The Faculty Senate discussed whether or not to implement a classroom disruption policy at its meeting Tuesday night.

Sanjeev Agarwal, associate professor of marketing, said the policy deals with classroom disruption that may be triggered by students enrolled in the class or non-students who may be attending the class.

The policy currently says “faculty has the responsibility to determine the curriculum, methods of delivery, and means for assessing student performance.”

The proposed policy says if any disruptive behavior occurs, the instructor has the right to ask the behavior to stop. If the disruption continues, the instructor can use various means of intervention, including suspension from class, disciplinary regulations or police intervention.

According to the proposed policy, if a student’s disruptive conduct persists, the instructor should request the chair of the department to suspend the student from class until the chair decides whether or not the student may return to class.

According to the policy, disruptive behavior includes any act that “disrupts the instructor’s ability to ensure a safe environment, control the class agenda, and/or deliver the approved curriculum.”

Questions about which specific acts constitute disruptive behavior were raised.

“There is no specification for grounds of dismissal. It would be dangerous for us to make statements that aren’t specific,” said Gary Mattson, associate professor of community and regional planning. “It’s too vague.”

Gary Phye, professor of curriculum and instruction, said the senate can’t define every instance of disruption. There must be a “trigger mechanism” defined that starts the entire process.

Phye said there should be a statement that “operationally defines what is disruptive behavior.”

He said the policy should contain language expressing that it is the instructor’s responsibility to tell the class what constitutes disruptive behavior.

“We have to be very careful to add strong language to get across the message that this is a serious situation,” said Carolyn Heising, professor of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering.

Stephanie Madon, assistant professor of psychology, disagreed with Phye and preferred a broader definition of disruptive behavior.

“You can’t define what it is and include every action,” she said.

Also discussed were the ramifications imposed on the student in the existing and proposed policies.

The policy states,”if the department chair decides that the student should not be allowed to return to the class, the chair will instruct the Registrar to terminate the student’s enrollment in the class.”

Questions about whether or not terminated enrollment is equivalent to dropping or failing a class were addressed.

“I interpret it to mean it is a withdrawal,” said Jack Girton, Faculty Senate president-elect.

Dan Bullen, associate professor of mechanical engineering, said he thinks the terminated enrollment is punishment.

“As punishment, that should mean they fail the class,” he said.

Madon said failing a class means something, and disruptive students don’t fail the class — they are just forced to leave.

The policy will be revised and the senate will vote on it at its next meeting.

Also discussed was a change in the admission policy for the College of Business. The change proposes students not in the college will only be allowed to take nine business credits at the 300 level and above without having to meet the college admission requirement.

Yoshi Suzuki, assistant professor of logistics operations and management information systems, said the proposed change will attempt to prevent students from taking all business classes required for a degree without meeting the requirements.

John Robyt, professor of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, said he couldn’t understand the reasoning behind the change.

“Why do you want to keep students out of classes?” he said.

The policy will be voted on at the next Faculty Senate meeting at 7:30 on Dec. 10.