Faculty Council is considering the idea of making all wait lists unlimited in number of slots.

The rationale for this move is to have more data on where student needs are not being met by Lane class offerings.  For example, this type of data may better facilitate a program’s ability to add back classes where wait lists are long and demand is not being met.  At present, all such information on student demand is anecdotal at best.

Please leave a reply to share your thoughts or responses.

Faculty Council is considering moving the college wide date for purging class wait lists from the first Monday of the term to the first Tuesday of the term.

The rationale for this is to allow for Tuesday/Thursday classes to meet before purging the wait lists.

Please leave leave a reply to share your thoughts or responses.

Faculty Colleagues, as you hopefully read in Dawn DeWolf’s email,  no-show drops for Winter term will be the same as Fall term.  Faculty Council discussed revisions at two different meetings Fall term and were unable to agree on a recommendation for revised language.  Faculty Council will participate in a work group Winter term with the goal of recommending revised language for no show drops for Spring.  If you are interested in participating in that group, please email Faculty Council co-chairs, Brooke Taylor and Joseph Colton.  If you have input regarding no show drops, comments can be recorded in reply to this post here.

Faculty Council continues to consider new language for first week attendance in order to meet both federal guidelines and recognize diverse instructional needs.  Based on feedback provided to the previous blog post and discussion in Faculty Council on October 24, 2014, Faculty Council revised the proposed language as follows.  Please review the proposed language and share your input by leaving a reply.

• Students not attending the first class meeting will be dropped.  For online classes, students who do not complete the first online assignment by the stated deadline will be dropped.  Thereafter individual instructor syllabi policies apply.

Faculty Council is currently considering new language for first week attendance in order to meet both federal guidelines and recognize diverse instructional needs.  Please review the proposed language as follows and share your input by leaving a reply.  (Note:  this language is only being proposed for face-to-face classes; separate language will be considered to address online and distance learning classes.)

• Faculty must drop a student if they don’t attend once. Faculty may drop students if attendance is less than 100% in the first week. The course attendance policy will be clearly defined and communicated in the class syllabus.

Spring Term 2014 “NC” No Basis for Grade Conversation

Should we continue to offer the “NC” No Basis for Grade?

Questions/Issues to Consider:

1. What is the purpose of the “NC” grade?

According to COPPS and our grading rubrics:

NC  (No Credit): Issuing a grade of “NC” is at the instructor’s discretion and is used when the instructor believes the student has not participated enough in the class to earn a grade.  It is not meant and should not be used to replace an “F” or “Incomplete”.  Always include the last date of attendance.  P, NP, NC, I and U are not used to compute GPA

 2. How common is it for faculty to assign an “NC” grade at Lane?

This chart reflects the number of credit grades awarded and how many were “NC” No Basis for Grade between fall 2011 and fall 2013. Note what percentages of all grades awarded this represents. (College Now grades excluded)

 3. Is the reason for assigning an “NC” consistent between faculty?

Some faculty use the “NC” to provide a grade for students who registered, but never attended.

Some faculty use the “NC” to provide a grade for students who registered, attended for some period of time, and stopped attending.

Some faculty use the “NC” when the student stayed in the class, but did not participate enough to warrant another grade.

Some faculty use the “NC” when students ask that they not receive an “F” to not have their GPA negatively impacted.

Could there be other reasons?

 4. What is the impact of earning an “NC” on the student?

The credit associated with an “NC” is used in the Academic Progress Standing calculation, and it can cause a student to receive an Alert 1, Alert 2, or Alert 3 hold if having this contributes to the student completing less than 67% of attempted credits.

Students receiving financial aid and earning an “NC” will not receive credit toward graduation, but the credits associated with it count against their total available to be funded in the financial aid credit limit process.

Students who are receiving financial aid retroactively cannot be paid for an “NC” grade, but can for an “F”.

An “NC” does not calculate into a student’s GPA.

 5. What grade would a faculty member assign instead of an “NC”?

 If the student fails to drop the class by the eighth week of the term, they would receive an “F” for failing to continue to attend and/or not submitting work enough work to warrant a grade beyond “F”.

6. How does an “NC” grade impact Financial Aid?

While the instructions for assigning an “NC” direct the faculty to provide a last date of attendance, this is not a required step in myLane, so it is possible that we could be in violation of the federal financial aid regulations if we pay a student for attending when they were not in attendance.

“NC” grade credits are calculated into the Satisfactory Academic Progress calculation and are counted in the total number of credits that can be used with financial aid.

 7. Do the other Oregon community colleges use an “NC” or equivalent grade?

An analysis of sister Oregon Community Colleges, Valencia College and Salt Lake Community College shows that an “NC” No Basis for Grade is not a standard grade utilized and in most cases it has been retired.

The proposal for replacing the “Freedom of Inquiry and Expression” policy with the drafted “Academic Freedom” policy derives in part from the University of Oregon’s recent adoption of a revised “Academic Freedom” policy.

The following case was presented in Learning Council on May 9th.

1. Existing policy on AF confuses several different rights and is too broad.

It confuses AF with freedom of inquiry, freedom of expression, free speech, and free assembly. It interjects a civility clause. To the extent any of these are required, they should be separate policies.

Freedom of inquiry in an academic environment is covered by academic freedom. Freedom of inquiry is the right to pursue research and have access to knowledge and information. It is most often used to protect libraries, library collections, librarians and library patrons, as well as researchers. Academic freedom is usually seen to cover all theses areas win an academic setting.

Freedom of expression, free speech, and freedom of assembly are all protected by the first amendment and are guaranteed in public spaces. As such, there is no need to separately establish policies on these, as they are constitutionally protected in all public spaces and institutions.

What separates AF from these others is that while it is protected by the constitution, it is also broader in some regards (the right to determine course content, methodology, and grading) and narrower in some regards (it applies only to particular roles instructors, students, higher ed institutions) than these other rights due to the academic context. Unlike free speech, etc. , not everyone has the same rights and responsibilities in an academic context. Academic experts (instructors) have nearly exclusive rights to determine course content, teaching methods, grading, and administrators have no rights to intervene unless there is some sort of professional violation (i.e. academic dishonesty, for example). Thus, the need to have an AF policy.

2. U.S. Supreme Court has said that academic freedom is protected speech. However, it has not ruled that AF applies to faculty exclusively. It has said AF means a university can determine for itself on academic grounds:

• who may teach,
• what may be taught,
• how it should be taught, and who may be admitted to study.

Academic freedom involves more than speech rights; for example, it includes the right to determine what is taught in the classroom. In practice, academic freedom is protected by institutional rules and regulations, letters of appointment, faculty handbooks, collective bargaining agreements, and academic custom.^[28]

In the U.S., the freedom of speech is guaranteed by the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press….” By extension, the First Amendment applies to all governmental institutions, including public universities. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held that academic freedom is a First Amendment right at public institutions.^[29]

3. However, Academic Freedom is unsettled law, as there a number of conflicting legal cases (non-precedent setting) and conflicting interpretations. For example, proponents of “creationism” argue that AF protects the right of educators to teach creationism in the classroom. While opponents argue that AF prohibits creationism from being taught in the classroom as it is a religious belief and not scientifically valid.

Similarly, various groups argue that AF does not protect educators who promote racial supremacy in the classroom under the guise of scholarly inquiry. While libertarian defenders of AF argue that it does protect such speech as a necessary evil of free and open debate and inquiry.

4. The AF policy recently passed by the University of Oregon Faculty Senate is a very good statement because it is simple, open to interpretation, and open to both institutional procedures and legal challenges for clarification. It does not attempt to resolve all of these issues with potentially contradictory or restrictive wording.

The current policy is called “Freedom of Inquiry and Expression.”

The proposed policy below would replace the policy linked above.

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Lane Community College serves the community by providing programs of learning that enable students to pursue and achieve their educational and vocational goals. Academic freedom is indispensable to promoting the pursuit of these objectives. Open, scholarly engagement lays the groundwork for students to acquire knowledge and develop intellectual skills. The college is committed to providing an environment that supports independent, critical thought in the pursuit of knowledge. Lane Community College assumes responsibility to protect its scholarly community from internal or external influences that have the effect of placing limitations on academic freedom and the freedom of inquiry. .

INSTRUCTION. In all instructional environments, including classroom, laboratory, and online environments, instructors and students have the right to investigate, present and discuss matters, including those that are controversial, free from institutional restraint and reprisal. Matters brought up in a class should be related to the content of the class or otherwise be educationally relevant as determined by the professional judgment of the instructor.

It is the responsibility of the instructor to maintaini a scholarly environment conducive to achieving the learning outcomes of the course. Instruction should be presented in a manner that shows scholarship fairly and accurately; that acknowledges differing perspectives where appropriate; that cites sources of knowledge; and that differentiates personal views from scholarly supported positions

SCHOLARSHIP. All members of the college community including students, faculty, staff, and administrators are free to conduct research and produce creative work, and to share their work with others within the professional academic standards of accountability.

Only serious abuses of this policy that rise to the level of professional misbehavior or professional incompetence should lead to adverse consequences.  Any such determinations shall be made in accordance with established, formal procedures.

The following was presented and discussed at Learning Council Friday, May 9^th, and also at Faculty Council the same afternoon.

Motivation: Compliance with DOEd and Financial Aid.  The Federal standard requires students to attend once during the first week.  “attend once” = “participate in one educational activity”

Current COPPS language: “Students who do not attend 50 percent of the class sessions by the end of the first week may be administratively withdrawn.”

Proposed change to COPPS: Will be administratively dropped

Possible new wording also being considered:  Students must attend at least one of the first two meetings of a class during the first week. Students who do not attend one of the first two meetings of a class in the first week will be administratively withdrawn.

Please click on “Leave a reply” to make a suggestion on what you’d like to see in the way of a Faculty Council Forum topic.