Absent: K. Alley, R. Bartlett, S. Bilgili, D. Bransby, W.R. Brawner, R. Brinker, S. Brinson, T. Brower, R. Burleson, A. Cook, R. Evans, J. Gluhman, B. Hames, R. Henderson, G. Hill, J.N. Hool, R. Jaeger,

M. Jardine, C. Johnson, M. Kraska, F. Lawing, D. Lustig, A. Magg, H. Maraman, J. Melville, C. Moriarty, E. Morrison, L. Myers, J. Neidigh, A. Nix, D. Norris, J. Novak, R. Perritt, J. Regan, H. Rotfeld, D. Rouse, D. Shannon, T. Smith, A. Tarrer, J. Tippur, H. Thomas, B. Turner, S. Tuzun, T. Tyson, S. Villaume, W. Walker, G. Watkins, M. West, D. Wilson, R. Wylie

Absent (Substitute): S. Bentley (H. Straiton), W. Brewer (W. Clark), L. Colquitt (M. Jensen), R. Gandy (F. Robicheaux), D. Himelrick (F. Dane), J. Hung (T. Roppel), J. Kush (A. Chappelka), R. Mirarchi (M. Lisano), L. Waters (R.A. Voitle)

A. President William Muse

Muse was one of twenty-five presidents/chancellors to participate in a round table discussion on university leadership at Oxford University. The presidents that attended represented ten different countries including South Africa, England, Ghana, Canada, and the United States. Muse presented a paper on external forces affecting higher education in the United States and presented the recent problems at Auburn regarding these forces. Universities all over the world experience similar problems (i.e. inadequate resources, external scrutiny, and often, active governmental influence in the university.)

Muse reminded the Senate that the Board of Trustees would meet Friday, August 20 at the Auburn University Hotel and Conference Center at 10:00 a.m. There is a short agenda, but it is anticipated to take the entire morning.

Conner Bailey (Steering Committee) asked about the current status of the fellowships and/or tuition stipends for graduate students which would make Auburn a more competitive university. He understood a presentation to the Board was planned, but was then removed from the schedule.

Muse responded by saying that he didn’t think there was ever a planned presentation. But it has been a subject of very active discussion involving Dr. Muse, Dr. Pritchett, Dr. Walker, and Dr. Large. They want to respond in some way to the problems of attracting the best students. He doesn’t know if Auburn will be able to waive tuition as had been discussed. More likely there will be an increase in funding for graduate assistantships in the areas of greatest priority and in the areas of greatest need. Over the last three years, Auburn started with virtually no graduate assistantships and they have been increased to 150, and then to 200. Expanding the number of graduate fellowships may be a way to counteract the tuition waiver issue. This is a matter that the Board considers important and will respond within the constraints of resources without the sacrifice of other priorities (i.e. bringing salaries up to a more competitive level). Muse was unable to give a firm answer.

Bailey asked Muse whether graduate tuition waivers were included in the proposed budget.

Muse responded by stating that Dr. Large will be presenting some general numbers in the budget, but tuition waivers were not included. The actual budget will not be voted on until the September meeting.

B. Senate Chair: Dr. Jo Heath

The Rules Committee is winding up its committee nominations. Forty-eight committees have been completed with only about twelve to be completed. There are two types of committees. One is a Senate committee where the Rules Committee appoints people. If someone has been asked to serve on a Senate Committee, then he/she will be on that committee. In contrast, the Rules Committee nominates individuals for University Committees. The Rules Committee is required to nominate one more individual than is necessary, and President Muse elects the desired members. If someone has been asked to serve on a University Committee, it does not necessarily mean he/she will be on that committee.

An update on the issue of Background Checks: Last Friday, several members of the administration met with Patrice Bensen, representing the Staff Council, Robert Johnson representing the A & P Assembly, and Jo Heath representing the Senate. They were able to agree on two things:

1. The situation is complex enough to send to a committee for study.
2. Nothing will be done until House bill 402 is resolved. This document refers to K-12, except one area that states, "anyone with unsupervised access to children" should have a background check. It will include fingerprinting which is more stringent than at Auburn. This bill may apply to two and four-year universities also, because a child is defined as "anyone under the age of 19" and there are a lot of 18-year olds on campus. The committee will work on the issue after concerns about the bill are resolved.

Attendance slips are no longer going to be a part of the agenda. There will be a roster and each member will sign in before each meeting.

Cindy Brunner (Pathobiology) thought that House bill 402 appears to refer to high school seniors and not university students. Is the bill passed or pending?

Jo Health thought that it does aim at K-12, but does not know its intention.

Jim Ferguson (VP for Administrative Services) answered the question that the bill has been passed by the legislature and approved by the governor. It is interpreted in many different ways, but how it will be used is still not clear.

A. Teaching Effectiveness Committee: Dr. Art Chappelka

Dr. Chappelka was substituting for Isabelle Thompson, chair of the Teaching Effectiveness Committee. He reviewed the charge of the committee and listed the committee members for the 1998-99 school year. The goals for 1998-99 were to:

Only 26 of 65 department heads responded to the survey. Next year, the committee needs to gather more information, redo the survey, and ask the Provost’s office to help remind department heads to return the survey.

The survey was about the use of:

• Evaluation of teaching materials
• Evaluation of preparation of students for subsequent courses
• Evaluation of faculty members contribution to team teaching
• Composition to other faculty teaching the same course
• Observation of faculty member’s classes
• Evaluation of teaching portfolio
• Alumni assessments
• Employer assessments
• Evaluation of other external organizations for which faculty members consult
• Administrator assessment of teaching performance.

Answers to the categories were divided into "not at all," "some," and "a great deal." A lot more emphasis will be put on the survey next year, and it may also include some faculty surveys and interviews.

Forty applications for endowments were received and twelve were awarded. The committee tried to make the criteria for the award easier to understand, and tried to make the review as objective as possible by scoring applications according to the evaluation guide. They also tried to decrease conflict of interest by removing a committee member from the discussion if he/she was in the same department as the applicant.

The scores were weighted to normalize scores. The twelve top scores were about seven or eight points above the other scores and really stood out as the top. Twelve different departments were awarded and six or seven different colleges were represented.

The evaluation form included Instructional Merit, Project Objectivity, Methods and Procedures, Assessment of Effectiveness, Dissemination of Results, Budget, and Comments.

A. A report on the activities of the Graduate Council and the Graduate School: Dean John Pritchett

The current graduate admissions policy for a masters degree requires a GRE (GMAT) score and a GPA with no minimum requirements. Departments are able to set their own minimums as desired. A baccalaureate degree is required from a recognized university. A formula score is used: VGRE + QGRE + GPA, which must be greater than a set standard. For a doctoral student, minimums of a 400 on both the verbal and quantitative sections of the GRE are required, but no minimum GPA is required. The same formula is used for doctoral students as is used for master’s students.

The review process stems from the following requirements by different agencies:

1. SACS requires a regular and periodic review of all graduate admissions procedures and standards. There has not been any systematic review process in place since three years prior to the last SACS visit.
2. ETS (Educational Testing Service) recommends no cut-off scores for the GRE.
3. ETS recommends not combining the verbal and quantitative scores in the GRE.
4. DOE sees minimum scores as a possible cause of adverse impact for some minority groups.

The philosophy of the Graduate School is to be a gateway to graduate education as opposed to a gatekeeper. In the past, applications have never reached the department because they did not meet minimum standards. The school wants to work with each department to establish a more holistic admissions process where different factors are taken into account. They also want to work with individual departments to develop departmental plans, similar to what was done with the appointments of graduate faculty several years ago.

The members of the graduate council who worked on the sub-committee that developed the proposal are: Bill Spencer of Education, Jackie Mize of Human Sciences, Charlotte Sutton of the College of Business, Wayne Brewer from Agriculture and Rosie Jackson from the Graduate School. The committee has done extensive benchmarking with regional institutions, and had had interactions with other graduate schools. Input from faculty and graduate program officers was gathered prior to Graduate Council action on July 21^st.

The proposed policy was not presented for the Senate to take action toward, but to review against the current policy. This policy is for implementation for the Fall 2000 semester. The first thing proposed is to abolish the use of formula scores. The second proposal is that no cutoff score will established, but it would be suggested that the departments and the successful applicant to work together on minimum requirements. An applicant must have a minimum GPA of 2.75 for all undergraduate work, 3.0 on the last 60 semester hours, and 3.0 on all graduate work. These are not absolute admissions standards, because the process will be based on a more holistic process. The GRE and GMAT will be continued to be required, but there will be no minimum score. The process will not only involve the standardized scores and GPA, but also will also involve the departments and include letters of recommendation, interviews, research samples, and the compatibility of the individual with the department.

The next steps are to:

1. Review the process and bring it back to accreditation standards.
2. Review and action by the Senate.
3. Approval of the President and implementation.

This will bring Auburn’s standards more closely into alliance with other institutions that have been studied.

Steve McFarland, Assistant Dean of the Graduate School presented the second part of the graduate school presentation by discussing what has been done to increase the applicant pool into the graduate school.

The subject of declining enrollment has been previously discussed which involved a number of different factors. Dr. Muse has been forceful in increasing the number of graduate fellowships offered. This has put departments on a more level playing field in competing for graduate students for the first time. Dr. Pritchett has been involved in presentations to the Senate to raise awareness of the problem. Benchmarking of other universities compared to Auburn was conducted, as well as the establishment of the Graduate Enrollment Commission to seek out assistance in this problem from other members of the Auburn University community. It was clear that Auburn was close to or near the bottom compared to other universities in terms of financial assistance offered to graduate students, but also at the bottom in terms of the financial assistance provided to the administration of graduate programs.

Dr. McFarland was asked to discuss the other steps taken in this process including some behind the scenes steps, particularly inventing ways of doing more with less.

The first step to improve the number of applicants was to develop an on-line admissions application. Auburn is one of the first graduate schools to do so. Sixty-five percent of the applications were received via the web. A heavy concentration of that 65% is from international students. Most of the paper applications are from undergraduate Auburn students who walk by the graduate school and receive an application. Three thousand applications have come electronically to date, and Auburn has had more than 75,000 electronic requests for information. This does not include telephone or mail.

There had also been developed an on-line payment of the application fee; $25 for domestic students and $50 for international students. Auburn was one of the very first institutions to do this, second only to the University of Texas. A centralized application-processing center was also developed which involves the Registrar’s office a great deal. Undergraduate and graduate processing is very manual, and so it was possible to centralize this process. Automated responses to applicants and graduate program officers has been developed which allows faster communication, and allows the department to be more involved in the admissions process. The results are an overall increase in speed and efficiency, and an increase in application numbers, while maintaining a paper system as a backup.

The graduate school has also been involved in automating some processes that have caused difficulty in the past. All forms and application materials are available by the web, fax, or e-mail, except those that require security. A system has been designed to provide each GPO with a current listing of graduate students enrolled and a list of admitted students each quarter. Standardized test scores are now available via the web. Graduate grade point averages are now accurate and available through OASIS.

Future plans include initiation of updating all student records to make them semester compliant. Beginning winter term 2000, all continuing graduate students will be evaluated for semester transition. Soon each department and GPO will have access to a secure web server that provides admissions data and decisions. A web-based graduate faculty nomination and approval process is also foreseen in the fall to reduce the amount of paper that is involved. Auburn faces the challenge of "certificate programs" that more and more universities include, as well as the outreach/distance program education.

Conner Bailey (Steering Committee) made the statement that the proposal mentioned that an application must be received by Graduate School at least six weeks prior to the first day of classes. He asked if that was a fixed deadline, and if so, what is the rationalization behind it?

McFarland stated that these are recommendations for applications. The six weeks is based now on a semester system. However, the Graduate School has and will continue to do everything possible to admit a student even the day before classes begin. The web-based admissions process may help to solve this problem by speeding up the process. The Graduate School will hopefully be taken out of the process, and an applicant will receive an immediate letter of acceptance. McFarland hopes that the applications will be processed the minute they come into the Graduate School.

Bill Felkey (Pharmacy Care Systems) asked for the current campus-wide numbers of decreased graduate student enrollment, and for the current mix of international and domestic students.

Dr. Pritchett answered Felkey’s question. The enrollment is down 15.8% over the past three years. Three years ago, the enrollment peaked at 3126 while this past fall there were 2633 students enrolled. International students have decreased by 125 from 785 into the 600’s. Most of that decline is in the graduate enrollment. This past year, the number of applications has increased 7% over the previous year, and requests for information has increased dramatically. Over 35,000 requests for information were received. The university-wide percentage of those who enroll from those whom are accepted was 53% compared to 68% at the University of Alabama, 67% at the University of Georgia, and 63% at the University of Tennessee.

Cindy Brunner (Pathobiology) asked Dr. Pritchett if there has been any follow-up to discover why the 47% did not enroll after being accepted.

Dr. Pritchett: With the automated system, this may be an easier process. There has been initiated a follow-up process with the University of Alabama. There have been a number of students who choose to go to UA rather than Auburn, and the Graduate School will be able to contact those students to see why the decision was made to attend UA.

Bruce Gladden (Chair-elect) wanted to know a little more about the other benchmarked universities.

Dr. Pritchett: Texas Tech and Florida State were focused on after the initial benchmarking. Most of these institutions still require a minimum test score, but it is only one factor in the overall process. This allows departments to use other factors to accept students.

Ulrich Albrecht (Mathematics) thinks that increasing the applicant pool will not necessarily solve the problem, specifically in the department of mathematics for two reasons:

1. Auburn is not financially competitive for domestic students, and
2. Auburn is not competitive for international students because of the extremely high TSE scores required to be able to teach at Auburn.

Dr. Pritchett agrees with the competition problem. They are attempting to bring faculty to 100% of the norms, but also the graduate students. For international students, there are two tests. One is the TOEFL, which tests a student’s ability to reason in English, and two, is the TSE, or the test of spoken English. The Board of Trustees has mandated that we look at the proficiency of those who teach our lectures and our laboratories. Three years ago the Graduate Council examined those scores of the TSE and set the standard score at a level that was considered reasonable. Also available now is the EFL program, which has the ability to certify a student to teach in the classroom after completing this program. The bottom line is that those who teach must be able to communicate.

There was a question on the numbers of domestic and international graduate students enrolled. Last fall there were 2633 overall and 520 international students.

Russ Muntifering (Animal and Dairy Science) asked how applicants have trended.

Dr. Pritchett stated that there were 35,000 requests for information last year; a dramatic increase because of the ease of requesting information. Acceptance rate is fairly stable. About 1/3 of all applicants who apply are accepted. There has not been any decline in the GRE scores of those accepted. The telling statistic is the number of students who are accepted, and who then enroll. The major decline in enrollment is in four major areas: Agriculture, Science and Math, Liberal Arts, and Engineering. This accounts for more than 80% of the decline. There has also been a decline in the number of assistantships in those four areas; 114% decline in the number of assistantships.

Russ Munifering asked a question regarding declining enrollment.

Dr. Pritchett: The no show rate is what is driving the decline in enrollment. The other piece is what was presented to the Senate last time regarding the competition of graduate students.

B. A report on the activities of the Oasis Management Team, classroom assignments, and other items or interest: Dr. Nick Backsheider

About a year ago, Dr. Backsheider presented to the Senate that the AIMS system would have to be turned off. Shortly after the initiation of the OASIS system, the satisfaction level of the dropped. There were many problems, which has been the same with any major student system. There have been several changes that have been made in the system. First, students can now pay their bills using credit cards, which has decreased the number of collections. Also, the system is Y2K compliant. Many changes have also been made because of state and federal regulations regarding financial aid, and other programs, which are updated monthly.

Most of the changes needed between colleges or within departments can be made now by making changes in tables within the system or adding new data elements to the dictionary. A new program does not need to be written to change these things. This is particularly important during the transfer from quarters to semesters because of the entirely new course inventory.

The biggest single change to be made is the change of the calculation of the grade point average. It is necessary to calculate the GPA during the time the student was on the quarter system and the GPA while the student is on the semester system. The billing and financial system will also have major changes because of the transition and the separate terms in the summer.

Problems over the past year have included:

• ‘Academic action’ to transition from AIM to OASIS.
• Part of the system was unusable as delivered. (i.e. the admissions on-line system)
• Transfer data conversion.
• The problem of allocating classrooms to courses. A space study is now being conducted, and some policies may need to be revised.

The OASIS Management Team was formed and given the charge to move the system to a "university resource;" something that could be available across the university. The primary direction of the Management Team has elected for the system is that the data should be available to those who need it, in the format in the way they need it, in order to perform their jobs effectively. It is to be secure and protected, but easily accessible. For example, a list of all philosophy majors is now available on the system.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:45 p.m.