Core Component: Notre Dame College provides support to ensure that faculty, students, and staff acquire, discover, and apply knowledge responsibly.

“Inquiry beyond familiar patterns in one’s life with the intent to grasp and enjoy larger principles of organization and design is a reflection of a spirit that seeks connection and communion with the larger continuum of thought and expression, form and function. The energy to discover and rediscover questions and examine answers, to seek visions and subject them to revisions, to select and refine ideas has no limit in terms of the length of a life. In the world of art, there is an old saying that goes, ‘art is long, life is short’. Within this phrase and ‘a life of learning’ is the suggestion that inquiry never stops and that connections to other spheres of influence and discovery continues to inform one’s life, throughout life and beyond life.”

Reed Simon
Assistant Professor of Art

Evidence: Notre Dame College’s academic and student support programs contribute to the development of student skills and attitudes fundamental to responsible use of knowledge.

Student Development, under the direction of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, is built upon the rich heritage of the spirit of the Sisters of Notre Dame. The staff carries out the mission of education and care with a special emphasis on serving the student. The focus is holistic. The staff recognizes each student as an individual with social, emotional, spiritual, physical, intellectual, and psychological needs.

The purpose of Student Development is to facilitate the growth of each student in an atmosphere of support, encouragement, and mutual respect. Each seeks to enhance and protect both the rights and responsibilities of each student and of the community.

The offices within Student Development are:
The Dwyer Learning Center Dining Services
Campus Ministry Residence Life
Career Services Campus Activities
Counseling Center Commuter Student Services
International Student Services Judicial Affairs
Student Disability Services Academic Support Center

The Dwyer Learning Center offers assistance to students so they can reach their academic ambitions and goals. The program provides extra academic support in the form of tutorial assistance for course-related problems. The Director and student tutors work with students and communicate regularly with the students’ instructors.

The Academic Support Center (ASC) for Students with Learning Differences is designed to support students with documented learning disabilities such as attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and dyslexia. Services offered are voluntary and comprehensive, created to develop independence and self-advocacy. Among its services, the ASC provides tutoring, advising, and training on adaptive equipment.

Career Services helps students better understand the career search process and helps students transition from college to the work place or to graduate programs.

Career Services sponsors a wide variety of programs and workshops to help students in all areas of career planning from choosing a major to job search techniques. Programs such as resume writing, interviewing skills, dressing for business, dining etiquette, and negotiating the job offer are provided. Career services also sponsors career nights, career fairs, and oncampus recruiting events throughout the year to aid students in exploring full and part-time employment opportunities.

Counseling services at the College include individual and group counseling, personal growth workshops, and education about mental health topics.

The choice to begin, continue, or terminate counseling is left to the student. The counseling relationship is protected by law and is strictly confidential.

“If you seek to find better more productive ways of doing your job, or tackle the latest technology in your field and apply it to your work you could be considered a lifelong learner.”

Mary McCrystal
Director of Student Financial Assistance

Campus Ministry promotes the spiritual growth of the Notre Dame College community. Through the Catholic identity of the institution and the charism of the Sisters of Notre Dame, Campus Ministry foster personal and spiritual growth through which each person grows in their understanding of themselves, God, and the world. This is accomplished through service to the community around us, worship and prayerful experiences, meaningful activities, and community building.

Campus Ministry also provides opportunities for students to gather in small groups, hold discussions, and assume leadership roles.

Recognizing the diversity within the Notre Dame community and the wide spectrum of religious backgrounds therein, Campus Ministry encourages all people to pursue their own spiritual development.

International Student Services welcomes students from around the world into the Notre Dame community as part of the College’s mission to educate a diverse population of students for personal, professional and global responsibility. The Student Development Team fosters crosscultural understanding and diversity awareness on campus, while the Director of International Student Services serves as the point person for recruitment, retention, acculturation, and immigration issues regarding international students.

Notre Dame College follows explicit policies and procedures to ensure ethical conduct in its research and instructional activities.

Notre Dame College is a private, Catholic, liberal arts college, which holds basic traditions and Christian principles including levels of ethical and moral expectations. The College therefore, reserves the right to establish and enforce regulations governing student, faculty, and staff behavior in areas affecting the well being of the College and members of its community.

An Institutional Review Board (IRB) approves any written surveys or research projects involving human subjects. Course syllabi that incorporate research on a regular basis include the need to receive IRB approval before beginning any study.

Notre Dame students are assumed to be adults who understand the necessity to conduct themselves in a manner that is compatible with the College’s mission. Each student is expected to become familiar with all published policies, rules, and regulations and is held responsible to follow them.

Each student is free to exercise rights as an individual and responsibilities as a citizen. The College also has certain rights; therefore, the College may take appropriate action if the student’s behavior adversely affects the name of the College and its constituencies. If such action is necessary, procedural rules are afforded to all parties.

Notre Dame College has instilled a level system on which the discipline procedures are based. The policies are divided into four levels according to severity with Level I being the least severe and Level IV being the most severe.

“A life of learning is the relentless asking of great questions and the pursuit of quality answers as an essential component of living a good life.”

Kenneth Palko
Assistant Professor of Philosophy

College policies, procedures, and regulations are published in the College Catalog, the Student Handbook, the course schedule, and College’s website.

Examples of policies, procedures, and regulations that are in place at Notre Dame to ensure ethical conduct in instructional activities include class attendance, academic dishonesty, acceptable computer use, falsifying IDs and deception, grade appeals, plagiarism, and student records.

Class Attendance
Attendance regulations reflect the effort of the College to admit students who are responsible for their educational progress. It is expected that the student will attend each meeting of a course. However, the instructor sets the attendance policies and the student must adapt to the demands of each course. In the event of excessive absence resulting in unsatisfactory work, the instructor may give ample warning to the student and then recommend that the student drop the course up to the deadline established for withdrawal.

Academic Dishonesty
Academic dishonesty is defined as any attempt by a student to complete work by any means other than what is permitted by the instructor. Academic dishonesty can include bringing information to a test, getting answers from another student, plagiarism or obtaining quiz or exam questions ahead of time. Severe penalties can occur as a result such as a zero on the piece of work or a failing grade for the course.

“For working people in the 2000s the idea of ‘a life of learning’ has taken on an important new urgency, and possibly even a new meaning. As the world has changed from an industrial focused economy to an information and technology based economy there has been a rapid change in employers’ needs. For most employees this change results in reinventing themselves or at least expanding their skills. It used to be employees could stay in the same position for their entire career; today’s employees need to be prepared to change not only jobs, but often change fields. Today’s employees must be committed to ‘a life of learning’ or risk being either under-employed or unemployed.”

Stuart Smith
Website Director

Acceptable Use of Computers
The use and promotion of Information Systems on campus is to further the mission of the College. Therefore, all use of these systems must be in accordance with that goal. College policy prohibits any installation or use of software on its computer systems that violates the licensing agreement of the specific software or that violates the software licensing agreement of the College. In addition, users are responsible for safeguarding their accounts with a confidential password known only to them and users may not attempt to log into accounts other than their own, access files of other users with their expressed written consent or attempt to breach the electronic security of the system. Lastly, sending mass e-mail, known as S.P.A.M. is considered a second level offense in the student disciplinary code.

Plagiarism
An assignment containing plagiarized material will receive a failing grade. All incidents of plagiarism are to be reported to the Vice President for Academic Affairs and a letter citing the incident will be included in the student’s official file. In the event a second incident of plagiarism occur during the student’s academic career at the College, he or she will earn an “F” in the course and a letter regarding the incident will be entered into the student’s official file. In the event a third incident should occur, the student will be dismissed from the College and readmission would be unlikely. Upon graduation, all materials referring to the incident of plagiarism will be removed from the student’s file and destroyed.

Student Records
To protect students’ privacy and to insure that their records are accessible to them, Notre Dame has designed a policy for maintaining and administering student records. Notre Dame’s policy is in compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA). The complete College policy is on file in the Office of Student Records.

Faculty Personnel Policies
Faculty Personnel Policies are detailed in Volume IV of the Policy Manual approved November 21, 2005. The Policy Manual contains the approved policies and procedures of Notre Dame College concerning the terms and conditions of faculty employment for faculty members and is incorporated by reference into the individual employment contract of each faculty member.

Chapter 8, Section 8 of the Policy Manual (pages 15-21) addresses Faculty Obligations, Rights, Academic Freedom, and Code of Ethics.

With regard to Academic Freedom, Notre Dame College endorses the statements adapted from the Definition of Academic Freedom accepted by the Association of American Colleges and the American Association of University Professors. These statements (provided below) are supported in the context as they relate to the assertions written in the “Declaration of Christian Education,” #10, The Documents of Vatican II, edited by Walter M. Abbott, S.J., Guild Press, 1966, page 648. According to the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church “seeks in a systematic way to have individual branches of knowledge studied according to their own proper principles and methods, and with due freedom of scientific investigation. She intends thereby to promote an ever deeper understanding of these fields, and as a result of extremely precise evaluation of modern problems and inquiries, to have it seen more profoundly how faith and reason give harmonious witness to the unity of all truth.” The endorsed statements are:

Institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good and not to further solely the interest of the individual teacher or even the institution as a whole. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition.

Academic freedom is essential to the purpose stated above and applies to both teaching and research. Freedom in research is fundamental to the advancement of truth. Academic freedom is also fundamental for the protection of the rights of the teacher in teaching and of the student to freedom in learning. It carries with it duties correlative with rights:

  • Faculty have the right to freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties. Research for monetary gain should be based upon an agreement with the authorities of the institution.

  • Faculty are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject but should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to the subject. Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of appointment.

  • College or university faculty are citizens, members of a learned profession and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As persons of learning and as educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge the profession and the institution by their utterances. Hence, they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make an effort to indicate that they are not institutional spokespersons.

Given these statements and their application, the College encourages intelligent analysis and discussion of Catholic dogma and official pronouncements of the Holy See of issues on faith and morals. However, continued open advocacy in the classroom or in assigned College activities of viewpoints which contradict explicit principles of Catholic faith or morals is opposed to the specified aims of Notre Dame College. A faculty member engaging in such practices shall be entitled to a warning from the President, complete with a full list of particulars. In this context, scholarly publications are not considered College activities unless the publication is an official College publication.

A Statement of Professional Ethics for Faculty of Notre Dame College is located in the Faculty Personnel Policies Manual (pages 19-20). Notre Dame College is a private, Catholic institution with its unique philosophy of education. Faculty are made aware of this statement and its philosophy before entering into contractual terms with the College. The statement addresses expectations of faculty in their role(s) as teacher, scholar, and as members of the academic community and colleagues at Notre Dame.

Disputes involving a charge that a faculty member’s rights or academic freedom have been violated or that professional ethics have not been maintained are to be settled through the established grievance procedures in Section 4.12 of Volume IV Policy Manual.

 

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