The monthly faculty meeting started with a bump in the road on Monday night in the Union Building Ballroom.
Not enough faculty members showed up for a quorum (two-thirds of the faculty) to vote on items until 4:16 p.m., though the meeting started at 4 p.m.
"If you know somebody sitting back in their office who said they were too busy to come, will you send them a text or something and give them a hard time and tell them we need them?" asked Bridget Gourley, chair of faculty.
While waiting on enough faculty to attend the meeting, Gourley went through orders of business which didn't require action such as news from the Committee on Academic Policy and Planning, Committee on Faculty, Faculty Development Committee, Committee on Administration and GLCA Academic Council Representative.
After ten more faculty members came to make quorum, the chair of faculty went back to previous business on the agenda that needed to be voted on.
Management of Academic Operations held a motion for faculty to approve new course in the Geosciences.
The Faculty Governance Steering Committee brought up a motion to suspend a portion of their bylaws and standing rules that would allow them to try out a consent agenda. A consent agenda would allow non-controversial items to be passed over at meetings, unless a faculty member wanted to bring them up for discussion.
Although three faculty members asked questions about the motion, the motion was passed through a two-thirds majority vote.
President Brian Casey brought up a few points including the announcement DePauw joined the Freedom Indiana Coalition, which is an effort to fight House Joint Resolution 6 (HJR6), which would amend the Indiana Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. This announcement sparked applause from everyone in the faculty meeting.
"In a remarkably fun twist over the last couple of days, we did this with Wabash College," Casey said. "So we jointly announced this today, going into [the Monon Bell Classic] week."
Vice President of Academic Affairs Larry Stimpert, brought up several points in regards to DePauw's image, the Winter Term proposal, and the student culture here at DePauw.
A report on academic integrity given by Dave Berque, dean of academic life included the statistics on academic integrity cases reported at DePauw in the last three school years.
Berque stated that there were 33 cases of academic integrity cases reported in the 2009-2010 school year, 49 cases in the 2010-2011 school year, 45 cases in the 2011-2012 school year, and 49 cases in the 2012-2013 school year.
Although academic integrity cases at DePauw are not necessarily on the rise, Berque noted that "most first violations are concluded with a settlement form."
Berque stressed that faculty members need to be very clear with students about their policies in their classroom, as well as outside of the classroom, in regards to their work.
