The Baruch College Faculty Handbook

Last
updated on 5/25/04

The most recent additions to this
page are nearer the top; earlier entries are further down.

MAY 2004

1. The open forum in March was extremely well attended, Larry
   Zicklin’s comments were widely judged to be excellent, and
   the discussion afterwards was lively. The Student Guide
   is now in the hands of the college’s Publications office
   and should be available for distribution in July.
2. The academic integrity bookmarks for faculty were distributed
   to faculty mailboxes. The student bookmarks were distributed
   primarily through the bookstore and the Advisement Center,
   but also by members of the faculty in classes.
3. We have arranged to discuss the CAI’s assessment instrument
   with Don McCabe and hope to be able to tailor it to the
   nation’s most diverse camous. If that proves feasible, we
   expect to participate in the CAI study in 2004-2005.
4. Other efforts for Fall 2004 include renewed presentations
   in departments and at faculty meetings. We expect to initiate
   discussions on academic integrity with student groups as
   well.
5. In early May, the Provost’s office sent a memo to all
   members of the faculty about proctoring finals — urging
   careful proctoring, offering proctoring assistance to large
   classes, and suggesting a range of best practices for the
   weeks leading up to exams and the exams themselves. A version
   of that memo is online here.

MARCH 2004

1. Those present at the January meeting reviewed the tutorial
   and quiz favorably and suggested that completing it become
   a requirement for all Baruch students. Details as to how
   to incorporate it within the curriculum need to be worked
   out, but there seems to be general support for this among
   administrators. Dennis Slavin will bring this up at the
   next meeting of the Joint Curriculum Committee in April.
2. The open forum with Larry Zicklin on March 18, which will
   take as its starting point The
   Student Guide to Academic Integrity will
   be an important component of Ethics
   Week. The two bookmarks will be distributed
   to faculty and students. (Students will receive the “Myths
   and Facts” bookmark.)
3. Members of the task force will return to the Philosophy
   Department on Tuesday, March 16 at 12:30.

JANUARY
2004 AND LOOKING AHEAD: THREE ITEMS

1. Task
Force Meeting: Thursday, January 29, 12:30 p.m.

We will meet in
the Provost’s Conference Room to review progress since our
last general meeting in January 2003. (Lunch will be provided.)
One agenda item will be presentation by Alan Bailin,
Library, on the online plagiarism tutorial
and Blackboard-based plagiarism quiz that
he created with assistance from members of the English Department.
That presentation will be followed by discussion that might
include suggestions for improving the tutorial/quiz, but
we will consider also whether successful completion of the
tutorial should be mandatory for all of our students. Should
the quizzes remain in Blackboard, attached to specific courses
(currently they are widely used in English 2100 and 2150),
or should they be moved to the web? There are logistical,
curricular, and even philosophical issues associated with
these decisions, and the task force is not empowered to
make them. But discussion could be quite helpful and we
can make recommendations. Any additional items for the agenda
should be forwarded to Dennis
Slavin.

2. The
Student Guide to Academic Integrity

• In November, the draft Guide was produced and
  distributed in hard copy as well as published as an ad in
  the Ticker. The open forums created to discuss the Guide
  were not well attended. To address that problem we have
  organized an open forum for March 18 at
  12:45 that will be sponsored by student clubs and will feature
  a talk by Larry Zicklin.
• The March 18 event will fall within “Ethics Week”
  at Baruch College this spring. The Myths
  and FACTS bookmarks will be distributed for
  that week-long series of events.

3.
Meetings with Departments (as of 1/15/04)

• The only meeting scheduled for Spring ’04 is with the
  Department of Psychology on Thursday,
  February 5, at 1:15
  p.m.
• The departments that have not scheduled
  sessions for discussion of academic integrity with members
  of the task force are: Communication Studies, Economics/Finance,
  Marketing, Statististics/Computer Information Systems, and
  Sociology/Anthropology.

NOVEMBER
2003: THREE ITEMS

1. The
Student Guide to Academic Integrity

• The draft Guide is scheduled
  to be published as an ad in the Ticker during the week of
  November 17.
• Two
  forums for public discussion have been scheduled: Tuesday,
  November 25 at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. in Room 14-266.

2.
Remaining Meetings with Departments (as of 11/13/03)

• Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature: 
  Thursday,
  November 20, 1:00
  p.m.
• School of Public Affairs:  Thursday,
  November 20, 2:00
  p.m.

This
is a draft of a text that the admninistration
hopes to reproduce in the form of a bookmark to be distributed
to all faculty and students. It is too long. Please feel
free to suggest cuts, revisions, and necessary additions
to Dennis
Slavin.

October
2003:  Upcoming Meetings with Departments

Following is the
schedule (as of 10/20/03) of upcoming meetings
with departments. It will be updated as new meetings are arranged:

Department
of Math

Thursday, October
23

12:45 p.m. (VC
6-215)

Department
of Philosophy

Tuesday, October
28

3:45 p.m.

Department
of Fine and Performing Arts

Thursday, November
13

12:45 p.m.

Department
of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature

Thursday,
November 20

1:00
p.m.

September
2003: revised summary for faculty, student guide,
department meetings

The
revised
summary on academic integrity for faculty
was distributed by email to full-time and adjunct faculty
members on Septmeber 18.

A draft of The
Student Guide to Academic Integrity is ready
and soon will be distributed to student groups throughout
the college community. A group of dedicated students met throughout
the summer to create this draft. Many thanks (alphabetically)
to:

• Jennifer Bartlett
• Dov Berger
• Kathlene Burke
• Vanessa Cohon
• Mathew Elsner
• Jimmy Low
• Joanne Wong
• Shazana Zumpfe

 

Meetings
with Departments

Following is the
schedule (as of 9/10/03) of meetings with departments for
this semester. It will be updated as new meetings are arranged:

Department
of Black and Hispanic Studies

Thursday, September
4

5:30 p.m.

Department
of Political Science

Wednesday, September
10

12:45 p.m. (VC
5-210)

Department
of History

Thursday, September
11

12:45 p.m.

Department
of English

Thursday, October
9

12:45 p.m.

Department
of Math

Thursday, October
23

12:45 p.m. (VC
6-215)

Department
of Fine and Performing Arts

Thursday, November
18

12:45 p.m.

Department
of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature

Thursday,
November 20

1:00
p.m.

Department
of STAT/CIS

TBA

 

June 2003

Students interested
in working on the Student Guide to Academic Integrity
will meet with Ron Aaron and Dennis Slavin on Tuesday,
June 17 at 6:30 in VC 2-290.

Hard copy of Academic
Integrity at Baruch College: Summary for Faculty
distributed to faculty teaching in summer 2003.

The taskforce has
begun to make arrangements to meet with departments in Fall
2003. The planned meetings include:

History
Department

Thursday, September
11

12:45 pm

May 13, 2003

A version of the following email was sent to members of the
taskforce. Comments, especially on the XF grade, are welcome.
(Send comments to Associate Provost, Dennis
Slavin.)

Recent Meetings
Four meetings with departments have taken place in recent
weeks; most participants seemed to find them useful. An
issue that’s emerged is the general difference between disciplines
in which the integrity problems tend to be in the area of
cheating, as opposed to plagiarism. Larger rooms in which
students can sit further apart might help (as can several
different exams on different colored paper); we are looking
into using one or more of the gymnasiums for final exams
next fall and at ways to make Mason Hall more exam-friendly.

XF Grade
An approach we have discussed is a grade that would be used
only for academic integrity violations. Unlike the traditional
F, such a grade (let’s call it XF) would not be susceptible
to the F grade replacement policy. At our meeting with the
Accountancy Department, one faculty member wondered whether
such a grade might be too harsh: for someone who cheats
or plagiarizes just once, perhaps as a freshman, wouldn’t
such a black mark on the transcript, the meaning of which
would be apparent to future employers, be unfair? Several
of us have been discussing this and contemplating the use
of an XF grade (or otherwise-coded F) that would remain
on a student’s transcript until his/her last semester, when
it would turn into a straight F — eliminating the possibility
of replacement. (NB: This would not mean that the
student could not re-take the course — for required courses
they would have to — merely that the F would remain in
the transcript and be part of the GPA.) That does seem more
fair. (Obviously, we’d have to work out the wrinkles for
transfer students.) In the end, any new grade will be up
to CUNY, but we’d like to know what you think.

Syllabus Items
The faculty handbook now includes a page with sample
paragraphs on academic integrity. Faculty can cut and
paste these into their own syllabi or be inspired to create
their own. Comments are welcome.

Student Guide
to Academic Integrity Ron
Aaron (646-312-4577) and Carl
Kirschner (646-312-4578) are arranging for a first meeting
of students interested in working on the guide. Students:
meeting scheduled for Tuesday, June 17 at 6:30, VC
2-290.

May 2003
Members of the taskforce met with faculty and students
of the Departments of Accountancy, Law, the
Library, Management, and Natural Sciences
for wide ranging discussions on academic integrity issues.

April 24, 2003


Since Fall 2001, our colleagues at Queens College have experimented
with requiring students implicated in acts of academic dishonesty
to meet as a group to “encourage discussion of their
unethical behavior.” The groups have been led by Barbara
J. Moore, Assistant Professor of student personnel and a counselor
at the Counseling and Advisement Center at Queens College.
Her report of last year’s discussions was published in About
Campus (September/October, 2002) as “Truth
or Consequences.” (The link is to a typescript; it
is distributed with Prof. Moore’s permission.)

March 17, 2003
and March 27, 2003

Members of the taskforce met with the Chairs and the Dean
of the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences (3/17) and the
Zicklin School of Business (3/27) for wide-ranging discussion
of academic integrity issues. We agreed that in light of issues
specific to the various disciplines, the next step would be
to bring the discussion to each department and to involve
both full- and part-time faculty and students. These conversations
will take place during the remainder of the spring semester
and during fall 2003.

March 11, 2003

The taskforce met on Wednesday, March 12 in the Provost’s
Conference Room. The discussion took as a starting point the
Next
Steps memorandum circulated to the members in February.

January 17, 2003

The taskforce met for the first time on January 16. Those
who attended are listed at the bottom of this page. Faculty
interested in attending future meetings please contact Associate
Provost Dennis
Slavin. A brief summary of the Jan. 16 discussion follows.

January
16, 2003 Discussion

Summary

Consensus emerged around the idea that all members of the
Baruch community need to understand our interrelationships
as “collaborative” and not “adversarial.”
In an environment dedicated to the creation and dissemination
of knowledge and the pursuit of truth, our educative mission
depends on trust. Communicating that mission and the processes
it entails might start with orientation sessions and the freshman
seminar, but it should remain a significant theme in classes:
faculty should clearly communicate their understanding of
their own and student responsibilities through syllabi that
are discussed in class; procedures in cases of academic dishonesty
should be spelled out and enforced — including informing
the Office of the Dean of Students; and treatment of students
(and treatment of faculty by students; indeed treatment of
all members of the community) must begin with respect.

This emphasis is
intrinsic to our mission, but it also transcends the immediate
academic environment. Within the workplace, students will
derive at least two significant benefits: having learned to
work independently and to think critically, they will be able
to bring those skills to their careers; by earning a reputation
that our programs emphasize honesty, the college will bring
added value to the degrees we grant.

Next steps

On Thursday, Feb 6, the Provost will speak to the Faculty
Senate about faculty rights and responsibilities. Our efforts
in promoting academic integrity throughout the community will
be one focus.

Creation of effective
syllabi will be the subject of a faculty seminar and will
be the focus of an effort by the Provost’s office this semester
— as will be a move towards more systematic and effective
peer observations.

The Schwartz Communication
Institute will work this semester with individual departments
to discuss and develop discipline-based approaches to academic
integrity; these will be coordinated with the Provost’s office
and with members of the taskforce.

Potential steps

Creation of a Student Guide to Academic Integrity
parallel to the faculty guide, written by students with the
assistance of the Office of the Dean of Students.

Creation of a “generic”
websites modeled on efforts to communicate the significance
of academic integrity such as Richard
Holowczek’s website or Taylor’s letter
or “best practices”
memo. Faculty could use such generic sites, or the sites could
serve as the basis or inspiration for individual efforts.

Attendees
Ron Aaron, Associate Dean of Students

Glenn Albright, Chair, Department of Psychology

Paul Arpaia, Director, Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute

Jerry Bornstein, Library

David Dannenbring, Provost

Mindy Engle-Friedman, Ombuds and Department of Pschology

Bert Hansen, Department of History

Muhammad Iqbal, undergraduate student

Sam Johnson, Dean of Students

Carl Kirschner, Director, Student Support Services

Barbara Lawrence, Associate Provost

Alison Lovell, Writing Fellow, Bernard L. Schwartz Communication
Institute

Salome Makharadze, undergraduate student

Robert Myers, Chair, Faculty Senate and Department of Communication
Studies

David E. Rivera, MBA student

Donald Schepers, Department of Management

Dennis Slavin, Associate Provost

Eric Williams, MBA student

Joanne Wong, undergraduate student