In response to the Faculty Council reviewing the statement on academic freedom given by the UM System, the Missouri Students Association passed a resolution during its full Senate meeting earlier this week guaranteeing students rights to share class materials with students enrolled in the same course.
MSA Senator and former Maneater staff member Zach Toombs wrote the resolution with fellow MSA senator and former Maneater staff member Steven Dickherber.
“The resolution that MSA put forward is the student voice on this issue and deals with students being able to share class material among their classmates,” Toombs said.
The resolutions comes seven months after Phil Christofanelli, a Washington University in St. Louis student co-enrolled at UM-St. Louis, posted a recorded lecture of his Introduction to Labor Studies professor online. The video received harsh criticism from the UM System and the professor who had been recorded later resigned. In response to the videos being published online, UM-Kansas City and UMSL both released statements saying that the videos had been taken out of context. Christofanelli is now a graduate of Washington University, but the issue has remained controversial within the System.
“The language that the Intercampus Faculty Council had proposed was vague and could possibly prohibit students from taking advantage of techniques that have been used as long as I’ve been a student,” Toombs said. “I don’t think it was their intention to ban recording of lectures for note-taking. I think the proposal they put forward could create a gray area, and I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t any uncertainty among students whether or not they could record lectures and share class material among their classmates.”
In their meeting last week, Faculty Council members acknowledged the issue and reviewed the policy sent out by the UM System.
“At the MU level, the faculty and student opinions on this for the most part align,” Toombs, said. “I think that the Faculty Council will be glad that we weighed in on the issue.”
The controversy surrounding the video’s online posting received coverage from Fox News and the blog, Big Government, the site where the video had originally been posted.
“I do think there’s something to be said for protecting professors’ intellectual property,” Toombs said. “My main concern with this resolution was just to make sure students had the right to share class materials with other classmates.”
MSA Student Affairs Chairman Tyler Ricketts agreed with the legislation and along with Toombs and Dickherber, signed the bill. The bill nearly passed unanimously with the MSA Senate on Wednesday night, with only one senator objecting to the resolution.
“The proposal will clarify what defines sharing classroom material and will ensure that teachers are protected and students can continue to study and work together,” Ricketts said. “I think faculty will appreciate that they now have an official opinion regarding the issue. They will hopefully take our support for academic freedom into consideration when drafting a proposal.”
According to the resolution, the purpose of the bill was to ensure that a new academic freedom policy from the UM System Intercampus Faculty Council would not discourage the sharing of class materials between students in the same course.
“As the official voice of students, it is our responsibility to react to events happening on campus and around the state,” Ricketts said. “I applaud Senator Toombs for proposing a resolution so quickly.”
