Disruptive behavior concerns FSEC
Black tells senators there's no standards governing student behavior inside the classroom

By MARA McGINNIS
Reporter Assistant Editor

Although disruptive student behavior in the classroom has escalated in recent years, the university's rules and regulations are not designed to deal with the problem, Dennis Black, vice president for student affairs, told the Faculty Senate Executive Committee at the group's Feb. 23 meeting.

"Over the last several years, we've faced increasing concerns about student conduct inside the classroom: disruption, threats, actual violence or intimidation of instructors," said Black. "Our campus rules and regulations are not well-crafted or designed to deal with that," he added noting that the conduct standards currently in place apply to behavior outside, rather than inside, the classroom. Black admitted that the university has experienced "some difficulty with responding appropriately to the internal classroom disruptions."

While some issues are more serious, such as students drinking alcohol in class or coming to class under the influence of drugs, professors also cited such disruptive and inappropriate offenses as students using cell phones, having food delivered to them during class, kissing in the back of the classroom, unauthorized guests, reading newspapers and coming to class late and leaving early.

Dennis Malone, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, noted that professors should make clear their expectations with respect to these issues in the class policy distributed at the beginning of the course. But in extremely disruptive cases, he suggested, the university should put in place "a policy that asks (University Police) to come over and remove them from the classroom. A student does not have a right to destroy the ability of fellow students to learn in a classroom environment," Malone added.

Black proposed the creation of some type of statement of standards that would spell out the "dos" and "don'ts'" of classroom behavior, as well as some type of regulation outlining the proper procedure to be used to remove a disruptive student from the classroom temporarily and, if need be, for a longer period of time.

He added that another step could be documenting for instructors strategies to deal with students in disruptive classroom situations and techniques to clarify classroom expectations.

Black also warned senators that "there's a place for free exchange and free speech and challenge in the classroom" and that "whatever rule, regulation or standard that we propose or adopt has got to be clear enough so that everyone that comes into contact with it can tell the difference between right and wrong."

Jack Meacham, professor and chair of the Department of Psychology, said that the problem is an issue of faculty development. "I've now discovered that I have three junior faculty having some serious difficulties in their classrooms. I'm a department chair and I don't know where to go on this campus for assistance for them."

Meacham added that while probably only 3 to 5 percent of the student body contributes to classroom problems, the same ratio of faculty is likely to be out of line. He added that if the university is to employ another set of rules for undergraduates, it should also "acknowledge some of the faculty responsibilities," such as coming to class on time, being prepared and giving justification to grades.

Corinne Jorgensen, assistant professor of information studies, noted that the problems with junior faculty members may be related to the fact that they often teach the larger classes, where it is harder to monitor what is going on in the class.

According to Samuel Schack, professor of mathematics, there is "a perfectly simple principle: students cannot engage in behavior that disrupts the learning experience for other students. That's it. Your phone ringing interferes with the class. It can't happen."

Schack added that the sole arbiter of what is acceptable and what interrupts or interferes with the learning experience is the instructor. "The problem is faculty don't know what they can and can't do. Am I allowed to throw somebody out of class if he or she is disruptive? I don't know the answer to that-Most faculty would like some indication of what it is we can do in the case of disruptive students, to whom they get sent, etc.," said Shack. "I think that it needs to be in the handbook and chairs should be reminded of it each year."

Nicolas Goodman, vice provost for undergraduate education, noted the need for bureaucracy in the matter and said some sort of "appeal mechanism" should be put in place, since kicking a student out of class has "academic consequences."

Judith Tamburlin, research assistant professor in the School of Health Related Professions, asked that the faculty be educated on the legal ramifications of these issues and raised the question of whether it is illegal to stop a student from attending a class if a student is registered for a class and paying tuition, noting that "in a sense, they are a consumer."

Charles Smith, associate professor of music theory, concluded that the issue of student conduct in the classroom "is probably more a faculty problem than a student problem. A lot of us are probably afraid to be confrontational-to actually confront the behavior and insist on certain standards."