Overview
It is often risky to claim that an individual, a group, an institution practices high ethical standards and is noted for integrity. Yet most people associated with Great Basin College over the years—students, employees, the community, elected officials, the Chancellor's Office and Board of Regents, the state's educational community at large—would not disagree with such a claim about the school. Having a clear, realistic vision and mission—as the College has had—sustains integrity.

Conduct
Ethical Conduct. General policies regarding standards of fair treatment for faculty, staff and administration may be found in the UCCSN Board of Regents Handbook. General policies regarding standards of ethical conduct for all members of the UCCSN community—faculty, administration, staff and students—may be found in the UCCSN Code as cited in the Great Basin College General Catalog 2002-2003, particularly pp. 134-144. Specific behaviors that are prohibited for faculty are found on p.134, Section 6.2 Cause, subsections 6.2.1, (a) through (j). Specific behaviors that are prohibited for all members of the community are found on pp.134-135, Subsections 6.2.2, (a) through (t). (Exhibit 9.1, UCCSN Code “Ethical Conduct”)

Other Policies for All Employees. The College has written procedures warning against the unauthorized use of computer programs and the illegal/immoral uses of the Internet or email.

Policies Specific to Students. Policies addressing affirmative action, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, retention and disposition of student records, conduct of students while at Great Basin College, tobacco, sexual harassment and substance abuse issues are found in the catalog on pp. 22-25. Probation, suspension, reinstatement as well as appeals procedures are described on pp. 41-42 of the GBC catalog. The processes for grade appeals and for questioning a faculty member’s professional behavior are described on pp. 46-47 of the GBC catalog.

Departmental rules on academic honesty, plagiarism, Internet use are maintained and enforced by the English Department and the Social Science Department.

There have only been two instances of student grievance which have gone beyond the department chair level—one ten years ago and the other about five or six years ago. Both were resolved satisfactorily.

Policies Specific to Faculty. One area of recent concern to the faculty is the process for failing to re-appoint a tenure-track faculty who has not achieved tenure status. Therefore this policy will be discussed in some detail. There were two cases in the past two years in which tenure-track faculty were not re-appointed after they had taught at GBC for one year.

Statements regarding faculty rights specific to fair treatment are in the UCCSN Board of Regents Handbook, with procedures related to notices of non-reappointment for non-tenured faculty in Title 2, Section 5.9.1. and grievance procedures in Title 2, Section 5.7. Evaluation procedures are specified in Title 2, Section 5.11. This section also refers the reader to the institutional by-laws for further explication. (Exhibit 9.2a, UCCSN Code, Policies on Faculty Fairness; Exhibit 9.2b, Part-Time Faculty Handbook 2001-2002; Exhibit 9.2c, Faculty Workload Policy; 9.2d, GBC Faculty Senate By-Laws)

Policy for the attainment of tenure status for community college faculty are found in Title 2, Chapter 4, Sections 4.1 through 4.4.9. The Great Basin College Policy and Procedure Guide, Chapter 5, Section 3, p.7, specifies that a tenure committee shall be appointed for each new tenure track faculty member by the vice president of the administrative unit in which the new faculty member serves.

While the specific duties of the tenure probationary committee are not written in the UCCSN Code or in the Policy and Procedure Guide of Great Basin College, each newly appointed member of each respective faculty member’s committee receives a memo from the Vice-President for Academic Affairs specifying those duties as well as indicating that the committee must meet each semester of the new faculty member’s probationary period and provide a written statement to the faculty member regarding his or her performance. In addition to providing the committee with a statement of the candidate’s annual goals, the committee must obtain information concerning ten additional areas of performance. If this is done properly and in a timely fashion, each candidate should be able to understand the areas that he or she needs to work on for continued appointment as well as for the ultimate attainment of tenured status. Of course, this information will assist in documenting the candidate’s areas of excellence as well.

If there is an inconsistency in the application of these policies, the candidate could suffer and not be reappointed or not attain tenure. On the other hand, it is conceivable that a candidate may be granted tenure without having his or her performance adequately documented.

Any time a faculty member experiences non-reappointment, there could be a negative response on the part of his or her colleagues. If the tenure committee has performed its duties in a competent and timely fashion, and indeed has worked in a mentoring capacity for the new appointee, and if non-reappointment still occurs, the faculty member and other campus personnel may be satisfied that due process has been followed.

Presently the performance of probationary tenure committees at GBC is inconsistent: some tenure committees are helpful to the candidate, and some are not.

It is important that the policy as outlined in the Academic Vice President’s memorandum regarding the composition and duties of tenure probationary committees be written in some Great Basin College document, preferably the Policy and Procedure Guide. This is an action that should be taken by the GBC Faculty Senate. If the policy is written, and every tenure committee member has the knowledge of where the policy is to be found, there will be a greater opportunity for the tenure candidate as well as his or her colleagues be assured that procedures are fairly followed and applied.

Academic Integrity. The long term philosophy of collegiality, of shared governance, has put the faculty, administration, staff, at the center of major changes at GBC. As noted elsewhere in this self-study, faculty, administration, community members have all been active in various ways in key decisions: changing the college name (suggested by a science instructor), selecting baccalaureate programs and designing them; major redesign of general education requirements, creating department chairs and lead faculty with clear delineation of duties, and, above all, attention to major issues of integrity-adjunct faculty selection and supervision, standards for new courses, periodic review of all syllabi, and increased attention to data-based change. Distance education delivery—mainly interactive video and online courses—-have raised questions regarding academic standards, intellectual property, workload, and technology support. Some of these are solvable (and are being solved) and others may very well be on-going sources of interesting discussions.

Policies Toward Outside Agencies and the Public. Great Basin College has an excellent relationships with outside agencies of all types. Outside financial auditors, for example, give good marks to the College for carefully following all ethical guidelines in accounting procedures. Program auditors of federal grants, typically from the Nevada Department of Education, know that all claims and data are honestly presented, and that through the years the Department of Education has come to trust the integrity of GBC personnel and programs. Two retired GBC employees were recognized by State of Nevada vocational educators of the year, a recognition usually reserved for K-12 colleagues.

The Complete Document for this section is located here and is in a PDF Format.