break and
spring, 2009. The Committee voted
unanimously in favor of the motion.
3. President's Day
Professor Hoover reported that she
had received a letter from the Chair of the Civil Service Committee asking this
Committee to think about making President's Day a University holiday. She said she brought up the idea with the
administration, which did not endorse the idea.
Would this increase the number of
holidays, Professor Kulacki asked? It
would not, Professor Hoover said, but the civil service staff may not take a
day off on an instructional day.
Dr. Falkner read parts of the letter
that outlined the reasons. Professor
Hoover said there is no sympathy for this request in the administration, and
making President's Day a holiday would require eliminating an instructional
day, thus extending the semester.
Professor Weinsheimer commented that in general the
University could treat its civil service employees better than it does, with a
more sympathetic understanding. And they
could use another holiday in that period.
That is outside the bailiwick of this Committee, Professor Curley said,
but perhaps a different holiday could be accommodated with the Spring Semester
calendar. Missing another Monday would
unduly hinder classes on Mondays, Professor Hoover pointed out.
4. 4xxx/5xxx Course Designators
Professor Hoover now turned to Dean
Bloomfield to introduce the issue of the use of 4xxx/5xxx course
designators.
Dean Bloomfield distributed a
one-page handout with two lists of 5xxx courses, one ordered by declining
proportion of undergraduate enrollment and one ordered by declining proportion
of freshmen and sophomores in them.
Fifteen of the 5xxx courses were 100% undergraduate, and several dozen
had over 80% undergraduate enrollment.
Eighteen of the 5xxx courses had 20% or more freshmen and sophomores in
them. Professor Hoover reported that the
Council of Undergraduate Deans had discussed the latter issue; is this a Twin
Cities issue, she asked? Dean Bloomfield
said the deans believed it is.
When the current course-numbering
system was established, 1xxx and 2xxx courses were to be for freshmen and
sophomores, 3xxx for middle undergraduate years, 4xxx mainly upper
division/undergraduate, although graduate students could use some of the
courses with program approval, and 5xxx courses were to be mainly graduate
students but juniors and seniors could enroll in them. What has happened is that the 4xxx courses
are OK because they enroll mostly upper division undergraduate students. The problem is with the 5xxx courses; there
are about 400 that have more than 25% undergraduate enrollment in them.
This seems wrong to him, Dean
Bloomfield told the Committee. It
violates the policy, as Dean of the
The Council of Undergraduate Deans
has recommended that no freshmen or sophomores be permitted in 5xxx courses
without the consent of the instructor, Dean Bloomfield said. They recognize that there are areas where
prodigies or well-trained students should be allowed to take 5xxx courses
(e.g., in mathematics or music), but for the most part 5xxx should mean it is
primarily a graduate course that only very-well-prepared undergraduates who
have taken all the other courses in the area would be permitted to take. He said that he personally was uncomfortable
with the idea of juniors taking 5xxx courses.
Dean Bloomfield said he would like
the Committee to follow the lead of the undergraduate deans by adopting a
statement reminding colleges and departments about the proper use of the 5xxx
designator and urge the Provost to send a letter asking departments to
reclassify courses or adhere to the standards.
Ms. Haas noted that 5xxx courses are
in the system so undergraduates do not need special permission to enroll in
them. Ms. Beauclair said that as a
freshman, she had no idea that 5xxx courses were for graduate students; she
said she thought they were for undergraduates.
She said she agreed that undergraduates should not be in them if they
are intended for graduate students, but they should also then not appear as
options and students need to have it explained to them that 5xxx courses are
graduate. Mr. LeBlanc said he would like
to know the number of undergraduates in 5xxx courses who are honors students. Dean Bloomfield said it was fine for seniors
to enroll in the courses if they have the required background work.
Professor Weinsheimer said he agreed
that graduate courses should be graduate and vice-versa. If the 5xxx courses are separated, however,
and the enrollments divided in half, it may be necessary to create hundreds of
new 4xxx courses. Dean Bloomfield said
he believed that many of them should not be split--they should be reclassified
as 4xxx courses. If they enrollment is
predominantly undergraduate, they should be undergraduate courses. Professor Sampson said that his department
did distinguish--and graduate student enrollment dropped because the
Professor Branton suggested that the
University automatically reclassify courses to 4xxx if there is more than X% of
undergraduates in it. Dean Bloomfield
noted again that 4xxx courses are to be upper division undergraduate but they
may be open to graduate students; 5xxx courses are to be graduate courses that
may be open to undergraduates. When a
5xxx course is 100% undergraduate, the department is not doing its job in
identifying the appropriate course number.
Are undergraduates taking 5xxx courses because the lower-numbered ones
are not challenging enough, Mr. Edlavitch asked? Professor Curley agreed the courses should be
reclassified but that 4xxx courses are identified as open to graduate students. Professor Hoover noted that some Ph.D.
programs do not allow students to take 4xxx courses, although some Master's
programs do.
The University needs to be clearer
on its expectations, Dean Bloomfield commented.
It was agreed that the Committee
would take up a statement on the issue.
Professor Hoover adjourned the
meeting at
--
Gary Engstrand