Auburn
University Senate Minutes
May
8, 2001
Broun
Hall Auditorium
Absent: C. Jolly, S. Taylor, D. DeVries, K. Tilt, S.
Bilgili, R. Ripley, R. Eaves, R. Jenkins, M. El-Halwagi, B. Bowman, R.
Broughton, J. Gluhman, M. Mercer, R. Wylie,
B. Hames, R. Kenworthy, S. Fuller, D. Zhang, R. Keith, C. Skelton, J.
DeRuiter, K. Krueger, J. LaPrade, C. Hageman, C. Buchanan.
Absent
(substitute): R. Zee (J.
Fergus), M. Jardine (C. Slaton), J. Facteau (V. O’Leary), G. Pettit (D.
Cavender)
The
meeting was called to order at 3:00 p.m.
The
minutes for the last regularly scheduled meeting were approved as posted on the
web. They can be found at the Senate web page at https://auburn.edu/administration/governance/senate/schedule.html
April 10, 2001.
Bill
Walker could not be with us today because his mother passed away this weekend.
The final services are being held today in Texas. I know you will want to keep
Bill and his family in your thoughts and prayers.
There
are five items I would like to bring to your attention briefly. First, the
legislative update for the 2002 budget. Most of you have been following this
and recognize that next year’s budget, at least at this point in time, stands
to be about 3% less than this year’s budget. It has been approved by the Ways
and Means Committee, the House, and the Finance and Taxation Committee. This
morning I believe we heard it is to go to the Senate floor tomorrow. I don’t
think we need to get too confident at this point in time, though, because there
are a couple of rumors running around. The first one is that the revenue
projections for next year on which that budget was based may have been just a
little optimistic. So there is a chance that that budget will be modified. The
other chance is, of course, the on-going saga with Dr. Hubbert of AEA, who is
indicating that if he does not get all the concessions he wants from this
year’s budget, then he may work on next year’s budget a little bit. I will say
that one of the highlights of the coming year’s budget is this moving back
toward the 1/3-2/3 split; it is 70% K-12, 30% higher education.
Where
do we stand with proration at this point in time? The proration issue is still
in the Supreme Court. The Attorney General’s opinion is that higher education
should have taken a larger hit. What we are looking at now is higher education
with an 11.17% reduction and K-12 a 3.4% reduction. The Supreme Court has not
ruled on this yet, and there is every reason to feel confident that the Supreme
Court will rule for equal proration of both K-12 and higher education.
This
brings me to the third issue, which is something you have been hearing a lot
about too: bond issues. As of today, six different bond issues have been
proposed to offset the effects of proration. First, bond issues are for
equipment purchases and capital improvements and cannot be used for operating
expenses, which is what we need. Of course, at this late date, even if a bond
issue is passed, it is doubtful that a bond could be sold and the proceeds gathered in order to have any sort of
effect on this year’s budget whatsoever, which has to do with proration. This
morning at 9:00, the Senate Finance and Taxation Committee, with absolutely no
debate, passed yet another bond issue proposal. I understand that at 11:00
today the Ways and Means Committee was to do the same. Buddy Mitchell, our
governmental affairs individual in Montgomery, asked us to please call Mike
Hubbert and Ted Little and tell them that this bond issue is not a good idea.
This is being sold as an idea to fix proration, and it won’t fix proration. It
has only to do with capital expenditures. This thing is moving very rapidly, so
it would be beneficial for you to reach Ted or Mike this afternoon or in the
morning at the earliest. Let them know what you feel about this, but also urge
them to please vote no on closures so that this can be fully discussed (I
understand that the plan is to drag this out).
At
the last meeting, Conner Bailey had some questions on the numbers at Camp War
Eagle. Wes Williams will answer those questions.
Wes Williams,
VP for Student Affairs: Currently we have
3, 303 students signed up for Camp War Eagle. This time last year we had a
little bit more, having 3, 676 students.
So we are running behind 373 students. Last year, we had a different
sequence in the mailing time. For example, during this week last year we
received only 69 reservations (for the entire week). Yesterday alone we
received 64 reservations. We started out March 16 running considerably behind
and that has worked its way down to being about 10% behind as we are currently
discussing this. I think the important thing to understand is the business of
proration and the alarm of a 40% tuition increase. I think this had some effect on prospective students. We have
since determined that for next year, our best guess is a 6% increase in
tuition; we did notify students two weeks ago that that was the case. Since we
did notify prospective students of that, our numbers have been improving
considerably. We expect them to continue to improve and we expect to meet our
target goal of between 3600 and 3700 freshman for Fall semester.
Dr. Pritchett: Two other
items. I meet with the Senate
leadership every Wednesday morning. Last week there was a question relative to
the two consulting studies that are going on (or have gone on) relative to the
Alumni and Development Office and also Facilities Division. As you may recall early in the Fall semester, Dr. Large
approached President Muse with the idea that it would be beneficial for the
institution if we engaged consultants to look at the operations of the Offices
of Alumni and Development and the Facilities Division. Consultants were then
brought aboard and have completed exceptionally thorough studies. The one on
Alumni and Development has now been circulated to the three involved Boards and
is also on the web. It is now on the President’s page on the web.
The
last thing that Jim asked me to say something about was at the April 6 Board
meeting, Dr. Walker proposed several different initiatives to the Board of
Trustees, one of which was to appoint Board members to individual colleges and
schools as liasons from the Board to those colleges and schools. One of the
underlying factors was to promote to the Board what our faculty actually do,
what our students actually do, and the conditions that are actually faced by
our faculty so that the Board could be more of an advocate and have a greater
understanding of what goes on. Dr. Walker has moved ahead with that initiative
and Board members have been appointed as liaisons to the various schools and
colleges as well as to the Office of Student Affairs. I have given Dr. Bradley
a copy of those assignments. Some deans are moving ahead very rapidly in
organizing that; some deans have indicated that they want to wait until July or
August because they have other things going on.
Questions?
Marty Olliff,
Library: Concerning the
consultant for the Alumni Association and Foundation, I have read some of these
findings or recommendations and it occurs to me that these recommendations are
calling for a central office, or CAO (chief advancement officer), to be at this
point vested in the interim President and interlocking Boards. This seems to be
possibly inappropriate to implement at
this period in time. What are the steps we are taking towards implementation?
How will this whole document be discussed? How much did this cost us?
Dr. Pritchett: I am going to let Don answer the question of
how much did it cost because I do not
move in the money circles. Let me tell you what Bill Walker’s plan is. What you
see in that Anderson report are recommendations only. It is Bill’s intention to
circulate that to the widest possible audience to get reactions on those recommendations. That is the plan
being set up at this point in time. It has already been distributed to the
three Boards. Bill is working on how to get it out there for faculty and other
stakeholder input. The next step is
simply getting reactions to those recommendations. Those recommendations at
this point in time are nowhere near set in stone.
Don Large, VP
for Business/Finance: Here is the tentative
plan as I understand it. This was a report requested and approved by Dr. Muse.
When we got the report about two weeks ago, Dr. Walker held a meeting with Dr.
Muse, who was gracious enough to continue to be involved, Jimmy Samford,
president pro-tem of the Board of Trustees, Bob Kloeti, president of the Auburn
Alumni Association, Buddy Weaver, president of the Auburn University
Foundation. Those five people sat down and went through it in detail with the
Arthur Anderson consultants. From there they agreed that the next step was to
send the report out to each member of all of those three Boards: the Trustees,
the Alumni Board, and the Foundation Board. It is my understanding that Dr.
Walker’s intent at this point is to allow Arthur Anderson to be available at
the June meeting of the Foundation Board so that Board can discuss the findings
and the proposed changes with the Arthur Anderson consultant. It is also my
understanding that he would have the same offer for the Alumni Association,
which meets in July. Based on that involvement, input, and feedback, Dr. Walker will then determine ultimately
what he believes to be the best approach for addressing those recommendations,
the organizational changes that would be needed, if it is determined that some
are, and the structures put in place.
I
do not know that there is a particular timetable; obviously October 1 is a good
target date for the beginning of a budget year, but it does not have to
coincide with that. Again, we want to avoid ever getting ourselves in a
situation like South Alabama has gotten themselves into, where the University
and the Foundation Board do not talk. There are concerns that the separateness
of the two could lead to that at some time; fortunately the relationships are
very good at this time. All that is
being said on the concept of the interlocking Boards is that right now there is
almost complete disengagement at the point where if the Trustees approve a
campaign, the monies then go to the Foundation and are overseen by a separate
Board with their own determination of investment policy, strategy, and spending
plan. This may or may not be consistent with the University’s endowments and
the approach that’s being taken for the existing endowments. Shouldn’t there be
some connectivity? The affiliated organizations, both the Alumni Association
and the Foundation, have to if they are to maintain their independence as a
tax-exempt entity, not Auburn University. You have to maintain a controlled
interest in the Board. This does not mean there should be no connectivity, no
interlocking, no cross-serving of the Board to keep communication and dialogue
open. That’s what it means. It does not mean there is any attempt to circumvent
the independence of any of those boards,
but it does suggest that there is a better way of doing business than
the way we do things now. That’s where we are.
The
cost of the Arthur Anderson report will approach $200,000.
Alex Dunlop,
English: Could you elaborate a little on your last
item there concerning the liaisons of the Board to the faculty. Whose
initiative is this and what are its goals?
Dr. Pritchett: It is Dr.
Walker’s initiative. This is one of
four things he presented in the
President’s report he presented at the April 6 Board meeting. The clear intent
is to give the Board the opportunity to get a better idea of what our faculty
face in our every day jobs. The same goes for our students and what they do.
The attempt is to open the lines of communication and give the Trustees a
better appreciation of what the academic programs at this University are all
about. The Board members are very busy people and many times don’t have the
opportunity to do those things, so Dr. Walker would like to formalize the
opportunity for them to do these things. I think this is a very positive step.
Michael
Watkins, Philosophy: Do you know
how the assignments were made?
Dr.
Pritchett: Absolutely. I
met with the deans and said Dr. Walker would like to move ahead with this. They
requested that I make the assignments so Margaret and I went in the office and
made the assignments. Every college and school has two Board members; two
members have additional assignments, however, and are also assigned to the
Office of Student Affairs. So two Board members really have three assignments.
Basically, they were assigned at random.
Malcolm
Crocker, Mechanical Engineering (not a senator): Were these
proposals for liaisons made before or after the Senate asked the Board to
resign?
Dr. Pritchett: The proposal was made in Dr. Walker’s comments
to the Board at the meeting on April 6. That would have been after the
no-confidence vote and before the vote asking for resignations.
Sridhar
Krishnamurti, Communication Disorders:
Can you talk about hiring and
raises for the next year?
Dr. Pritchett: Dr. Large has included in the proposed
budget materials both promotion increases for those individuals promoted to
associate professor and also for those individuals among the staff and A and P who have received promotions. Those
are calculated in the budget materials
that we have right now. As I understand, there is no plan for a salary
adjustment for faculty/staff/professional people on this campus for the
upcoming year. However, there are some initiatives within the Budget Advisory
committee, one of which deals with staff members who are at the lower end of
the pay scale of the University to pick up a larger share of the health
insurance cost.
Don Large, VP
for Business/Finance: There is in
the area of compensation, if you will, about $3.5 million allocated to address
benefits or proposed benefits. One, obviously, is health insurance. We’re
guessing that health insurance will go up again based on the experiences around
the country. We’ve allocated a million dollars of university money set aside
for grants. Another million has been proposed (all of these are in the proposal
stages) for addressing health insurance for lower-paid employees. The problem
has happened here at Auburn and is happening around the country. Probably it has happened here quicker
because we are more aggressive with our charging of employees for health insurance costs. Currently each of us pays 40% of our health
insurance cost and the University picks up 60%. That is beginning to price a lot of our staff out of
the market. In a few years, many of our staff will not have health insurance.
The plan that came out of the Insurance and Benefits Committee to the Budget
Advisory Committee says it would help substantially if you could reduce the
matching portion of employees making under $20,000 a year to only 20% and let
the University pay 80%. Then the proposal to the committee was a 70-30% split.
Also in that compensation area, these
proposed budgetary changes would be, if the Budget Advisory Committee approves
it and sends it to President Walker, an allocation for tax-deferred annuity,
$21,000-based right now, proposed to go to $24,000. That would cost the
university about $350,000 on a continuing basis. There is one for dependents,
tuition-remission, which is one that has generated much interest among
employees. That is a hard one to estimate the exact cost, but somewhere around
half a million. It costs about $1.6 to $1.7 million to give raises to Auburn
main campus. For next year, we hope to enhance our benefits package and particularly
help our staff who are deserving and in need of this improved benefit. This is
the area of compensation.
There
are some academic areas to address, like graduate assistant teaching waivers.
We put a million of continuing funds in this year, and we have to put in
another million next year because the actual cost is about $2.5 million.
Scholarship needs, SACS compliance needs for English, needs for the Assessment
Office, one-time allocations in academic areas consistent with the 5-year plan
approved by the Board two years ago. So, it is still a work in process. We meet
tomorrow with the Budget Advisory and should be close to having something to
share with Dr. Walker, assuming that we don’t hear tomorrow that the revenue
estimates of the state are off and the 3% reduction is now 5% or 6%. It has
been a crazy year for trying to build a budget because we don’t really know
what we have this year, what we have next year, how we will increase our
tuition, whether we can or not.
Herb Rotfeld,
Steering Committee: I’m going to
repeat a question that has been repeated by myself and Conner Bailey at almost
every meeting for the past two and a half months: What has become of any
investigations of the athletic department giving some of their additional funds
for academic purposes?
Dr.
Pritchett: I know that
David [Housel] has been approached with that idea.
I
have six announcements. The first announcement has to do with the report from
the Joint Assessment Committee. As most of you probably are aware, the JAC has
sent an official letter of complaint to SACS listing ten examples of possible
violations of SACS criteria. That list is posted at the Senate web. The JAC was
unanimous in its decision to send this letter, except for one person, Jimmy
Samford, who was not at that meeting. I have not heard from him, but he had
supported the external assessment in the meeting prior. I have heard from SACS
that they received the complaint. I have heard nothing else from them. The
stipulation in this procedure is that they have 30 days to decide to follow-up
on that procedure or not and request more documentation if that’s required. If
they do request more documentation, then the plaintiff (the JAC) has 45 days to
provide that documentation. We did send some extensive documentation (30-35
pages) hoping to speed up this process.
I
intend to report to you each month on any interactions the Senate leadership
might have with the Board of Trustees. The only interaction that I know of is
that I received a letter from Earlon McWhorter about three days after our last
special meeting. It was a short letter asking ‘where do we go from here?’,
referring to the resignation resolution. He then went on to list some of things
he felt he had been doing for the University since he had come on the Board. At
the end of the letter he stated that he had no intention of resigning and
looked forward to talking to anyone who wanted to talk about this or any other
issue. It is a short letter, and at the bottom he did say to share this with
any senator who wished to see it. If any of you would like copies of it I would
be happy to have copies made. I have written a personal letter back to him; I
would be happy to discuss with anyone who is interested about what I wrote. I
will not report that publicly because I wrote it as a faculty member in
Biological Sciences and not as Chair of the University Senate.
The
third item has to do with the aftermath of our last meeting—particularly the
resignation resolution. We had a meeting with Dr. Pritchett the very next
morning at 8:00 and Dr. Heilman came to that meeting. The meeting began with
the question from Dr. Heilman, which was the same as Mr. McWhorter’s question,
‘where do we go from here?’ Obviously the Senate officers had not had time to
sit and discuss their views on ‘where do we go from here.’ We told Dr.
Pritchett and Dr. Heilman that and proceeded to visit for 2 ½ hours exchanging
ideas. None of the ideas coming from the Senate leadership were to be taken as
policy. So after that meeting, the Senate leadership decided that before our
meeting with Dr. Walker the next Monday, we should get together and discuss
‘where do we go from here.’ So the
Rules Committee and all the faculty members of the Steering Committee met later
that same week for quite a while. I can report that the strength of the Senate,
its diversity in opinions, was reflected in that group of Senate leaders as
well. We finally came to a consensus on three items. Again, this is not policy,
but it is simply what this group agreed upon themselves as to what we thought
would be appropriate behavior. We all agreed that the most important activity
for us at the present time and in the near future was to prepare the University
for the SACS review and that accreditation should be the primary focus when it
comes to time and energy. The second thing we agreed on was that this
particular time is not the appropriate time to institute the Board visitation
program that Dr. Pritchett outlined for you earlier. We took this to Dr. Walker
and Dr. Pritchett the next week, with our reasons for deciding this. Our first
reason was because of the Senate’s decision to ask the Board to resign. Also
there was concern about this being the appropriate program to institute during
an interim administration, since it is a fairly significant program for
interaction with the Board. The last concern we brought up was that this might
open the door for further micro-management the more they got to know students.
Dr. Walker said that they had gone ahead with assignments and if any of you or
the Senate leaders would like to speak to the dean about your concerns, you are
welcome to do so. The deans are
responsible for implementing the program within their college and school – what
kind of activities, interaction, etc. there will be and when these will take
place.
The
next item has to do with the evaluation of the Alumni Association and the
Facilities Division. Dr. Walker did ask that an ad hoc committee be established
for faculty to review these reports and give him a faculty reaction to these
reports. The members of the committee, as selected by the Rules Committee are:
Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology
Charlie Mitchell, Extension,
Agronomy and Soils
Michael Watkins, Philosophy
Bill Trimble, History
Contact
any one of these persons and they will carry your concerns to Dr. Walker.
I
want to report on a very interesting meeting that four faculty members had last
week with Dr. Seigelman. The four faculty members are Wayne Flynt, Malcolm
Crocker, Judy Sheppard, and myself. Dick Jaeger also was invited and was unable
to attend. This was by invitation of Ted Little. We had thirty minutes with
Gov. Seigelman. We decided with Ted Little before the meeting that we would not
talk about proration or budget reductions for next year, but we would focus on
the governance of the University issue. So we did have a good conversation with
him. We took some documents with us and gave them to him. We gave him the JAC
resolution, the letter of complaint to SACS, the letter from the Past Chairs
requesting resignation of the BOT, an issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education that had an article about Auburn
University and our situation with the BOT. He seemed to listen with great
interest and made a few interesting remarks. I remember he said “It seems to me
that for every trustee I’ve appointed I’ve lost 10,000 votes.” At the end of
the meeting he said he’d like time to look over the material, think about the
things we had discussed, talk with his advisors, and then he would like to meet
again. So that is where that stands.
The
last item, somewhat related to this, is about some legislation Ted Little told
us about while we were talking to him.
This is a resolution that he and some other senators had introduced and
has passed the Alabama Senate: “Joint Interim Legislative Committee on Higher
Education Governance.” Senator Little seems to think that the fact that this
has passed is quite significant. It has five whereases, one demonstrates the
restructuring of governance of Alabama universities. Part of the “to be
resolved” is that committee should report on recommendations for restructuring
governance. The committee, if it becomes established, would be composed of
appointees from these six individuals or groups, so there would be 12 members
to the committee. They would report some time next year. The last I heard about
this was earlier this week. This legislation has been referred to the House
Rules Committee, and it passed.
Mark Rolsma,
Pathobiology: I would like to nominate Ralph Henderson from Veterinary
Clinical Sciences.
Dr. Bradley: Please send Isabelle Thompson or me your
nominations before June’s meeting.
Information/Action
Items
a. Report from ad hoc Committee on Outreach Scholarship
Assessment – Charles Hendrix, Chair
Report from ad hoc Committee on Outreach Scholarship Assessment
Before
I begin I would like to thank the members of my committee: Elizabeth Gertol from
Agronomy and Soils, Robert Montjoy from the VP for University Outreach Office,
Lee Stripling from Forestry/Wildlife Sciences, Sandra Jean Weese from
Nutrition/Food Science.
First,
I would like to give you a historical overview of our committee. In 1994,
Auburn University adopted the term outreach
as a generic term to avoid confusion. There is now substantial literature
on the outreach roles of universities and their faculties. Many institutions
have implemented policies to guide, assess, and reward faculty participation
and outreach. In 1995 we began a review of the policies and procedures for
planning and assessing outreach. There was an appointed committee that gave a
report in 1996 known as the Highland Report. This was the strategic planning
committee for outreach at Auburn University. This particular committee
concluded that although outreach is an integral part of the university’s
land-grant mission, it is not well-defined or well-rewarded. Offered as a
definition for outreach is “instructional research applied to the direct
benefit of external audiences and directly relevant to mission.” As such,
outreach is broader than extension and different from service. The committee
also concluded that the university would need a clearly understood method of assessing
outreach in order to promote and reward it.
In
1997, another committee was appointed, coming from the University Senate. The
committee, Faculty Participation and Outreach Scholarship, presented their
report, known as the Flynt Report. This particular report further defined
outreach and recommended a model for assessment. Noting that assessment begins at the departmental level, the
committee concluded that every department or unit is expected to engage in outreach
of some kind, but not every individual faculty member will be expected to do
so. Also they concluded that departments will need to determine what are
appropriate outreach activities for the discipline: how outreach will be
assessed within the department and how heavily outreach will be weighted within
the departmental reward system. Also, they concluded that as part of the annual
negotiation in assignment, the head/chair should explicitly define the faculty
member’s duties in teaching, research, outreach, and service.
The
report was submitted to the University Senate and accepted after discussion on
July 8, 1997.
Last
Spring, Senate Chair Bruce Gladden commissioned the ad hoc Committee on
Outreach Scholarship Assessment to review the Flynt report on outreach
scholarship and suggest how the recommendations of the report might be
integrated into the Handbook and into Promotion and Tenure policy at
Auburn University.
We
came up with three recommendations focused on Chapter 3, “Faculty Personnel
Policies and Procedures”:
1)
Provide an operational definition of outreach, recognizing
that it is broader than extension, different from service, based in academic
disciplines, and connected to unit missions
2)
Give consistent treatment to outreach as a distinct mission
area
3)
Establish a system for planning, assessing, and rewarding
outreach throughout the University, beginning at the departmental level
You
have our report with the standard recommendations for reading. Sections that
have no changes were omitted. Changes are highlighted with explanatory footnotes.
Deletions are marked through and additions are underlined. Footnotes offer
explanations of the committee’s reasoning.
The
second item: This is a duplication so we are going to repeat it three times so
that everyone will understand this: “The faculty consists of academically
qualified individuals whose obligations include: 1) the teaching of
students 2) the discovery of new
knowledge through research and other creative work, and 3) the dissemination or
application of knowledge through outreach. In addition, all faculty have an
obligation of service to the University.”
We
move on through the document and talk about an appointment a little further
down the page: “In addition, all faculty members who are eligible for academic
rank and tenure shall have assignments that will provide opportunities to
participate in appropriate combinations of these activities as determined in
the faculty member’s department.” Whatever the percentages that define the
appointment, a candidate for promotion and tenure must be engaged in an
appropriate combination of teaching, research, creative work, and outreach. In
addition, all faculty have an obligation for University service.
We
then went on to define outreach. “Outreach is understood to be the
instruction or research that is applied to the direct benefit of external
audiences and that is directly relevant to the mission of the units in which
the contributing faculty members work, including such activities as off-campus
instruction and applied research which overlap with traditional instruction and
research. In this sense outreach is understood as a function, rather than an
organization; it includes activities of faculty associated with the Alabama
Cooperative Extension System as well as those whose outreach work is sponsored
by Auburn institutes or external sources and those who conduct outreach in
support of their departmental missions.” That is the broadest definition. We
will have an explanation of the definition a little later on.
When
we get into the P and T document, there is a change again. It goes back to the
earlier definitions we covered twice. This concerns promotion in the
promotion-criteria considerations. ”Promotion is based on merit. A candidate
for promotion should have acceptable achievements in the areas of 1) teaching2)
research/creative work, and 3) outreach as assigned. He or she is further
expected to demonstrate over a sustained period distinctive achievement in one
of these areas or achievement in two areas comparable to that of successful
candidates in the discipline in the past five years. In addition, he or she is
expected to have contributed some service to the University. The criteria for
teaching, research/creative work, and outreach described below shall be
considered by the faculty in the evaluation of a candidate’s performance and
achievement.”
As
used in the chapter, this is the definition for outreach (this comes directly from the Flynt report): “As used in
this chapter “outreach” refers to the function of applying academic expertise
to the direct benefit of external audiences in support of university and unit
missions. A faculty endeavor may be regarded as outreach if 1) there is a
substantive link with significant human needs and societal problems, issues, or
concerns; 2) there is a direct application of knowledge to significant human
needs and societal problems, issues or concerns; 3) there is utilization of the
faculty member’s academic and professional expertise; 4) the ultimate purpose
is for the public or common good; 5) new knowledge is generated for the
discipline and/or the audience or clientele; and 6) there is a clear
link/relationship between the program/activities and an appropriate academic
unit’s mission. While outreach may be sponsored by a unit other than the
faculty member’s department, both the faculty member and the sponsoring unit
must recognize the activity as outreach appropriate to the mission of the
unit.”
At
the rear of this document we have the directions for creating/filling out the
Outreach Portfolio. This is a very involved document with two parts, the first
being the commentary that explains/describes the scholarship involved in one or
more outreach activities, and the second being the activities/products
generated. This is the outreach portfolio that the faculty member would fill
out. Again, it is a very detailed document, and with only 15 minutes I cannot
get into details. Please read this document. We are presenting it to you today
for consideration at the June Senate meeting.
Questions
inaudible.
Dr. Bradley: We will vote on this at the June
meeting.
If
anyone has any other concerns for changes, it would help considerably if you
would send those to me within the next three weeks. That will help us design
the motions for action on this report. If you do have any other concerns or
suggestions, please send those to me ahead of time.
You
may remember at the last regularly scheduled meeting there was a new business
item that had to do with the arrangement of unbound periodicals in the library.
Shauna Buring, chair of the Library Committee, reconvened the committee, and
they discussed this. Dr. Bentley is here to report on the results of that
meeting, since Shauna has graduation duties today.
b. Discussion of Relocating Research Periodicals in the RBD
Library – Shauna Buring, Chair, Library Committee
The
Library Committee met two weeks ago on April 25th. I think we
reached a good conclusion on how to handle the current periodicals. What we are
looking at is treating next year as a pilot project. The first piece of the
pilot project would be to consolidate the Humanities and Social Sciences
current periodicals on the second floor near the reference desk. A fair number
of people who do interdisciplinary work in those areas were very supportive of
bringing those together.
To
address concerns from Science and Technology faculty, we are proposing to keep
the Science and Technology periodicals on the fourth floor, but relocate them
in a visible area. We are concerned that they are not very visible where they
are now. They would be visible from the stairs and elevators. What we would
like to do is at the end of the 2001-2002 (a year from now), do a brief
assessment of how well that project worked. This is what was endorsed
unanimously by everyone at the Library Committee meeting two weeks ago.
Dr. Bradley: The last item came up after the agenda was
posted. Dr. Christine Curtis and Dr.
Pritchett asked that Hugh Darling be put on the agenda to present physical
plans for the University.
c. Presentation on Physical Plans for the University – Hugh
Darling
We
came in October and established a workshop where we met with all of the
constituency groups at the University. The idea was to talk about the level of
communication at the University and to talk about a term that we use called
“branding.” Very early on in our faculty meetings, we determined that “image
and character” is a better reference to what we wanted to do here in the next
16 weeks. What we developed was a character-image study. We spent about 16
weeks identifying what the personality of the University was so that in
physical planning processes we could
identify guidelines and criteria. Therefore, when someone is developing
an idea for the University, we can use a certain language to talk about “what
is Auburn.” What is different about Auburn in terms of other campuses? How do
we put specific guidelines in place to preserve this atmosphere that Auburn
people are so proud of? In the process we are going through, we have put
together a book that is about 300 pages long. It will be available on the web.
The draft form was delivered here last week. It is made up of three parts:
first is the history/image and character which describes what Auburn is like in
the physical sense (campus planning, master planning, architecture, past-history,
relationship between architecture and planning, etc.) It also has a section
called “guidelines” to talk about site ratio and masses. What makes an Auburn
building seem like an Auburn building? Where are the buildings located? Where
are examples of good planning? The third thing is how we talk about the
University in things like walking circles. Where is the center of campus? Where
should student activities be located? Are there certain parts of the campus
that facilitate a student village concept versus a large building?
What
I want to do is take you through this process and show you a couple of these
examples. There is certainly no way I can cover all of this. The reason we
wanted to present this to the faculty is because we are making a recommendation.
Christine Curtis is proposing that the University begin to adopt some broad
planning guidelines that will establish some priorities for the University. I
will go through this quickly to give you time to ask some questions.
Our
scope of work was in three parts. We first had to identify and document the
Auburn architectural imaging character. This is how we tell a story so that
people who are coming here to work and plan will not try to re-invent the
University. Everyone is proud of Auburn University and its physical plan; we
want to enhance that. The second part is that we were depicting a
student-focused facility, which is known as a student-union or center in a
village context. That idea came out at all the meetings we had in October. That
building is about a quarter of a million feet. Maybe you want to build a series
of buildings that more reflect the context of Auburn and the village
atmosphere. The third part was to set some guidelines and planning criteria so
that you have some rules to go by. Right now a lot of the decisions made are
emotional decisions. What we are trying to do is set some criteria to take the
emotion out of the process and identify how to get involved in the
decision-making process and then have it follow a series of processes to get
the decisions actually implemented.
The
deliverables, the character book I showed you, has three parts: a reference
book for the history/character, guidelines to follow if you are going to do
business with Auburn, and a programming guide to talk about the same criteria
so people can’t move the center of campus. We want to put some guidelines out
there that people can actually follow and read.
The
image and character is very important. The balance between green space and
buildings, one you have been able to balance well, is lost on urban campuses
like Georgia Tech. You have something very unique. As you compete for faculty,
it will be a big asset for you. The established landscape design – you have
both formal, which is established in Ross Square, and a land-grant institution
layout, which was laid out by those in the 1920s.
Architectural
design: Some people thought we would come here and make every building like
Samford Hall. That is not the intent at all. Our intent is to talk about human
scale and how you make the buildings and architecture reflect the personality
of the University. How does it speak to the people that come here?
Using
comparable landscape and architectural materials: Currently, if you walk across
campus you walk across asphalt, parking lots, service driveways, retention
areas. How do we re-pedestrianize the campus and use comparable materials so
that everything is consistent when you are walking throughout campus?
We
did a reference book. I just pulled one example: O.D. Smith Hall. We talked
about the style and classification of the building. It was well-designed
building. It has all the right proportions and we think this building speaks
well to the question “What is Auburn?” The way this building is designed with
lower floors with higher ceilings and higher floors with lower proportions,
brick style, and human scale.
A
guideline contrast I want to illustrate are these buildings; they are not in
human scale. If you look at these examples from 1963 and 1990, these do not speak
to Auburn. These buildings could be anywhere in America. As a relationship
between these two I would like you to see why you should invest in some of your
equities that make you very unique in the marketplace.
This
is an example we use when an architect or campus planner comes, a program
example. The drawing on the left-hand side shows you the relationship of the
quad buildings and how much space they actually take up on their site. The
whole idea is that if we build a building, you don’t force it in on the space
of other buildings. You use this as a standard guideline for planning future
buildings on campus.
Building
mass is a very important study. When you take a photograph of the quad, you see
a human scale. You see the small details of the stairways and porticos. If you
look at Haley, you have to get half a mile away to take a picture of the whole
building. What you don’t want to do is build anything that doesn’t invite
people to want to engage that building. This is a very good example. This is built
more for an automobile than for a pedestrian.
If
someone was to ask which building has the right percentage relationship, we
would say that Ross has the right position and percentage on its site. You
could argue that the grounds in front are not really on the site, but one of
the things you as a University must do is establish what these guidelines are
and parcel the University up. Look at the University as your asset and assign
it parcels so you can make planning decisions not on emotions but in the real
context of what makes it “feel like Auburn.” It will answer a lot of the
questions you have when projects come up and you have lots of questions about
siting. Some of these kinds of guidelines will help you make a process out of
what has been an emotional decision in the past.
If
you look at village as a characteristic of Auburn, we were asked many times:
Are you talking about the city, campus, or student union? Actually, we were
talking about all three. What this illustrates is that, as it was planned in
the 1928 master plan, Auburn has a great relationship of green space to
building. Fortunately, a great deal of your campus still looks and feels this
way. The idea is to preserve this through these guidelines so that in the
future Auburn looks like Auburn rather than, say, a Georgia Tech campus.
A
village concept. We were asked to delineate and do some sketches and drawings.
One of the things we wanted to do was illustrate what a village concept is.
This has nothing to do with reality and may never be built this way, but in
village planning and town planning, what you do is find a green space typically
in a village square or town square. So we depicted a space here, just happening
to select one of the five sites that we think help facilitate a student-centered
activity on campus. This one particularly shows that in front of Cary Hall.
There is a big lawn space, which is also at the intersection of Donahue and
Thach. We depicted a village green and a square of how you might assemble
buildings that might resemble and create this village complex for a
student-centered facility.
A
pedestrian characteristic. Everyone
refers to this campus as a pedestrian campus. In reality it is not. There is no
dedicated pedestrian pathway on the campus. We have another diagram that shows
that. What we think is your most important asset here is to re-establish and
re-capture the pedestrianization of your campus. Currently it is not a friendly
campus to walk around in. It loses a lot of that collegiate atmosphere due to that
fact. Thus, you need to define dedicated pedestrian circulations and define
land use. In the future you need to extend both to the south and the west areas
that are basically pedestrian. Right
now all of your circulation paths cross that and you don’t have a core or an
academic area you say is a pedestrian pathway.
We
developed another diagram starting in the center of the west parking lot
designed to simulate walking 15 minutes and drawing a circle. If you start at
Terrell Hall, or Magnolia and College, the circle within represents the core,
the way you can look at the University as a core academic campus. At any one
time, based on the studies you’ve done here, 4000 students are changing classes
and moving around within that medallion. As you also notice you have major
highways passing through that pedestrian space. It tells you a little about
priorities. This needs to be a bit of a sanctuary for pedestrians. This is a
good illustration to begin talking about some real diagrams of where the center
of the campus is.
Land
use. When we first began in October talking in these terms, no one knew where
the University was going and we had no real plan. In actuality, you have great
plans dating all the way back to 1915. Implementation seems to have been more
of the issue in making decisions that may cause a little controversy. One of
the things we recently looked at was the recent land-agriculture survey that
actually developed an academic-core land use. What it talks about is academic
expansion to the west, which would accommodate a large number of buildings,
probably close to a million square feet of new academic building space. We
haven’t shown on here the new engineering precinct. What you have here is a
very strong L-shaped development. We have also colored in gold residence
housing. The reason is in the past, Auburn was really a residential campus.
Today it is classified as a commuter campus. You only have about 3,000 students
that live on campus, so percentage-wise it is really a commuter campus. This
shows you that there is a defined plan and you need to look at these tools when
talking about future development of the campus.
Talking
about roadways, one of these conversations came up: when you start to close
streets and everyone wants this great sense of arrival when you get to Auburn,
when you come in from Wire Road that sense of arrival is not there. So, when
coming in from other places, you lose that sense of arrival. Over long-term
planning you need to establish those gateways so people will actually know when
they arrive on campus. That also will take some of the burden off of everyone
thinking this campus needs to be open to the whole community. Establish some
gateways and roadways.
What
we have done here is do a section through Thach that shows some form of mass
transit which is now totally pedestrianized. By removing the overhead
powerlines you can start to refoliate and recanopy the space down Thach that
has been lost because of infrastructure. These kinds of guidelines begin to
tell you what a planning plan would look like and why the University needs to
repopulate itself to create a pedestrian pathway.
Gameday
parking: how do you recapture the campus? The idea was to come up with a plan
in which you could take the perimeter roads and develop two pads of roadways,
one as a parking lot with power and water run through that median. This is an
actual master plan so you could develop a ring road that could contain all of
those vehicles but it not create problems for your infrastructure on your
campus.
Parking
is a big issue. You must decide on your priorities. Is parking a prioirity, or
are pedestrians a priority? There are ways to accommodate enough planning for
parking, but it will not always be immediately accessible to a classroom,
building, lab, etc. Again, your biggest decision will come in establishing a
parking philosophy. Where are the parking zones? Where do you want your big
parking lots? You did put in a transportation system, though, so it takes about
five minutes for anyone to walk to class. You have to make decisions through a
process so you can make these decisions palatable to those who will complain
about giving up their great parking space. There is still a great need to
establish parking rooms. They need to be done, but not out of asphalt. They
need to be done in brick and concrete, consistent with the pedestrian pathways.
Currently, most of your students are
walking in serviceways and parking lots. This is not conducive to the
atmosphere of the environment of the University.
I
did this parking diagram to illustrate that you cannot call this campus a
pedestrian campus. There is no sanctuary within this campus. It is now a
populated urban center at the turn of every hour.
Service
and distribution. Why do you have all of your streets open? Why are
tractor-trailer trucks sitting on Thach Avenue at 9 a.m. on Monday morning?
Because you have an 8-hour clock. All cities understand. You have to set up a
new policy as to where you will have a distribution center. Everyone wants
on-time delivery. You can still do that, but in a small-vehicle. Limit the
number and size of vehicles. What you need to do is consolidate and let people
share service yards and drives. Also, service drives should not traverse
pedestrian paths. Screen-enclosed walls
you have already begun to do, you just have too many of them.
You
must plan better for infrastructure. As you begin to close these roadways and
begin this pedestrian landscape, consider the infrastructure.
How
do you change what a student village is? There are two components to this;
first is student life, or where is the student going when he is changing
classes. Wouldn’t it be nice if some of the resident suites were on top of the
coffee shop or bookstore? If you are familiar with Auburn, you know that during
times other than class-changing times, there are very few people on campus.
This idea is to take the ball-room and conference facility and open it up to
the campus so they become what is consistent with the character of the campus.
What
might a student village look like? We drew some cross-sections that showed
offices and meeting areas above a ballroom. This shows Thach and the end of
Jordan-Hare Stadium and that you could put two to three levels of parking in
there and still have room for pedestrian pathways. When you build athletic
suites for the stadium, you still have room for pedestrian pathways and
serviceways. This shows a street scene showing that the student center can be
in human scale.
In
a student center, this model shows that you could have all the student services
on one floor and two floors of residential suites. These are very popular
because many universities are leasing these properties to developers who are
bonding them and giving them back to the University in a management contract. In 15 years the University owns it. The idea
is how do you create an environment for the University to be an entrepreneur.
If you keep kids on campus, there are statistics showing that those campuses
that do have higher retention rates. Have your developers build some of these
units and lease them. This is a big trend of universities all over the country.
We
made a presentation last week and our book is out so we want feedback. Please
look at it on the web and give us feedback. The final draft will be available
on the 21st of May.
Our
next steps are to review the hard copy we are making available here. We want to
make sure what we interpreted here is correct. I have asked the students
through the SGA to get involved and make sure they are happy. I want to hear
from the University Senate as well. I want feedback from these groups because I
do not see a physical place for communication between groups of faculty,
students, etc. I think it would be great for you find a place to
cross-pollinate as you plan for future development of your campus. As an
outsider I see level of communication as something you could really work on.
None
of this is final. These are just conceptual ideas we think the University
should put into place that will help you with communication and process. One of
the observations I made is that when presentations are made here you do not
have process, so the emotion flies too much into the decision-making. You need
to establish a firm process so that each stakeholder knows when to interject
those ideas.
The
meeting was adjourned at 4:15 p.m.