Transcript
November
8, 2005
Dr. Conner
Bailey: Good afternoon. Welcome to the
last meeting, as far as I’m aware, of the calendar year. I’d like to remind senators to please sign in
at the back and as always, if we have a discussion matter that has much
interest, senators will be given privilege of the floor first, but anyone who’s
represented by this body-students, staff, A&P, faculty, administrators-are
represented here and have privilege of the mic.
Minutes of the October 4th meeting of the Senate have been
posted on the web page and I would entertain a motion to approve same. Rik Blumenthal. Do I have a second? We have a second, Larry Teeter. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying
aye. Opposed, nay. They pass without opposition.
Dr. Richardson is a little bit delayed today, coming back into
town. He should be joining us soon, so I
will proceed with comments from the Chair and we’ll start moving through the
agenda and when Dr. Richardson arrives, we will break, with your permission,
we’ll break the flow of the agenda and find a time for Dr. Richardson’s
remarks.
I’d like to start off by recognizing Jack Stripling of the Opelika-Auburn News, who is hiding back
there to my left, about 2/3 of the way back.
I’m saddened to say that Jack is leaving
I also want to start off with another high note and I want to express
appreciation for the work that has been done by Donnie Addison and several
student volunteer groups, including the SGA and the Environmental Awareness
Organization, the EAO, who have been promoting a culture of environmental
awareness on this campus. At the last
six home football games, we’ve recycled five tons of aluminum on this
campus. Five tons of
aluminum; think of that. A lot of RC Cola.
We’ve also established in many buildings across campus a desk
side-recycling program, which I’m thrilled about and plans are in the works to
establish a battery-recycling program as well.
The EAO has developed a campaign to encourage adoption, which I hope
we’ll all pay attention to, of post-consumer recycled paper use in our Xerox
machines and in other paper uses across campus.
It’s a very good opportunity for us to instill environmental standards
on this campus and use it for pedagogical purposes. Dr. Lindy Biggs in the History department is
the faculty advisor of the EAO and she’s also leading our campus sustainability
initiative. While there’s a lot of
attention given on this campus to pedestrianization and our transit system,
Tiger Transit, I think it’s also important to acknowledge, recognize and applaud
these smaller achievements in these smaller efforts, much less capital
involvement, much less organizational effort that are going to improve the
environmental quality, not only of this campus but the surrounding
environment-my appreciation.
Last weekend, Rich Penaskovic and I attended a meeting over in
Our own Board of Trustees met on October 28th in a specially
called meeting. Dr. Willie Larkin, who
is our Immediate Past Chair and faculty representative on the Board, in fact,
advisor to the Board, is here to be able to answer any questions you may have
of what transpired at that meeting.
Those of you who have followed in the media realize that a couple of
things happened. One is that Dr.
Richardson made a very brief comment about a SACS special committee that had
visited campus in September and I had previously shared with senators the
written remarks that the Senate Executive Committee had delivered to that
special committee when they came to town in September. The SACS special committee report is on the
Also at the October meeting, the Board of Trustees received a report
from Dr. John Kuhnle from Korn/Ferry International. At the last senate meeting I noticed that Dr.
Kuhnle had been retained by the Board of Trustees to help guide
I understand that Dr. James L. Fisher has been invited and will attend
the Board of Trustees meeting on the 17th of November. These meetings, as I’m sure you are all
aware, are open to the public; typically are held in the Auburn University
Hotel Conference-Dixon Conference Center, usually one of the ballrooms. If you are interested, I urge you to
attend.
I would note that one of the issues that caught my attention was partway
down the first page of the 18 points raised by Dr. Kuhnle, where he said that,
quote: “Questions exist whether the current faculty senate speaks for the
majority of the faculty.” Given that senators
are elected by their home departments-faculty senators are elected by their
home departments-I don’t quite know how to interpret this question of this
issue. I would note that the only
faculty group that met with Dr. Kuhnle was the Senate Executive Committee and I
can assure you that we did not raise this question with Dr. Kuhnle. It could also be that Dr. Kuhnle didn’t mean
the Senate as a whole; may have meant the Senate leadership and that’s always a
question and it’s always a question on the Senate leadership-the Executive
Committee’s mind-to what extent do we represent the faculty. Take for example the issue of post-tenure
review, which we’re going to discuss a little bit later this afternoon. I’d venture to say the majority of faculty
believe as I do that post-tenure review is both unnecessary and possibly quite
dangerous at this point in our institution’s history, but there are also many
faculty who believe that post-tenure review is a good thing and others who are
simply not worried about it. Some
faculty, maybe many in this room, are disappointed that the Senate leadership
has made the decision to move ahead and develop a couple of models of post-tenure
review for discussion and debate on this campus, which we will do in a little
while, believing that we should have refused to participate in any effort that
threatens the institution of tenure. The
Senate leadership made the decision, and it’s your judgment whether or not we
represent your interests in doing so, that it was in the faculty’s best
interests to develop, to work for a development of a policy that would protect
academic freedom and the institution of tenure, to the best of our
ability. We’ve worked closely with the
Senate Steering Committee on this. We’re
always understanding that the devil’s in the details and any written policy can
be subverted, so we’ve done this with some measure of care and no little
trepidation and disquiet of the soul.
Does the fact, does the Senate leadership represent the majority of the
faculty in this matter? I don’t know-we
will find out. The fact is, the fact that we’ve developed a process does not mean that
Senate leadership embraces it nor does it mean that we would vote to pass it
ourselves. But we do want to have an
open discussion of this matter, bring it before the Senate today, we will have
one more meeting as I will discuss later in the afternoon with the university
faculty. I want to keep an open mind to
the question of post-tenure review and urge all of us to do so as well. I look forward to the discussions we will
have this afternoon on the subject and in the next university faculty meeting.
Before I invite Dr. Richardson to come forward-glad you could join us,
Sir-I want to also note that one or more faculty colleagues reading the AU Report today had some concerns about
change in payroll and I wanted to make sure that we had an opportunity if there
were questions either on that subject-Dr. Don Large and others of his staff are
here to address those-or any questions you have of me before we invite Dr.
Richardson to come forward, this would be a good time to raise any questions
you may have, either on what I’ve said or on the topic of payroll.
Jim Saunders,
Geology & Geography: I have to apologize, I just got back last night
from being out of the country for three weeks so if I can paraphrase Will
Rodgers, all I know is what I read in my emails and I was interested in not only the comment about the faculty senate
not being representative of the university faculty as a whole but this other
comment that Dr. Kuhnle made about the Alumni Association not being, and there
may be some qualms about how we select our candidates for the faculty
senate. We have a selection committee
but as we saw, those of you who are alumni like myself,
saw that we had numerous slates of candidates for the Alumni Association
leadership and even some that were trumped up from ex-football players and
things like that to quite possibly one of the Board of Trustee members, which
were soundly defeated. How much more representative
can you get than democracy, as far as I concerned. And for a consultant to say, without any
statistics, that maybe the faculty senate doesn’t have responsive leadership or
that the Alumni Association doesn’t is ludicrous and I say let him come forward
with his statistics that say that, otherwise keep his mouth shut. Thanks.
Dr. Bailey: I think Dr.
Kuhnle was reflecting on what he had heard.
I don’t know that those were his judgments. He said questions exist and the wording…sure,
yeah. And you know, this is a university
and questions should always exist. Thank
you for comments. Any
other questions or comments?
David Cicci,
Aerospace Engineering: I do have a question about the new payroll. Several of my faculty members are a bit upset
because of the change to distribute the paychecks over 10 equal payments
instead of the current way it’s done now and particularly because we have been
given such short notice on this. It was
announced today for the first time; many of them just heard about it. First of all, I’d like to ask why the faculty
was not informed earlier so that they could possibly handle or set up their
personal budgets in a better fashion than to be surprised by a 10% less smaller
paycheck starting in January. That’s my
first question.
Dr. Bailey: Thank
you. Don, would you like to address that
question?
Dr. Don Large,
Vice President for Business/Finance: (inaudible)…to be able to do probably a better job
than I. A little bit of background: we are in the midst of several conversions of
our systems, more extensive than we have done in 30-something years. We have just put in the Banner Financial
Budget System on October 1. That needed
to flow into a fiscal year. We have
around 70 of our people across the campus and many of them will be in your
areas working extensively to put these systems in. We have one outside consultant; this is
contrary to the way most institutions are doing this. We’ve had, for the most part, a very
successful conversion with the Banner system.
It is not without challenges and we are working through some of
those. The deans and others have been
good enough to provide their input and concerns and we have, we continue to
address those and over the next few weeks and possibly months, we will have all
those ironed out. That’s our first
significant transformation in over 30 years and that’s just a big change. Followed up on that is the implementation of
the new Human Resources system, and that’s what David is speaking of. That needs to go into effect on a calendar year, it needs to go into effect January 1. So we’ve got people working on those
conversions. In hindsight, we didn’t do
a good job of communicating. We were
spending too much time trying to figure out a way to do it the way we have in
the past and we just couldn’t and in September it became obvious we were going
to have to change the way we pay and during that period we should have gotten
better communication to you, but we didn’t, and we apologize and I take the
full responsibility for that. The reason
for the change, recall nine-month faculty-and we’re the only institution we can
find in the country, and maybe some of you do know differently-that would have
a check in the first month and the last month and eight additional regular
monthly checks. The system, to get to
that over the last 20-something years, we’ve had to go in and modify the system
rather dramatically and there’s now reasons on this new implementation to why
that is just, I won’t say that’s impossible but highly impractical to do so
we’ve got to follow the delivered system, and that is either 10 equal paychecks
over nine months or over your nine-month salary or 12 and over time, if you
prefer 12 we may be able to do that, but having them like we’ve been doing in
the past we’re won’t be able to do.
We’re following that up with student systems coming over the next year
that will put us on a 24-7 capability of access, processing and do away with
the Social Security numbers that have been your concerns and so a lot of things
are going on. We’ve got a lot of good
people working hard; we won’t get everything right; this is one we didn’t do
the best job of communicating it when we discovered it in September and it’s
just getting out. What does that
mean? It means in January you will, the
nine-month faculty, will get less than they usually do. It will be made up in May. If you roll that back over into August,
you’ll actually be ahead of the distribution that you would normally have
during the year because you would pick up pretty much 90% of a check instead of
50%, so it is what it is. If, I don’t have a better solution, David. We don’t have good opportunities to do much
more than get information out as quickly as we can.
David Cicci: Ok, as a
follow up question it stated that the summer pay would be handled in two equal
payments in June and July. Now if
nine-month faculty is on full-time over the summer with a research grant or
whatever, those two paychecks would then be about 167% of your typical
nine-month salary. Can this new system
handle that sort of thing? Or is there
going to be some limitation on what you can earn during the summer?
Dr. Large: I saw that
comment in the email and I didn’t understand it. I do have somebody here that may…Ronnie or
Fred, did you all…
Dr. Bailey: Can you use
the microphone please? And identify
yourself please for the minutes?
Ronnie
Herring, Payroll & Employee Benefits: You’re right, it’s going to be
June checks over the three-month period and the system definitely can handle it
that way. Another reason for doing that
also is the Teachers’ Retirement System.
The Retirement System is adamant about, across the state there were some
cases where people who were close to retirement or six years from retirement,
they would get two summers in one year and of course, that would bump up their
retirement benefit. This way, you’re
getting a check in June for the period really from May 16th to June
30th and that will go in one TR year. Then the TR year that starts July 1 and so
your next payment, which will be for, the one payment at the end of July is
really for July 1 through August 15th, so that will go in the
following TR year, so yes we can do it and Retirement System is approving the
way we’re doing it because they have already handled it in the past.
David Cicci: Ok, thanks.
Dr. Bailey: Herb, did you
have a question?
Herb Rotfeld,
Marketing: Actually I already passed this to Don and it never occurred to him
before that with this change of schedule, we actually lose money, in effect,
because since pay raises don’t go into effect after we get our first paychecks
for the year, instead of losing the pay raise on a small half-month check at
the start, we lose our pay raise on a full amount of pay. Unless we can start the pay raises from the start
of the academic year instead of sliding it in somewhere after the year
begins-that would be a nice change.
Dr. Large: Well,
normally you would get, again, a 50% or ½ of a month in August and then this
August you would get 90% so you’ll get more distribution as Herb points out,
some of that maybe would have flowed over into a different fiscal year,
ultimately, then you could be slightly impacted. And that may be something the Budget Advisory
Committee needs to look at as we convene our sessions this year.
Dr. Bailey: Thank
you. Are there any other questions? Dr. Richardson, can I invite you forward now?
Dr. Ed
Richardson, Interim President: Thank you, Dr. Bailey. I again apologize for being late, I just got
in from
I have several points that I think might be of mutual interest and of
course, as usual, I’ll be glad to respond to any questions other than the
payroll questions-I couldn’t answer those.
November 17th & 18th, which is next week, we will obviously have a Trustee meeting and I
anticipate two or three issues to arise that I will call to your
attention. First, I anticipate that the
consultant recommended by Dr. Kuhnle, which is Dr. Fisher, will be present to
describe the process he will use to compile his report, and that will be done
on Friday morning-I would anticipate at this point.
The second item that I would add to the agenda is during the afternoon
of the 17th, which is the Thursday preceding the Board Meeting, we
will have Dr. Heilman, who is here today, to present to the Board, not for
approval, just to let them know that we are working on that, the criteria that
would be associated with academic program review and post-tenure review. It is my recommendation, and I’m assuming Dr.
Heilman, we are headed that way to pilot that over the second semester and then
perhaps would have a better handle on the procedure by the end of the spring
and then start the process the next fall, assuming everything works out. So those will be the major items on the
agenda. I would call your attention to
the fact that we will be having a ribbon cutting, if you will, for the
I would also like to talk about an issue that obviously has taken some
unusual turns and that is the strategic plan.
Obviously, I think, Dr. Sauser did an excellent job with the internal
review and was well received and it became apparent and many thought that the
Board just usurped the process and had moved in the direction of ‘We’ll take it
from here and let you know what happens.’
That is somewhat the interpretation that I received. That’s not the case at all, so I’d like to go
straight to the point and describe for you the procedure that I will talk to
the Board about during next week’s meeting.
I have not talked with all of them at this point. We anticipate that we will start the
interview-we had one scheduled actually yesterday morning, but because of illness
he was unable to attend-interview three people that have been recommended to us
that could provide the Board with an external view of factors impacting on the
operation of traditional universities.
We anticipate that will be done sometime in April. Again, not having the person selected, not
knowing the schedule, it’s a little premature.
But I hope that this will give you some comfort once I wade my way
through it. What I also anticipate is
that we will also have the same consultant provide the same opportunity for
faculty, I hope, preceding the work with the Board of Trustees. Again, we will have to work on
schedules. Upon receiving that, then
we’re going to ask again that those, the faculty committees who have been
involved will have all the information that the trustees do. We will start the process, come back in the fall
and continue the review so that we can blend both the internal report compiled
by Dr. Sauser and many of you that participated along with whatever information
we bring from the external review. I
would anticipate that would take some time, which buys us both time, provides
some continuation, I think, blends us more together rather than the trustees
taking it and upon completion. The trustees, that was not their intention, so do not be
misled. Obviously it was an abrupt
change. So I would anticipate the
following then that we will have a consultant selected; it’s my intention-by
the end of the month you should have that determined-I would anticipate then
scheduling this person to come some time in March to make himself available to
either the faculty committees or whatever format we choose to follow. I would then ask him to have about a
three-hour workshop with the Board during its April 13th meeting,
which is the Thursday preceding its regular meeting on
the 14th-same type of presentation.
Then we would basically do whatever we thought possible the remainder of
the semester and then come back in the fall and give it a full
consideration. The reason that I was
pushing as hard as I was because it was not my original intention to start a
strategic plan was that I had been asked to do this by several of the trustees
so that they would know what qualities they were looking for as they selected
the new president. But I really believe
as we have looked at it further that we can do some analysis of both the
internal and external factors and have sufficient information without bringing
closure to that until we are close to having the president on board. So I would say to you the strategic plan,
that would be a modification, I would see it being finished sometime next year
and that will be dependent on the length of the review as well as the length of
the search for my replacement. So change
in the strategic plan.
The next item that I would bring to your attention deals with the
February 2nd and 3ed meeting, which I anticipate, will be a rather
significant meeting. That one, by the
way, is in
On April 13th & 14th, obviously will be our
next meeting in which we will have, hopefully for the Board at least, external
review or review of external factors by the consultant-yet to be selected. I would anticipate that would probably be on
the 13th. But on the 14th
I would recommend that we consider what I’m calling the Ag Initiative or the
Initiative for
Now two or three other items I would call to your attention and then
respond to any questions. First, we are
continuing to work very closely with the
I hope also that the second reason for this will prove to be
profitable. One of the advantages that I
do bring to the table is serving on both of these Boards of Trustees and having
a level of trust. It was rather easy to
form this bond with the
The last piece is a little uncertain but I would speak to you with what
I anticipate will happen, I guess is the best way to describe it and that deals
with research funding. I think you’re
going to see, with the Governor’s presence with his contribution of $10 million
dollars that he put into it this last year, that you’re going to see an
increased emphasis in expectations and from what I’m reading, the literature
relative to higher education, there’s an increased expectation for higher
education to play a role in economic development, job creation, and that sort
of thing. And I believe it can be
handled within the context of the university without selling your souls to do
that. I would say that we anticipate
particularly with the one-time money, and we hope with continuing money as
well, for there to be some substantial funding for research as part of our
request and part of our priorities. Now
the questions will be ‘Well, now what are you going to do with it?’ I can’t answer that at this point, but by the
time the legislative session starts, and I would remind you that this is an election
year, so that creates some unusual dynamics, but it also means that the session
starts about two weeks earlier than normal.
It starts in mid-January instead of early February and so what we’re
going to have to do is work through that.
So I want you to know that I believe that is an expectation of higher
education and the state’s willing to fund it, I believe that we can effectively
utilize that. One downside to that is
that there will be many institutions that will claim to be very proficient in research
and they would like a pro-rata share of those funds. That to me will delude it to such an extent
that it would be meaningless. So that
will be a priority for the
One final thing I would point out.
I did not mention the final meeting of the year, which is on June 30th. This is a meeting that in addition to the
election of the officers of the Board of Trustees will start for the first time
to be the formal report of the presidents of each campus, AUM and
Dr. Bailey: Thank you
very much. Does anybody have any
questions for Dr. Richardson?
Cindy Brunner,
Pathobiology: Dr. Richardson, I have a question that goes way back to one of your
first comments. You said that next week
at the Board meeting on the 17th, Dr. Heilman would be presenting
criteria to be associated with academic program review and post-tenure review
and I would like either you or Dr. Heilman to expand on that considering that I
don’t think either of those issues have reached a point of settlement. How can we have criteria associated with it?
Dr.
Richardson: This is what I would best-that’s a fair question, Dr. Brunner-this is
what I would describe as I tried to indicate in my initial comments, this is
more of a progress report that we’re working on both, we’re going to pilot it
and it’s not for approval, it’s more for information just to convey to the
Board that progress is being made. We’re
not going now or later to really ask for approval but we are trying to keep
them informed. And I think by us
stepping up first, it prevents us from having to, or it enables us to avoid
some questions later. So I would say a
progress report with more work to be done.
Dr. Brunner: Ok, so it
isn’t that he would be presenting specific criteria that would be used? It’s more that he would be telling what we’ve
got going at this point.
Dr.
Richardson: Well, Dr. Heilman, when I asked, when we had our first conversation, he
made it quite clear to me that he wished to be the Provost and which was to say
stay out of his business and I have tried to do that, but I would say that
obviously there are some criteria that would be expected regardless of the system,
so I would prefer to let him elaborate on that, but as far as if I understood
your question and I interpreted it this way-is this the plan that we’re going
to use?-then I would say no. Will there
be specific criteria? I would anticipate
some specificity but John, do you want to deal with that?
Dr. John
Heilman, Provost: Thank you, Dr. Richardson. I moved up here because it was closer, not to
distance myself away from you.
Dr.
Richardson: Thank you.
Dr. Heilman: The fact is
the work on academic program review and post-tenure review, I believe,
represents a very positive instance of shared governance. I’ve been working with Art Chappelka in
representing the Academic Program Review Committee of the Senate which has
invested an enormous amount of time in this project over the past many months
and if any member of the committee is here and wants to tell me that’s wrong, I invite you to do so. A lot of work has been done on that. Guess what?
Many, probably a majority of our peer institutions have academic program
review systems in place and they have criteria.
That committee has looked at criteria, we discussed them and I think
within the framework, with all respect-a very fair question-I believe that
within the framework of the presentation that Dr. Richardson has described,
it’s reasonable to begin talking, not to begin talking-I don’t want to go
there-but to speak with the Board about what kinds of criteria might be
used. Ditto for post-tenure review-I
think that among some, if nearly two dozen, I forget what all is on the list,
but at our peer institutions in the SREB, there are two institutions which do
not have post-tenure review systems, one is
Dr. Richardson: Ok. Thank you.
Dr. Bailey: Thank
you. Harriette?
Harriette
Huggins, Chair, A&P Assembly: When you were
making remarks about changes in the strategic planning process, you mentioned
faculty committees a number of times. I
just want to know if A&P and Staff are going to be included in that process
also.
Dr.
Richardson: Absolutely. Just an oversight on
my part-it’s a full involvement and we think the university was fully involved
before on the internal and it would be clearly inappropriate to exclude any
groups and that’s just a shortcoming of my communication skills. Sorry.
Dr. Bailey: Dr. Gadzney.
Dr. Anthony Gadzey, Political Science: Mr. President, we in Political Science had a
meeting on post-tenure review and other matters in preparation for this
meeting. At that meeting one of our members had
strong reservations about the appropriateness of inviting Dr. Fisher to
provide these overall evaluations of the
governing structure of the university and the point raised was that those who
read his book are not particularly not attracted to his vision of shared
governance at the university. I know it
is your prerogative as president to appoint whatever advisors and consultants
you want. We just want you to know that
while this is not open to a democratic choice, there are some reservations
about his vision of shared governance.
Dr. Richardson: If I could respond to that and in just a minute
you may have a follow up as a result-when a search for a president starts, the
president, the one that’s in place now, sort of sits on the sidelines. I’m not as directly involved in that
obviously. Dr. Kuhnle, if I summarized
his comments and it’s something like this: whether it’s true or not, there are
a number of perceived problems within the operation of
Dr. Gadzey: I understand that, Mr.
President. The issue is whether or not
we need a secular view. But the person
whom Dr. Kuhnle has recommended doesn’t come with full approval in certain
quarters and again, we are in a situation where we need an outside review or
reviewer to take a look at what’s going on in here, but if that person himself
has a view that would exacerbate rather than give us some way out of the
problems that we perceive, then I don’t think it’s appropriate to say that
because Mr. Kuhnle recommended this particular person, that is the person you
go with. I think there are enough
experts around the country for you to make a choice. I’m guessing this is a reservation in certain
quarters, given the contents of his book.
Dr. Richardson: Thank you very much.
Dr. Bailey: Herb.
Dr. Herb Rotfeld, Marketing: In 2004 the Journal of Consumer Affairs
that I edit had a special issue on identify theft and related issues and when
I gave you a copy of that issue, your
words to me were ‘You never give up on this, do you?’ My issue of concern here is our social security numbers. We’re coming up on a decade since a faculty
committee made a proposal on how to get social security numbers out of usage as
Ids. A friend of mine on a school up
north with about 40,000 students decided about 10 years ago that they wanted to
get rid of it and about six months later it was done. I keep coming back here and I keep hearing it’s being done. A
comment was made earlier about a computer program, again, being done. Meanwhile, to register a bicycle, buy
football tickets, to complain about a parking ticket and to ask for information
at the activity center, you have to give your social security number. When are we going to see this end?
Dr. Richardson: Good question.
It is valid and I think it should be.
Don, in your answer as we implement the Banner system, that is to be
done, I guess the question is at what point could we expect that, is what Herb
is asking?
Dr. Don Large: With the implementation of the Banner system,
certain requirements for the social security number have gone away for the
outside vendors. With the HR
implementation on January 1, the requirements for many of the social security
questions will go away. We still have
the outside groups, the Athletics department and some of them we’ll have to
work with to get them into the Banner system because they’re out on their own
separate system. So we will work on
those. But I would think, with the
student system that we’ll follow up with about four different phases of
implementation from June of next year to most of the following year, we’ll do
away with most of the requirements for the students. So it has been a long time, we are almost
there-I would say you would see faculty, students, everyone at some point in
2006, students may not be fully out of that until all the student systems are
up. When is that, John? Sometime in 2007. It sounds like a simple thing but it has not
been a simple thing with the type of systems that we have.
Dr. Richardson: So what we’d say, if I could just summarize,
because I’m not sure if everyone heard that, Don. So what you’re saying is that some would be
completed by January 1st, some aspect of this, this coming January?
Dr. Large: (inaudible)
Dr. Richardson: In his example, in Herb’s example, something like
registering your bike or paying a parking ticket or something like that, where
is that in the….
Dr. Large: (inaudible)
Dr. Richardson: In that same process? Right.
Dr. Large: (inaudible)
Dr. Richardson: I guess we can offer that. It may not be sufficient, but that’s progress
anyway. Thanks.
Dr. Large: (inaudible)
Dr. Richardson: Thank you.
Don’t give up.
Dr. Rik Blumenthal, Chemistry/Biochemistry: Two
questions, one quick comment and then a question. We’ve had the comment several times about
whether the Senate and leadership represent the faculty. I can honestly say I believe I’ve seen this
written in the newspapers that you have questioned, you personally have said
that. I’m insulted. I have faculty meetings-I poll my faculty
before every significant action item. I
did not vote to ask for the resignation of trustees, because Rik Blumenthal,
the wild-eyed maniac wanted to do that.
I did that after polling my faculty and getting a unanimous, sir,
unanimous vote of my faculty to take those actions that I took. I had not a single dissenter on my faculty to
those things. Faculty
are represented here. I am their
elected representative and believe me, those guys are
quick to tell me if I say something out of line. Now, to move on…
Dr. Richardson: If I could just respond to one point then. The comments reflected from Dr. Kuhnle were
not taken from me at all.
Dr. Blumenthal: But you have made comments like that. I’ve seen them in the newspapers, you’re
quoted as saying that and those comments make their way around, end up in his
head and then they’re repeated by the trustees who believe it’s just wild-eyed
Rik Blumenthal, and Jim here, that are making these comments and it’s not the
faculty, and we in fact all poll, at least to my knowledge, all the senators
poll our faculties before we take actions.
Dr. Richardson: Well, I don’t think we should be too
concerned. I think he kicked everyone in
the room at that meeting. I don’t think
he is using that to justify the need for us to have the review and I think the
heart of this discussion is the review itself and hopefully that will bring
very productive changes that will improve things for both faculty and
administration.
Dr. Blumenthal: Now I do have a question to follow up. By my recall, the strategic plan came about
as an initiative of the president as an administrative
initiative. When you started in this
position, you said the most important job on your part was to make that
boundary-what is appropriate for the Board, what is appropriate for the
administration and erect a firewall so that the Board would stop meddling in
the administration of the institution in such a way that they got this
university on probation by SACS, and recall, that is the only thing that got
this university on probation by SACS-the Board meddling in the administration
in the running of this university. Now if
that was your goal and you started this strategic plan, and the Board has
hijacked part of it, there is only one action you can take. It was your plan, end it. Stop the strategic plan. So my question to you is, how do you justify
resetting the firewall, saying ‘Look, if you’re going to hijack this, then
there is no strategic plan. You are to
stay out of what I was doing.’ As I
recall, that’s how it started, it was your
strategic plan to present to the Board.
Now you’ve allowed them to hijack it, we’re right back to where we were
before SACS came and said ‘You guys, get back on your
side.’ And you’re giving that right back
and we’re once again having micromanagement.
And now I hear today you’re going to have a presentation of ideas, a criterion
for post-tenure review. I respect what
John said about program review, because that is a lot farther along the
way. The criterion for post-tenure
review should not be presented for the first time to them. It should be presented to the
institution. You said this is
institutional operation, not a trustee operation, not a trustee policy. Why is that not first being talked about with
the body inside here? Why is the first
mention of your first decision or criterion going to them? Going to the trustees, whom it’s not even
their business? They’re going to hear it
before me. Why? It is my business; you said it was my
business and not theirs. You are not
following your own firewalls and I want to know why you are now disassembling
those firewalls that you said you came here to erect.
Dr. Richardson: Is that your
question?
Dr.
Blumenthal: Yes, why are you disassembling your firewalls?
Dr.
Richardson: First, you’re not correct. This
is not a textbook where you just paint a line on the wall and the separation is
accomplished. This is ongoing based on
daily decisions in different situations.
The institutional control is a term I used, and that is something that
is very important. I think you’re going
to see the Fisher Report address that in some very significant ways. I announced last June the various initiatives
that would be on the table. I identified
November as the time that we would put the criteria on for post-tenure review
and for academic program review. I asked
Dr. Heilman earlier if he was ready to give the progress report and he is, and
I believe as you said earlier, you have been working with various faculty
committees all along. So it is not
disassembled. So in regard to the
strategic plan, this was not a usurpation by the Board
at all. It wasn’t; they left it with me
and what I’m trying to do now is pull it back together. Yes, if that doesn’t come together, as I said
we’re going to spend a lot more time working on it; then we could stop it. But I believe to stop it would be far worse
decision than trying to blend the two back together and the process that I took
some time to describe earlier I think, I know that’s what I would recommend and
I believe it’s a far superior plan than stopping it. And I believe it will accomplish both
objectives. We’ll still have a clear
line in terms of faculty involvement, faculty input and I believe it will help
to maintain this issue of institutional control that I’ve described. I think to stop it would indicate that we did
not have the capacity to do it and that would encourage others to come along
and go ahead and do it themselves. I’ve
made that choice and I believe it will work.
If I get out further, obviously it didn’t work exactly as I had planned
to begin with. If I get out further and
it doesn’t work, then we can stop it at that point.
Dr.
Blumenthal: But sir, if you’re in control, then why is another track being built on
this train line by somebody else if you are in control? If this going off and branching off in a new
direction, why is that new track for the train’s progress even appearing if you
are in control and it wasn’t in your plans?
I believe you need to seriously consider whether or not your plan was
usurped and there was micromanagement and stepping over your firewalls.
Dr.
Richardson: I have and I don’t believe that was the case.
Dr. Bailey: Are there any
other questions before Herb asks a second one?
Herb, go ahead and then Jim.
Dr. Herb
Rotfeld, Marketing: I’m not satisfied with the answer we had at the
last Senate meeting about the issue of the ombudsperson and especially as you
talk about concern for opening channels of communication and information on
things around the university. I think
this is a position that is important and to remind you of the history again,
when you spoke to AAUP shortly after taking on this job, you mentioned a desire
that the faculty not speak outside, try and bring things to attention
internally. The problem with bringing
things to attention internally is even, we’re not talking of things involving a
grievance or in terms of things where we might have a personal self interest,
but a channel is needed to point out and say ‘Maybe something’s wrong with the
administration in my college’ or something like that, not speaking of my
college, speaking hypothetically and an ombudsperson would provide that type of
channel. And this was mentioned by you
at that meeting as something that was being proposed and we thought was going
to effect shortly thereafter and we still do not have such a position. And I’d like you to respond to that desire.
Dr.
Richardson: Sure. The issue was raised well
over a year ago. I did indicate that I
was receptive to that idea and after the first year had elapsed and nothing had
happened, I went back to Dr. Heilman and Dr. Large and said ‘Evidently this is
not as big an issue as I thought it was’.
And so I believe Dr. Heilman has addressed that previously in terms of a
review. Is that not correct?
Dr. Heilman: Dr.
Richardson, that’s correct and I managed to address it incorrectly. The correct information as provided by Dr.
Large is that in fact Lynn Hammond has invited a, can I describe it as an
expert in this subject matter, to be here.
I believe that visit is scheduled to talk with us about systems and
advantages of doing this.
Dr.
Richardson: So that’s where we are in that regard?
Dr. Heilman: Yes.
Dr.
Richardson: Thank you so much.
Dr. Bailey: Jim, just a
moment. I would just add that I believe
that person is supposed to be here on the first of December.
Dr. Jim
Saunders, Geology & Geography: Just a suggestion about this apparent one-time
research money. Auburn, unlike a lot of
universities around the country, didn’t do much in the ‘60s and ‘70s for buying
research equipment and we have a golden opportunity now because prices, which
some of our colleagues spent millions of dollars on for various research
equipment, are now down into the hundreds of thousands of dollars so if you
need something to point to that would be a great one-time expenditure, it would
be let’s get some research equipment here on this campus and I’m sure that it
will pay itself back in many dollars continuing on into the future. I hate to see it go to administrative
overhead for whatever here at the university.
Dr.
Richardson: That’s a good point and I would say there will be some one-time money
that lends itself very well to what you describe and there will be some
continuing money to support the research on a year to year basis and certainly
that is possible. That is not my job, I
think, is to delve into the legislative arena and to secure the amount then it
will be Dr. Heilman and others to decide how we best utilize that money. But I’m just trying to make sure that Auburn
is well represented and certainly equipment would be an appropriate expenditure
and more specifically, because I do think that a fairly substantial amount of
one-time money that could be appropriated during this coming year that would
make it available to us about six months ahead of schedule.
Dr. Bailey: Thank you,
Dr. Richardson. Obviously we have missed
you in recent meetings. We will
appreciate that. We have no action
items. Today we have four information
items. The first one is from Caroline
Glagola, representative of the SGA, one of the constituent groups of this body
and she asked to spend about two or three minutes with us about the
Caroline
Glagola, SGA: I know how you like your announcements, so I promise I will make this
one short and sweet. My name is Caroline
Glagola; I am a representative from the Student Government Association as the
Director of Blood Drives for this year.
I’ve come just to encourage everyone in the University Senate to
participate in our
Dr. Bailey: Thank you,
Caroline. Next, let me ask Gisela to
come forward to make a presentation from the Teacher Evaluation Committee.
Dr. Gisela
Buschle-Diller, Chair of Teaching Effectiveness Committee: The Teaching
Effectiveness Committee has performed a survey on the currently used teaching
evaluation forms and I would like to bring the results of this survey to your
attention.
This is the composition of the Teaching Effectiveness Committee last
year on the left side. Some of the
committee members have rotated off or have left
Now to the survey: concerns have been brought to this committee about
the currently used teaching evaluations forms, and I’m talking here about the 8
questions that are used across campus.
Those eight questions have been put together by the Teaching Effectiveness
Committee in 1988 and established in 1990 and since then have not been majorly
modified. The committee performed the
survey in February 2005 and sent a short questionnaire of 10 questions to all faculty on campus.
The questionnaire focused on the validity of the teaching instrument as
it is currently used. It’s used by the
administration and it’s used by instructors and if you would like to see the
full survey, it is downloaded on the Senate webpage and the website is on the
bottom of this slide.
The results are very interesting.
We got a response of about a third of teaching faculty across campus and
we got additionally 170 written comments which were very interesting, too. Now to the demographics: you can see from
this graph on the left hand side assistant professors, associate professors,
and full professors responded as well as instructors and visiting teaching
faculty. The tenure status was 31%
untenured and 69% tenured. And all
colleges participated in this survey. We
got responses all across campus. It is a
concern of faculty in all the different colleges and departments.
After the questions, I’m going to present the first four that we had and
the results to it. As I said, you can
see the full survey on the website. So
the first question that we asked was: How confident are you that the current 8
question teaching evaluation questionnaire accurately measures teaching
effectiveness? I circled the answers
here: we had numbers from 1-6, one meaning
no confidence, six meaning complete confidence.
As the red circle shows, about 25% had no confidence and 27% had little
confidence in the validity.
And the second question we asked: To what extent do you believe that
evaluations and comments written by students on evaluation questionnaires are
used by
And the third question we asked: To what extent do you believe that
evaluation comments written by students on evaluation questionnaires are used
appropriately by
The fourth question was: To what extent do you believe the current
student evaluation questionnaire on faculty teaching is valuable and useful in
terms of helping you improve your teaching performance independent of raise,
tenure, promotion considerations? In
other words, do you believe that this instrument is helpful to you in becoming
a more effective teacher, becoming a better teacher? And I’ve circled the columns on the right
side. There is not really much that
believes that these teaching evaluation forms as they currently are used are
helpful.
Now as I said before, we got 170 written comments in addition, and one
of the committee members extracted the common themes that reappeared and
grouped them and this is the result: 18 addressed the lack of or conflicting
goals for teaching. This has mostly to
do with research and teaching in a split appointment and the higher importance
of research when it comes to tenure and promotion. 52 addressed the misuse of teaching
evaluations and here summarized the misuse by the administration as well as by
the students that might use teaching evaluations as a means of getting revenge
with an instructor. 16 addressed the
lack of timely feedback. That is
partially a problem of administration, departmental administration, handling of
the forms and partially feedback from a department head during annual reviews. 51 questioned the validity of the teaching
evaluation form and its use so the actual questions were not really helpful and
4 only expressed positive feedback, so they were pleased with the current
forms.
So in summary, the widespread responses that we got across the
university community showed us that there is some concern and that people
really care about teaching. A clear
majority of the respondents expressed concern about the actual instrument and
the questions that are on there and how it is used and more than 80% felt that
the teaching evaluation form in its current form does not help them improve
their teaching, does not help them become better teachers. And that’s basically all; I just wanted to
bring that to the attention of the Senate.
Dr. Bailey: Are there any
questions? What is your committee’s next
step?
Dr.
Buschle-Diller: Well, we presented this. We have no official charge, so this could be
the end of it.
Dr. Bailey: No, you’ll be
hearing from me. Are there no further
questions? Thank you.
Jim…
Dr. Jim
Saunders, Geology & Geography: At what point did this become a function
unit? When I was a student here in the
early ‘70s, we conducted our own evaluations.
Of course, we published a book for student use only. At some point, it was co-opted by the
university. I don’t know if it was the
same questions or not, but at what point did we start doing this evaluation?
Dr.
Buschle-Diller: The current instrument has been put together by
the Teaching Effectiveness Committee in 1988 and then implemented in 1990 and
since then, the questions haven’t been changed much, except for quarter to
semester and things like that, but the basic questions are the same since.
Dr. Bailey: I think there
are some obvious problems that the respondents to this survey have
identified. I’d encourage you to talk to
your faculty, send comments to Gisela and maybe we can make some changes. Let me also note that there’s a Senate
Administrator Evaluation Committee that’s also working at revising the document
or instrument that we’ve used for administrator evaluations, so we have some
parallel efforts going on. Yes.
Dr. Darrel
Hankerson, Mathematics: This issue came up a few years ago in a slightly
different form and the proposal was to do folders, prepare packets that we were
going to present to our advisors and so forth, and all I wanted to say is that
my department would be very against that kind of solution. It’s time consuming. The best thing about the current evaluations
is they won’t cost us any time. They may
be useless, but they don’t eat our time up.
So, I just wanted to go on the record and say my department will not
support this idea of building teaching effectiveness packets or some such thing
that eats our time. It won’t-it’s not a
value item in our department, maybe in other departments, but it will not be
valued; it will simply be more time out of my day to fill up paperwork.
Dr. Bailey:
Dr. Virginia
O’Leary, Psychology: I just want to suggest perhaps to you, Conner, as
you contemplate the subsequent charge to this committee, that you take into
account the fact that there is a vast literature nationally on the topic of
teaching effectiveness, evaluations, etc. and in conjunction with that, there
is a great deal of data that’s been collected across the last 20-25 years. There are numerous experts in this area who
now have PhDs and who now make their living as evaluators, but it’s expensive
to do it properly and by properly, I mean consistently and to utilize the data
appropriately in terms of both its collection and interpretation. So as we reflect on what we would like the
next steps to be, it seems to be important to assess the extent of the
institutional commitment to providing the resources to do it right. The expertise, I’m convinced, exists in the
nation to seriously engage in this process and make it a meaningful, as opposed
to a meaningless exercise, but it will take a financial as well as a
ideological commitment on the part of the institution.
Dr. Bailey: Doubtlessly
anticipating your comment,
Dr. John Heilman, Provost: Thank you very much, Conner. I’d like to follow up first two points in response to the question ‘Where did this get started?’ and I don’t know whether this was the first administratively driven instance of teacher evaluation at Auburn University, but I recall back in 1976, which I know dates me, Dean Hobbs of Arts & Sciences organized a teaching evaluation committee to put together what I think is the precursor of the form that’s been used for some time now and I recall some members of the English faculty here who’ll remember Norman Britton, who was very active into his 90s, Norman also served on that committee and I will never forget his observation, which was that ‘They’ll tell you this system is going to be used to improve your teaching, but just give it a little time and it will be used in your evaluations.’ And I mean performance evaluations, but perhaps more importantly than that bit of nostalgia, I do think as Provost I do have a responsibility to respond to what was said about the teaching eval