Provisional Minutes October 6, 2009

Fellow senators,

I wasn't officially appointed to take minutes, but at about 10:24 today I looked around and realized that no one else was taking notes, so I decided to take it upon myself to do so.

Just for the sake of trying something new, I tried to take as accurate a running transcript as I could. I don't know if everyone is comfortable with their names showing up along with the comments that they made, and I'll be eager to hear your thoughts. I was typing fast, so I may have completely misattributed certain remarks...if so, keep me honest!
Best,
J. Griffin
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Cum Laude conversation continued (minutes pick up halfway through the conversation)

Attendance: Feldman Griffin Maurer Marabito Todaro Moeller Weiskopf Hermann Mintzer Kerman Murray Gacka Harris Thompson

Where the minutes pick up, we were considering the idea of creating a Dean's List proposal. Under this system, in any given "quarter," approximately 20% of students would be recognized for outstanding academic achievement, improvement, and citizenship.

Nate: Then why not just create a benchmark GPA? Everyone with a GPA above that number makes the Dean's List...we could set it at the beginning of the year and then each quarter, anyone above that GPA would be on the Dean's List.

Doc M: The Dean's list is designed to take into account more characteristics than academic achievement alone in terms of GPA.

Harris: And there's also the problem we ran into with the old Honor Roll system, which by the end included about 70 or 75% of all students. We set the bar too low. If you're going to set the GPA bar in order to include 20%, why not just specify the percentage?

Kerman: But then how would we determine what the expectations were other than academic achievement?

Harris: You could set it up such that it's not expected that the same students get the Dean's List all the time. Each student has 16 opportunities to get on the Dean's List in their time at Hawken.The characteristics would include high academic performance, for you, but also that you were involved in good things around school.

Maurer: I'd like to see a rule where if you'd been on the Dean's List say twice in a row, then you couldn't be on it the next quarter, so the Dean was encouraged to dig a little deeper on the list.

Gacka: But then would it look bad on a college transcript if you were Dean's List for two quarters but not the other two?

Harris: I'd like to get to the point where this was an honor and a nice thing to get in the mail, but not an expectation. Like, Cum Laude becomes that kind of an expectation for a student. So, "Why didn't I make cum Laude?" It's easier to answer it with the numbers than by saying "you didn't have enough intellectual curiosity." Maybe we should keep it off the transcript and you would just say it in your resume.

Murray: I like this idea of a recognition that's mostly academic but not entirely…but I think it brings us back to the same -- cum Laude…are we looking at - not just good character, but intellectual curiosity and motivation to learn, or just straight academic achievement. Because I like the dean's list proposal and I think it's a good idea and takes the pressure off of cum laude, but then what happens to cum laude? Harris: I'm repeating myself from last week, but the minimum that we need is to establish a clear process by which we can address integrity violations and issues. So if all we do is establish a pre-screening committee that sends a list out to the faculty, then we will have done what we were charged to do.

Senkfor: Is the Dean's List in addition to Cum Laude?

Harris: If we pass the Dean's List idea, then yes, it takes the pressure off the cum laude discussion by recognizing student work in another way.

Feldman: But if Dean's List isn't on transcript, then the only publicly recognized academic honor is still cum laude.

Gacka: Some students get a lot of recognition, but some students work hard very quietly. Maybe a role for advisors in communicating with the deans about student accomplishments.

Harris: Right. Maybe advisors to deans, or all faculty to deans. We could do a nomination process -- maybe like HIC nominations, or maybe less formally though an email from the deans.

Kerman: I agree with Cecile that extracurricular success is good, but the dean's list should be mostly focused on academic performance/perf. In classroom.

And the conversation will continue next time...