Auburn
University Senate Minutes
January
9, 2001
Broun
Hall Auditorium
Absent: S. Taylor, D.
Bransby, D. Norris, R. Middleton, R. Eaves, R. Jenkins, M. El-Halwagi, R.
Broughton, R. Crocker, J. Facteau, R. Locy, B. Hames, R. Kenworthy, D. Zhang,
G. Pettit, M. Reinke, J. DeRuiter, K. Krueger, C. Hageman.
Absent
(Substitute): B. Bowman (J. Melville), M. Rolsma (C. Hendrix).
The
meeting was called to order at 3:10 p.m.
The minutes for the previous meeting were approved as posted. They can be found at the Senate web page at https://auburn.edu/administration/governance/senate/schedule.html.
Announcements:
A. President’s Office: President William Muse
Congratulations
on successfully completing our first semester in about 54 years; everything
went smoothly. During the past Fall semester, our Office of Governmental
Affairs arranged for a series of meetings around the state at eight different
locations that we call our “conversations with the leadership.” These meetings
were designed to provide an opportunity for interaction between our elected
leaders, members of the State legislature, and our volunteer leaders, which are
members of the Auburn Legislative Action Network (ALAN) program. Buddy Mitchell
and Sherry Fulford are here and will report to you later in the meeting about
those sessions as well as about the general situation in Montgomery. In those
meetings, I think that things have gone very well, and I come away from them
with an impression that Auburn University is held in very high regard by the
leaders of our state. This is certainly credited to the very fine job you are
doing in the classroom, research laboratories, and out in the community. People
recognize the quality of the operations that take place here at Auburn. But
even though they recognize the quality that we possess and the fine job that we
do, in terms of funding, Auburn has traditionally been treated the same
way, just like every other institution
in the state. We have gotten the same
percentage increase and decrease as happened in 1995. Both Auburn University and AUM have been participating in a
legislative task force on performance-based budgeting that Gov. Siegelman has
set up representing both the Senate and the House. This particular task force
has been investigating the possibilities of tying the funding of both state
agencies and state Universities to various performance measures. At the same
time, I have been pushing in the Council of Presidents in this state for
whatever monies we have to be allocated on an equity basis as opposed to across
the board. I have taken this position
and we have pushed for performance-based budgeting because we believe (and the data
would clearly show) that if you compare Auburn to any other institution in the
state on an objective-basis on performance indicators, we would fare very well.
However, the problem at this juncture, is that it doesn’t appear as though
there is going to be very much for allocation this year. In fact, through the month of December,
there is actually negative growth in the Education Trust Fund. If this pattern
continues, we are very likely to have proration before this budgetary year is
out. Also, there is likely to be very limited funds projected for growth next
year, which would be the basis of next year’s budget formulation. Even if there
is growth in next year’s budget, because of the action of this year’s
legislature, 62% of that growth is already locked in for K-12 teacher salaries
and benefits. What worries me at this juncture is if these conditions prevail,
then our ability to meet the goals that have been established in our financial
plan will be greatly compromised. We plan to go to the Trustees in April with a
proposal for a tuition increase. This is consistent with our plan to bring
tuition rates up to the regional average. Assuming that enrollment holds, and
we expect it to since we are expecting a substantial demand for entry into
Auburn for next year, this will produce some additional revenue, but not likely
enough to achieve all of our goals at the level desired. It is too early to
know what kind of salary increase we can afford for next year, but, as
indicated in our plan, we assure you that compensation is our first priority.
We will do as well as we can to try to meet the goals that have been
established.
I
am very pleased that Gene Clothiaux is heading up our SACS reaffirmation. Gene
will report to you later in the meeting on that activity. We will have a SACS
representative, the person who will be our liaison officer for our
reaffirmation visit, on campus, and you will have the opportunity to meet with
that person while he’s here. This is an extremely important process for Auburn
because the accreditation criteria have shifted significantly over the last
decade, since the last time we came up for reaffirmation. All of us are
required to define more clearly and more objectively what we are trying to
accomplish, what our goals are, and how well we are achieving those goals. This
is the central piece to this re-accreditation effort.
Jo Heath,
Immediate Past-Chair: Is it the case that we get state appropriations no matter
what our enrollment is? Do we get the same amount?
Dr. Muse: We get the same percentage increase. This is
the thing that is most remarkable about our system of funding here in Alabama;
we do not get money appropriated on a per-student, or per-student-credit-hour
basis, as is true in some states. We have had in years past institutions that
have suffered a substantial decline in enrollment from one year to the next,
and those who have had a substantial increase from one year to the next get the
same percentage increase. Thus, there has not been a pattern of adjusting the
base appropriation based on enrollment. That is truly remarkable.
Jo Heath: In view of that, we would save money if we
reduced enrollment, and we could also improve instruction by reducing the size
of some of our large freshmen classes.
Dr. Muse: We have to recognize that the students are
paying a larger portion of the cost of their education than they have in the
past, and we would lose a tuition revenue that we generate from them. So if you
looked at it as an economist, it would be looking at the marginal revenue we
generate from these additional students as opposed to the marginal cost that we
would incur from having them. A clear part of our strategy over the last
several years has been to increase our out-of-state enrollment, particularly
the out-of-state enrollment that is now paying three times the in-state rate.
One could make a strong argument that as we are able to increase that
component, the revenue that they bring in probably does more than cover their
marginal cost.
Paul Schmidt,
Mathematics: In relation to
Information Technology, one of the recommendations of the study done by IBM and
the IT core team was to create a position for an Associate Provost of Information Technology and Chief
Information Officer. Some time during the summer it seemed that a search
committee was being formed and the position was being advertised. Has any action been taken for filling this
position?
Dr. Muse: That position has not been filled. There has
been considerable discussion about it, and Dr. Walker would probably be the
best individual who could respond to that question because that position would
report to him. When Mr. Stone retired last September, Mr. Barnett was appointed
to fill that position and I think there have been some changes made in
responsibilities there that has improved some of the performance in managing
information technology. Long-term, I still think that is a structure that makes
the most sense for us, but we have not filled that position. I think the
function is being performed at least at some level consistent with what we have
projected a person in that role would do.
Dr. Schmidt: Is there a search going on?
Dr. Muse: No, there is no search going on.
David Sutton,
Communications: Driving into work
each day past some of these construction projects, I’ve noticed that some of these
construction workers are operating heavy machinery, sledgehammers and such, but
not wearing any safety equipment such as hardhats and safety glasses. I know
that we require students to wear protection in science classes at least for
their eyes; do such requirements exist for workers on campus, and if not, why
not, and does this subject us to any kind of liability?
Dr. Muse: I would
certainly think that OSHA requirements would apply to us. I don’t have a good
answer to that, but we will make an inquiry as to the status of that issue.
Thank you for bringing it to our attention.
Plans
are underway for another meeting of Senate leaders with certain Board of
Trustees members, particularly the Academic Affairs committee members. This is
an attempt to improve communications
and cooperation between the faculty, administration, and the Board.
Tentatively, a retreat is scheduled for January 25th in Abbeville at
Mr. Jimmy Rane’s farm. Those listed to attend are members of the Academic
Affairs committee: Mr. Jack Miller, Mr. John Blackwell, Mr. Byron Franklin, Mr.
Jimmy Rane, and Dr. Ed Richardson.
Other attendees will include:
Mr. Jimmy Samford, President Bill Muse, Provost Bill Walker, Chancellor
Guin Nance (AUM), Bruce Gladden, Mary K. Boudreaux, Jim Bradley, Isabelle
Thompson, and Bob Van Der Velde (AUM Senate Chair).
Either
next month or March the agenda will include a discussion of senate budget
priorities. Because of what Dr. Muse just said you may wonder why we need budget
priorities. I think even if some of the things that faculty want or feel would
be important in terms of benefits, tuition remission for dependents, and so
forth, even if those cannot be accomplished this year or next year, I think it
is important that the Senate have priorities and re-examine those on an ongoing
basis. In the past we have had issues come before the Senate and we might pass
a resolution suggesting that we would like this or that and it goes forward.
There might possibly be more than one certainly by the time the end of the year
comes. Other priorities may come from
insurance and benefits. This year I’m
hoping to have information from the insurance and benefits committee that they
have been working on pertaining to the the various issues that are important to
faculty. This committee normally
reports to the president and not to the Senate but they have been kind enough
to allow the Senators to view their recommendations. We are hoping in February and March to bring to the Senate some
of those items and reach an agreement on some sort of priority, and have as
well some information about cost of those items, so that even if they don’t
happen we will have a clear template for what the faculty values when the
opportunity does arise. If that information comes to us before the next
meeting, I hope we will be able to share it by emails to the Senate members so
the information will be out ahead of time and let you be thinking about it.
Nominations
for the Rules committee are due next month. The Rules committee is really the
“committee on committees” in that it chooses all the other committees. If it’s
a Senate committee, the members are selected by the Rules committee. If it’s a
University committee, typically, the Rules committee will nominate one more
person than there are slots; those will be sent to the President’s office and
selections will be made from that list at the President’s office. This is an
extremely important, hard-working committee responsible for a huge amount of
work. We are going to need nominations at the next meeting in February. The
members of the committee right now are:
Bruce Gladden, Jo Heath, Mary K. Boudreaux, Jim Bradley, Isabelle
Thompson, Ed Morrison, David Bransby, Marie Kraska, Steve Knowlton, Greg
Pettit, and Paula Sullenger. Members
rotating off are David Bransby, Marie Kraska, and Ed Morrison.
We
need at least three nominees. The people on the Rules committee must be
Senators, so your nominees must come from among yourselves. You must have your
nominee’s permission to nominate him or her. Please have nominations ready at
next month’s meeting.
Information
items
A. SACS reaffirmation – Gene Clothiaux
Dr.
Muse has already mentioned that we are due for a ten-year reaffirmation and
accreditation. The visiting team will be here in the year 2003, probably in the
month of April. What we are doing now is getting started trying to set up
committees and doing a self-study of the University in preparation for this
visit. We’re having a kickoff visit on Tuesday, January 23. Dr. Gerald Lord
will be here from SACS; he is our liaison with SACS and he will meet here on
January 23 with the Auburn University SACS Steering committee and the Auburn
University Institutional Effectiveness committee. Once he has met with those
two committees, he will meet with the President and the Administrative council.
We have set a meeting with the faculty with Dr. Lord at 3:00 p.m. on that
Tuesday, January 23.
My
co-chair, Linda Glaze, and I have established seven principal committees; those
committees and the chairs we have are the following:
Institutional
Purpose committee – Dr. Ed Harrell (Breeden Eminent Scholar/History), Chair
Institutional
Effectiveness committee – no chair yet
Educational
Programs committee - no chair yet
Faculty
committee – Dr. Larry Gerber (History), Chair
Educational
Support Services committee, Dr. Ralph Zee (Alumni Professor/Mech Eng), Chair
Intercollegiate
Athletic committee – Ms. Yvonne Kozlowski (Library), Chair
Administrative
Services committee – Dr. Wayne Alderman (Business), Chair
The
Steering committee, which is probably the most important committee in terms of
guiding the self-study, is going to be made up of these seven chairs. In
addition to that, we have asked Mr. Sam Lowther, Executive Director of Planning
and Analysis, to serve on that committee as well. We have asked Mr. William
Wade (Office of Information Technology) to also to be a member. Dr. Isabelle
Thompson, who was the editor of the SACS self-study ten years ago, has agreed
to repeat that task this time; thus, she will also be a member of that
committee. Mr. Jimmy Samford, President Pro-Tem of the Board of Trustees, was
invited to become a member of the steering committee; he has accepted. This way
we can keep the board notified of what is going on with the self-study. In addition to those are Dr. Glaze and
myself.
A
synopsis of our timetable over the next two years: We will complete selecting
the chairs for these two committees and form the steering committee. Then we’ll
have to put together an Institutional Effectiveness committee quickly because
Dr. Lord has said that he definitely wishes to speak with that particular
committee. Institutional effectiveness will cover all of the assessment that
has been going on for a year or more. Each department sets up its outcomes and
is now in the process of determining how it is going to make its measurements.
At the end of May we’ll make measurements, evaluate what they have, and decide
what we will continue. Then we will proceed to appoint the remaining members of
the committees that we have made and finish by mid-April. At that point I will
have an orientation meeting with each committee, expressing to each committee
its charge, based on criteria established by SACS for self-evaluation. The
steering committee will meet and set up questionnaires: a questionnaire for the
faculty, a separate one for staff, and a separate one for students. Then we
will distribute those and hope people will actually fill out the questionnaires
and return them. We will then take those questionnaires and evaluate the
responses.
So
hopefully we will have everything in place by mid-May. From that point to the
beginning of the next academic year, all of the work will be done by myself,
Dr. Glaze, and Dr. Thompson. We are going to set up a self-study manual,
assemble an institutional fact book, and I presume Dr. Thompson will develop
writing and editing guidelines. When the new year begins, I will activate all
of the principal committees and they will begin their work. Hopefully that will
all be complete by the end of May 2002. It is possible that things could carry
over into the summer, but by the beginning of the academic year 2002-2003, we
would like to have all of the final reports sent so that we could set up the
final self-study report that will go to SACS. Before we send it to SACS, we are
going to arrange so that the faculty can look at it; they can read it and
respond to it. We will collect all of those responses and incorporate them into
the final self-study that will be sent to SACS. Hopefully this can be done by
December 2002. Once this is all done, we then have to prepare for the
visitation. We will try to set dates with Dr. Lord for the first week of April,
which should come right after Spring Break 2003. At that point, that visiting
committee can request to speak to anyone on campus, even department heads,
Senators, and committees. They will ask questions about the self-study, the
University, and the kinds of activities that you participate in. They will be
here approximately three days. At the end of three days they will make a brief
report to the President of what they have found. After this they will leave and
write a series of recommendations that will come back to us. In 1992 we had 42
recommendations and 70 suggestions that we had to address. We won’t come away
without any recommendations, but we hope to keep from having any serious
recommendations.
In
the future from time to time, I will come back to the Senate and report on
where we are and what has been accomplished up to that point.
Remember
the faculty meeting with Dr. Lord on
January 23 at 3:00 in Broun Hall Auditorium. Please inform the members of your
department and encourage them to come.
Richard Kunkel
(Dean, College of Education): As you continue to work on the University’s Institutional Effectiveness,
I hope we will keep in mind the work of the past 10 years, with names such as
Burkhalter, Pritchett, Golson, Spain, and the Commission on the 21st
Century coming to mind. All of those
and others have contibuted to the goals of institutional effectiveness.
Mr. Clothiaux:
This committee is going to deal with
assessment of the entire University. Since we have begun learning outcomes
assessment in the academic programs as well as outcomes in the administrative departments,
it is these things we are going to be really looking at.
Dean Kunkel: My point is to not treat
institutional effectiveness like it was discovered on Monday.
Mr. Clothiaux:
No, we are not. The whole point of this
assessment is that even though it is only going to be in its third year, when
the visiting committee comes, it is a permanent part of the University, as I
understand, because we now have a permanent Director of Assessment. This is not being done for SACS; it is being
done for the University. Hopefully the departments will see it this way and
take it seriously. Hopefully, when they put down outcomes, they will honestly
feel these outcomes will help their department improve, and that as they
evaluate these, they will use these in a way to improve.
Dean Kunkel: Do you understand the point I’m trying to
make about other efforts over the years?
None of those are brand new sentences.
Mr. Clothiaux: You are saying they are not new, and I
agree. But what is the point?
Dean
Kunkel: The point is consider the people involved in those efforts and what the
progress is that has been made over the last 10 years. And don’t make it sound like we’re just
going to use institutional effectiveness as we now put together the outcomes
assessment part.
Committee
report:
These
are the members of the committee: Marcia Boosinger, Larry Gerber, Jo Heath,
Jenny Raymond, Dennis Rygiel, and Susan Villaume. We met at the end of Fall term and we have some good names. We
are looking for four good candidates: two for secretary-elect, two for
chair-elect. We have one identified. We could not contact people very well in
between terms; we are going to get started tomorrow. If you know of any names
of people who would make good chairs (chair, chair-elect, secretary,
secretary-elect), feel free to contact anyone on this committee and provide
that name.
Information
Item:
B.
A Report on
Legislative issues – Buddy Mitchell, Sherri Fulford, Auburn Legislative Action
Network
Actually,
we’re the Office of Governmental Affairs; the Legislative Action Network you
referred to I will talk about later as part of our operation.
There
is a quote attributed to Bismarck in reference to how sausages are made; laws
are made in Montgomery similar to the way he talks about sausages being made.
Sherri and I are not the sausage-makers, but we have to watch how the sausages
are made many times.
Our
office’s primary mission is to serve as a liaison to the University, government
officials, state agencies; we take requests from state officials and help
arrange on-campus visits. We take their personal requests about constituents.
Constituents all over the state will contact their legislative representative
about a recent issue or class issue; we handle those properly. Our primary
interest is watching and maintaining Auburn’s interest in the budget.
Approximately a third of the revenues (this has changed over the past few
years) the University receives are from the State of Alabama; the rest comes
from tuition and the federal government. We are there protecting those dollars
every year.
We
have two groups that have worked effectively with us over the last few years
helping us disseminate information to Auburn and to AUM’s campuses. One of those groups is the Political Action
team made up of all the division heads at Auburn: AUM, the Cooperative
Extension Service, and the Ag Experiment Station. We meet regularly, especially as a session progresses, to talk
about priorities with the University and special requests for funding. For
example, the Cooperative Extension Service has a special request this year
before the Legislature, and this will be one of our priorities if the money is
available. We meet on a regular basis. The chancellor at AUM, Dean Waters, and
Dr. Jones meet with Sherri and I on a regular basis. We have a governmental
affairs council made up of representatives from AUM and Auburn’s main campus.
Dr. Gladden meets with us on a regular basis. Dr. Kunkel, representing the
deans, the SGA President, and the Political Affairs Rep from SGA, Deborah Cary,
and Ellyn Hix meet with us. From AUM we
have people holding similar positions making up the staff council; these people
disseminate the information we have in Montgomery on the budgets, legislation
affecting Auburn University, session progress. I think Dr. Gladden did a good
job last year when we talked about getting the information on the national
teacher pay raise bill out.
We
also have an Auburn Legislative Action Network, which is a group mostly of
alumni who work with us in their legislative districts to communicate
information about Auburn’s needs to their legislative representatives back
home. We have an annual meeting in Auburn during the fall. Throughout the year
we keep them informed on the issues affecting Auburn so that they can call the
legislators and communicate these issues to them. It is more effective for a
constituent to call a representative in Birmingham than it would be for a
person here on campus to call that member. Because that person votes in his or
her district, the legislator would probably take action and show more concern.
We use this Legislative Action Network very effectively throughout the year.
Dr. Muse knows as well that at our regional meetings legislators make note of
the calls they get from this group of people; this group comprises about 450 to
500 people. At one time it was over 1000 people, but it was toned down when the
Cooperative Extension combined with Alabama A&M University. We have less people
but more willing workers in the network now. We’ve had seven regional meetings
around the state; there is one more in Anniston next week. These are meetings,
as Dr. Muse mentioned, that are conversations with the leadership. At these
meetings, Dr. Muse talks about the issues that are confronting the University,
what we would like for the legislator to hear about our needs at Auburn, what
we expect from legislation dealing with funding, and also to preach Auburn’s
message: how effective this University has been over the years with the dollars
that have been made available to them. As Dr. Muse said, we have received much
praise about the effectiveness of Auburn University, and such reports in U.S.
News and World Report are always welcomed. Dr. Muse does a good job in
reporting that message.
Sherri
Fulford, our Associate Director for Governmental Affairs, and our secretary
make up our entire staff in Montgomery.
The
legislative session will begin February 6. They have 105 calendar days to meet,
but they can only meet 30 days of those calendar days. Usually they come in on
Tuesdays and Thursdays; on Wednesdays they have committee meetings. They will
try to use the entire 105 calendar days to meet the 30 days. The budget
hearings are to begin next week. There will be some presentations there about
the state of the economy from the legislative fiscal office and the Governor’s finance office. We will
hear more on what is going on with the economy at that time.
Dr.
Muse touched on what happened at the regular session of the legislature last
year when the bill that mandated that all teacher salaries increase to the
national average over the next number of years. Sixty-two percent of growth will be set aside for those salaries,
in other words, every $100 that comes into the trust fund each year (if the
money is available) should be set aside for teacher pay raises. That 38% left
is what we will be fighting for with K-12 schools, two-year colleges, and pay
raises for sports personnel in K-12. This is all of the dollars that will be
available within a year when there is growth in the Education Trust Fund.
Dr.
Muse mentioned about the negative growth in the first quarter of the year in
the Education Trust Fund. In the first quarter of October-November-December,
the state taxes compared with the year before experienced an approximate –2%
growth. The state budget office and state finance offices tried hard to find
out if quirks or collections caused this negative growth, which was off from
all the predictions for this year. They found that all taxes were down –2%, and
corporate income tax was down –42%. What we are looking at for the present
fiscal year is at least a 2% proration. If the government waits to declare
proration halfway through the year, that percentage will double. Dr. Muse also
mentioned that since growth is down, next year’s budget will probably be at
least level-funding for the next fiscal year. On this mandated teacher
pay-raise, that will not even kick in because there must be 3.5% growth. Based on what we are looking at now, that
will not kick in; however, it does appear that we will have a level budget next
fiscal year and probably proration for this fiscal year.
The
meeting was adjourned at 4:00 p.m.