Today, the Faculty Senate will vote on a ban to prevent cell phone use in classrooms.
There has been much misunderstanding on this issue. Some believe that this ban will include prohibiting possession of cell phones in the classroom.
Actually, the ban will not be any different from individual professors’ policies of cell phone use printed in their syllabi.
Most professors have the policy that a cell phone cannot go off in class. Professors suggest turning the phone on silent or completely off.
However, not everyone can remember to turn their cell phone on silent, and even some cell phones vibrate loud enough to ring. Still other students answer their phones or text message during class.
Where professors divide is dealing with the accidental cell phone ring. The response can range from ignoring the ring until the student silences the phone to asking the student to leave for the day.
No matter the response, the new cell phone usage ban does not change anything about usual individual cell phone measures. The ban will only standardize cell phone usage policies and make it university policy. Individual professors will still hold the decision of how to enforce the ban.
While all this may sound good, a Faculty Senate decision really doesn’t matter in the long run. The individual professors will still have the responsibility to enforce cell phone use in classrooms as before. Accidental cell phone rings will still happen. Nothing will really change once the ban comes into play.
Yet the discussion and vote for the ban has caught everyone’s attention, and a minor issue has been blown out of proportion. The reason for cell phone use policies is to prevent individual students from disrupting class.
The true ban against cell phone use is up to individual students. Many students actually do not want to disrupt class and support not using cell phones in class.
As long as students are responsible and professors enforce their own cell phone policy, any decision from the Faculty Senate is pretty much redundant.
The Reflector editorial board is made up of opinion editor Angela Adair, news editor Elizabeth Crisp, assistant news editor Jed Pressgrove sports editor Jeff Edwards, entertainment editor Dustin Barnes, managing editor Pam McTeer and editor in chief Josh Foreman.