The students' pencils zoom across the blue lined paper scribbling to the rhythm of the professor's voice.
However, one pencil stops in mid-sentence. Looking up from his red notebook, George sits stunned at the professor's dramatic switch in lecturing about the economic law to trashing the "Bible thumping power-hungry conservatives."
Class after class, George endures the professor's random rants that steamroll over his academic freedom because he does not know how to address the problem.
The Students for Academic Freedom, a national organization with a chapter at Ball State, said the university needs to adopt its Academic Bill of Rights to ensure that students like George are protected "from the imposition of any orthodoxy of a political, religious or ideological nature."
However, Ball State does not need to endorse or to adopt the bill because the university already has academic freedom policies regarding faculty and students.
Since 1944, professors have had the freedom to discuss the assigned subject with the warning not to "introduce a controversial matter which has no relation to the subject," according to the Faculty and Professional Personnel Handbook.
In turn, the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities gives students the right to express their concerns about a faculty member.
Yet, the student code stops short.
The university's problem is not with academic freedom. The problem is that the procedure for how students express their concern about a faculty member or a class is not spelled out.
The student code neglects to tell students they can talk with the university's ombudsperson in the office of the dean of students. According to the dean's Web site, the ombudsperson "helps students resolve concerns, problems or conflicts with regard to university policies, procedures and decisions."
Randy Hyman, dean of students, said he agrees the procedure for reporting a concern with the ombudsperson is not clearly defined in the code. However, Hyman said he does not see a need for the student code to be modified because the code cannot account for every situation that could arise on campus.
Granted, students do not want the code to become an overreaching document that meddles into every situation. Yet, students' academic freedom is not a lighthearted issue.
The code also neglects to tell students the procedure for voicing a concern about a faculty member of a class is similar to the grade appeal process.
In the process, students need to talk with the professor first, and then the department chair, Beverley Pitts, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said. If a conclusion cannot be reached, students need to contact the dean of students.
For students concerned about a professor or a class, the procedure continues when the dean refers the case to the university's Academic Freedom and Ethics Committee of the Professional Affairs Council for further investigation.
Again, both methods of voicing a concern are not mentioned in the student code.
The university has silenced how students, like George, can voice their concerns by not making the process well known. The university needs to require all faculty members to include a statement about academic freedom in their class syllabuses. Incorporating academic freedom into the syllabuses will help professors maintain an open classroom by being honest with students from the beginning.
Instead of pushing for the Academic Bill of Rights, students can amend the student code to include the procedures for expressing academic freedom concerns by appealing to the University Senate's Students Rights, Ethics and Standards Committee at its next meeting at 4 p.m. on Jan. 20 in AJ 175.
Let the committee members know that academic freedom is not the issue, instead the issue is the unclearly defined ways students can report the mistreatment of academic freedom.
Jennifer Ross is a senior journalism major and wrote this 'Your Turn' for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily represent those of the newspaper.
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