Academic Senate
2007-2008 
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Academic Freedom

e-mail comments from Skip Seibel, with a reply from Dave Clemens

 

Thanks from me and the committee as well, Skip; we appreciate thoughtful and constructive advice.  Your points are well-taken, and, as Fred mentions, others have suggested a revision here as well.  I like your suggested wording.

 

--Dave  

 

From: Alfred Hochstaedter
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 11:24 AM
To: Arnold Seibel; David Clemens; David Joplin; Paola Gilbert; Todd Bernard Weber; Homer L. Bosserman
Cc: Jeannie Kim
Subject: RE: Final Academic Senate meeting report

 

Thank you Skip, for your comments. With this message I am forwarding your comments to the committee that wrote the proposed policy. Later on I will forward all comments to the Academic Senate as a whole. In our discussion at the last Academic Senate meeting, the subject of attitudinal or behavioral evaluations did come up. We have not, however, come to final decisions on any of the topics discussed.

 

Thank you for carefully reading the policy and taking the time to respond. I expect that this conversation will continue next semester.

 

-Fred

Academic Senate President

 

From: Arnold Seibel
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 11:10 AM
To: Alfred Hochstaedter
Cc: Jeannie Kim
Subject: RE: Final Academic Senate meeting report

 

I recommend a change in the sentence in Paragraph 6, lines 9-10: "Attitudinal, behavioral, and/or values laden evaluations should never be formulated or applied."

 

The phrase "behavioral...evaluations" can and should be interpreted to include evaluation of the ability to perform a prescribed action, be it focusing a telescope or finding an article online or dancing on tiptoes. Behavioral evaluations in this sense are necessary in any discipline that includes performance. The word "behavioral" was no doubt included in this sentence with the intention of forbidding evaluation of students' behavior according to religious, political, or other doctrinal criteria--but "values" covers that.

 

I'm not too sure about "[a]ttitudinal," either. Don't ball players get points for hustle? Isn't that an attitude?

 

Come to think of it, aren't precision and accuracy "values" if you're in the physics lab?

 

I think the subject of this sentence should be more to the point, which, as I understand it, is evaluations based on doctrinal criteria extraneous to the discipline.

 

Thanks for your time.

 

Skip Seibel

English and Study Skills Center