Meeting Minutes - October 12, 2005

Call to order by President Rogers at 3:30 p.m.

Minutes of the July meeting were questioned. The accuracy of the statement on page 2 (This year 100 percent of the athletes graduated.) was questioned. Dan Gilmartin will check the accuracy of this statement.

Minutes of the September 7 meeting were approved as printed.

Alternative to Star-Dot-Star. Jeri Rogers and Dick Hamann presented the reasons why star-dot-star cannot continue in its current format. First, the number of unread e-mail messages has caused our current server to nearly reach capacity. Purchasing an additional server would be costly. Every star-dot-star message generates 1600 messages and every reply creates an additional 1600 messages. Secondly, many adjunct professors refuse to use their Seminole State accounts because of what they consider to be 'junk e-mail.' This defeats one of the purposes of assigning an e-mail account to each faculty member. Thirdly, because this is currently the only way to send messages to a large group messages are sent to many inappropriate persons.

A committee of faculty members and administrators has been testing an alternative to star-dot-star. A listserve has been set up to send messages within the group. Each faculty member can choose to subscribe to this listserve. The process to subscribe was demonstrated. Any faculty member can easily switch back and forth from being a subscriber to unsubscribing. The link to become part of the listserve is: http://listserv.seminolestate.edu. The e-mail address to send messages is: discuss@listserv.seminolestate.edu.

It was noted that if all employees would use the archive feature on their computers, this problem would not exist. Training for all employees followed by mandatory archiving was suggested.

Recommendation: Faculty senate members will test the listserve to determine its acceptability.

Academic Integrity Policy

Different faculty members handle cheating in different ways. The administration would prefer a consistent policy. Randy Pawlowski, Director of Student Affairs, keeps a record of all incidents of cheating that are reported to him.

Clear evidence of cheating must exist before Randy can become involved. Faculty members can call Randy to ensure that adequate evidence is present. Many teachers of 'writing classes' insist that students use Turnitin.com for any Internet resources.

Recommendation: Faculty Senate requests that Randy Pawlowski design a standardized form to be used for the reporting of academic dishonesty.

A discussion regarding the addition of a grade which would indicate that a student was dismissed from a class due to cheating followed. The choices were narrowed down to WX or FX. Each choice has advantages and disadvantages. Senators were asked to poll their constituents and return to the November meeting prepared to make a recommendation on this issue.

A senator raised the concern about students who are found cheating before the withdrawal date. These students often withdraw quickly so the faculty member cannot give them an F. A solution to this problem needs to be found.

Athletic Program.

Abolishment of the athletics program at Seminole State would save between $100,000 and $160,000 per year. The completion rate for student-athletes is much better than the completion rate for the general student population. The administration appears to have abandoned their efforts to abolish the athletic program.

A senator observed that there are not many 'local' players on the teams. The practice of recruiting players from outside Seminole County was questioned.

Payment of salaries for nine-month employees.

A process whereby nine- and 10-month salaried employees can receive their payments over 12 months has been devised. Employees wishing to take advantage of this program should see Nancy Smith in the Payroll Department.

Distance Learning Certifications.

The discussion regarding mandatory certifications for faculty members involved with Distance Learning was postponed until the November meeting. All Senators were asked to read the handout that was distributed and to be prepared to discuss this issue at the next meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 5:15 p.m.

Members in attendance: Angela Aiken-McDonald, Patricia Cason, Rafael Davila, Susan Dooley, Lucy Dzikowski, Barbara Entwistle, Mayra Eschbach, Dan Gilmartin, Sue Kelllicut, Alan Kraft, Barbara Lott, Ginger Magarine, Debbie Mead, Jenny Middleton, Jeri Rogers, Karen Schwitters, Jay Spalding, Laurel Stevenson, Pat Tanzi, Ben Taylor.

There were four guests in attendance.