Attendance:
Faculty: Mr. Dade, Ms. Griffin, Mr. Harris, Mrs. Gacka, Mrs. Thompson, Mr. Weiskopf, Ms. Agar
Student: Cecile Murray, Hannah, Hunter, Paui Sankfor, Sam Mintzer, Michael Marabito, Nate Baker, Chip Herman
Discussion:
Reminding the senate of the new blog and the ability to write as authors.
Motion to work out a concrete proposal reflecting our discussion.
*Mr. Peters bursts through the door with a concerned expression upon his face*
Mr. Walton not aware of PE potential revisions.
To be worked out later.
Ideas for revision of Cum Laude
Larger initial pool of candidates
Determined by the initial committee
Then goes to faculty meeting to vote on the final choices.
Faculty might look at top 25% of class
Would raise objections if necessary
Then go to the cum laude committee for final review.
Nominations
Begin with class list and nominate those who the faculty think are good candidates.
Then confirm that they are in the top percentage of the class.
Some reservations throughout the senate about nominations
Teachers choosing their favorite students.
May not necessarily reflect academic achievements.
Possibly email list of top percentage to faculty initially.
This way the faculty would have time to reflect upon the candidates and send any response indicating concern.
Discussion leaning towards a smaller committee that would make the final decision
Would have access to all information without fear of too much breach of confidentiality.
Current System
Junior Year
Committee 20% to faculty evaluation 10% are inducted
Senior Year
10% already inducted
Committee next 20% to faculty evaluation 10% are inducted
Problems:
Distinctions between straight GPA get down to the thousandths. GPA becomes almost arbitrary.
Problems with ranking. Too subjective teacher by teacher.
Some teachers simply don’t know the top candidates well enough to feel comfortable ranking them.
Proposed systems:
25-30% Committee which can rank those students
Must be able to make a final decision because of the confidentiality aspect.
Problems:
Comfortability issue being bumped from above the cutoff point because someone else, who didn’t make the initial cut, had to be moved up.
Committee top next 20% of senior class faculty nominations committee for final review.
Minutes compiled by Senator Herman
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As one who was absent for this discussion, I want to say thank you, first, for the degree of detail in these minutes. This is a real service.
ReplyDeleteOne aspect of the Cum Laude business that seems to be tying us in knots is the strict limit on the numbers that can be admitted, i.e., the 10%/20% rule. It is obvious from the minutes that we are struggling how to define that top group in a way that is simultaneously objective, subjective, fair, and precise. Did I mention transparent? Some of the apparent difficulty of the task might be eased if we had more flexibility in the numbers. That thought leads me to question the assumption that Hawken will continue with Cum Laude.
Are the feelings about the Cum Laude tradition that strong?
Does Cum Laude mean anything beyond graduation?
What are the alternatives in terms of other honor societies with which Hawken could affilitate? What are their rules?
Could Hawken perhaps go it alone, either with its own honor society or simply not have this sort of thing? I am not advocating the latter, but just put it out as an extreme option.
As an example of how different a home-grown model could look, we could say that eligibility for HHS (Hawken Honor Society) requires a minimum GPA of (pick a number) as well as evidence of good character (list possible criteria) and love of learning...or whatever...(list possible criteria). Everyone who qualifies is in.
Among other advantages:
1. Students are competing against a standard, rather than against one another.
2. The standard is known in a way that allows students to assess where they stand.
3. We could make a flexible standard that encourages students to risk taking more challenging courses.
4. We could make a standard that more heavily weights more recent courses so that a student's chances are not necessarily ruined by a bad grade early on.
5. We could set up something for which underclassmen are eligible (a junior honor society, perhaps) so that academic achievement can be recognized at all levels.
Your thoughts?
Doc M.
I believe we will run into the same problem regardless of whether we continue with Cum Laude or adopt a different system. We will still be required to make a difficult cutoff between students who are accepted into the society and students who are not. Even if we set the cutoff at the beginning of the year we will have perfectly deserving people who miss the cutoff by tiny fractions of GPA points. Cum Laude is a flexible structure. We have the ability to decide who is accepted and on what merits. The only thing that we do not have control over is the 10% admittance rate. I believe it is best to stick with a nationally recognized program.
ReplyDeleteIt may also be difficult to develop a check list for good character.