EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY FACULTY SENATE

ACADEMIC, APPELLATE, AND SENATE COMMITTEE

 ANNUAL REPORT

 

2007-2008 Academic Year

 

COMMITTEE:  ACADEMIC STANDARDS COMMITTEE

 

1.       Membership (include ex-officio members).

REGULAR MEMBERS (with vote)

Linda Wolfe, Chair; Nancy Spalding, Vice Chair; Mark Richardson, Secretary; Lora Smith-Canter, Linda MItchell, Stacey Altman, Joseph Pestaner; Jazier Lorenzo, William (Joseph) Thomas

 

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS (with vote)

Michael Brown, Rep. of Chancellor; Linner Griffin, Rep. of Provost; George Bailey, Rep of Chair of the Faculty; Mark Sprague, Faculty Senator; Yazid Finn, Student Body President Representative)

 

 2.      Meeting Dates (include members present*).
* and members who contributed to committee action, but were not at the meeting.

MEETING DATE:   September 17, 2007

PERSON PRESIDING:   Linda Wolfe  

REGULAR MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:  Lorenzo, Pestaner, Richardson, Spalding, Thomas,

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:   Bailey, Griffin, Sprague

MEETING DATE:   October 24, 2007

PERSON PRESIDING:   Linda Wolfe  

REGULAR MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:  Lorenzo, Richardson, and Spalding

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:   Bailey, Brown, and Sprague

MEETING DATE:   November 19, 2007

PERSON PRESIDING:   Linda Wolfe  

REGULAR MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE: Altman, Lorenzo, Richardson, Smith-Canter, Spalding

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:   Bailey, Brown, Griffin, Sprague

MEETING DATE:   January 14, 2008

PERSON PRESIDING:   Linda Wolfe  

REGULAR MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:  Richardson, Spalding

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:   Bailey, Brown, Sprague

MEETING DATE:   February 18, 2008

PERSON PRESIDING:   Linda Wolfe  

REGULAR MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:  Stacey Altman, Linda Mitchell, Mark Richardson, Nancy Spalding, and Yazid Finn (Student Body President Representative)

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:   George Bailey, Michael Brown, Linner Griffin, and Mark Sprague

MEETING DATE:   March 17, 2008

PERSON PRESIDING:   Linda Wolfe  

REGULAR MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:  Stacey Altman, Mark Richardson, and Yazid Finn (Student Body President Representative)

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:   George Bailey, Michael Brown, Linner Griffin, and Mark Sprague

MEETING DATE:   April 21, 2008

PERSON PRESIDING:   Linda Wolfe  

REGULAR MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE: Linda Crane Mitchell, Mark Richardson, Nancy Spalding, and Yazid Finn (Student Body President Representative)

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:   George Bailey, Michael Brown, Linner Griffin, and Mark Sprague

 

3.      Subcommittees established during the year (include progress and/or completion of work).

Subcommittee to draft outcome assessment criteria for Foundations courses (Dr. George Bailey, chair)

  

4.      Accomplishments during the year, especially as addressed through committee goals.  Please include recommendations made to any University agency other than the Faculty Senate that will be noted under #5.

·      Michael Brown and Linner Griffin, ex-officio members of the Academic Standards committee, have agreed to again serve our representatives on the Service Learning committee.

·     Discussion of the list of issues that need to be addressed during this academic year include:   Consideration of courses brought forward for Foundations Credit; Consideration of moving SOIS from paper distribution to online (for on-campus courses) and the results of using the on-line version for Distance Education courses; Preparing for the SACS assessment of Foundations Credit courses (George Bailey has been working on this); Consideration of using the CLA exam through discussions with Mike Poteat.  The committee agreed that we would consider courses for Foundations Credit as they are submitted and can be scheduled.  We will again call Michael Poteat to discuss the move of SOIS to an on-line version and how this has worked for DE courses.  In preparation for the upcoming SACS review, we will invite David Weismiller (who has been appointed by the Chancellor to head the preparations for the SACS review) to speak with the committee with regard to our role in the preparations.  It was agreed to again invite Michael Poteet to discuss ECU’s possible move toward using the CLA and how that would impact Foundations courses.

·     Consideration of combining small sections within units (if approved by the unit’s Chair) for the sake of compiling an SOIS review.  Dr. Poteat explains that currently his office has Faculty Senate approval to combine small sections of courses in Music and Art for SOIS surveys.  He has extended this practice to other units when approved by the unit’s Chair.  This is commonplace now in Music, Art, Theatre, English, Psychology, and Education courses.  This can be done with multiple sections of the same course taught by the same instructor or the same type of course.  The recommendation was approved with the addition that the faculty member as well as the chair must approve the combination of sections.

·     Consideration of combining small sections of face-to-face courses with DE courses (of the same course type) for SOIS surveys when the sections are too small to evaluate separately.  Dr. Poteat said that this situation often arises in the Business school when small sections of the same course are taught both face-to-face and as DE versions.  For instance, a graduate statistics course with 3 students in a face-to-face setting could be combined with a DE section containing 4 students.  Usually these courses are really the same course but with different section numbers.  The data are combined so students cannot be identified.  Questions from the committee arose, however, concerning the designation of the course—for there are some on campus web-based courses and then there are off campus DE courses.  The designation has to do with student fees, though the assessment is alike.  The committee approved Dr. Poteat’s recommendation regarding the combining of small sections of face-to-face courses with DE courses of the same course type for SOIS surveys.

·     Consideration of the use of SOIS results from summer sessions and whether a policy should be established or just left to the discretion of department units.  Dr. Poteat explained that the use of SOIS in summer session has been voluntary.  A proposal to make summer SOIS mandatory was defeated by the faculty senate.  The question remains, however, if it is used in the summer session if there should be an established policy on its use.  Could the SOIS results during the summer be considered for merit pay raises?  Bailey and others oppose this issue as the summer session is outside of the 9 month contract—faculty elect whether or not to teach summer school and it should not be used against those who elect not to teach during the summer to allow summer SOIS to be used.  The committee agrees that the use of the SOIS during the summer should be left up to the discretion of the department chairs and faculty member.  A faculty member may ask his or her department chair to include summer SOIS results in his evaluation, but it should not be mandatory.

·     Discussion of the revision of Appendix C in the Faculty Manual with regard to the use of the Student Opinion of Instruction Survey in the evaluation of faculty to reflect the Faculty Senate resolutions.  Dr. Poteat explained that it is necessary to revise the Faculty Manual Appendix C to be more specific with regard to the use of the SOIS in faculty evaluations.  He suggests that the SOIS results should be only one item and be move further down the list of criteria that chairs should consider in faculty evaluations.  He states that the use of the SOIS as the primary method of evaluating teaching effectiveness is not warranted by the extant research data. He suggests the following revision:

 

1.      The quality of teaching must be evaluated by means of:

a.  formal methods of peer review, including direct observation of the classroom teaching of new and tenure-track faculty.

b.  Review by the unit administrator and/or peers of course materials including syllabi, reading lists, outlines, examinations, audiovisual materials, student manuals, samples of student’s work on assignments, projects, papers, examples of student achievement, and other materials prepared for or relevant to instruction.

c.    Data from surveys of student opinion when an individual faculty member’s data is consistently (more than 2 semesters) and significantly (more than 1 standard deviation) from the unit’s mean for similar courses.

d.  Other procedures provided for in unit codes

 

                   The hope is, Poteat said, that chairs will do things differently in looking at final exams, syllabi, and course materials rather than primarily SOIS results.  Several members mentioned problems, however, with what is set out and what is practiced.  Bailey stated that SOIS results should really be considered if there is some deviation—not for average teaching.  This means that you would not be using the SOIS as much for primary evaluation, and thus you would have to look at the true content of the courses.  There was further discussion about item c) in the list above—it seems unclear and may be misinterpreted.    Linda Wolfe (Chair) suggested and the committee agreed that this issue needs more discussion after some further thought. Dr. Poteat will be invited to return to our next meeting to facilitate the discussion on this topic.

·     Discussion of Outcomes Assessment of Foundation courses.  Led by George Bailey who has prepared the draft for outcomes assessment, the discussion centered upon the goals of the assessment and how these goals conform to the requirements of the SACS review.  Bailey stated that there must be direct connections between the Foundation goals and the learning outcomes.  You can target specific goals within the Foundation goals as long as they fulfill an objective.  He stressed that we need to identify weaknesses and not just strengths so that we can show improvements based upon these weaknesses.  The individual units should evaluate and assess their own foundation courses based upon the foundation goals and tell us the outcomes.  Poteat states that SACS requests that each institution sets its own goals in assessment.  He said that there are already some assessment criteria from some units, but other assessment will need to be done.  The CLA is now mandated by the State of North Carolina, which was approved by the Board of Governors and the Faculty Assembly.  Poteat states that there will likely be a pretest and a post-test in Composition and maybe in Mathematics.  This will be a first step toward the SACS review preparation.  Dr. Poteat then outlined the steps of the SACS review which involves an off-site visit (with ECU reviewed and compared to other like schools), a written response by ECU with regard to the list of deficiencies, an on-site visit (in which the SACS reviewers look at the ECU responses and its plan to remedy) and finally a Quality Enhancement Plan.  Other issues were raised concerning courses that were not recently approved for Foundations credit—how would these be evaluated?  Can or should outcomes assessment be used to make older courses fall in line with current Foundation goals?  Most agree that it will not be an easy task to encourage faculty to list the weaknesses rather than the strengths of their courses.

·     Discussion of teaching outcomes and assessment.  The committee discussed revisions to the draft of the document prepared regarding the goals and the process of outcomes assessment of Foundations Courses.  The assessment goals and procedure will go into a computer software program for the actual statistics.  Our committee is simply providing the procedures, while the administration will instigate the operations.  Assessment by the particular discipline involved should be easier since they are most knowledgeable.

“The quality of teaching must be evaluated by means of:

a.      data from surveys of student opinion, when such data have been gathered in accordance with established procedures of the department or the university, which guarantee the integrity, and completeness of said data.  As part of the effort to evaluate the teaching of faculty members, each unit shall either: develop and use its own instrument(s) as approved by the chancellor to determine student opinion of teaching or utilize the instrument developed by the Teaching Effectiveness Committee to determine student opinion of teaching.

b.      Formal methods of peer review, including direct observation of the classroom teaching of new and tenure-track faculty.

c.      Review by the unit administrator and/or peers of course materials such as syllabi, reading lists, outlines, examinations, audiovisual materials, student manuals, samples of student’s work on assignments, projects, papers, examples of student achievement, and other materials prepared for or relevant to instruction.

d.      Data from survey of student opinion when an individual faculty member’s data is consistently (more than 2 semesters) and significantly (more than 1 mean absolute deviation) different from the unit’s median for similar courses.

e.      Other procedures provided for in unit codes.”

Motion to approve was made and seconded.  The committee has approved the revised statement, so it will now be taken on to the Faculty Senate for their review.


“The quality of teaching must be evaluated by means of:
a.  formal methods of peer review, including direct observation of the classroom teaching of new and tenure-track faculty
b.  other methods of evaluation including materials such as syllabi, reading lists, outlines, examinations, audiovisual materials, student manuals, samples of student's work on assignments, projects, papers, examples of student achievement, and other materials prepared for or relevant to instruction.
c.  data from surveys of student opinion when an individual faculty member’s data is consistently (more than 2 semesters) and significantly different (in the top 10 percent or the bottom 10 percent of the distribution) when compared to similar courses in the unit.
d.  other procedures provided for in unit codes.”

 

A motion was offered and seconded to approve the revised statement.  The committee approved the motion.

 

5.       Reports to the Faculty Senate (include dates and resolution numbers).

12/4/07 Linda Wolfe (Anthropology), Chair of the Committee and George Bailey (Philosophy) a member of the Committee, both presented information on the proposed new student email system and how it will affect teaching.  

 

Faculty Senate Resolution #08-08:

Because of a series of transitional problems, the Faculty Senate believes that the

Student Opinion of Instruction Survey (SOIS) results for Fall 2007 may show

greater variability than data from other semesters and should be used with

caution taking into account factors such as response rates for individual sections

and a careful comparison with other indicators of teaching performance.

Disposition:   Chancellor

 

3/18/08 Professor Linda Wolfe (Anthropology), Chair of the Committee, presented for approval two courses (ENTH 3501 and ENTH 3502) for Foundation Curriculum Credit. There were no questions and the two courses ENTH 3501 and ENTH 3502 were approved for Foundation Curriculum Credit as requested. 

 

Faculty Senate Resolution #08-10:

Foundation Curriculum Credit for ENTH 3501: Selected Topics in Ethnic Studies,

Social Science and ENTH 3502: Selected Topics in Ethnic Studies, Humanities.

Disposition:   Chancellor

 


6.      Business carried over to next year (list in priority order).

         The submitted proposal for changes in teaching evaluations that were to be      

         included in Appendix C were sent back to the Academic Standards   

         committee by the Faculty Senate (during their April 22 Senate meeting) for

         further revisions.  These revisions will be addressed in during the next

         academic year.

 

7.       Evaluation of the committee (include anything that hindered or assisted the

          committee's work during the year).

          A.      Charge: Okay

          B.      Personnel:  very good

          C.      Attendance:  Good—particularly with chair, vice chair, secretary and ex-officio  members

          D.      Responsibilities:  Okay

          E.      Activities:  Very good

 

8.       Suggestion(s) to the Chair of the Faculty and/or Faculty Senate for improving the effectiveness of the committee. None

 

9.       Does the Committee’s organizational meeting next year need to be earlier than the date set this year?  No

         

         

                                                  Signed:  Chairperson, Linda Wolfe

                                                                      Secretary, Mark Richardson