By MARTY LEVINE
The provost’s office is looking for input on standardizing the many academic conduct and classroom services statements — some required, some optional — that appear on course syllabi.
The Educational Policies Committee was the first stop for the vice provosts of undergraduate and graduate education on Dec. 12 with drafts of new short, standardized syllabus statements. The six required ones, under the new scheme, would be those on academic integrity, disability services, accessibility of course materials, religious observances, a copyright notice and a statement on classroom recording.
Other optional ones being discussed thus far include statements on additional support services, class meetings in event of building closures and civil discourse.
Committee members had no suggestions to change the language in these brief, straightforward statements. But some were concerned about which statements were not included, and whether required statements might offer options tailored to the type of course or level of student.
Amanda Godley, vice provost for graduate studies, said the provost’s office wished to create a new process for sharing and reviewing syllabus statements that involves shared governance. Required statements should be relevant to all courses, she said, while statements related to student well-being should be available to students in other ways.
Adam Lee, vice provost for undergraduate studies, added that the office is speaking with student affairs about the best manner in which to reach students with well-being statements.
But several committee members suggested that syllabi, often reviewed in class on the first day, were still the best way to alert students to campus mental health resources, even briefly.
Lee also acknowledged that undergraduate, graduate and online experiences are different enough that they may need different statements.
Kevin Shaver, committee member from economics in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, suggested that a statement on the use of AI needed to be among those required for all syllabi, and that it would be useful to have several choices of this and perhaps other statements “appropriate to our discipline.”
“Your points are dead on,” Lee responded. But the provost office personnel “weren’t going to tackle the whole list of them” during this review process, and in any case they should not be thought of as proscriptive.
Robin Kear, of University Library Services and immediate past Senate president, suggested that “thinking more about the guiding principle” for required versus optional statements “might be helpful.” Committee co-chair Bonnie Falcione of the School of Pharmacy said the University and Senate committees should also decide how often these statements would need to be updated, whether on a schedule or due to new developments. Other committee members wanted to make sure faculty received notice — and were encouraged to take notice — of such statement changes.
Asked whether these statements will be ready for the spring semester, Godley said: “We weren’t thinking of that quick a turnaround. You are our first stop” as a committee offering input.
Cellphone use
The Educational Policies Committee also debated whether to push for a University-wide ban on student cellphone use in classrooms — with exceptions.
Jackie Smith, faculty member in sociology but not a committee member, approached its members about the issue: “When people are on screens they are not paying attention to what is going on in the classroom,” she said.
Smith puts her own ban policy into her syllabus and explains it at the beginning of the first class, she reported. But students leaving to use their phones “is even more distracting” than phone usage in class, she said. “I get an extreme kind of push back” from the policy on her teacher evaluations (commonly known as OMETs). She has even had students drop her classes because of the policy.
She is tenured and can afford to take this initiative, but she noted that appointment stream and adjunct faculty “don’t want to risk that kind of thing happening” on their OMETs or to their course enrollment numbers.
In a class she teaches on mental health and social well-being, she even reviews studies on how high screen time can be damaging. But for students, she opined, “this addiction” to screen time, “I can feel it becoming more intense as time goes on. They don’t like to be told they can’t do something ... but I think it’s part of learning” to gain the discipline to put phones away.
In the meantime, she said, it has become “increasingly difficult and really impossible for any one faculty member to keep these devices out of our classrooms.” She pointed out that Pennsylvania is considering “banning phones from bell to bell” in primary and secondary schools.
Lorraine Denman, committee member from French & Italian, reported that her own department typically bans devices because language instructors need to teach face to face. “We’ve never had a student complain about that,” Denman said. “It’s been more of a dialogue with students” explaining why the ban is needed.
Sybil Streeter, a psychology faculty member on the committee, notes that she employs a phone ban, and that when students are discovered surreptitiously using the devices “they are contrite.” But in her 120-student psychology general education class, where students use laptops at their seats, she can’s police for social media use, for instance.
Lee said he requires devices in his classroom for Top Hat and other software that involves students offering votes on ideas and reactions to in-class questions. He pointed out that engineering instructors, for one, use the flipped class model, which employs devices for in-class assignments. “As with all good questions the answer is, it depends” on the circumstances whether device use, or the employment of AI, for that matter, is good or bad.
Shaver proposed that the University make a device ban the default rule but with exceptions to handle the above circumstances and others, such as the use of adaptive technologies for students with disabilities.
Committee Chair John Stoner said perhaps a subcommittee made up of members from several committees could look at this issue at a future meeting outside of regular committee meetings.
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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