The Citadel Faculty Council
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Nov. 15, 2001
Room 166, Bond Hall1. Prof. Steve Silver, Faculty Council chairperson, called the meeting to order at 11:05 a.m.
2. Members attending: Profs. Bishop, Briggs, Chen, Dunlop, Foster, Hoyle, Jones, Kelley, Kuzenski, Lally, Matthews, Pilcher, Silver, Skow-Obenaus, G. Williams, Zuraw, Frohnsdorff for B. Carter, J. Carter for Templeton and B. White for Thompson.
3. Members absent: Profs. Foley, Ouzts, Webb and Woo.
4. Prof. Bishop had failed to write up the minutes for the Oct. 25 meeting so there was no approval of minutes.
5. Prof. Silver's report on the latest Academic Board meeting was supplemented by other Faculty Council members, especially Profs. Lally, Kuzenski and Pilcher, telling of Vice-President Carter's meeting with the Capers Hall faculty about the issues of the new furniture, which was one of the Academic Board topics. Gen. Carter had said that the expense was harmless because the money was there specifically for refurnishing and if we did not use it for that it would evaporate; Capers residents could keep any special furniture they had put in their offices, but the Administration just wanted to get rid of the ugly old furnishings; pretty new furniture would impress SACS and help Capers limp along till it could be rebuilt, since that has been postponed indefinitely; and the old furniture has to be thrown out (if not reassigned or taken back to the warehouse) because it's illegal to give away State-owned property. (But when it was thrown out people could then come and take it away for their own use or yard sales.)
In other Academic Board news, Prof. Silver reported the following. Next year's calendar has been made up, with again a full week at Thanksgiving and a lost Tuesday of classes for Election Day. The Board again urged professors not to weaken about holding their Friday classes tomorrow just before the Thanksgiving break starts (Faculty Council members noted that students at an ordinary college can cut classes so the pressure on us from both sides is unique to our situation). To address the problem of student athletes on scholarships who get their course registration access code from their advisors and then alter their schedule to where it doesn't meet NCAA requirements, Ed Steers of Athletics, as the general advisor to all athletes, will also be given their access codes to check up on them. There is a lunch on Nov. 27th for the Citadel Foundation, to which faculty should come to eat, enjoy and give money. There is a budget cut of 4% now and 10% later and a hiring freeze; there might eventually be a permanent 7% reduction in funding. The Academic Board meeting in January 2002 will be exceptionally late, and therefore the Faculty Council meeting will too. And Gen. Carter would like a once-a-term event for faculty where we would be invited to one of the basketball games with pre-games hors d'oeuvres, for pleasure and morale.
6. Prof. Silver announced that he was going to Columbia the next day to attend a meeting of the Council of Faculty Chairs to talk about the effect of the budget cuts and asked if anyone else planned to come; no one else did.
7. Prof. Silver raised a problem some foreign students, specifically this term Fawaz al-Jowder of Bahrain, have with their English requirements. Students for whom English is not the first language may be required to take English 101 twice and thus have five semesters of required English; since completing the English requirement is necessary according to the catalogue to attain senior status, foreign students whose demanding schedules permit them to take the normal four English courses but not the extra fifth before their senior year cannot be classified as seniors in time to register for courses they need. They also get the ring late and miss out on the privileges entailed therein. Students whose first language is French, German or Spanish can place out of some of their four required language courses (though not all, Prof. Skow-Obenaus noted) and thus have lots of room in their schedules for the extra English, but those with other first languages must take all of the courses, English and Modern Languages. Prof. Jones pointed out that MECEPS have the same problem, needing to finish their coursework fast but being barred from courses by not attaining senior status in time to register; they often don't get the ring till after graduation. The Registrar, Ms. DeMille, and Dean Metts say they can't alter these rules because they are in the catalogue, but we could change the catalogue. There was discussion about how necessary it was for the foreign students to take all five English courses early (Prof. Silver pointed out that some Taiwanese Electrical Engineering majors put off these courses till senior year and still get a 4.0 average); Prof. White noted that a lot of students used to put core courses off too long and this rule was designed to get them to take courses in the best order. He and Prof. Briggs agreed that good advising about the order in which to take things could solve the problem for many, including the MECEPS.
Prof. Silver proposed a new policy: that foreign students who have taken four out of five of their required English courses and are eight academic hours away from 1A status be granted senior status at the same time as their classmates before they take the fifth course. Prof. Briggs moved that a copy of this discussion and this proposal be sent to the Curriculum Committee for consideration. Prof. Carter pointed out that it should go to Academic Board too; Prof. Briggs amended his motion to say the discussion and proposal should be sent to Academic Board and the Curriculum Committee, and Prof. Kuzenski seconded the motion. After a little procedural debate, the motion was passed 16 to 0 with three abstentions.
8. Prof. Silver presented a letter from Dennis Carpenter of Human Resources about the policy on sick leave for professors. There was a discussion of the issues involved; no conclusion was reached.
9. Prof. Bishop yet again proposed, this time by making a formal motion, that any professor who wants to get students out of other professors' classes on special orders must get the student to obtain the permission of the other professors, which could be denied, by means of a pink slip. Prof. Briggs seconded this. Council members noted in favour of this proposal that a professor whose failing student was pulled out of a badly needed class was left with the problem, and that, though professors can now turn students in as absent when they are on Special Orders, Jenkins Hall will often simply take the student's word for it that the resulting white slip is incorrect. Prof. Matthews objected that this would make it even harder to get students out of classes for rare and valuable field trips; Prof. Bishop asserted that this could be handled by professors negotiating with each other with courtesy. Prof. Carter asked if there was any way professors could also get the power with pink slips to keep students in their classes when pulled out for non-academic reasons, like the Summerall Guards going to Mardi Gras; Prof. Bishop opined that there was no chance of getting that approved. At this moment it was noticed that the Council had lost its quorum, so no action on the motion was possible.
10. The meeting therefore broke up at about 12:10 p.m.