Auburn
University Senate Minutes
October 9, 2001
Broun
Hall Auditorium
Absent: W. Bergen, R, Norton, N. Godwin, M.
El-Halwagi, J. Gluhman, R. Good, R. Locy, B. Hames, R. Kenworthy, C. Skelton,
M. Reinke, J. DeRuiter, J. Bannon, J. LaPrade, CPT Hageman, LTC Buchanan, CPT
McMurtrie.
Absent (substitute): H. Guffey (J.R. Harris), B. Bowman (L. Crowley), R.
Crocker (L. Gerber), C. Rodger (D. Reonard), H. Cummings (C. Bourie).
The
meeting was called to order at 3:00 p.m.
The minutes of the last
meeting were approved as they are being corrected. They may be viewed at the
Senate Home Page at www.auburn.edu/administration/governance/senate/schedule.html
September 4, 2001.
Announcements
a.
Announcements from the President’s Office – Dr. William Walker
There are four or five items
I want to mention to you. First, the Board of Trustees passed the fiscal 02
budget this past Friday. It is not a particularly good budget, but it is the
best we could do under the circumstances. It failed to meet many of the needs
that we have at Auburn. For your information, the budget total is about $522
million. The main campus portion of that, excluding the Experiment Station and
Extension System, is about $388 million. Of that $388 million, the state
appropriation is about $133 million.
Although we were unable to
meet everything that we would list as an urgent need, we were able to get some
things done that I was very pleased about. The first of those is the tuition
remission. The Board did approve the remission of 50% of tuition for spouses
and dependents. The specific policy about what is a spouse and a dependent and
how it will be applied is to be determined. Dr. Large will be working that up
over the next few weeks. I presume that it will be presented to the Board for
their approval. Also, they approved changing the insurance premiums. I want to
express thanks for your endorsing this proposal. If you have forgotten, the
split prior to this decision by the Board was that the employee pays 40% of the
insurance premiums and the University pays 60%. The premiums keep going up
annually, and we were getting to the point where some employees just couldn’t
afford insurance. So, what the Board approved was a change. If an individual is making less than
$20,000, then instead of the split being 40% employee/60% University as it is
for the rest of us, the employee will pay 20% and the University will pay 80%.
For employees making between $20 and $30,000, the employee will pay 30% and the
University will pay 70%. So, I think that is a step in the right direction and
I, again, appreciate the leadership the Senate provided in getting that
through. Also, the Board picked up the complete GTA allocation. You recall from
last year we decided to phase that in over a three-year period and we
recommended this year to fund it all. The Board decided to do that, so we now
have in place tuition funding for all of our graduate teaching assistants.
Clearly, the next issue,
with respect to graduate students, is tuition remission for GRAs. Hopefully, we
will be able to do something about that at some point in the future. I would
like to do something about it this coming year. I would add, as some of you are
aware, many of our GRAs are currently receiving tuition remission from one
source or another.
Because of the “great
unknown” with respect to what is happening with the state funding, we are going
into this current fiscal year with the largest proration reserve in the history
of this University. Don Large has salted away about $6 million, which is about
4.5% of the state appropriation, anticipating pretty dire financial
circumstances within this fiscal year. We hear reports of severe proration, but
at the same time we hear the governor say he will not prorate at all. Obviously
that leads to great confusion forthose of us who are trying to anticipate what
is going to happen realistically. At this juncture, all we know to do is to put
as much aside as we possibly can in anticipation. Dream as we might, we can
anticipate that we may not need all of that for proration; that would be
wonderful, and clearly, later in the year we would be prepared to find a way to
spend some of those funds.
The last announcement I have
is that we are going to be establishing a Teaching and Learning Center, called
the Biggio Teaching and Learning Center. It comes about as the result of a
request of Mr. and Mrs. Biggio, who were long time supporters of this
University. The request was approximately $10 million and will go into an
endowment and that endowment will pay the expenses of a Teaching and Learning
Center that has been designed and recommended by a group of faculty. I believe
it will be located in the library, when the SACS self-study office moves out.
That
ends my announcements. I would be happy to take questions.
Connor Bailey, Steering Committee: I would also like to thank David Housel at the Athletic
Department for making a very generous contribution to the University. As a
one-time contribution, the Athletic Department is contributing half a million
dollars for the upcoming fiscal year, and is contributing on an ongoing basis
for a five-year period, $200,000 a year, for a million and a half dollars. I
have said thank-you to David. I want more. I also want to encourage us to move
toward institutionalizing such gifts. As magnanimous as that gift is, I think
we need to build it in. My understanding for this current fiscal year is that
the Athletic Department is going to be contributing to the general fund of the
University roughly $377,000. This is out of a direct-cost budget, not the
endowments that they have and the restricted funds, an unrestricted fund of $27
million that is in the budget. That is roughly $27 million. The University has
something called a general administrative component that comes on the indirect
cost. Those of us who do contracts and grants, you know we pay 45% or so for on-campus
research. 6.4% of that is for the general administrative component. I would
like to suggest that the central administration consider charging the Athletic
Department on their own direct cost; this 6.4%. I would not include the bond of
indebtedness, which is probably in the range of $3 million for Athletics. That
aside, they’ve got $24 million, that’s $1.4+ million a year. I think that is a
reasonable figure. David Housel has recently expressed his satisfaction—as is
appropriate given the recent circumstances of Athletics—for their facilities,
staffing, salaries, and the rest of the University is now in relatively hard
times. I think it is appropriate that the Athletic Department has made this
contribution and I am glad that David Housel has done so. I think in realistic
terms that more should be expected, and I think we need to build it in as a
normal function in our budgeting. There are two southern universities where
Athletics contributes 6%; this is based on information that came to Don Large’s
office. Others pay much less. But we would not be out of line with other peer
institutions to follow this 6.4%, so I would ask you to talk about this with
your cabinet and discuss this with David Housel. If you would, for a moment,
give us your response.
Dr. Walker: I think it is basically a good idea and have no
objection to it at all. I think the aspect of Athletics that I view as being
very valuable is the fact that it does pay for itself. There are some
questionable charges out there that we are incurring that they really ought to
be paying, but set those aside, I think it is very important that Athletics pay
for itself. I am hesitant to ask them to incur continuing costs. In the
environment in which they are operating, that is fine. Should everything take a
downturn—for example, two or three losing seasons—their returns would go down
considerably. I think the CEO of this place should then be willing to stand
firm and say “no, we are not going to fund Athletics out of the general fund.”
That has not always been the case here. Twenty plus years ago, Athletics was
drawing money out of the general fund. They haven’t the last several years, and
I think that ought to be something we strive for. I would not want there to be
associated with such a contribution by Athletics an implicit commitment on the
part of the University to dip into the general fund on their behalf.
Don Large, VP of Finance: Dr. Walker, why don’t
I follow up with what Connor is suggesting and we crank up the Budget Advisory
Committee in the upcoming year. I can
make one of the first agenda items to have Pat Davis come and speak to the
group. Also, so we can advise the
Senate on the process.
Larry Gerber, History (substitute): Just as a follow-up, having been a member of the
Budget Committee and knowing for many years the issue has been discussed within
the Committee but without a substantial increase in the Athletic Department’s
contribution to the University. it is not as if this would be a brand new
issue. I do have some concern.(I am a season ticket holder for both basketball
and football seasons; I am not anti-athletics). My understanding is that in the
past when we have had bond issues, the credit of the University as a whole is
behind any bond issue for Athletic Department expansion. And we are seeing in
the paper that the Board is wishing to go ahead with the stadium expansion with
the skyboxes. If we have a bond issue and the good faith and credit of the
University makes that possible, I think that is worth something to the Athletic
Department and should be recognized as well. There are a lot of aspects to this
that are obviously not new. I am sure you are aware of the perception problems
as far as where our priorities are when the Athletic Department can proudly
claim that it competes with our peers, in that we have a stadium and facilities
that are second to none, but the rest of the University is struggling.
Dr. Walker: I think you are right. I think using the good name of
the University does have value. I think one could make a claim for making a
charge for that. In fact, we do that with the logos and so on.
Bruce Gladden, Immediate Past-Chair: I
agree with much of what Connor and Larry are saying here, but I think the first
thing to do would be to make sure the Athletic Department is paying 100%. We
need to find out what that is and make sure that is what they are paying,
because there are a lot of hidden costs. I do appreciate the fact that only 15%
of the programs in the country pay their way, and Auburn is one of those. But I
think we need to find out exactly what all the costs are and go from there.
Dr. Walker: I agree with that. One thing I have learned over the
past few months is that it is easy to say “find out what all the costs are.”
Then when you think you have it figured out, someone comes in with something
you didn’t even think about. I think you are right and we need to find out as
best we can what all the costs are.
Michael Watkins, Philosophy: I
am curious what counts as money that Athletics brings in. For example, these
“prime parking spaces” that many people get close to the stadium. Obviously,
they pay to park there so they can go to the game. But those parking spaces
themselves do not belong to Athletics. During the week, I get to park there. Does that money go to Athletics?
Dr. Walker:
I believe it goes to Athletics. It is part of the scholarship and suite ticket
package that those buyers get. It has a value associated with it and the
accountants can tell you exactly what that value is because that has to be deducted if they are going to charge off
part of that ticket price as a charitable contribution.
Dr. Watkins: As a quick follow-up, I don’t see that we are making
the case that that is money Athletics has made. That is money that is credited
to them. This is just one of the issues with bookkeeping. It is not being
clearly kept whether Athletics is paying its own way or not.
Dr. Walker:
There clearly is an absence of a priori principles involved when you’re dealing
with Athletics. Don’t quote that.
Herb Rotfeld, Steering Committee: When
I was with a group that met with Dr. Weary, he noted that the term “interim”
for an administrator is a short-term appointment that is not a candidate for
the final position. One member of our group at that time said that here at
Auburn it seemed to be heir-apparent for the job. Leaving aside your label as
interim, you have been told by a member of the Board that you will have interim
on your title for a long time. In fact, even if we started the search tomorrow,
you would be interim President longer than we’ve had some Presidents. That
aside, I also note that we have an interim Provost, interim Dean of Business,
interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, interim Dean of Education, interim
Dean of the Graduate School, acting Associate Dean of the Graduate School, so I
would think that you are going to be interim long-term enough that we can begin searches for these
positions. Or are we going to wait until we are Auburn interim University?
Dr. Walker: I intend to start searches for several of those
positions, assuming that the faculty and staff involved are in agreement with
that process. With respect to my position, don’t ever forget that I also have
some say in the length of my tenure in this position.
Connor Bailey, Steering Committee: It has come
to my attention that we do some public relations work on this campus, and that
some of this was contracted out. Is it the case to confirm that we have
contracts with Rick Hartselle for $6000 a month for the University public relations?
I understand they have a similar contract with Athletics and a contract with
the Office of Research. Focusing on that first of the three contracts, which
total $16,000 a month, can you tell us what this contract brings us and what
this does to the University? I am assuming these are public dollars.
Dr. Walker: He is doing work for Athletics, as I understand, work
for the Board, and work for Mike Moriarty.
Dr. Bailey: I am referring to the Board work.
Dr. Walker: You would have to talk to Grant Davis about
that. He is working on some of the Board’s publications, and I don’t know what
else. With respect to Moriarty, how much did we bring in from Washington last
year of special appropriations?
Dr. Michael Moriarty, VP
for Research: About $29 million, but
none of that had Rick Hartselle’s fingers on it. It was due to a relationship with someone else.
Dr. Bailey: These are public dollars being used in these
different contracts.
Dr. Large: As
far as I know they are. I don’t know about Athletics, but with the Board it is.
Dr. Walker: Athletics doesn’t have any public dollars.
Dr. Large: Well, their auxiliary funds are technically
public, but their Tigers Unlimited funds are not. They are private.
B. Announcements from the Senate Chair
– Dr. Jim Bradley
I agree with Dr. Walker that
we can feel good about the priorities that this group set about a year ago and
passed on to the administration, which they then passed on to the Board of
Trustees. I think that was a real good thing that Bruce asked us to do and that
was to prioritize our wishes for the University budget, and I think we ought to
do that again this year. One other item relative to the Board meeting that is
germane to something Bruce brought up a minute ago, is the costs for the
Athletic Department. Christine Curtis made a report about the problems of
trashing the buildings and cleanup after football games, and she mentioned some
of the solutions in terms of policies like locking buildings. She didn’t have time
to get to everything because we were rushed to get done with this meeting by
10:30. In her written report, she had an itemized list of all the cleanup
necessary and the re-landscaping necessary; she estimated $200,000 per football
season as a cost to the University, which precisely matches the donation we
just received.
We have now received
nominees from the University faculty for the faculty positions on the
committees of the Board of Trustees. Tomorrow at 1:00 the Rules Committee will
be meeting to go over those nominees and any additional nominees the committee
members have. We will be selecting three nominees for each of the four faculty
spots on Board committees.
Something else related to
the Board is that I continue to have infrequent, but somewhat regular
discussions with Trustee Miller about the Academic Affairs Committee. Our
discussions have so far been limited to the revision of the charge of that
committee. That committee has been merged with the Priorities and Planning
Committee of the Board, and he has invited me to converse with him about the
revision of the charge.
The Administrator Evaluation
Committee has been meeting off and on for well over a year, and finally there
are forms that have been finalized and approved by the Interim Provost. There
are plans to do that survey of Department Heads and Deans sometime early this
spring. Bruce Gladden has been chairing that committee.
A couple of other quick
items, there has also existed an ad hoc Senate committee sabbatical policy,
chaired by me, and it has existed for about a year. The committee will be
reporting its recommendations this winter. The recommendations will be of two
varieties: revisions of eligibility for sabbaticals to bring us in line with
the semester system, and recommendations aimed at equalizing opportunities for
sabbaticals across campus. At the present time, as most all of you know, those
opportunities are not equal.
Finally, the Senate has now been
assigned office space in Samford Hall. We have our own conference room and an
anterior greeting area with room for two desks. Due to Dr. Hendrix’s efforts on
the Concessions Committee, we have funds to buy furniture as well. So, as soon
as we have the place scanned for listening devices, we’ll be moving into that
office. The conference room is 102 Samford. The office is half the area where
Dr. Muse was located for the past several months (room 100).
Action Items
A. Motions from the ad hoc Committee on
Outreach Scholarship Assessment – Dr. Wayne Flynt
Beginning of Outreach
motions-
Motions
to accept recommendations from the Ad Hoc Committee on Outreach Scholarship
Assessment
Motion
1
Adopt
the following definition of "outreach":
a. Outreach
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 scholarship for purposes of tenure
and promotion 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 a 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 between the program / activities and an
appropriate academic unit's mission.
Motion 2
Refer
the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Outreach Scholarship Assessment
(available at www.auburn.edu/outreach/facultyhandbook) to the to
the Handbook Committee for review and implementation consistent with motion 1.
Explanation
These motions define outreach and forward the report of the Ad Hoc Committee to
the Handbook Committee. The purpose is to establish a means of assessing
outreach scholarship so that it can be counted in the tenure and promotion
process. The report does not change the weight assigned to outreach but
provides a method for documenting and assessing quality in outreach. The
Handbook Committee will have opportunity to review the recommendations, consult
with the Tenure and Promotion Committee and others as appropriate, and bring
their recommendations back to the University Senate for discussion and action.
The definition in motion 1 is a slightly modified version of the definition in Faculty
Participation in Outreach Scholarship (the Flynt committee report), which
was accepted by the University Senate in 1997. It subsumes the activities of
Cooperative Extension and it also includes other faculty activities that apply
academic expertise to the direct benefit of external audiences in support of
university and unit missions. It excludes any forms of community service that
do not apply academic expertise and/or do not support university or unit
missions. Thus, a physics professor's participation in the Youth Experience in
Science program would be considered outreach but the same professor's service
on jury duty would not be.
It is not assumed that all outreach activities reflect the quality and impact
necessary to be counted for tenure and promotion. Thus, the second sentence in
Motion 1 adds restrictions for the purpose of identifying and setting standards
for outreach scholarship. An activity would have to meet all of the six
conditions, including the generation of new knowledge for the discipline and/or
the audience or clientele. Exactly how significant a problem or outreach impact
would have to be is a matter to be worked out over time by tenure and promotion
committees, just as the requirements for research publications have varied over
time. The report of the Ad Hoc Committee offers a format in which candidates
can document and reviewers can assess the significance of outreach
contributions.
End of Outreach motions-
Dr. Bradley:
The action that is asked to be taken on this subject is in the form of two
motions. The first is simply addressing the definition of outreach scholarship.
The second motion says that the committee’s report will be handed to the
Faculty Handbook Committee for implementation. Whatever that Committee decides
should go in the Handbook will come back to the Senate for a two-thirds
vote of approval. What I suggest, given that at the last Senate meeting we had
a nice presentation of this by Wayne Flynt, came up to a vote, then discovered
we didn’t have a quorum. I suggest that I ask you if you are ready to go ahead
and vote. Dr. Flynt was going to be here to answer any questions, but he was
called out of town. He did provide this statement that is relatively short:
October 5, 2001
I strongly urge the University Senate to pass the motion
recommended by the Ad Hoc Committee on Outreach Scholarship Assessment.
Literally dozens of individuals have worked for years to ensure that high
quality outreach, based on solid academic research/scholarship, presented
effectively to non-traditional audiences, tied closely to one's field,
which both enriches scholarship and improves quality of life in Alabama,
be fully recognized within the university's reward system. I believe this
component of scholarship can be fairly and rigorously assessed, and I also
believe it will strengthen Auburn's ties to the people of this state.
Larry Gerber, History
(substitute): Do we have the motion on the floor?
Dr. Bradley:
No. I am about to ask whether you would like to have further discussion, at which
point we will have some people field questions other than myself.
Dr. Gerber: I am going to have one question of clarification. I
support my colleague’s proposal, but I do have one suggestion that I would like
to ask of someone who is involved in the drafting to respond whether I need to
make a motion or not. So, I have a question first and a possible motion.
Dr. Bradley:
Let’s go ahead and enter any discussion that we need to prior to taking a vote
on this. We have David Wilson and Robert Montjoy, and also Barb Struempler who
can answer any questions.
Dr. Gerber: My question is in terms of the wording of
the definition itself. The six conditions that are listed, it doesn’t exactly
say that all six conditions must be met. That statement is made in the
explanation, but not in the definition itself.
Barb Struempler, Chair-Elect: A
couple of Senate meetings ago, there used to be right before the “six” an
“an/or.” The “or” was removed. The “and” implies that all six must be there in
order to have merit. It used to be and/or at the July meeting. After that
meeting it was edited to remove the “or.” So, in order to qualify you must meet
all six conditions. I think it sets some very high standards for outreach types
of activities. I’m glad I am a professor now and not going forward because it
clearly sets some very high standards. I think the overlying philosophy is to
try to encompass more than just Extension types of activities, which you are
probably quite familiar with. This hopefully will bring in some other types of
outreach and collect them so that we can highlight what types of outreach we do
at Auburn University. But you have to have all six.
Dr. Gerber: I understand that from the explanation. If before the
first number we wrote “if all the following conditions are met,” would that
make it clearer? I only suggest that if you consider it a friendly amendment.
Dr. Struempler: I would not
have a problem with that.
Dr. Gerber: I so move. The wording would be “if all the
following conditions are met.”
Dr. Bradley: I would consider this a friendly amendment so I will
just write it in. We do have motion #1 on the floor right now. It stands as it
is friendly amended right now.
The
question was called.
Kem Krueger, Pharmacology: Item #5 says
“new knowledge is generated for the discipline.” How does that differ from
research?
David Wilson, VP Outreach:
[answer to question inaudible]
The
motion passed with a unanimous voice vote.
Dr. Bradley: Now we have motion 2. Motion 2 simply states
that we will pass this report on to the Faculty Handbook Committee along with
motion #1, and ask them to devise an implementation, which they will bring back
to the Senate.
[Name inaudible]: I am a visitor, but in the parentheses you
have “to the to the.”
Dr. Bradley: That is a friendly correction. Any discussion on
this motion?
The
motion passed with a unanimous voice vote.
Information Items
a. Report from the Teaching
Effectiveness Committee – Dr. Jeff Fergus
I am here to report on the
recommendations of the Teaching Effectiveness Committee on modifying the
teaching evaluation form. First, you will notice that the written document has
been available since June, because we were originally going to present at the
June meeting. This process began about two years ago, so actually, the previous
year’s Teaching Effectiveness Committee was involved.
Beginning of report-
Report on
Recommended Changes to the Teaching Effectiveness Survey
The Teaching
Effectiveness Committee recommends that the 8 questions currently on the
Teaching Effectiveness Survey be replaced with the 9 questions shown below and
that the survey be renamed the “Teaching Evaluation
Survey.”
The
committee recommends that the results of the survey be used, along with other
evaluation methods, to identify potential teaching problems, which may require
further investigation. The results of
the survey should NOT be used to rank faculty nor used as the sole means for
evaluating teaching effectiveness.
Current Questions
1. The
instructor explained the course material clearly.
2. The
instructor was actively helpful when students had problems.
3. The
instructor was well prepared for each class.
4. The
instructor spoke audibly and clearly.
5. The
instructor stimulated my thinking.
6. The
instructor made the course objectives and my responsibilities clear to me at
the beginning of the course.
7. The
instructor motivated me to do my best work.
8. The
instructor organized the class well throughout the quarter.
1. The
instructor clearly stated the course objectives and student responsibilities.
2. The
instructor was well organized.
3. The
instructor was prepared for class.
4. The
instructor clearly explained the course material.
5. The
instructor communicated effectively.
6. The
instructor was helpful.
7. Overall,
the instructor was effective.
8. The
course content was interesting.
9. The
course content was valuable / beneficial.
The
SACS Criteria for Accreditation contains statements requiring the evaluation of
both undergraduate (“Instruction must be evaluated regularly and the results
used to ensure quality instruction.” – from Criterion 4.2.4) and graduate
(“There must be frequent, systematic evaluation of graduate instruction and, if
appropriate, revision of the instructional process based on the results of this
evaluation.” – from Criterion 4.3.5) instruction. In addition, the Report of the SACS Reaffirmation Committee
(April 6-9, 1993) contained the following two statements specifically
addressing the teaching effectiveness survey:
Recommendation 12: The committee recommends that the teaching
evaluation form be reviewed and that the institution establish a procedure that
insures the regular evaluation of instruction and the development of plans to
improve instruction in areas found to be deficient.
Suggestion 9: The committee suggests that the review of the teaching evaluation
form be accomplished by a committee comprised of students and faculty
representatives.
The
institution must respond to recommendations from SACS, so the Teaching
Effectiveness Committee has reviewed the Teaching Effectiveness Survey.
The
Teaching Effectiveness Committee began revising the Teaching Effectiveness
Survey in Fall 1999. Revision of the
form was required to reflect changes (e.g. course numbering, college
names) associated with the transition to the semester system. The committee considered revising the
questions at that time, but then decided that more time was needed to make
proper changes.
In
Spring 2000, the Teaching Effectiveness Survey was sent to all teaching
faculty, who were asked to rate each question as to whether it should or should
not be included and to provide comments on the survey. The results of this survey indicated the
faculty objected most strongly to the questions regarding stimulation (#5) and
motivation (#7). The two most recurring
suggestions for additional questions were the need for a question on overall
effectiveness and questions on the course content (as opposed to the teaching).
In
Summer 2000, based on the results of the faculty survey, a set of revised
questions was developed and pilot tested.
The pilot test consisted of having 647 students in 29 sections complete
two surveys (the current survey as well as a pilot survey). In the pilot test, for a given instructor
the overall scores from the two surveys were essentially the same. One interesting result of the survey was
that the scores on questions related to the course content were consistently
lower than those for the instructor.
Another interesting comparison was that the scores for the instructors
being organized and those for being prepared, were significantly
different. A recurring comment from the
faculty survey was that these two questions were redundant, but the results of
the pilot test indicate that this may not be the case. The only rewording that resulted in a
significant difference in scores was broadening the question on speaking
clearly (#4) to include effective communication. The scores on the revised question were lower presumably since
both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication were being considered in
response to the revised question.
In
Fall 2000, based on the results of the pilot test, the survey was again
revised. Input from students and
faculty on whether they preferred the current survey or the revised survey was
obtained. This input was obtained at an
AAUP Forum on Teaching Effectiveness, from student organizations and from
several classes. Most faculty and
students preferred the revised questions to the current questions. Although the revised questions were
generally preferred, there were some recurring comments from a minority of the
respondents, which will be discussed below.
The
revised questions are generally more succinct than the current questions. Other than rewording, the significant
changes are summarized below:
Addition
of questions on course content: The questions on the course content
were added to allow students to express their dissatisfaction with the course
without necessarily giving low scores for instruction. In addition, information on the students’ attitude
towards the course is useful in interpreting the survey results.
Addition
of question on overall effectiveness: The addition of a question on the
overall effectiveness was the most common suggestion from the faculty survey.
Elimination
of motivation / stimulation questions:
The questions on motivation and stimulation received the lowest scores
and raised the most objections in the faculty survey.
Students
and faculty generally preferred the revised questions. Some (not a majority) faculty and students
had some concerns about the revised survey.
The recurring concerns are given below, along with some explanation of
the committee’s response.
The
motivation / stimulation questions are important and should be included: Motivation
is more important in distinguishing great teachers from adequate teachers,
rather than adequate teachers from poor teachers. The committee believes the survey can only effectively distinguish
poor teaching from adequate teaching.
Even with the motivation question, other criteria would be needed to
identify exceptional teaching (e.g. for awards), so the questions are
not necessary.
The
survey has mixed purposes (evaluation / improving effectiveness) and is not
effective for improving teaching: The survey should be used only to identify problems in teaching – NOT
to rank instructors and not as a sole source for evaluation.
The
results are misused (i.e. ranking, type of course / attitude of students not
considered) or not used (i.e. lack of impact).
This is an issue in the interpretation and use of the
results and cannot be addressed by modifying the questions.
The
Teaching Effectiveness Committee recognizes that there are still improvements
that can and should be made on the process for evaluating teaching
effectiveness. Revision of the survey
is just the first step.
There
is considerable interest in mid-term evaluations, because they provide rapid response
and the results can benefit students in the class providing the input. However, students may fear retribution for
negative responses in a mid-term survey, so more candid (and thus more valid)
responses are expected at the end-of-term.
Also, many changes are more effectively made when the instructor next
teaches the class rather than in the middle of the term. In addition, faculty desiring mid-term input
can implement individual custom surveys.
While the committee believes that the current survey is most effective
if administered at the end of the term, it recognizes the value of mid-term
evaluations. Although individual
instructors can develop and administer their own custom surveys, the
development of a set of evaluation or assessment instruments, from which
instructors could choose, would be helpful.
The
committee considered the possibility of administering the mid-term, or possibly
the end-of-term, survey via the Internet.
On-line surveys would reduce the time and cost associated with the survey. However, there are security and privacy
issues, which must be addressed. In
addition, the response rate of on-line surveys may be lower than those
administered in the classroom.
Instructors can currently use WebCT to develop and administer on-line
surveys to their classes.
As
mentioned above, the committee believes that the teaching evaluation survey
should be used along with other assessment techniques. Although this is already stated in the Faculty
Handbook, it appears that some programs rely primarily on the teaching
effectiveness survey for evaluating teaching effectiveness. The development of a set of alternative
assessment instruments or techniques may facilitate and encourage the use of a
variety of assessment methods.
The
survey or other assessment methods can be used to evaluate teaching
effectiveness, but the important next step is to use the results to improve the
quality of instruction. Although, this
will be done primarily at the departmental level, the development of programs
to help faculty develop and improve teaching skills would be helpful.
The
university will be establishing a Center for Teaching and Learning. Although the center is still being
organized, one objective of the center is to improve teaching, which should
include addressing the remaining issues listed above. The Teaching Effectiveness Committee plans to work in
coordination with the Center for Teaching and Learning to establish processes
to support continual improvement of the quality of instruction at Auburn
University.
End of report-
Dr. Fergus: The reason we did this is related to the SACS
criteria. There are two criteria requiring that we do some sort of evaluation.
Not only that, but in the last SACS review, there was a recommendation, which
are items we must respond to, to review this survey. That is the primary reason
why we did this.
This whole process started
two years ago in the Fall of 1999 when we looked at the survey. We had to make
changes to the format because of the difference in semesters and quarters. So,
after we did that we started to look at the questions and we decided that we
didn’t have time to adequately study the questions at that time. So, we decided
to take more time to review the content of the questions.
The first thing we did, as
you may remember, in the Spring of 2000, we sent out a survey to all faculty.
Basically, we sent out a current survey and asked whether the current questions
should be there or not. The main result was that the two questions involving
motivation and stimulated thinking were least favored by far. Comments suggested a need for a question
about overall effectiveness. And there were a lot of complaints about the
misuse of the information from the form. So, based on that we looked at the
questions and revised them in the Summer of 2000. We developed a pilot survey
with 12 questions, some reworded questions and some new questions. We sent that
out to 600+ in about 29 sections. They filled out both the pilot survey and the
current survey. We took those results to compare them.
We found that a number of
people thought that two questions, one that was whether the instructor was
prepared and the other was for whether he or she was organized, were redundant.
However, there was a significant difference in scores. Moreover, in general,
instruction was rated higher than the courses. It was fairly consistent. They
were scaled together but were fairly consistent.
So based on that, we
developed revised questions again and looked for some more information. At an
AAUP form on teaching effectiveness, we
got some input on what we had proposed at that time. We also sent the survey
out to students in various classes and other faculty, and we found that there
were still a lot of people who thought that those motivation and stimulation
questions should be in it. So we looked at that again. There were a lot of
questions about having the survey at midterm rather than at the end of the
term. Again, there were a lot of complaints over use and misuse.
Again, we revised it. First,
I want you know that we don’t think we’ve solved everything, even though we
think we have an improved survey. There are, however, still issues that we need
to look at. We think there is value to the issue of the midterm surveys, but we
think this particular instrument is implemented at the end of the term. I think
you get better feedback when students aren’t concerned over retribution and for
its purpose in evaluating the course, it is a better time.
The possibility of online
surveys is something we should look at. It is certainly more convenient for
analyzing and collecting data. On the other hand, the response rate may be
lower.
We certainly don’t think
that the survey should be the only means of assessment, so those other means
have to be developed. Another thing is that even if this survey evaluates
teaching effectively, we need a system in place to do something about it if
there are problems. The Center of Teaching and Learning seems to be a place
where some of these things can be done. The plan is for this Committee to work
with that Center to go beyond just modifying the surveys.
I will summarize the changes
we have made and show you the revised questions. First of all, one of the
things we did was to expand the question “The instructor spoke audibly and
clearly.” We wanted to expand that beyond just speaking to include written
forms of communication as well. That is one of the changes.
We made several of the
questions significantly shorter and took out some of the qualifiers. For example,
this first item is referring to the question, “The instructor was actively
helpful when students had problems.” We got rid of the “actively” and “students
had problems.”
As I mentioned, we added
questions about the course content. Again, that is to distinguish between the
student being dissatisfied with the course or with the teaching. We think that
would be useful in interpreting the results to see if part of the reason
students are dissatisfied is because they don’t want to be taking the course.
We did add a question on
overall effectiveness. We eliminated the questions on motivation and
stimulation. We talked about this quite a lot because there were a lot of
comments and these really were important because a good teacher should be able
to motivate students and stimulate thinking. But the reason we left those off
is because we think that the use of this survey is really to distinguish
whether you have someone who is adequately teaching versus someone who is doing
a lousy job. We don’t think that this survey can really distinguish the great
teachers from the adequate teachers. That’s really where those questions are
most useful, for finding the inspiring teachers. We chose to decide that this
survey not be used for that purpose, so those questions are not on this.
Our recommendation is that
the eight questions we currently use be replaced with the nine questions I just
showed you and that we call the survey the Teaching Evaluation Survey. One of
the problems that people have with this survey is that it mixes up evaluation
with improving effectiveness. We think again that the purpose of this survey is
to identify if there are problems. If a problem is identified, there needs to
be more evaluation of other types to identify if there really is a problem.
So, the committee recommends
that the results of this survey be used along with other evaluation methods to
identify potential problems that may require further investigation. The results
of this survey should not be used to rank faculty or used as a sole means of
evaluating teaching.
Are
there any questions?
Dr. Bradley:
The value of some discussion now, since we are not voting on anything today, is
that Jeff would get some feedback so he could take back some comments to the
committee and incorporate anything necessary before they bring it for a vote before the Senate some time later.
Dr. Fergus: I am not actually on the committee anymore,
so I could agree to do anything, I guess. Peter Hasti, who is the new chair,
was unable to be here. I think he said he would make sure someone else on the
committee was here.
Herb Rotfeld, Steering Committee: When
I was on the Rules Committee several years back, there was a tendency to
appoint people to this committee who scored high on the teacher evaluation form.
That is part of why I am having the problem here. You start by saying SACS
wants these reports to be ways of improving teaching. Then you talk about
assessing to find out adequate versus bad teaching.
I’ll ask the management
questions. What research drove you in compiling this report? None is cited;
none is listed. There are hundreds of studies done in everything from American Psychologist to marketing
journals and academic journals on how to construct these things and why these
forms are a waste of time for students and faculty. I don’t find anything in
here on research driving this report in how it is put together, how it should
be used, or how it could help us improve the quality of teaching at Auburn
University.
Secondly, I would like to
see how the data should be analyzed. What usually happens when you present
something like this with ordinal data is people give ratio scores, averages at
the bottom line. A member of the P&T Committee one time said that 4.2 was
average teaching. That was her bottom line. I don’t know what the Committee
says now. I do know that I hear some administrators talk this way all the time.
How should this data be analyzed? Nothing is said in the report.
In fact, in terms of putting
the questions together, I am bothered because you haven’t said that you didn’t
want a certain question in there because students wanted to express themselves.
This is not supposed to be an exercise in venting. It is a substantive effort
to improve the quality of teaching at Auburn. I saw nothing in this report that
says how this material should be used in teaching. In fact, that’s the bottom
question here. How should the data from this be used to make decisions? Exactly what sort of data could be used in certain
ways. If any management person is giving a report, you are also saying here is
the data we are going to collect, you are also saying if the data comes out
this way, we do this, etc. There is nothing in this report that indicates
exactly how this data will be used.
Basically, in terms of compiling,
we have your statement saying you want other data collected, with no talk of
what that data will be. You talk of midterm evaluations in your intuitive
statements, but you have no research in here saying how they will be done. You only have an intuitive
statement saying that end of the semester is better than midterm. Why? I don’t
know.
I have a study with a
evaluation form that made a comparison between students who took a class and
students who watched a 10-minute video of that same teacher with the sound off
and then filled out a teacher evaluation form. The scores were the same. I have
heard that some schools have up to 29 items on their forms. Personally, I
dislike the evaluation form you’ve come up with. This is the one form of
quantitative data that comes out, and administrators will use it to rank order
faculty. It is going to replace everything else. I think if you are going to
spend all of these years revising the evaluation form and say this is what you
are doing, you need to say this is the form and the answers to this form are
going to improve the quality of teaching at Auburn. That is not in your report.
Dr. Fergus: We actually talked about that. We decided that has to
be done at the departmental level. This is just a form that will indicate if
there might be a problem. If an instructor gets a score that is low for that
type of class, and there are different standards for, let’s say, Math 160 and a
graduate level course, there might be a problem and something needs to be done.
I agree that this isn’t enough. This is the first step.
Isabelle Thompson, Senate Secretary: I
am the former chair of this Committee and Jeff inherited this whole problem
from me. The one thing I told the committee when we started looking at this
form was let’s please don’t do that. People are going to hate us if we mess
with this form. But the Committee thought that the form was bad enough that we
should consider the questions. The first thing we did was to go to the web and
look at what other universities were doing. We did indeed do our review of
research, Herb, quite a bit. We, of course, found that people have different
opinions about these forms and their usefulness varies. We also knew from the
beginning that there has to be a form. SACS requires there to be a form, and it
seems to me that the work Jeff and the committee have done since I was
fortunate enough to rotate off has been to take what we already knew, be very
realistic about what we had to do, and contextualize it for the Auburn
community. I know how much work we did before I left and they’ve done quite a
bit more. I also have great faith in the statistical analysis that was done as
well. I would just like to commend Jeff for doing an extraordinary job on this.
William Gale, Mechanical Engineering: [speaks in opposition to
large numbers of questions on the teaching evaluation form]
Dr. Fergus: To follow that up, from a personal
experience, the most useful thing for me is the comments anyway. The numbers give
me an overall feel. If it were a longer survey, there would be fewer comments,
which is what I find most useful.
Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology: Herb,
I am here to tell you that you don’t have to get teaching effectiveness survey
points to be on this committee, because I am on it. I don’t think Herb told us
that this form needed 29 or 30 questions. I think what he is suggesting is that
there is a great degree of variability at how this task is approached. I think
he was taking the Committee to task for presenting only this as evidence of its
activities over the past several years. One of the reasons I volunteered for
this Committee is because I am eagerly anticipating a new Center. This is
something that has been discussed for years and has never come to pass. I think
this is a good thing. I am certain that the Teaching Effectiveness Committee is
going to give more than just questions to prove effectiveness. But, I think
that tinkering with questions was needed.
Mike Solomon, Consumer Affairs: I
agree generally with Herb in the sense that in my experience these forms can be
manipulated and used in favor of a person or not. In my experience as a
Department Head, I know that sometimes these ratings can be inflated by the
instructor and it is very simple to do that because basically happy campers
give good marks for instruction. How does that happen? We give them A’s. Grade
inflation is part of the issue here. I am just wondering if the Committee
considered asking the students what they are anticipating their grade to be. I
know that some other institutions use that to moderate the final score in the
sense that if the student is expecting to get a C or a D in a course, he or she
doesn’t tend to be very generous in ratings. Perhaps that should be taken into account
so that we don’t just reward professors who give A’s and B’s.
Dr. Fergus:
We did talk about that and part of the form has that on there. The front of the
form has that on it. It is on the form. You have to take that with a grain of
salt because what the students says he expects is not always accurate. But it
is there. That is another thing that could be done is to use more of the
information that is already on the form.
Christa Slaton, Political Science: One
thing I might suggest that the Committee does as a next step is when you write
your recommendations to articulate ways in which the forms have been misused in
the past so that you state much more clearly and give more guidance because
there is a lot of variation between Departments. If the Committee works to
collect examples of how it is misused and state that in its recommendations, I
think that would be helpful.
Herb Rotfeld, Steering Committee: I
would like to follow-up. My basic issue here is how should this data be
analyzed? You say you have the request about expected grade in the front, but
there is no statement about how that data should be used. The data analysis
reported on this has traditionally been a collection of frequency counts and
averages, which is improper use of information. So, I really think you need to
say how the data should be analyzed from this form, exactly how the data should
be used to help teaching, and you should consider a set of qualitative items. I
know a Department Chair that insisted on doing all the department evaluations
himself came to the students and said that pay raises would be influenced by
what you say here. This has a nice impact on evaluation scores.
Dr. Fergus:
We did talk about that, but it implies not only how it is going to be used but
the response. All of that we thought was beyond what we could do. We thought
that could be done at the department and with the Teaching and Learning Center.
That was the reason we stopped and decided that we couldn’t solve the whole
problem. We didn’t talk a lot about qualitative questions. We thought this was
a general response. I think part of the problem with that is that every
particular program has a different type of question they would like to ask. To
find a common set of questions beyond general comments is difficult.
Randy Pipes, Counseling and Counseling
Psychology: Just a couple of things I would like for the
Committee to consider. Item 1 is a compound sentence. Normally, in looking at
items of measurement you don’t use compound statements. I would ask the
Committee if they would edit that in some way or make it two. Secondly, in
looking at the seven items that would be used to evaluate the instructor, it
seems to me that five of them tend to center around organizational and
communication issues. They do not identify average teaching from quality
teaching, but I am still concerned that five out of the seven items seem to
focus around speaking clearly and being organized. I would like to see a
reconsideration of those items to see if you could beef those up a bit.
Dr. Fergus: I
said the reason we decided not to put the motivation, but I can bring that up
to the Committee again. In terms of what the instructor knows, that came up a
lot. The general thought was that students really aren’t in a position to judge
what the professor knows. They can judge whether it sounds like they know what
they are talking about, but it is difficult for them to say whether the
professor knows his stuff or not. An example of that is when a student says a
teacher didn’t know algebra or calculus. Obviously, the instructor did, but the
student had problems. That was the problem with that.
Dr. Pipes:
My point there is not about a specific item. I am just raising the question of
the percentage of the instrument on something that really doesn’t capture the
substantive aspect of teaching.
Ralph Paxton, Pharmacology: I am also struck of
the lack of the word “learn.” Is this to be a measure of what students have
learned? There is not one question in there that gives them the opportunity to
say “I learned a lot,” or “ I learned very little.”
Dr. Fergus: We talked about making it a teaching and learning
survey at one point, but the thinking was if we did that it was like opening a
can of worms. Once you decide to try to find out what the student is learning,
there are a lot more questions you have to ask and a lot more you have to do.
We thought that was beyond what we are trying to do here.
Dr. Paxton: I guess I am confused. What is the point of
teaching, then?
Dr. Fergus: Well, this survey is an evaluation of how well the
instructor taught. That is only one measure.
Dr. Paxton:
But isn’t learning a big issue in that? Otherwise, I could be the best teacher
in the world and not teach them anything.
Dr. Fergus: It is. I see your point, but I guess we
thought that was going to need a different instrument to address that properly.
Dr. Paxton: One last thought. It would seem more appropriate to
call something like this a student satisfaction survey, because it has nothing
to do with learning. We are not asking whether they learned anything or not.
Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology: Ralph, there are institutions that call these
student satisfaction forms. It sounds
really ridiculous, but sometimes students don’t seem to be effective judges of
teaching. We give exams that, to me, clearly show whether they are learning
what you expect them to. Students will swear up and down that they didn’t learn
a darn thing in a course, when the fact is they scored very well on an exam and
they were basically clueless on day one. I know it sounds unreasonable, but I
think we are already testing that.
Ralph Henderson, Clinical Sciences: Herb, let’s
say the questions were valid. I am curious as to what analytical tools of management
that you suggest. Sincerely, there is a role for management people in
development of this because it is very difficult to make an assessment of
someone’s capabilities with relatively short opportunities for evaluation.
Dr. Rotfeld: I will give a general answer that I sent a report off
to a couple of friends who are former department heads teaching organizational
management and I would tell their comments but they are not compliments. They
said this was a student satisfaction survey.
Dr. Bradley: Just a little Robert’s Rules interjection: We need to
avoid getting into conversations with each other and address your comments to
Jeff.
Dr. Bradley: All of these comments will appear in the
minutes. You can encourage Peter Hastie to read the minutes of this meeting.
B. Report from the SACS Self-Study –
Dr. Gene Clothiaux
Let me be quick and brief.
Seven committees have been activated and they are at work.They have been broken
up into subcommittees to handle different parts of the criteria for accreditation.
This will go on until May, at which time we hope everything will be finished,
if not before that.
We have conducted two
surveys, one for the staff and the other for the administrative and
professional group. The response from the staff was about 34% and the response
from the academic and professional group was about 43%. At first we thought it
would be higher, but it didn’t turn out that way.
If you wish to see the
questions that were asked of the group, you can view them on the web. We have a
site for SACS on the web. It is not accessible anywhere except at the address www.auburn.edu/academic/provost/sacs.
We have asked to have that put on the homepage, but haven’t succeeded in getting
there yet. We would also like to get it on the Provost’s page so you could
access it from the front. As it is, you have to put this in if you want to see
it.
We have the Self-Study from
10 years ago and the visiting team’s review from 10 years ago. If you go to
that SACS review and click on it, you’ll get all of the requirements, the
recommendations, suggestions, etc.
We have the committees for
this time. We have a timetable. If you go to SACS Commission, you’ll get the
homepage for SACS, and from there you’ll get any information you want,
including the criteria for accreditation. If you want to look at the SACS
survey, you can go there and link into the questions. Once you link to them,
you will also get a word result at
the end. If you click on result you
will bring up that question and find a breakdown of how the people in a
particular group felt about that particular question.
We are in the process of
preparing surveys and questionnaires for Deans, Department Heads, and faculty.
That was done 10 years ago. The faculty survey 10 years ago had something like
134 questions. I don’t know what percentage answered. I couldn’t find that.
This is all in the archives in the library. I don’t think we’ll have 134
questions this time. I figured that there were a little over 90 people serving
on the committees for SACS, and if those 90 people reply we’ll have about 10
percent. The hope is to get a bit more than that. We hope to get something
around 40-50%. In fact, I was against putting out a faculty survey to begin
with because the response is usually so low, but the Steering Committee feels
otherwise, so we will go ahead with it.
The question comes up
whether we should survey the part-time faculty and GTAs. Ten years ago they surveyed
the alumni. So you ask, do we survey the alumni? Then you ask do we survey the
Board of Trustees. We will have to see.
The
Steering Committee meets tomorrow and we will have some answers.
There
is really not much to report except that this thing is ongoing.
The
meeting was adjourned at 4:30 p.m.