Auburn
University Senate Minutes
March
6, 2001
Broun
Hall Auditorium
Absent: D. Norris, M. El-Halwagi, S. Krishnamurti,
R. Locy, R. Paxton, C. Skelton, J. Bannon, C. Hageman, C. Buchanan, M. Solomon.
Absent
(substitute): J. Facteau (V.
O’Leary), S. Knowlton (C. Watts), R.
Keith (B. Streumpler), R. Crocker (L.Gerber), Rich Britnell (B. Smith).
The
meeting was called to order at 3:10 p.m.
The
minutes for the last meeting were approved as posted. They can be found at the Senate
web page at
https://auburn.edu/administration/governance/senate/schedule.html.
Rules
Committee Election (shift in original order of agenda):
The
Rules Committee nominees are Charlie Gross (Electrical and Computer
Engineering), Marty Olliff (Library), and Mark Rolsma (Pathobiology). Carl
Hudson (Finance) withdrew his name from the ballot.
There
were no other nominations from the floor of the Senate; thus, these three were
elected to the Rules Committee.
Announcements:
A. Dr. John Pritchett, Office of the Provost
Today
was “Higher Education Day” in Montgomery. Dean Richard Kunkel called yesterday
after lunch and said that Auburn University as well as the rest of the
Universities in the state was well-represented, and they’re hopefully having a
big impact. I would like to acknowledge
Bill Walker and all that he is doing down there. He has stepped forward with
all of the other University presidents in the state, and from the media
coverage it looks like we are beginning to have a real impact. Of course with some of the Governor’s latest
proposals, 6.2% (without some sort of rectification of the tax situation) looks
like our best-case scenario. Of course this will equate, as far as main
campuses are concerned, to approximately a 4% deduction. But with some of the
things the Governor has proposed with exempting K-12 teacher salaries from
proration, this would equate to as much as an 11.8% reduction as far as main
campuses are concerned. Then considering the proportions of state
appropriations to the total budget, it would be as much as a 7 or 8% reduction
as far as we are concerned. So, we are keeping our fingers crossed as far as
legislation is concerned.
Relative
to any adjustments as far as budgets are concerned, related to the proration
this year passing us through from the coming budget for the coming year, Bill
Walker has indicated that he wants complete involvement of all stakeholders in all units in this. This past
Thursday we asked all deans and vice presidents to involve in all their
processes students, faculty, and staff within those individual units. The deans
at this point are sending forward to me what those mechanisms are and what is
specifically involved; I am forwarding that to the Senate leadership as we have
that information coming in.
Secondly,
we’ve asked the Senate leadership to identify for us faculty individuals to
serve on a central committee, which will be addressing some of the central
priorities and giving oversight to the entire process. The Rules Committee has
given me names of a number of individuals to serve on that committee. We are
currently involved in appointing that committee, which will also include
students, a member from the Staff Advisory Council and the A&P group. We
hope to have this committee established some time next week.
Conner Bailey,
Ag Econ & Rural Soc (not a senator): Can you put to rest a rumor that
has been circulating lately? Is the
University in the process of purchasing a second jet airplane?
Dr. Pritchett: I do not know anything about that. I know
there was some discussion of the possibility of that a while back. Don Large
would be the best person to address that to. With the circles I move in, I
wouldn’t know anything about it.
Dr. Bailey: It would strike me as an untimely
development given the legislature’s concerns and the issue of proration.
Dr. Pritchett: I agree that
it would be untimely with other things we have going on at this point in time.
Curtis Jolly,
Ag Economics and Rural Sociology:
Can you give us a little more information on the central committee, its
duration and purpose?
Dr. Pritchett: From my understanding, this is an outgrowth
of some of the things Conner suggested when Bill was first appointed to this position.
We want for any decisions that are made in regards to proration for this year’s
budget and pass-throughs of proration into the coming year’s budget has
complete input at all levels. That is the basis for the establishment not only
of the central committee, but also for the parallel committees within the
schools and colleges. I would envision at this point in time, and of course
once the committee gets together as a total committee itself, would further
define its role, but I would hope what we would involve ourselves with is first
of all providing oversight with the process that goes on within the colleges
and schools to make sure we do have faculty involvement at those levels and
other stakeholder involvement. From the standpoint of the University as a
whole, we would work on some central priorities for the University. I would
expect that once the group comes together we can further define it. I would
rather use the collective wisdom of the group once we get them together,
though, instead of pre-ordaining what the committee is going to look at itself.
Sarge Bilgili,
Poultry Science: Dr. Pritchett, we need
clarification of the $58 million reserve that the Governor referred to so that
the average person in the state will know what that fund is or is not.
Dr. Pritchett: I believe in yesterday’s newspaper Dr. Large
put out a clarification on that. There is certainly not $58 million there;
however, some of the things the Governor was counting in that was indirect cost
recovery dollars (which come in off research grants) that are already committed
to set up funding and such. Those dollars are already committed, yet the
Governor is counting them as reserve. We have approximately $5.5 million in our
summer salary budget for this summer, which is already allocated out to the
colleges and schools. Yet the Governor has included that $5.5 million in his
$58 million reserves. The truth is that there is not $58 million, nor anything
close to it, in unallocated or unbudgeted reserve. He’s simply pulled a bookkeeping
figure off and used it to serve his end.
Dr.
Bilgili: Well
I understand that and we all do, but the average person in this state does
not. I think this should be clearly
articulated and broken down.
Dr. Pritchett: I think Don took a good step in that
direction yesterday. Another thing that we have done is establish a “central
communication coordination group” that will say what message we need to be
articulating and how to best articulate that message throughout this state.
Also we will be doing this in concert with other Universities around this
state. That may be one of the issues we need to zero in on.
Conner Bailey,
Ag Econ & Rural Soc (not a senator):
There
have been some press reports recently about the Board making decisions,
“meddling” I believe was the word used in the news account, with coaches in the
athletic program. I am wondering at what point have we been approached by the
NCAA to investigate this allegation of Board members actively going around
central administration and loss of institutional control?
Dr. Pritchett: I have no information on that. That question
would probably be best addressed to Dr. Walker. I have not moved in those
circles and I do not know.
Dr. Bailey: Perhaps Dr. Walker would address these
issues at the General Faculty meeting next week?
First,
I would like to remind you to volunteer for committees. The website is https://auburn.edu/administration/governance/senate/faculty.htm. Please consider volunteering. The website
will close not on March 6 but on March 13.
Second,
we are working to make sure that faculty are involved in decisions regarding
proration. The Rules Committee has nominated faculty to serve on a central
proration committee; there will be 5 faculty on that committee and probably
Mike Moriarity the Assistant VP for Research, Steve McFarland, Acting Graduate
Dean, David Wilson, VP for Outreach, Wes Williams, VP for Student Affairs, a
staff representative, an A&P representative, and a student representative.
There will certainly be 5 well-known, vocal faculty participating in that as
well.
Also,
Dr. Pritchett has encouraged deans to include faculty in decisions,
particularly to either have elected faculty members or Senators. Several of the
deans have replied indicating their use of advisory bodies with faculty members
and/or Senators in that process. We also want that to happen at the
departmental levels. If any of you have concerns about this, be sure to let any
of the Senators know and we will be sure to follow up to make sure that faculty
input is occurring at all levels.
I
would like to report on a small amount of interaction that has occurred with
the Board of Trustees since our last meeting. After consultation with the
Senate officers and Larry Gerber of the AAUP, I sent a letter to Mr. Samford
and Mr. Miller outlining a Presidential search process. The following are
overheads displayed at the meeting outlining those points presented:
Letter
to Mr. Samford and Mr. Miller
1. No final
decision about a search-consulting firm until a Presidential Search Committee
is appointed. If search consultants are
used, should be advisory to the search committee, without authority to make
final decisions about the search process.
2. Search
committee composition (14 total members):
Members should be chosen without restrictions by the executive
committees or boards of directors of the various constituent groups.
Five faculty from
AU Auburn and one from AUM
One student
member (SGA President?) from AU Auburn
One student
member (SGA President?) from AUM
Three alumni from
AU Auburn
One
alumnus/alumna from AUM
One staff representative
One
administrative and professional representative
One Board of
Trustees member as facilitator
One person to
serve as secretary to the Committee
these latter two individuals would not participate in the
decision-making
process.
3. Committee
Chair chosen by Search Committee.
4. Charge of the
Committee from the President Pro Tempore of the Board of Trustees specified in
writing and includes provisions listed below:
a. The Presidential Search Committee will
determine whether or not to use a search firm.
b. Search Committee will draft the
advertisement for the position and will determine criteria for selection. If a search firm is used, it will assist in
performing these duties, but Search Committee has final authority.
c. Search Committee will screen candidates and
identify a short list of three to five candidates. Only individuals listed on the short list by the Search Committee
can be considered for the position.
d. Finalists on the short list must be brought
to campus to meet with various constituent groups before the Search Committee
makes final recommendations to the Board of Trustees. Means that advertisement for the position must include the fact
that the finalists’ names will be made public.
e. Following the interviews described in d.,
Search Committee will identify those candidates who are acceptable, so that the
Board of Trustees may make its final selection from the list of approved
candidates.
All aspects of the above search
process should be agreed to in writing by way of a letter from the President
Pro Tempore of the Auburn University Board of Trustees.
Dr. Gladden:
Jim
Bradley and I will be meeting with Jack Miller on Thursday to discuss some of
these issues further.
I
personally believe that we as a faculty, as a Faculty Senate, at some point
will need to opt in or opt out of this search process. This is my opinion and
of course it will be Jim Bradley most likely who will be getting guidance on
this issue by the time this all happens. As you see, we are seeking a written
process that we can either agree or not agree to. I think as a representative
body we will need to make the decision as to whether or not we think the
process is acceptable at some point.
I
did get a call from Mr. Earlon McWhorter who hopes to meet with Jim Bradley and
me next week. No agenda is set on that, yet, though.
Next,
let me confirm with you that as directed by our motion regarding the
no-confidence vote at the special meeting on February 23, I contacted the Staff
Council, the SGA, the Administrative and Professional Assembly, the Alumni
Association, and the AAUP. I also contacted the Graduate Student Council, which
was not part of our motion. Each of those groups was sent a letter asking them
to consider asking them to vote no confidence in the Board and a copy of our
resolution. As a result of that, or
related to that I should say, I am happy to report what many of you already
know: the Staff Council voted to support our no-confidence vote, and also urged
both trustees and faculty to make a concerted effort to address those issues in
the no-confidence resolution; the SGA passed a vote of no-confidence; the
Administrative and Professional Assembly passed a vote of no-confidence and
called for a summit to seek solutions for the current difficulties, the summit
would include representatives from all stakeholders including the BOT; the
Graduate Student Council voted no-confidence; the AAUP voted no-confidence; the
Engineering Faculty Council voted no-confidence. Within the next week, I am
told that all the past-Chairs of the University Senate (or for at least the
past 15 years) will be signing an open letter to the BOT, I suspect asking the
Board to resign.
I
attended the Alumni Association board meeting on Saturday at their invitation;
there I presented the point of view of the faculty as best I could. I tried to
present what I believe are some of the views we could all agree upon. Judy
Sheppard from the AAUP was there; she made a nice presentation. The Alumni
Association board chose NOT to vote no confidence in the Board of Trustees. My
take on their actions from listening to them is not negative. They are sending
a letter to students and faculty indicating their support for us. I believe
they are supportive of us and that a lot of their members would have voted
no-confidence Saturday morning. The tact
that they chose, in my opinion, is one in which they are trying to work
with the Board and pressure the Board to come forward and “extend an olive
branch” and take actions that would get things moving. They think the Board
needs to do something positive. So, my take is that we should not view their
lack of a vote as lack of support. I think they are very supportive of the
faculty and students. I was asked by Mr. Bob Kloeti, President of the AU Alumni
Association, to provide to him and the Board various specific things we thought
the BOT could do that would be constructive steps. So with the officers of the
Senate and the assistance of Larry Gerber, we have drafted a letter that includes
the items that we see here (overhead of letter summary displayed at meeting):
President,
Auburn Alumni Association
1. Agreement
in writing by the Board of Trustees to the presidential search process outlined
in my letter of February 23rd to Mr. Jimmy Samford and Mr. Jack Miller.
2. Placement
of the Chair of the University Senate on the Board of Trustees as a nonvoting
member.
3. Placement
of the Chair of the University Senate on the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board
of Trustees as a nonvoting member.
4. Change the
by-laws of the Board such that prior approval of the Board is NOT required for
appointment of the Provost and Vice-Presidents by the President of the
University.
5. Commitment by
the Board to have public discussion of all issues prior to Board action.
6. Commitment by
the Board to oppose separation of fund-raising efforts by the Athletics program
from fund-raising efforts for academic programs.
Dr. Gladden:
We
would be happy to entertain other
thoughts or suggestions you may have by email or otherwise following
this meeting. We have to have a letter in, the sooner the better; no later than
tomorrow morning is what we have been asked to do.
They
do not want us to tell them to ask the Board to resign; they wanted us to come
up with other ideas, so that’s what we tried to do.
You
all got an email this morning relating to a resolution indicating that the
Senate officers would be asking for a motion regarding a process that was
suggested by the Engineering Faculty Council. The EFC last week unanimously
recommended the formation of a “joint assessment committee.” The Senate
officers, in consultation with certain members of the EFC, thought it was a
good, constructive idea. A few other members in the Senate community also
thought it was a good idea. So after some revision, we sent it out to you this
morning. Since that time there has been considerable feedback about concerns
about items that are too late for the agenda, not meeting the 48-hour deadline,
votes to suspend the Rules of the Senate, etc. We are NOT bringing that motion
forward; however, as Chair of the Senate I am going to appoint an ad-hoc
committee that is constituted as a joint assessment committee as described in
that email I sent you. I will attempt to do that because it includes a BOT
member, and I will ask that committee to move forward as indicated in the
materials we sent out, to investigate the feasibility of an external evaluation
of the Board and to develop a plan of action. Unless something changes, we can
bring that resolution or something similar to it up at a later time. The
following is the resolution displayed on overhead at the meeting:
Preamble. Auburn University is in the midst of an
overall general accreditation review by the Southern Association of Colleges
and Schools (SACS), a process that will conclude in 2002. Should Auburn fail accreditation renewal,
grave consequences would result, including loss of massive amounts of federal
funding, and loss of prestige. SACS Criteria for Accreditation, Section VI, and
specifically Article 6.1.2 requires that,
“there must (SACS’ emphasis) be a clear distinction, in writing and in
practice, between the policy-making functions of the governing board and the
responsibility of the administration and faculty to administer and implement
policy.” Should SACS find that Article 6.1.2 has been violated, the Board
will have placed renewal of Auburn’s accreditation in grave jeopardy. (As an
historical precedent, it should be noted that in 1949, problems with the Board
of Trustees of the University of Georgia in fact did lead to the loss of SACS
accreditation, eventually culminating in the formation of the State of
Georgia’s Board of Regents.) Consequently, with genuine concern for the
long-term best interests of Auburn University, in fairness, and with good will
for all parties, we offer the following course of action as a constructive step
forward.
WHEREAS
there
exists a widespread perceived lack of institutional leadership and
inappropriate governance by the Board of Trustees of Auburn University, as
demonstrated by a large majority of the Auburn stakeholders (faculty, staff,
administrative and professional personnel, and students) voting “no-confidence”
in the Board, this resolution hereby requests that the following actions be
taken promptly by joint action of the Board of Trustees and the University
Senate Officers:
Appointment
of a Joint Assessment Committee to Study the Feasibility of an External,
Objective, and Independent Assessment of the Board's Performance
Given the
current state of the relationship between the Board and the stakeholders, an
objective, independent assessment of the Board's performance by an outside
agency or group is needed. The Joint Assessment Committee (JAC) will study the
merits and mechanisms of such an assessment and report its conclusions and plan
of action to the University Senate and the Board of Trustees by April 6th,
the date of the next Board meeting. The JAC will determine suitable choices of
groups or agencies to perform the assessment, draft the charge to the group or
agency, and define specific tasks and deadlines. The membership of the JAC
shall be composed of the University Senate Chair, a Past-Chair of the
University Senate, the President of the Alumni Association, one Board of
Trustees member, the Chair of the AU Staff Council, a representative of the AU
administration, and the President of the SGA.
We believe it vital to the SACS accreditation process for the Board to be able to show clear evidence during next year’s SACS visit that there have been changes enacted in its present operating attitude and format. An external assessment may provide meaningful benchmarks and evidence to SACS that the Board is in compliance with SACS guidelines. Should the Board choose not to accept the procedure outlined here, the stakeholders of the university must assume a position of immense care and responsibility by bringing further national attention to the Board's governing performance by whatever means appropriate in order to bring about the necessary changes in the Board, and if necessary, its composition.
Dr. Gladden:
At
this time I would like to ask for questions pertaining to anything I’ve
mentioned or for further discussion of issues related to the Board of Trustees.
Marty Olliff,
Library: I wonder if you could send us via email the
letter you sent to the Board of Trustees and the recommendations to the Alumni
Association, either tonight or early tomorrow morning?
Dr. Gladden: Yes, I will do that.
Ralph
Mirarchi, Forestry and Wildlife Sciences (not a senator): In all of this I still have difficulty
seeing how we can move forward in a Presidential search and SACS review with
this current BOT. The only solution from this group is for us to call for the
resignation of the BOT if there is a vote of no confidence at the General
Faculty meeting. I am not a Senator so I cannot make a motion as such, but I
would wish that someone in this group would do so. I’ve been stopped by many
faculty, alumni, and even former Board members thanking me for my comments at
the last meeting; I ask that we move forward and I do not see us making any
progress unless we start fresh. That’s not to say some of the current Board members
are not good people. I’m also not saying they shouldn’t be re-appointed in the
new process. But the current situation is such that there is no trust among the
leaders on campus. How can we deal with these people?
Dr. Gladden: Since we are in my announcements phase I
suppose I am permitted an opinion. I don’t agree that is the only choice, but I
think it is a choice. I think we do need to keep the pressure on. We may come
to the point that you’re talking about. I do not disagree with that but I think
it may be a matter of timing and I think this group will have to make that
decision. I think we will have to make a decision at some point as to whether
we can do something with the current Board or if we can do nothing with them.
We differ in a manner of degree I suppose.
Dr. Mirarchi: I am going to take the liberty to pass out a
recommendation so that someone will take the initiative to make a motion out of
one if not all six of these. Basically it is a list of things I pointed out at
the last faculty meeting of ways we could go and ways we can approach this.
Alex Dunlop,
English: Could you be more specific as to when you
think the timing of such actions as Ralph is proposing would be appropriate?
Dr. Gladden: I see it as
stepwise. The presidential search process is a concrete item. I think within a
few weeks we’ll have something or not. It won’t be my choice to make a
decision; Jim will be in office, but I don’t think he or the officers alone can
make a decision. I’m guessing this group will make a decision as to whether to
participate with the Board in this activity or not. That then may lead to
whether to interact with the Board on any issue.
Dr. Dunlop: What is it
you are hoping might occur within these few weeks?
Dr. Gladden: I think there is a practical side. Is the Board ever going to resign under any
circumstances, perhaps those being ones the faculty chooses to bring about? If
you decide at some point that is not going to happen, do we withdraw or set out
specific interactions we are willing to take? I think that is what we have to
do. I think SACS and the search are issues here; I think we have to look at all
of these. I think it is a matter of timing. What if the Board gives us in
writing a search process that is acceptable, puts a faculty member on the
Board, a faculty member on the Academic Affairs committee; what if they take
the other steps we’ve outlined? We then decide whether we pursue resignations
or not. That is how I see it. If they ignore us then I suppose that will make
the path even clearer.
Brian
McAllister, English (not a Senator):
I agree with some parts of both sides I am hearing, but we seem to be
thinking that a resolution to ask the BOT to resign or not to pass such a
resolution are our only choices. I would like to point out that the suggestions
you’ve made do not include one of the other significant problems we are having:
the recent two appointments that seem to be very much in violation of the
construction of the Board as voted on by the people of Alabama. Certainly I
would think that at least that would be addressed. We ought to at least resolve
that the Board reconsider its own constitution or its own construction.
Dr. Gladden: We have already passed a resolution against
those appointments. We could continue that action. Again, part of this is in
response to what I saw the Alumni Association asking for. I’m not saying we
shouldn’t take those actions in other avenues, but I don’t think the Alumni Association is going to support our
calls for resignations at the moment. They may later, I don’t know.
Dr. McAllister: I really think we ought to consider this now
while we are being asked “what needs to be done.” As we all know this is
something that needs to be done.
Charlie Gross,
Electrical and Computer Engineering: I am wondering if the Senate has had a
chance to read this resolution that we asked Bruce to circulate from the
EFC. We would be interested in your
general reaction to that because we think this is a reasonable compromise. As a matter of fact we were ready to act on
this this afternoon but we were told we were out of order because we didn’t get
it in in time.
Dr. Gladden: Charlie is asking for reaction/discussion
about this resolution that we will not be voting on today. Is there any
discussion?
Virginia
O’Leary, Psychology (substitute for J. Facteau): It is my understanding that we can vote to
suspend the rules of the Senate to vote on this resolution now, so I suggest
that we do so.
Dr. Gladden: I am advised that we will not be voting to
suspend the rules of the Senate today.
Marty Olliff,
Library: I don’t think a vote on this is needed today
since you have already taken the basic steps asked for by at least setting up
the ad hoc committee, but I’d like to make a reaction to this. All of you
should be getting (and should be members of the AAUP) the AAUP listserv. The feeling of that organization is that
this is well and good. We have a
problem, however, with the “Association of Governing Boards in Colleges and
Universities.”
Dr.
Gladden: That has been removed from this version of the resolution.
Dr.
Olliff: OK, but this
should not pre-empt any other action on anybody’s part. There are other actions
planned and being discussed, which are not to be brought up for discussion
right now, but this should be one of the things that we look at and act on. We
ask that this go ahead and move forward. This should not, however, take us to
May 15 and then that’s the end of it, we all go home for summer and goodness
knows if we ever come back again. The Governor might know that but we may not.
If we do not see things going forward, there will be more and more
opportunities, more and more stridency, more and more vehemence and more and
more ability to call for deeper and deeper action against the BOT. This body
has voted no confidence in the BOT, so if we don’t have any confidence in them,
why are we negotiating with them? I am not prepared to do some of the things we
have been talking about today; we should not wait, however, past April 1st
for things to shake up. I suggest that at the April Senate meeting, Senators be
prepared for serious discussion on serious methods of making the Board pay
attention even when they don’t want to. Right now is not appropriate, but later
on it will be.
Dr. Gladden: I would urge anyone who is considering
resolutions or motions to be aware of the next Steering committee meeting. The
next meeting has been moved to Thursday, March 22. Keep that in mind. The new Senate officers will be on that Steering
Committee. The other members are Judy Sheppard, Herb Rotfeld, Donna Sollie, and
Renee Middleton. I urge you to get input to those people in a timely fashion.
Jim Bradley,
Chair-Elect: The Steering
Committee meeting probably will not be on the 22nd. The
Secretary-Elect and I will confer on that; it will be no later than the 28th,
but possibly earlier than the 22nd.
I will provide that information to Senators when it is available.
Michael
Watkins, Philosophy: Could you verify
why we cannot suspend the rules of the Senate today although we have in the
past? Have we made mistakes in the
past?
Dr. Gladden: I’m advised that we might have made a
mistake.
John
Cressler, Electrical and Computer
Engineering: I’d like to applaud the Senate leadership
for attempting to bring this before us today. We of the Engineering Faculty
Council voted unanimously to support this resolution. We feel it is a very reasonable, well-intentioned, high-road
approach out of our dilemma by pointing to the SACS problems, allowing us to
force the BOT into a third party assessment.
We think it is a constructive act and a positive step in direction in
finding a very useful alternative to some of the radical approaches being put
forward. I’ve heard a tremendous amount
of support for the proposal around campus.
I’m extremely disappointed today that it’s not coming to a vote. But I don’t have much option I’m told.
Marcia
Boosinger, Library (not a senator):
Now that this is not a resolution, what vehicle is there for
communicating this action to the Board other than to the one member you intend
to ask to be on the joint committee.
Dr. Gladden: I intend to
communicate it to the President Pro-Tempore of the BOT, asking them to select a
member for this committee. It will be distributed to the entire Board.
Virginia
O’Leary, Psychology (substitute for Jeff Facteau): I would like an explanation of why you are
advised that it is inappropriate to suspend the rules. Is that a decision of the
Parliamentarian? Are we operating according to Robert’s Rules of Order? I think
we need some clarification on the inappropriateness of testing the body on this
issue. I think that the reason we are so very dissatisfied with what has been
going on at Auburn University for the last decade at least is because of the
lack of clarity of who can act when and under what circumstances. It is not
public. I would like a word from the Parliamentarian on the clarity of the
inappropriateness to vote on suspending the Rules. I have absolutely no problem
with adhering to the decision of the body, but that is quite different from the
suggestion that it ought not be allowed.
Herb Rotfeld,
Parliamentarian: It is explained in
the faculty handbook, Chapter 2, Article 5. There are very few rules regarding
the faculty senate in the faculty handbook, but one of them says that any
motion that is not tied to the advanced agenda, which goes out 48 hours in
advance to the meeting, any motion and its second not tied to that advance
agenda cannot be voted on until the next meeting. The purpose of this rule is
to protect the rights of minorities, of people who cannot attend every meeting,
who get things at the last minute and cannot consult with their faculty. In
Robert’s Rules of Order where it talks about suspension of the rules it says
there are only two exceptions when the rules should not be suspended: one is
when you have a rule that is made for the protection of minorities, and the
other is when you have a rule that exists in the enabling legislation of the
body (the faculty handbook) unless there is a statement in that enabling
legislation that says how that rule can be suspended.
Dr. O’Leary: Am I to understand that there are a minority
of Senators in this room?
Dr. Rotfeld: Minority means individuals who are finding
things out at the last minute or unable to attend every meeting. That is how it
is defined in Robert’s Rules of Order. The idea of Robert’s Rules of Order is
for orderly conduct of business and to allow for protection of minority points
of view and all points of view.
Dr. Gladden: The Senate may wish to consider whether or
not they want to change the handbook at a later date to allow suspension of the
rules.
Larry Gerber,
History (substitute for Ruth Crocker): Since I played
a significant part in drafting the rules in the faculty handbook, my
understanding of it when it was created in 1992 was that, for example, if on
the agenda you had listed “discussion of the Board,” then you could bring a
resolution forward because there would be an agenda item to that effect. The
fact that this agenda does not list anything related to the Board suggests that
we might want to have “board consideration” on future agendas so that
resolutions relating to the Board would not be out of order.
Dr. Gladden: I will take full blame for that. We didn’t
have any specific issues dealing with the Board at the steering committee
meeting, but we knew there would be discussion about it. That is my fault and
was made without any intention of stopping discussion about the Board.
John Cressler,
Electrical and Computer Engineering (substitute for Charles Gross after 4 p.m.): Would it be appropriate to poll those in the
Senate to see if they were aware of this? If there is indeed a minority here?
Andreas
Illies, Chemistry: With email I
polled the Chemistry department and got full support of this resolution. I was
prepared to act today.
Renee
Middleton, Counseling and Counseling Psychology: I arrived here about 10 minutes after this
meeting started because I was at the Higher Education rally all day, so I have
not had a chance to poll my department about this resolution. I feel very
uncomfortable voting on this and I don’t think it will be detrimental to wait
until the next meeting to vote.
Larry Gerber,
History (substitute for Ruth Crocker): I would say
that this is an academic discussion because Bruce has taken action from what he
thought would be the sentiment of the Senate anyway to implement what’s called
for in the resolution. I don’t think
it makes a whole lot of difference whether we have a vote on this resolution or
not.
Dennis
DeVries, Fisheries: What was the
lead time on the resolutions we passed a few weeks ago during the special
senate meeting? Did we do what you’re
telling us is wrong now at that meeting?
Dr. Gladden: My understanding is that we acted out of
order. For those resolutions, it means that we could take the vote again, or,
if there are no objections, we can allow it to stand.
Debra Carey, Staff
Council: Does the Senate meet again
before April 6th?
Dr. Gladden: The Senate does not meet before April 6th. I am going to appoint an ad hoc committee
and that committee can meet.
Marty Olliff,
Library: Do you have the power to appoint an ad hoc committee?
I am not challenging you, I am asking you for a point of clarification.
Dr. Gladden: Yes.
Virginia
O’Leary, Psychology (substitute for Jeff Facteau): I would just like to point out that the resolutions that we
passed at the special meeting was a resolution that I brought into this room
with me, and we did suspend the rules to vote on it. There was another
resolution put forth from the Senate leadership that was on the floor. I don’t
see how these two situations indeed are the same. If they are, then we badly
need clarification because it is my understanding that there was an item on the
agenda, the item to which the steering committee’s resolution spoke. The fact that I introduced a different resolution
would have been covered under that agenda item. Is that not correct?
Dr. Gladden: I don’t have the agenda for the last
meeting. I think that the vote of no-confidence stands unless there is an
objection. It stands and there is not going to be a vote on this resolution
today.
Scott Hodel,
Electrical and Computer Engineering (not a senator): I would
like to support this resolution and thank you for taking the action to appoint
the ad hoc committee. Seeing this resolution relieved me greatly because many
of these proposals I have heard basically called for a Mexican standoff.
David Sutton,
Communication: Is this resolution
going to be presented at the General Faculty meeting?
Dr. Gladden: An agenda has gone out; however, I assume
that agenda is subject to change up to 48 hours in advance. It could be added
to the General Faculty meeting; that will be a crowded meeting because of the
vote of no-confidence scheduled.
Dr. Sutton: May I make a motion to include it at the
next faculty meeting?
Dr. Gladden: I’m not sure we can take that motion, but I
will make sure that it is on there.
Marty Olliff,
Library: I wonder if because this has come up as an
information item that we cannot address it? The door is open. Can we now
address it?
Dr. Gladden: My understanding is no. My own opinion is that
we should move on. I will appoint the committee but not take further action
until the March 13 meeting. If we don’t get to it at that meeting then I will
move forward with the ad hoc committee, if we do then we can act on the
resolution at that time.
Jesse LaPrade,
Cooperative Extension Service:
Can you volunteer to be on the ad hoc committee?
Dr. Gladden: You certainly can volunteer and I will
consider it. Send me an email to that effect.
Malcolm
Crocker, Distinguished Professor in Mechanical Engineering: I think many people in Engineering are
getting tired of all of this; we want to see some sort of action. People are readying their resumes to apply
to some state that values higher education.
They’re getting tired of this dragging out.
Dr. Gladden:
We
have had concerns about the meeting place for the General Faculty meeting
scheduled for next week. We have scheduled Broun Hall both sides, which seats
300 people. There have been concerns about that not being enough, so we have
been considering other places. The Overton Auditorium at the Vet School seats
400, but you have to drive to the vet school. We got lots of feedback saying
that would not be good. We have checked Foy Union Ballroom, which has poor
acoustics, seats 700, and is unavailable. We have checked Langdon Hall, which
seats 500, is in a poor state of repair, has poor acoustics, and is only
available until 5 p.m. Now would be the time to make suggestions. People have
talked about ballots and the like. For
an absentee ballot system there is currently no mechanism because the
resolutions could change at the meeting. Our idea is for the meeting is to come
to Broun Hall, have paper ballots, and if there is an overflow into hallways,
carry a paper ballot to everyone in the hallways so that everyone present could
vote on the no-confidence resolution. I open this up for discussion. We have
pursued rooms in the Business Building but none of those are available.
Debra Carey,
Staff Council: How many does the theatre hold?
Dr. Gladden: The Telfair Peet theatre holds 375 and is
available. There is lots of standing room. We don’t know about the availability
of the Coliseum; you can hardly understand anyone in there anyway. I doubt
seriously that it is available if any of the basketball teams are in town.
Unidentified speaker:
What about the Alumni Association building?
Dr. Gladden: We can look into that. I am hearing the
Alumni Association, the Telfair Peat Theatre; the Hotel and Conference Center
Auditorium is not large enough.
Marty Olliff,
Library: Ballrooms A & B at the Conference Center
join together and that has seating in theatre style for 600.
Dr. Gladden: We can check on that. That might cost money.
Marcia
Boosinger, Library: What about the
student ACT?
Dr. Gladden: We can check on that.
Dennis
DeVries, Fisheries: We have a number of faculty who will be
either teaching or out of town that day.
We’ve gotten a lot of questions about absentee ballots. If we can get a bigger room that everyone can
fit in for discussion, that’s fine, but if people are standing in the hallways
away from discussion and you’re handing out paper ballots, I don’t see how
that’s any different from faculty sending an email saying they agree with the
essence of the resolution in voting absentee.
Alex Dunlop,
English: I think Langdon would be better than an
overcrowded Broun Hall.
Dr. Gladden: We will pursue the alternatives.
Ralph
Mirarchi, Forestry and Wildlife Sciences: Where did we depose our last
President?
Dr. Gladden: I was told it was Langdon Hall. Now I’m told
it was the old Student Act. It’s not available anymore. We will pursue these options and get out
information no later than 48 hours in advance.
Other
Business:
Dr. Gladden: I think these are minor changes. You received all of this for the February 13
meeting. The first change is to change so that the committee is under the
province of the VP for Research and the VP for Administrative Services. It is
indicated that joint responsibility is critical since the committee serves both
research functions and must interact with the Office of Safety and
Environmental Health. These are changes offered from the committee itself.
Changes proposed (overheads at meeting)
If
you don’t mind, I would like to consider these all together. The second change is a slight change in the
committee itself. The AU Institutional Biosafety Committee met last year and
decided unanimously to present this to the Senate. They want to slightly reduce
the committee’s size and address administrative changes, that is, the creation
of a biological safety officer, and they want to retain the director of safety
and environmental health because of safety aspects.
Ralph
Henderson, Veterinary Clinical Sciences: Are there any other committees that report to two heads? It just
seems like two committee heads is not wise.
Dr. Gladden: I do not know the answer to this. I think
the concern of the committee is that it is not just research, but it is also
the safety because they are heavily involved with that office as well.
Dr. Henderson: To me, it follows that if you can be out
from under the oversight of one office then no one knows where you are. I would like to have an understanding as to
whether any other committee has two heads.
Dr. Gladden: I really don’t know. Is there anyone here on
the Biosafety committee? Not a
one.
The
changes were approved by voice vote without dissent.
I’m chair of the library
committee and I’ve been asked to give an update on the committee and some of
the changes that have been occurring in the library. The committee has met twice so far this year, and we will be
meeting again soon. As far as the
budget, we review the budget every year for library materials, and this past
year the budget was about 4.3 million dollars which was an increase of about
$213,000 which mainly came from Peaks of Excellence funding which the library
started to receive a couple of years ago, and they will hopefully continue to
receive for an additional 3 years. It
looks like the budget is satisfactory through that time period, we don’t expect
to be having any problems with library materials. The main problem with the library budget is the issue of inflation with journals, journals usually
have an inflation rate of 10% per year and the library budget only increases
about 3% per year. I wanted to find out
if we, Auburn University, were properly funded and I got this information from
our collection manager. He pointed me
to the Association for Research Libraries, which is how we bench mark
ourselves, and Auburn is 99 out of 109 libraries in ARL as far as our library
materials. Which at first looks abysmal
but when you take into account the size of the program, and one of the factors
they look at is PhD programs, and when you rank Auburn as far as PhD programs
in the same libraries we’re 87 out of 109.
So we may be a little bit low in our budget, but it’s not as bad as it
originally was.
I’d like to move to
reconfiguation issues, probably the main reason why you asked me to come
here. Several issues are related to
reconfiguration. The first is the
reference desk consolidation which you as a faculty member saw in the Summer of
2000 when they consolidated the
reference desk down to one on the second floor. About 9 months before that took place, Dean Bentley appointed a
task force on reconfiguration and this was comprised of some library
administrators, staff, and a faculty representative which was me. The goal was to evaluate the needs of the
library and project to 10 or 15 years and see what the future would hold as far
as expanding physical configuration and also planning for the needs of the
users and also taking into account the available resources that the library did
have. Some of the data that we used
included bringing in a consultant to advise the library on planning for the
future, they conducted focus groups of faculty, graduate students, and
undergraduate students, they spoke to other librarians who weren’t on the task
force, and they collected other types of data including what types of questions
were reference librarians receiving.
Were they reference questions, or were they directional questions? They were receiving a lot of directional
questions. Where was the bathroom? Or, can you help me with a science project
and then they would have to direct them to the 4th floor. Things like that. We also looked at reference librarian staffing. What percent of the time was a reference
librarian at the reference desk? The
reference desks before the reconfiguration had a reference librarian 50 to 55%
of the time. The rest of the time it
was staffed by a graduate student, library staff person, or an undergraduate
student. Since the reconfiguration
there is less confusion among students as far as where to go in seeking help,
there has been increased service to faculty by means of liaisons, now each
department or school has a library liaison who can help with instruction and
help individual faculty members with their research, and there is less use of
graduate students, and along with that the reference librarians are more available
at the desk, so many times there are 2 or 3 or even 4 reference librarians
available at the one desk. So where as
before about 47% of the time the reference desk did not have a reference
librarian, now that’s down to about 15% and that’s usually between 10:00 and
midnight.
The next part of
reconfiguration which will start soon is the consolidation of current
periodicals. So instead of current
periodicals being in different groupings on each of the floors they will all
come together in alphabetical order next to where the reference desk is on the
second floor. This will help the
reference librarians assist the patrons as they’re doing their searches at the
computer terminals there by the reference desk on the second floor and then
going to current periodicals as needed.
And also this will help people who are doing interdisciplinary
work. The A to Z reconfiguration is
coming in the Summer. This will be a
big endeavor. Basically they’re
reconfiguring all the books so that they will flow from A to Z. One of the purposes is that even though we
know as faculty which floor to go to for our specialties, we have new students
coming in all the time and they have great difficulty with it. They don’t
understand why it isn’t alphabetical to begin with and then if they are working
in different classes for different projects it makes it even more
difficult. So one of the purposes of
the reconfiguration is to make it easier for students, especially those who are
new to the system. The first floor will
have central special formats like audio and video recordings. The second floor is where the collection
starts A. This will progress in a
serpentine fashion up to the 3rd floor and then to the 4th
floor where it will end with Z. The
other benefit that will occur is integration of the folio collection, so that
we will end up with a much smaller folio section. For clarification, A to Z by the Library of Congress is still by
subject specialty but we will no longer have the smaller pockets of special
collections. Currently the library has
about 2 ½ million volumes and they increase by
about 50,000 volumes per year.
Reconfiguring will also result in some of the study carousels coming
out, but there will still be plenty.
About 6 miles of additional shelving will become available in this
reconfiguration process. In the
library’s strategic plan, the first goal was to increase electronic data bases
and electronic media while maintaining the collection, so even though we’re going
to a lot of on-line data bases, full text, things like that, we are still
maintaining our collection.
A couple of service upgrades
have occurred over the last year.
One is Infochat, this is where
you can get on the library home page and ask questions real-time of a reference
librarian. Also AubieExpress gives you
the ability to request a PDF file of any article from a journal that is housed
on Auburn’s campus in their library.
Interlibrary loans will have a new provider to make that more
satisfactory. Mylibrary is the ability
for faculty to create their own library home page that houses their favorite
full-text journals, databases, and things like that.
Another issue is the weeding
and discarding of books. The library
went through a weeding process a few months ago and out of that came some
issues. There were some statements made
that rare and valuable books were being discarded, that there was no
opportunity for faculty to peruse the books in case they wanted to take them
for their own personal or departmental collection. Also there was no activity directed to trying to donate the books
that were being discarded. Then there
was a claim that books that were being discarded were being sent to a
landfill. In addressing this, the
library committee was presented with a weeding and discard policy by which they
go by, and it was stated that if there were rare and valuable books they were
few and far between and this was definitely an error. The collection managers were specialists in those areas and they
were the ones weeding out so they should have known which ones to weed and
which to keep. There was a system set
up so that you could go to the library and look at the books that were being
weeded so that you could take those books if you wanted to, the books were kept
for a 2 week period. Since then there
has been a moratorium on weeding of the books because Jim Bradley and the
student group IMPACT are trying to organize some of the efforts to donate the
books. For any of the books the library
receives as gifts, if they determine that they have multiple duplicates and
they don’t need them, then that group can decide if an organization needs that
book. However, there is a problem in
donating the books, in that it is against the law to donate state
property. Evidently this whole issue is
being brought to the legislature to take a look at. The library administration has contacted a recycling company and
all books that are weeded and discarded go to that recycling company. Anytime a weeding process goes on, and it’s
a normal process in the library, it can be discomforting but one of the
librarians has pointed out the fact that in the past 22 years we’ve added 1.5
million volumes and weeded about 12,000.
So, that’s an interesting statistic.
A faculty survey was
conducted last Spring, before the reconfiguration. At that time 70% of faculty were very satisfied with the library
for their research needs. The things
they ranked as most important resources were AubieExpress, online databases,
and full-text resources. When they were
asked about additional resources these were ranked full-text journals, online
databases, and current books. The area
that was highlighted for dissatisfaction was interlibrary loans, 69% of faculty
were not happy with interlibrary loans.
In particular, faculty were not happy because they could not track to
the sender. There was no tracking
system. The library is looking to
switch to another vendor that can hopefully provide tracking.
At our last meeting we
discussed having another faculty survey.
Faculty at the meeting were concerned that faculty were over-surveyed
and we weren’t going to get enough feedback..
So a survey was not actually recommended to the library at that
time. There was a faculty and staff
focus group in December of 2000 and the basic points that came out of that were
that the faculty were aware of their liaisons and what their functions were and
so they could use them if they so choosed.
The majority of the faculty begin their visit to the library at their
home or office electronically, but they did state there were lots of things
going on at the library and they didn’t necessarily know how to use everything,
and there needed to be better communication regarding services available. The reference desk consolidation came up,
and after explaining the whys of the consolidation, in the summary it was
stated that although the faculty understood, there were still faculty who did
not like the change.
An
issue came up about the library moving journals that were older than 1970 down
to closed stacks. This was a concern
for departments with a lot of historical focus. The liaisons are getting with departments and schools so that if
you wanted to keep certain pre-1970 journals out, then you can request that and
that will be done. There has been a
reorganization of closed stacks on the ground floor. It has been reorganized by call number so that should make for
easier retrieval. One of the advantages of journals being in closed stacks is
that the journals are in the library and not off in some warehouse. If you do need something from a pre-1970
journal, you can have it posted on E-res for your students.
One of the major points of
our last meeting was communication.
There seemed to be an issue of communication and perhaps the library
patrons were not aware of changes before they took place. We discussed what was currently going
on. The library has a listserv called
WhatsNew that you can sign up for. So
that as changes occur you can get emails about that, also the library committee
members automatically sign up for that when they come on the committee. There are liaisons that interact with
departments and schools in various fashions, either by mass email or by talking
with them individually. Liaisons may go
in face-to-face with departments and schools at their monthly meetings and make
presentations. There is communication
via the AUReport, something was there recently. The library has a faculty newsletter that they send out twice per
year. Also Dean Bentley gave a report
here to the Senate last May and to the Board of Trustees in the Fall. When changes do happen, one of the key
points is to get the information out.
If
you have any questions or concerns regarding the library, please discuss them
with any member of the Library Committee.
Then your representatives can bring these issues to the entire
Committee. Current members
include: Shauna Buring (Clinical
Pharmacy Practice), Stella Bentley (Dean, Library), Sheri Schumacher
(Architecture), Alexander Vazsonyi (Human Development & Family Studies),
James Goldstein (English), Rik Blumenthal (Chemistry), Mark Fischman (Health
& Human Performance), Michael Golden (Forestry), Janice Martin (Nursing),
JoAnn Sears (Library), Thomas Denney (Electrical & Computer Engineering),
Yucheng Feng (Agronomy and Soils), Larry Myers (Anatomy, Physiology,
Pharmacology), James Harris (Marketing), Todd Carter (undergraduate student),
Rhonda Powers (graduate student).
If you have any questions, I
will be happy to address those.
Gene
Clothiaux, Past Chair: You say you are
going to organize A-Z from the second to fourth floors. Is that by
subject-matter?
Dr. Buring: It is by call number, so yes, it is by
subject-matter due to that.
Jim Bradley,
Senate Chair-Elect: There were a couple of advantages for having all of the
current periodicals on one floor, but you didn’t list any of the disadvantages,
which I can think of several. One is that in sciences, we have an article that
would have references at the end of the article that you might want to go look up,
usually those are on the same floor as the journals. If you have a whole pile
of those you’ll be running up and down stairs. So people will be carrying piles
of current periodicals up to the fourth floor.
Can these disadvantages be considered by the library staff?
Dr. Buring: There was some discussion about current
periodicals being consolidated on the second floor, but I do not think that
specific issue was brought up. If one of the library faculty or staff members
would like to comment on that issue, please feel free to do so.
Dean
Bentley: The reorganization of current periodicals is
based on the fact that with consolidated reference desks we are interested in
providing service in that area, especially to students looking for them. By
moving them to that area together, by putting them where we are closer to them,
we felt that we could give better assistance. I understand what you are saying
and I think that a large number of faculty and staff are using more and more
journals electronically, but we have the advantage of consolidating more and
more of our users.
We
have a lot of undergraduates using the periodicals, perhaps when they don’t
need to, but they are looking for them.
It
is a balancing act for us because we are trying to address the difficulties of
the undergraduates in using the library.
We knew that the numbers of undergraduates using the library had
dropped; to give you an idea, in the 1992-93 academic year we would have an
average of 20-30,000 people using the library a week. By 1998-1999 that had
dropped to 12,500. One of the things we were concerned with was that our
students did not use the library, and they told us over and over that it was
too difficult. They said they couldn’t find things and got a run-around from
desk to desk to desk. Our concern was making it easier for students. As a
faculty member you know who your liaison is; that is who you need to be talking
to most of the time anyway. Students were having trouble finding current
periodicals and if you think about it, the current periodicals were located in
a remote place on every floor. We want
to make them much more visible.
Paul Schmidt,
Mathematics: What is the advantage of retiring pre-1970
journals to the closed stacks?
Dr. Buring: It frees up more space for the 50,000
volumes of books that are added every year. With this reconfiguration, they are
trying to work it so they don’t have to move any more books for 10-15 years. And there’s lots of room in closed stacks
now.
Dr. Schmidt:
You mentioned the possibility of asking that certain journals not be
retired. How does that work?
Dr. Buring:
That should be working through your Mathematics library liaison.
Dr. Schmidt: Can I request that no mathematics journals
be retired?
Glenn
Anderson, Library (not a senator):
We have been doing this by each subject, but we’ve asked for titles.
We’ve asked people to not say “all the journals” because one of the things
we’re looking at are dead or defunct titles.
If you say all journals, we can’t move those.
Dr. Schmidt: In mathematics we use a lot of the
journals. Mathematic theorems do not
become obsolete over time so I would be hard-pressed to give you a list of
five, six, or seven journals that we would want to keep. I would suggest that
we not retire any of them.
Dr. Buring: Closed stacks is still accessible, so if you
identify something that is in closed stacks for the reference librarian, then
they can go get it for you. That used to be a problem, but now they’ve
rearranged it by call number so students can get them quickly. Additionally,
you can get it by AUBIE Express. They can scan it in for you and you would have
it available on your hard drive to save it if you wish.
C. Senate
Budgetary priorities
As
you’ve already heard, there are provisions for faculty input at all levels in
regards to proration decisions. However, we do think it is important despite
the harsh times we have right now, to begin setting priorities for the coming
years. For background, the Senate has, in the past, passed resolutions about
budgetary items that seem to be important at the moment. These are things like
the GTA waivers, which we got; that was developed through John Pritchett’s
office. However, this was a piecemeal way to do it. There are actually a number
of budget items that are important all the time and we thought it was
reasonable that the Senate be weighing in with its opinion.
First,
we are not in any way trying to bypass the insurance and benefits committee.
They do a fine job. They are a University committee and do not have to go
through the Senate. At my request, however, they did provide a report that
included a great amount of data. They have their own priorities and their own
ranking of those priorities that they will present to the Budget Advisory
Committee. We are not arguing with those priorities; we simply believe that the
Senate DOES, from time to time, mention things that are important and we
believe that we should look at the bigger picture. Having said that we know the
list we have is incomplete, largely because we don’t have information yet. We
view this as something, once we set these priorities over future years, the
lists can be increased. For example, insurance and benefits cannot even talk
about graduate research assistant waivers. We can talk about a lot of things
that are not on this list, and I hope in future years they will be added to it
as the faculty sees fit.
The
Rules Committee moves to approve these budgetary priorities for this coming
year. The Budget Advisory Committee is already meeting. We would like to
provide them with this information, and then at least they will know our priorities
for these items. Then, in future years items can be added or perhaps removed if
we accomplish these somewhere down the line.
The
six items that the rules committee felt we had enough information on to put on
the list are shown. This is the suggested
ranking.
Our
ranking was 1st, graded health insurance premiums to protect those
with lower salaries. Some folks at this
university make very low salaries and the insurance payments are killing them.
The more detailed information from the Insurance and Benefits committee
suggested that this would cost about $1.3 million to change the health
insurance premium for those people who make less than $20,000 and also those
who make less than $30,000.
Second,
we felt that there should be a continued emphasis on increasing faculty
salaries. In the past years, the Board has been trying to accomplish this. No
cost is provided because we don’t know the cost.
Third,
was the tuition waivers for spouses and dependents. The information you have is for 50% tuition waivers so we are not
totally sure of our estimate of $250,000 to 350,000; that may not be quite
accurate. But we felt that we should go for 100% waivers rather than 50%
waivers.
Following
that we favored the in-state tuition waivers for GRAs. We provided a packet of information that
came out of Dr. Pritchett’s office. We
think that is also important.
The
fifth item was raising the TDA-salary cap.
Finally,
our sixth item was health insurance for non-student, part-time employees which
has a listed price of $286,000. We
don’t know about the actual cost since we don’t know how sick those people
are. Providing them with insurance
could change the potential cost of the insurance program.
All
of these are important; none of these are not important.
This
the opinion of the Rules committee. A motion to approve these does not require
a second, since it comes from a committee. Is there any discussion?
Marty Olliff,
Library: In reference to #4, it is my understanding
after talking with Dr. Walker on this issue is that the reason GRA’s were not
included in the benefits of TA’s is because they are supposed to be included in
the granting system mechanism under which they are assumed to be working. I
wonder if we have a breakdown of the number who actually are supported by
grants and those who are not? I believe there are a number of those with GRA
status who are only there for convenience sake. They aren’t actually GRAs but
are GAs and they don’t get the benefit from either end.
John
Pritchett, Acting Provost: Three years ago
none of our grad assistants had any tuition benefits. We started off with the
subset of what we called "presidential graduate fellows” which covered
Ph.D. students who were both GTAs and GRAs. We had that number to 300, then
when the Board approved to implement the GTA waivers this fall, we moved
approximately 650 GTA’s all together covered and we transferred the 300
presidential graduate fellows to GRA’s, which left about 350 GRA’s uncovered.
This applies to that. Of those 350, there are approximately 40 that you could
classify as GA. We did an analysis this year of how many of those had their
tuition paid by a grant; there are about 12. Many granting agencies are allowed
to pay stipends but not tuition. I think the total cost of covering the
remaining 300-350 is about $1.5 million. But then matriculation fees are
charged those students, about $200 a term, which reduces it to about $1.3
million. It is entirely dependent on the grant as to whether you can charge the
tuition.
Marty Olliff,
Library:
Are the stipends sufficient to cover their in-state tuition, or their
out-of-state tuition differential? Is that written into the grants? I’m wondering if maybe we misclassified some
GAs into GRA positions so that they did not receive this benefit when they
should have. I’m wondering if we should
move #4 up the ladder just a little bit in the sense of equity.
Dr. Pritchett: What some of our departments have done
previously is paid them a stipend which would cover the tuition. But we have been
sliding further and further behind in competitiveness. We are working very hard
to get ahead and provide this benefit to all graduate students, much like other
institutions already do.
Alex Dunlop,
English: My department has a large number of non-tenure
faculty instructors. Their inability to participate in the health insurance
programs is a matter of pressing concern to them. I propose that we flip 5 and
6. I personally would benefit from 5, but not from 6. Most of these people do
not have access to the University’s health insurance program and that is a
problem. It would improve their quality of life, it is not a casual concern
with them. Number 5 would improve an already-existing benefit; number 6 adds a
benefit that really needs to be added. Second, it is a cost issue. The cost of
this would seem to be smaller than the cost of #5, because #5 affects
everybody. Therefore I propose that 6 be moved up to 5.
The
motion was seconded.
The
movement to amend the motion and switch 5 and 6 was approved by voice vote
without dissent.
Brian Bowman,
Civil Engineering: What other
priorities were considered? Was dental insurance considered?
Dr. Gladden: Others were discussed. Insurance and benefits had some items on
dental plans, but we did not discuss whether at this time to put that on the
list. The plan right now is funded by those who participate. Certainly we can
consider a complete renewal of that, but we do not have that information at
this time. Again, this is something that could certainly be added as we move
down the line.
Sarge
Bilgili, Poultry Science: Could you clarify
your item number 2. Wasn’t a process
approved by the Board a couple of years ago that allowed for a 5% increase in
pay raises? Will this continue?
Dr. Gladden: I think it is; I don’t know that that is
going to change. We think that is great, and we are not proposing anything
different.
The
motion to approve the Senate budgetary priorities as amended was approved by a
voice vote without dissent.
The
meeting was adjourned at 5:15 p.m.