The Honor Committee and the Faculty Senate Academic Affairs Committee have recently begun discussing the creation of an honor survey directed at faculty members to gauge their perception of the honor system.
Initially, an Academic Affairs subcommittee was charged with addressing faculty perspectives on honor, and the committee considered drafting a formal survey concerning faculty's attitudes regarding the honor system during the fall semester. At the last Faculty Senate meeting, however, the Faculty Senate's Executive Council advised neither the Senate nor any of its committees or subcommittees to undertake the survey on its own, Academic Affairs Committee Chair Kenneth Schwartz said.
Rather than the Faculty Senate conducting the survey on its own, the Executive Council recommended working in conjunction with the Honor Committee, Schwartz said.
"It will be a student-initiated survey of faculty perceptions," Schwartz said.
University Center for Research Director Tom Guterbock said he began working with the Faculty Senate to create a framework for the survey last semester.
"The idea behind the survey is to find out faculty experiences with the honor system and the opinions about how to maintain and change it in any way," Guterbock said.
During an Academic Affairs Committee meeting last semester, students at the meeting suggested performing a survey in order to garner more precise faculty member views on the Honor Committee instead of anecdotes.
In an effort to develop survey material, Guterbock said faculty members and students recently held a meeting in which the group generated a list of topics a potential survey should cover. Since the survey still is in its initial phase, Guterbock said a specific list of topics has not yet been decided upon.
Honor Committee Chair Meghan Sullivan said she recently has been working with the Academic Affairs Committee to discuss how the Honor Committee could participate in a student-initiated survey of faculty attitudes.
"I think they want a lot of student support, so they decided to go through the [Honor] Committee," Sullivan said.
The Honor Committee has not been able to discuss the survey in detail because it currently is occupied with spring elections and transition to new members, Sullivan said. She added that Honor Committee members will decide if they would like to become involved with the survey, and, if so, the survey then will become one of the their priorities for this semester.
When the survey is completed, Guterbock said he would like the survey to be distributed to all faculty members and teaching assistants.
"It is important to get opinions from the full faculty," Guterbock said. "We do not have a clear, solid data on what a large number of faculty feel. It is a student-run system, but without the faculty's support, it cannot work."
Schwartz said if the Honor Committee decides to participate in the survey, it could be distributed to the faculty this spring, and the newly-elected Honor Committee would consider the data.
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