THE DAILY TARGUM
Volume 141, Number 97
S E R V I N G
T H E
R U T G E R S
C O M M U N I T Y
S I N C E
TUESDAY MARCH 2, 2010
1 8 6 9
Today: Cloudy
FINAL ACT
High: 45 • Low: 33
The Rutgers women’s basketball team beat Louisville 72-52 after honoring Brittany Ray, Myia McCurdy and Rashidat Junaid in Senior Night at the Louis Brown Athletic Center.
RUSA plans to restructure, unite U. student body BY ARIEL NAGI NEWS EDITOR
In an effort to make student government more effective, the Rutgers University Student Assembly is implementing a new constitution that consolidates all of the campus councils into one large governing body. The constitution would have to go through a referendum process, where the RUSA body and students will vote on a decision to adopt the new regulations. “Student government wants to consolidate the campus councils into RUSA, and through that we need to write a new constitution and pass it through referendum,” said Josh Slavin, RUSA member and student representative for the Board of Trustees. Members will hold a possible RUSA Town Hall meeting on March 11, where the student body can give their feedback on the new constitution. The key difference in the new document is that all members of the campus councils will be members of RUSA rather than their own separate entities. “For example, if you’re elected to the Busch Campus Council, you’re actually ser ving as a member of RUSA [that assists] the Busch [campus student body],” said RUSA Chair Werner Born. Slavin, a Livingston College senior, said under the new constitution, members would not have to attend as many meetings, allowing members to have more free time. He said it would also assure that conflicting decisions are not made behind closed doors, and that students have a more transparent understanding of what student government is doing. “Now you have almost 10 or 11 people meeting ever y week,” he said. “It makes it hard for students
SEE RUSA ON PAGE 4
INDEX
JOVELLE ABBEY TAMAYO/ PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
The University continues to reach out to alumni to implement more online courses for post-doctorate degree programs. If the program further expands, within five to 10 years the University could potentially bring in more than $30 million in revenue.
Alumni click with online courses BY COLLEEN ROACHE CORRESPONDENT
In accordance with University President Richard L. McCormick’s plans to increase online enrollment by 20 percent per year over the next five years, the University is working to expand programs offered through the Web. “Within the context of higher education, it is an important element that Rutgers needs to move into, at least to some extent greater than it has in the past,” said Raphael Caprio, vice president of Continuous Education and Outreach. The University is targeting its 380,000 living alumni who, regardless of
where they are now, can reap the benefits of a postgraduate degree from New Jersey’s state university, Caprio said. “The average college graduate today will need the equivalent of seven more years of full-time education and professional development to sustain a competitive place in the workforce,” he said. “There’s absolutely no reason that we should not be making our resources available to our graduates.” The University hopes graduates will stick with their alma mater throughout their professional lives, Caprio said. Although he said most of the online courses are equivalent to what is done in the classroom in terms of quality, there is still much work to be done.
BY KRISTINE ROSETTE ENERIO UNIVERSITY EDITOR
A University team of researchers unveils the effects of a virus that can monitor the use of smart phones.
OPINIONS Would banning smoking from open spaces on campus be fair to students? UNIVERSITY . . . . . . . 3 OPINIONS . . . . . . . 10 DIVERSIONS . . . . . . 12 CLASSIFIEDS . . . . . . 14 SPORTS . . . . . . BACK
DAILYTARGUM.COM
SEE COURSES ON PAGE 4
Committee to enact clarified integrity policy
UNIVERSITY
ONLINE @
“I would rather we grow a little slower and do it right,” he said. “Our focus for faculty training is not on technology but on best practices.” With time and experience, come better courses, Caprio said. “Every semester, the faculty that are engaged in online courses learn more about how to do it better,” he said. Individual sectors of the University will move their online programs forward at a rate that is comfortable for them, Caprio said. The School of Communication and Information is a good example for other academic departments.
RAMON DOMPOR/ ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
School of Arts and Sciences senior, Chris Fioravante, discusses the new integrity policy. It includes clearer language and take new technologies into account.
After spending a year of research and contemplation, the Ad Hoc Academic Integrity Committee sought student feedback last night as they unveiled the details of their proposed changes to the Academic Integrity Policy. Written in 1987, the policy does not take into account new technologies that could facilitate cheating such as cell phones and laptops, said Christopher Fioravante, an Ad Hoc committee member. The committee also found the wording and processes of the former policy too complicated and difficult for students to understand. “We wanted to create procedures that were less complex … easy to understand, more transparent and [consistent] across all the University schools and college campuses,” said Fioravante, a School of Arts and Sciences senior. The University first made efforts to improve these problems in 2004 which led to the establishment of an interim policy four years later, which is still in effect. In their proposal, academic violations are split into two categories — separable and non-separable — as opposed to the four levels of violations setup by the interim policy.
Non-separable of fenses encompass smaller violations that could be handled by a faculty member, such as cheating on a quiz. On the other hand, separable of fenses are more severe and can be punishable by suspension or expulsion. A student who commits a separable offense may be penalized with an “XF” grade, or a disciplinar y F, placed on his or her permanent record that indicates a class failure due to an integrity violation. Those wishing to remove the “X” must wait two years before they can submit a request and have it considered by the Academic Integrity Appeals Committee. “One can argue whether two years is too much … but in order for it to go away, you would have to take some sort of online course … on integrity and to not take part in any academic dishonesty … to show that you kind of thought hard about this,” said committee Chair Martha Cotter. To generate more student involvement, the committee also proposes the creation of an honors council where students from the Newark, Camden and New Brunswick campuses will work to promote academic integrity.
SEE POLICY ON PAGE 4