Is "scribe" a pejorative or a neutral term? In the US, instructors sometimes ask one or two students to take notes for a given lecture, in view of releasing the lecture notes later on for the rest of the class. Such students are sometimes called "scribes". Is "scribe" a pejorative or a neutral term? If pejorative, is there any neutral or positive term? (I am asking as in French "scribe" can sound somewhat derogatory)
In all of the academic usages with which I am familiar, scribe is almost entirely a neutral term. 


  Every student must act as a scribe for at least one lecture this term.


The one exception to this requires further elaboration to indicate that what one is doing is merely "reproductive" instead of "synthetic":


  He slavishly acted a scribe copying down the professor's words without understanding them.


However, such usage is generally written and somewhat formal (see how far you have to go to put it into a negative context).