Faculty Executive Committee Papers, 1925-1971 | Carleton College Archives

The record group consists of minutes, correspondence, ballots, notes and circulars of the Executive Committee of the Faculty, ranging from 1925-71.  The Executive Committee, chaired by the Dean of the College, made policy recommendations for discussion and action during faculty meetings, acted on cases of plagiarism and poor academic standing, approved grade changes, take-home examinations, and course field trips when requested by an instructor, and selected students for honors and scholarships.

The current arrangement of the collection is largely artificial;  much of the material was bound into books containing a mixture of minutes, correspondence, and other documents.  This material was separated into six series:  Minutes (1945-71), General Policy (1946-70), Petitions (1946-66), Academic Standing Issues (1946-66), Prizes, Scholarships, and Off-Campus Programs (1946-66), and Miscellaneous.  The Minutes series contains a separate folder of indices of the minutes and, interspersed with the committee minutes, an occasional year-long summary of committee actions.  The minutes of the Sub-Committee on Petitions, established on November 8, 1967, are filed with the regular committee minutes.  The General Policy series includes discussion of grading policy, the honor system and, in 1965, the possibility of creating an Air Force ROTC program with St. Olaf.

The Petitions series contains a folder of faculty petitions for waiver of final exams and requests for field trips, and a folder of requests from student organizations such as KARL and the proposed Fair Play for Cuba Committee (of note is a studen proposal for a "Junior Year On Campus").  The Academic Standing Issues series pertains to cases of plagiarism, excessive class cuts, and other problems with individual students.  Recommendations for Rhodes scholarships and Carleton teaching fellowships as well as other honors for students are contained in the Prizes, Scholarships and Off-Campus series.  Items of interest in the Miscellaneous series include documents on the abolition of Literary Societies (1948) in the Presidential Correspondence folder and discussion of the academic calendar in the Correspondence with Registrar and Deans folder.