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Increased resources, education recommended to improve academic integrity on campus

Dan Treadaway
Institute Communications and Public Affairs

Adding more staff to focus on issues of academic integrity and increasing the pool of faculty and staff to serve on academic misconduct hearing panels were among the recommendations presented by the Academic Misconduct Review Committee at the Sept. 17 joint meeting of the Academic Senate and General Faculty Assembly.

The committee began its work nearly a year ago in the wake of nearly 200 students in the introductory computer science course being accused of academic misconduct by collaborating on homework assignments. Addressing the resulting bottleneck of hearings requested by many of those students was a part of the committee’s focus, and Chair Cheryl Contant, director of the City and Regional Planning Program in the College of Architecture, said recommendations to add more faculty, students and staff to the process should help resolve that issue.

The committee’s work, however, went well beyond the issue of misconduct hearing logistics to address broader issues of the role of academic integrity in Georgia Tech’s campus culture. Among the committee’s 10 recommendations is a resolution that the Academic Senate “create a new Committee on Academic Integrity. This committee would work in parallel with the current Student Honor Advisory Council (but at the faculty level) to ensure that the Honor Code becomes a more integral part of academic values at Georgia Tech.”

“The idea is that the Committee on Academic Integrity would think more proactively about broader academic integrity issues,” Contant said. “The committee felt very strongly that we need a group of people to continually focus on the grander concepts of integrity, as opposed to the specifics of particular cases of alleged misconduct.”

The committee also recommended the creation of a mandatory non-credit course on academic integrity for first-time offenders, which would be imposed along with all other academic sanctions resulting from an investigation and/or hearing. “The Dean of Students office, faculty members, students and other stakeholders would participate in the development and planning of the course,” the recommendation states. “We also recommend that faculty members at the Institute teach such a course. This would place it into an educational context, rather than be seen as simply a punitive measure.”

President Wayne Clough expressed appreciation for the committee’s work and support of their recommendations. Clough specifically cited a recommendation that “the current process should be altered to allow and encourage the option for a three-way, face-to-face meeting between the student, the faculty member and a member of the Dean of Students Office,” provided that both the faculty member and student agree to the meeting. “Under the current system, a faculty member can walk the paperwork over to the Dean of Students Office and essentially be done with it,”

Clough said. “The new system will not only allow, but encourage the faculty member to become directly engaged in the process early on, and that should go a long way toward reducing the number of cases that get to the hearing stage.”

After a brief discussion, the committee’s recommendations were adopted unanimously.

Post-Tenure Review
The Senate and General Faculty also heard a report from the Post-Tenure Review Institute Oversight Committee, which was co-chaired by Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies Robert McMath and Mechanical Engineering Professor Farrokh Mistree.

Post-tenure reviews were instituted at Georgia Tech five years ago with the aim of “facilitating faculty development, and ensuring intellectual vitality and competent levels of performance by all faculty throughout their professional careers,” according to the Institute’s Post-Tenure Review Policy.

“What the committee has been doing is a review of the review,” said McMath, “which we hope will tell us how well this type of assessment has worked.” He said that while the process of post-tenure review is mandated by the University System Board of Regents, one of the committee’s goals was to find ways to make the process “a humane and positive” experience for tenured faculty.

While the committee recommended retaining the faculty-driven, peer evaluation process and the provision that the decision of the faculty peer reviewers is final, the group recommended a name change from Post-Tenure Review (PTR) to Periodic Peer Review (PPR), and replacing the PTR’s Special Recognition feature with a Program for Faculty Development. Mistree said the Special Recognition element, designed to “recognize and reward outstanding faculty members via financial rewards and development opportunities,” has proven difficult to fund and applies only to the individual faculty member receiving the recognition.

The Program for Faculty Development, by contrast, helps identify areas and
strategies for improvement that can potentially apply to all faculty members in a given unit. Resources may be allocated to assist faculty in reaching the goals outlined in their development plans.

Both Mistree and McMath said the Periodic Peer Review Policy shifts the focus from faculty evaluation and assessment to faculty development, especially mid-career development. After brief discussion, the committee’s recommendations were unanimously adopted.

Aging classrooms, new degrees
In other business, the Senate and General Faculty heard a proposal from the Academic Services Committee to “endorse a new emphasis on resource allocation for the renewal and sustained support of common assets serving the entire campus,” initially focused in the areas of existing classroom space and the academic commons area of the Library and the planned Innovative Learning Resource Center (ILRC).

The proposal prompted discussion on the issue of renovation and maintenance of older classroom space. A number of faculty members cited the issue of aging classrooms as the most frequent area of student complaints in regard to their learning experience.

President Clough said that classroom space in new buildings that will be coming online over the next year or so will allow older space to be taken offline for renovation and updating. The new space will also help with overcrowding in older classrooms, he said.

The committee’s resolution was unanimously adopted.

Among the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee’s resolutions was the addition of two bachelor’s degrees in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts: a BS in Economics and International Affairs and a BS in Global Economics and Modern Languages. Both degrees were approved.

The next meeting of the General Faculty Assembly is scheduled for Oct. 8, at 3 p.m. in the Student Center Ballroom. President Clough will give his annual State of the Institute address at that meeting.

Approved by the Office of External Affairs on 09/24/97
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Last Modified: September 16, 2002
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