Minutes
Call to Order: The meeting was called to order at
John Mouton, Chair: It’s
I’m going to call the meeting to
order. We are going to approve the
minutes of the special called faculty meeting on
We’ve got announcements today. The Interim President, Ed Richardson, is here to make these announcements from the President’s office.
Ed Richardson, Interim President: Thank you. I like the way John approved the minutes. Is that out of the Mouton Rules of Order? Is that what it is? I think I’ll try to use that with the Board on Friday.
I’m just here to make two or
three announcements and I assume perhaps respond to questions that someone
might have. I would be glad to do that. I would announce that tomorrow the
five-member committee will be hopefully naming the next two Board of Trustee
nominees – the At-large and
The other item that I would point out is the Board Meeting is obviously scheduled for this Friday. We will be in Ballroom B. We looked at that in terms of having dual screens since we will be using a lot of power point in this one. Hopefully, it will be easier to follow. So, it’s right next to where we met previously. I would say that a couple of things about the meeting just as a reminder: Number one – This is a meeting where we will be looking at some revenue and expenditure items without extensive discussion. We will put all the documents on the table and I encourage you to get copies of that if you are interested. Then, when we come back on May 7th we are going to start the discussion in detail of some of these issues which, hopefully, will help us to better refine our mission, which was a recommendation on our SACS report as well as to allocate our resources for the budget for the coming year. So I do not anticipate that discussion finishing on May 7th. In fact, many of the items I anticipate will go into the fall. So we will have plenty of time, hopefully, to review the documents. I should have said—I missed something on the orientation. We have different groups that are there. We do have John Mouton who will be talking to the group about faculty life and demands and so forth and, although John asked for four hours, I only had two, total, and I did cut him back to 20 minutes. But when we come back on May 6th he will have a more extended period of time to talk more about the issues for the faculty. So I wanted to alert you to that. The real issue, I think, as we go forward on the Board Meeting on Friday, is that we will start to look at issues—some of them are going to be a little of concern, when you start talking about allocating resources, but I do not anticipate any noticeable impact on academic programs. We are going to be looking at what I would call peripheral programs in terms of whether it’s costing us more money than we want to spend. And I would hope that you would certainly get those documents, look at those and provide input to it because it will, I think, set the direction for the University in the future.
The only other thing I would say—probably you have heard today—that the Athletic Director has announced his pending retirement as well as to step down as AD at the end of the football season. So that’s about it and I would be glad to respond to any questions I may have not covered.
Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology: Dr. Richardson, I’m Cindy Brunner from the Pathobiology Department. I was on the University Self-Study Committee that examined the University Mission Institutional Purpose and one of our recommendations was a reassessment of the mission in light of what we really do. Can you give us any time line as to when the draft of the University’s Mission Statement would be released to the faculty for our consideration?
Ed Richardson, Interim President: No, as far as the time line, I would say that I did get, yesterday, the initial draft of the SACS report in which we’ve been asked—and I’ve given it to Dr. Glaze obviously to look at factual errors and if there are any factual errors then we note those and sent it back to them and then we get the final report. The Mission Statement in my view – and somehow I’ve missed something over the last three years, which is not unusual, but there were two issues on the Mission Statement that I thought were significant that we need to review and in the course of these policy discussions that will be coming up I think that we will deal with those. One: It seemed to almost ignore graduate education and that was obvious and I’m sure that I guess that everyone in here would agree that we have more of a commitment to graduate education than Mission Statement. And it seemed to stress the land-grant role. Now, when I served as Co-Chair of the Role Commission, we came up with a definition of a comprehensive university with a land-grant mission. Somehow that got lost in the shuffle and I think the comprehensiveness of this university needs to be restated. I would hope that by this fall we will have it and I would encourage any input that you have. I don’t have a document. We are going to be working on that and I think it would be a little premature now for me to say this is going to be the mission because I think some of the discussions we will have over the next two months—we’ll have another meeting on June 11th as well. That’s our annual meeting. So, as far as a time line, it would be very difficult for me to say but, I would hope, by this fall and I do not see that being done in abstraction. I would hope that if we have committees that are supposed to function they will look at that report, once we get the final report, and you will provide us with some input. At least on those two issues which I believe are inadequately expressed in our Mission Statement.
Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology: Just to reaffirm, I would like to encourage you to involve as many faculty as possible because we really do have a sincere interest. I was amazed at the contentiousness of some of our discussions just in that Self-Study Committee about the very issues that you have raised.
Ed Richardson, Interim President: Well, there are some advantages and disadvantages with me being here. One of the advantages to you is that I don’t know nearly as much as I need to know so I’m going to have to get input from every source. I don’t intend to be secretive and I don’t pretend to say that I could pull something out that would reflect but I do believe that we have a stronger commitment to graduate education and I do believe this is more of a comprehensive institution than a land-grant and I would encourage you upon receiving the SACS Report to look at that statement and to provide Dr. Larkin and others in any way you wish suggestions on how we can better that. And I assure you that will be considered. I promise you that. And so we have several months before that would be finalized.
Kathryn Flynn, Forestry & Wildlife Science: Dr. Richardson, I’m Kathryn Flynn. I’m senator from the School of Forestry & Wildlife Sciences and my question relates, at least indirectly, to the previous question and your answer about graduate students. We have a number of grad students in the school who have recently been notified that the graduate housing is not going to be available starting fall semester and its kinda caused some real concerns among the students, particularly those who are married with families because there is no alternative other than private housing which is going to be a lot more expensive and I would like to know how and why that decision was made—and you may not be the right person to ask but I feel like it’s very important if we do indeed have a commitment to graduate education.
Ed Richardson, Interim President: I think that the best I can do is that I have asked the same question and I could give you the answers that have been provided to me but, before I do that, one of the major issues—policy issues that will be under discussion during these next several Board Meetings—will be construction. We have a large amount. If my math is right something about 400 or 410 million dollars worth. And I want to make sure that One: we can support that-that means after the construction. John has talked to me about some issues that we need to consider in the construction in terms of energy conservation that might save money and so forth and so I would say that the issue that you raise-and I think the Caroline Draughon Village is--?—I think that’s what it is—is an issue. The answers given to me were as follows: One – the facilities had deteriorated to the point that it was going to cost a great deal for renovation and Two – that the number of—I think the international students were the issue—were down to just not too many and so those were the two reasons given to me. Obviously that decision was made beforehand and I’m not trying to pass the buck but I do think that we need to look at all of our construction projects and I understand, I’ve read some of the concerns but the facilities themselves were going to take a great deal of money to upgrade and the fact that the number of students involved were few that it was felt that that site could be better used. It may not be a great answer but that’s the one I was given.
Conner Bailey, Ag Economics & Rural Sociology: I was going to raise much the same
question. I don’t see any
representatives of the graduate students—oh, Frost Rollins is a secretary for
the Graduate Student Organization. We
spent a couple of hours talking about this matter yesterday and if I understand
and remember correctly I was told yesterday that there was something in the
order of 150 international families in the CDV and that may be a small number
in the larger scheme of things for the University but it is a fairly
substantial number of people. And these
are people who have limited abilities to earn additional income because they
are not citizens of the
Ed Richardson, Interim President: I can’t answer that. I hate to be in a position to say it was made prior to my time because I did ask the question and those were the two reasons given. I cannot answer your question now. Is there anyone here in the audience that could? I would be glad to give them a chance or, if not, I would be glad to take that question and do the best I can to get you an answer.
Conner Bailey, Ag Economics & Rural Sociology: If I may, as a follow-up, is it possible that this decision could be delayed to give a period of time for the international students to make adjustments.
Ed Richardson, Interim President: Why don’t we just say that’s a second question that we should get answered and I’m assuming since no one has volunteered I will secure those two answers and how would I best present it to you Dr. Larkin for distribution? How would you do that?
John Mouton, Chair: (Remark regarding Dr. Larkin—not yet official chair ----- can’t understand words.)
Ed Richardson, Interim President: Is this your last day?
John Mouton, Chair: It is.
Ed Richardson, Interim President: Okay. So I was thinking I won’t have it today so I assumed Dr. Larkin would get it if it was tomorrow or later. But I think those are valid questions and I will get you an answer and Dr. Larkin I’m sure Dr. Curtis or someone would be in a position to offer an answer to both of those. I will get those to you and if you could communicate to them all concerned I would appreciate it.
John Mouton, Cbair: Anyone else have a question?
Ed Richardson, Interim President:
Okay. That is good. Thank you so much.
John Mouton, Chair: The next item is the University Faculty Chair’s announcements and Dr. Richardson stole all of my announcements so I don’t have any and I would like to move on then to the information items.
One of the things that the faculty needs to be aware of is that we typically have the State of the University address and as Dr. Richardson took over the President’s office he asked for the opportunity to get past the next Board Meeting in preparation for that. Willie, my understanding is that the next Senate Meeting was moved up a week and it will be April 6th and so that address will be delivered at the April 6th meeting. But we do have the Provost, Tom Hanley, here to give a presentation on initiatives in the Provost office. So—Tom.
Tom Hanley, Provost: Well, let me first say I’m inadequate, I feel, substituting for the State of the Union Address that is delivered by the President and having to speak prior to the election result announcements. I feel like I should have probably petitioned for a better position in the agenda than this one. What I would like to do, I would like to spend some time with you today going over the things that my office is doing—things that I have initiated or the things that have happened since I have been here.
One of the first things I wanted to talk about was assessment activities and my office has taken up three different assessment activities. We have completed one, we are about half-way through the second and we are getting ready to start the third and what I wanted to do was to give you some idea of what these are designed to do and to tell you at least what the results are that we have so far. We asked the deans to go through all of the academic programs that we have on campus and give us a capacity study and the capacity was “How many students could you add to the freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, masters and doctoral classes with no new resources. What number is that? And those numbers have been received. Right now, Drew Clark is responsible for putting the whole thing together but I’ve asked Steve McFarland to look at the graduate numbers and Linda Glaze to look at the undergraduate numbers and those numbers should be available—Linda, this Friday? Is that what we said? Linda is holding us up on this and so sometime within the next two weeks those numbers should be available and when we have them I will send them out to people. What we needed this study for was to get some sort of idea that, if we were able to add some marginal students, which would give us some additional tuition dollars, where we could add them without impacting the current teaching load and the facilities that we have. We don’t know exactly what that is and so we are doing the study to try to find out. The preliminary results are: yes, we do have some additional capacity. The problem is is that most of it’s probably going to exist at the Junior and Senior level in most curricula and so we need to have that data though to try to do some planning, there may be something that we can do that will allow us to go after transfer students and again we are talking here about highly qualified transfer students who can come in and participate at a higher level starting with the junior curricula. And most of you who have been in academics know that getting a transfer student to come in and to succeed at the junior level is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Dr. Williams and Dr. Fletcher have been working with this in the Enrollment Management Committee to try to look at ways that we might proceed with this in the future. The second thing that we are half way through is called the Minimum Teaching Requirement and this is something that I initiated in my past job. What it’s designed to do—it’s designed to give me an answer and a dean an answer about what a zero-base budget should look like in an academic program based solely on the maximum amount of teaching that we want faculty to do. So if you take the curriculum—let’s say that we have a history curriculum and we take the minimum number of hours we need to deliver the various degrees in history that we offer—bachelors, masters, Ph.D. We then divide that number by the maximum hours that we would like to see a history faculty member teaching and that says that number could be 6, that number could be 7-1/2 per semester depending on the position of the department and the dean. We then come up with the minimum number of faculty, and this is based on a full-time faculty, that we would need to operate that program. What this is designed to do is, since we do a lot of our budgeting on an incremental bases, this gives me a pretty good idea about where we stand with respect to the minimum resources we need to operate a given department. We have not talked about goals on this but in my past job our goal was to have the minimum times 1.5. The concept of that is that minimum times 1.5 gives you the opportunity to do things like send faculty members out on leave programs, to give a faculty member a semester off to work on a project, to take into account that sometimes faculty members are ill and will be out for a semester and so we have to come to some number here that gives me the opportunity, that gives the dean the opportunity and the department chair the opportunity to justify the number of positions that they have. The preliminary results are in – they are about what we expected. There was a few cases where the deans are not—they didn’t get exactly what they thought. The second part of this study now is to go in and determine what resources that we currently have for that program to operate. And those resources include full-time faculty, part-time faculty, adjuncts who teach classes, part-time faculty who teach classes and graduate students who teach classes. So we are now going to go through and see what resource base we have and now base that with the MTR and use that as a way of making sure that all programs have some minimum level of support so that they can generate the function. If you look at it this way it gives us an opportunity to now have at least a cursory view of what the zero-base is. One of the biggest problems I have had in academics is that a lot of times in the universities I have been at in the past the budgets you have you have because you have it—if you have to give it back well you have to give it back because we need it because we have a budget cut. This is designed basically as a protection devise to make sure that we don’t go below some set minimum times factor—say minimum times 1.5—and that allows us to keep the departments functioning and to make sure that we have enough faculty to do that. I would anticipate that the MTR results would be finished probably within the next month. Again, when those are done they will be available for anybody that wants to look at them and I am hoping that the deans and the department chairs use them in planning and in making budget requests as we move through this budget season. The last one is a companion of comparison that we do. I think most of you understand that you’ve been in academics long enough—most of the people that I’ve worked with in academics are pretty smart and they are going to figure out how to beat a particular analysis more quickly than most anybody else will and so what you have is you have a companion analysis to this called the performance assessment and this says, quite frankly, we don’t care how many resources you have, how well are you using them. It turns out that if you look at the performance now—and we are talking about performance in teaching, performance in research, performance in outreach, performance in service—if you look at those things we now can come up with a number based on some standard performance issues that we would think—in other words, how many FTE’s do you generate. What would we think if you had a faculty member doing nothing but teaching, how many FTE’s should that person be generating. So this again comes up with now a number—a comparative number—that gives the performance. The MTR is typically used to keep you at a minimum level. The DPA is used to say how well you are performing. So on a decanal analysis, on a yearly analysis, I would look at the DPA or the college performance assessment which is combined from the departments to assist me in determining how well the college and how well the dean is doing in administering the college. The nice thing about these two analyses is that if you do something to raise the MTR you typically lower the DPA. And if you raise the DPA you typically lower the MTR. So they are companion devices and they give you at least an opportunity—if you are in a management position, a leadership position—to see how the decisions you are making affect what’s going on in the college or the department. I have talked with the deans about this. I guess there are a few deans in the room who are—I guess the right word is skeptical as to how effective these are going to be. In my opinion, they work well. The one thing that you have to take into account is that none of these are perfect and one of the things that you shouldn’t do—one of the things I promise not to do is that I’m not going to chastise one particular unit based on their scores compared to someone else’s scores. In particular, the departments in the college performance assessment are designed to be self-improvement tools. What’s your number this year—how well or what can you do to improve that number over the next year and, while I’m not comparing the College of Liberal Arts to the College of Science & Mathematics, if those two deans want to look at each others analyses to see how they got the numbers, I’ve found this to be very beneficial in communicating information on how to succeed as you go through trying to improve the college or the departments performance.
One of the things that people have asked me about since I came here was what we are going to do about decanal reduce and I have talked with deans about this. We are setting up a periodic review for all deans. It will occur every five years. It is an all constituent group committee which means that you are typically talking about the faculty, staff and students from the college. You are talking about alums of the program. You are talking about other administrators in the university and you are talking about the constituency group that typically hires the students coming out of that particular college. So that representative group will have a 60-day time period in which to do an analysis and, again, this is an analysis on accomplishment. This is not a “I work very hard” type analysis. This is “What have you got done in the past five years.” We are going to initiate it this fall. We are going to take the deans who are senior and we will do probably two or three deans a year—put them on a five-year cycle and we will complete these every five years. I went through two of these with the dean. It’s no fun going through the process. For 60 days you know everyone is talking about you. That’s the reason there is a 60-day time limit on it because it really is a difficult time for the dean when you know you are under assessment so we put the 60-day time limit on to make sure we get it done in a reasonable amount of time. The results of these things that I have seen--typically, you will see a report that comes out and says that dean so-and-so does this well, does this well, does this well--these areas need improvement. And so we have an opportunity now for the constituency groups to make an impact. In the process of doing this with department chairs and with other deans where I was previously employed, we had one person that was not continued, in this process, and that person was not continued because they effectively chose not to be continued. The committee recommended that they make some changes—they chose not to make those changes and stepped down. But, I think it I a fair process and one that I think is great for the self-improvement. It also does a thing that I think is very important and that is: is that for administrators on the campus I think there should be a periodic review. I have talked with one of the University Senate committees that has been responsible for this in part by doing decanal surveys in the past couple of years and I have encouraged them to participate with us in making this come into fruition. So I would hope that the senate would again participate in these surveys and again for the most part these analyses are effectively common knowledge. We don’t necessarily make the comments common knowledge, but the results we typically make common knowledge. And again the results are typically incorporated into the work assignment of the dean for the next five years should they continue in the position.
I did this the last time I talked to you but I figured it was such a good story I would do it again. And I do want to take the opportunity to thank everyone. For those of you who haven’t seen—Dr. Richardson just got the SACS Exit Interview. I sat through the Exit Interview. It was outstanding. It came from a very highly qualified Review Team. There were very few recommendations and suggestions with numerous commendations and they cited the effectiveness of the Self-Study in the follow-up that we had done. I have never seen a cleaner accreditation review. Especially one that covers the whole university like this one did. So again I wanted to add my thanks to all of you who, along with the people that are here, made this review possible. It was indeed outstanding.
Most of you are interested in the
dean’s searches. We have four active
ones right now. We are done in Liberal
Arts in that we have interviewed the candidates. I think we have interviewed four candidates
in Liberal Arts. The Business Dean—I met
with the committee this afternoon and we have a selected a group of candidates
for interview. Those interviews will
start relatively soon. I cannot tell you
who or how many because we haven’t contacted all six of them yet. That was going to be done over the next few
days—but probably before Friday. If you
punch on the
Provost office searches. With the departure of John Pritchett, we are going to be looking for a new Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs. I’m putting together the position description for that right now. One of the things that coming in new and coming into an organization with some transition with John leaving we are now trying to decide which jobs the Provost office wants to do and who is going to handle them so there will be some minor changes in job descriptions as we move forward. As soon as we have that particular position tied down we will start a search for that and we have an interim person sitting in the Associate Provost for Multi-cultural Affairs and we will start that search at the same time as we start the Associate VP for Academic Affairs. I think that is my last slide. It is. Could I answer any questions for you?
Paula Sullenger, Secretry: Librarian, I guess, in about five or ten more minutes. What about the five-year planning process? Aren’t you coordinating that effort? Could you give us an update on that?
Tom Hanley, Provost: I
can. That committee has met almost every
week. Where we are right now is we’ve
come up with I think 14 or 15 quantitative goals based on the 21st
Century Commission that we are going to pass by the President if we get a
write-off from Dr. Richardson, then those goals will be sent down through the
deans and to the department chairs with a solicitation for proposals. I will tell you one of them right now. One of the goals says that we want to raise
the graduate student enrollment here by 1500 students in the next five
years. That seems to be a goal that has
been on everybody’s lips for a long time but I’m not certain and the committee
is not certain that we can add 1500
graduate students and so what we are doing is, we are saying this is the
tentative goal and now we are going to go down and ask for proposals. One of the things that we are going to be
asking for is we are going to be asking for the units to re-allocate part of
the resources they have and this processed with a concept that they would get
matching funds if they come up with a re-allocation. Let’s say that the
Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology: Dr. Handley, Cindy Brunner. Because the 21st Century Commission Report came out a good bit of time ago and it would require us digging through the archives to find it, would you please release those 14 or 15 quantitative goals so that Paula or Debra or whomever would be responsible for that could put them out in the minutes of this meeting?
Tom Hanley, Provost: I need to pass them by the President first and then I will.
Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology: Thanks. So he has not approved the goals either?
Tom Hanley, Provost: He has not seen this particular set and I think the thing to point out, Cindy, is that these are not hard and fast. These are starting points because quite frankly the units in their proposals may not be able to address these issues. We may have to cut back on certain goals because we don’t have the interest in pushing in that direction. So I would not be too upset if you saw something that you didn’t agree with because chances are in the process it’s going to be changed to some degree. We may have 2000 new graduate students. We may not do all the things that we said we are going to do but I think it’s important for us to solicit the information from the departments and the chairs and what they would like to do and see how well that fits into what the Planning and Priorities Commission thinks we should be doing.
Richard Penaskovic, Philosophy: I think it’s fantastic that we got such high marks from SACS on the academic side and I think this body owes a round of applause—should give a round of applause to Dr. Linda Glaze and Dr. Clothiaux for the hard work they have done over the ? on this.
Tom Hanley, Provost: I agree.
(Round of applause)
Richard Penaskovic, Philosophy: At the same time I am struck by the fact that despite this great report on the academic side, we get put on probation by SACS and I find that very sad. And that’s mainly because of the goings-on with the Board of Trustees and the President. I noticed this huge discrepancy between the two as you were speaking. You don’t have to say anything about that. I was just making a comment.
Tom Hanley, Provost: I would be happy to say something about that. I think all of us are discouraged somewhat to be on probation. It’s not where we want to be. However, with the extreme positive nature of the review with the exception of that, I think if we make the progress that Dr. Richardson is intending for us to make over the next couple of months I think it’s a no-brainer for SACS to re-accredit us and to remove the probation. I would be a little more skeptical if the past review wasn’t so positive. But in light of what I consider an extremely positive review I think if we make the appropriate changes in our structure to address the issues that came up that were excluded in this review I think that we have an extremely good chance of being off probation and that’s, I think, where everybody wants to be.
John Mouton, Chair: The next item on the agenda is the announcement of the election results. The secretary-elect is Patricia Duffy and the Chair-elect is Conner Bailey.
(Round of applause)
What was the total vote count? Was it 673—no, total? We had a magnitude of almost 700 people that voted which I think speaks very positively to the change we made this year to going to electronic voting.
The next item on the agenda is my farewell address and although you may not be delighted for me to deliver this, I certainly am. It is the tradition for the Chair to deliver a farewell address at the final faculty meeting of his or her term.
These past two years have provided a tremendous
learning opportunity for me. I have been
exposed to this University in a manner that few faculty get to see it. What I am going to tell you is that I
appreciate now how complex our University’s interrelated operations and
functions are and how complicated and difficult it is to manage and make functional
decisions in the university because of those interrelationships. But I think the thing that I appreciate most,
that few get to see, is the ability and strength that it takes to succeed in
the top leadership of the University – the roles in which many of us would probably
not succeed. The work that the top
leaders do is really exceptionally challenging.
This past year has certainly been event filled. In reflection, most of those events can have
a positive effect on our University and
our faculty. How we, the faculty, choose
to share in the governance will affect the ultimate impact of those events…
·
The
first event that I think has been very important to us is that we have a new
Provost and I find him to be very able and a knowledgeable leader for academics
in our institution. He is the first provost
from outside
·
We
also have a new Interim President who has an aggressive agenda centered on
governance reform, which we have long sought.
He is working more expeditiously than is the norm in most institutions
of this size. Governance is changing and we will have a new President within a
couple of years and another evolution in governance in our University.
·
The
third thing we can look at is we have three new trustees and if this meeting
tomorrow in the senate acts promptly we will have two additional trustees. We are also having, to my knowledge, the
first ever orientation of trustees that’s including faculty members which I
think is going to change the dynamics of the Board and change the dynamics of
governance. I will mention that this
year we had a meeting with all the chairs?
all the faculty members of the board committees and were pleasantly, not
surprised, but pleased to find how much input they feel like they are having on
those committees. As I step down from
this position, I am going to take over the position of being faculty advisor to
the Board. One of the things I intend to
do this year is that I intend to work with Willie and work with Conner and find
out how to optimize this position that we have sought for so long. We have not yet, in my mind, set forth what our real objectives—so to
speak, job description and what the expectations are in regard to this role and
I hope that in a year, when Willie takes over, that we will have that better formalized.
·
I
think another thing that happened this year is that our faculty-lead JAC
complaint that we filed in 2001 has finally reached closure. As much as we dislike the SACS probation, it does require the documentation
of the limits of authority of the Board and the trustees and it insists that we
have safeguards that future acts will not repeat the past. All of this is the result of the external assessment
which was sought in 2001. And with this
closure, with the resolution of this probation, then
·
The
other thing that happened very recently is the long-standing lawsuit between
·
We
also had the long-delayed SACS Re-affirmation Visit and I won’t go through what
Dr. Handley did but it was very positive in affirming the internal health of
our University and the commitment of our faculty.
·
The
November coaching debacle has also reached closure. Then President Walker accepted responsibility
and ultimately resigned as President of Auburn University—I guess that’s
actually, two separate events—but, in my mind, bringing closure to yet another
unfortunate incident in our history.
·
And
then finally this year the faculty adopted and has now implemented electronic
voting which has changed the course of the selection process of our
leaders.
These are nine major events – each one of them is important
but I think that collectively, the sum of all of these events has much greater
significance than the individual events in line. Some of the changes that have occurred have
exacted a toll on our University. The
aftermath of the change can be opportunity or it can be chaos. Our choices will determine the magnitude of the
benefit that we can derive from the events and changes or the degree of chaos
that we can experience.
So today I move from the faculty Chair and become the,
second ever, Faculty Advisor to the Board of Trustees. Our faculty seat at the Board will be as
valuable as we choose to make it and I think that’s what I’m going to take on,
from this point forward, is figuring out what to do with that position.
The absolute best and most rewarding part of the past
two years has been the opportunity to get to know and work with a group of
truly wonderful faculty members. Paula Sullenger and Barb Struempler are
treasures of this University. They are hard
working faculty who have dedicated themselves in a most unselfish way to the
larger good.
I have also learned a great deal from and appreciate
the leadership provided by colleagues including Bill Gale, Chris Rodgers,
Leanne Lamke, Debra Cobia and Willie Larkin, as well as the guidance of my
friend, Bruce Gladden. Their consultation
and contribution has been exceptionally valuable and most of these colleagues I
hardly knew two-years ago.
I also had the opportunity to visit almost every
Departmental faculty, over 550 faculty total, and I am ever proud to be counted
amongst their colleagues. It was with a
sense of true pride that I listened to the accolades for our faculty and this University
by the Chair of the SACS team. I don’t
need a survey to re-affirm the dedication and quality effort of our faculty.
So, I lost a page.
What do I wish for
·
I
hope that we will determine whether we are at the end of one era and the
beginning of another or if we are going to remain mired in the past
·
I
also hope that we, the faculty, will continue to communicate with the
administration and the trustees – and that they will learn from us and learn to
act on our input.
·
I
hope that we can focus our energy through the next year and years on advancing
our University and attracting the President that we need and deserve.
·
I
hope that we find closure – on both the coaching matter and the JAC complaint.
·
I
hope that we as a group can hold people accountable for their acts and yet
somehow get past our “zero tolerance” for human error
·
I
hope that the expanding communications and communication of fact will diminish
the opportunity for conjecture and speculation that has haunted us for so
long.
·
I
hope that we will understand that the resignation of Mr. Lowder or others is not
a requisite for
·
And
I hope that we will be continually cognizant that our acts and actions are
sending a current message to the potential candidates who may consider being
our new President.
So; congratulations to Conner and to Patricia, thanks
to Paula and my thanks to all of you who have given me this opportunity to
serve. There’s a Chinese curse that goes
– may you live in interesting times—and I certainly have lived in interesting
times.
Thank you.
(Round of applause)
And now I am going to introduce – You are now the chair of the University Faculty and the University Senate – Dr. Willie Larkin.
(Round of applause)
Willie Larkin, Chair: During
the past year I think this microphone has traveled about 50 miles being passed
back and forth from one speaker to the next.
From now on, this is going to be my microphone and we will have a
microphone here at the lectern for those persons who come up and who speak so
you will not hear all of that rustling of the microphone being passed back and
forth. I talked to my Mom about four
hours ago and she asked me if I was sure I wanted to do this and I told her I
didn’t think I had a choice so she said, “Make sure you take your bible with you.” I did not bring my bible. Several months ago a very good friend of mine
in
But before I make those comments
and before Paula and John ride off into the proverbial sunset, on behalf of
Auburn University Faculty and Senate, I’d like to express my sincere
appreciation to both of them for a job well done. Unless you have served as one of our elected
officers, you cannot imagine the toll that it takes on the person in these
positions. They both have served
(Laughter and round of applause)
Very quickly, before John took
this position as Chair of the Faculty and Senate he had no vices at all. At the end of this year he had begun to drink
so I’m giving him a shot glass so that he can mix his favorite drinks when he’s
at home.
(Remark by John Mouton: Thank you, I needed that.)
(Round of applause)
I also want to thank Dr. Debra
Cobia, who succeeds Paula as Senate Secretary. Debra is very knowledgeable
about academic and Senate operations and she will be a great team member of
this Senate team and she will be instrumental in helping all of us address the
business affairs of both the faculty and the Senate.
As we embark upon this year-long
journey, I would be remiss if I did not introduce a very important person in my
life, my wife for nearly 31 years, Dr. Vivian Larkin, and Vivian if you will
stand up for those who don’t know you. I
would just say to you that most of my success—(Applause - Thank you, she
deserves that)—most of my success is the direct result of her encouragement and
never-ending confidence in my ability.
Vivian, for all of the love and support that you’ve given me over these
nearly 31 years, I want to thank you publicly.
We have made a great team together and it can only get better from this
point on. Anthony, our son, could not be
here today, but he did send me an e-mail last night and the e-mail said,
quote: “Dear Dad, congratulations. Now,
you get a chance to practice what you’ve preached all these years.” Our
daughter, Stephanie,--I don’t know whether she is here or not—but she’s home
from
This is a great day for me and
an exciting moment primarily because I don’t think I have any enemies sitting
in the room — at least, I don’t have any right now. Now, tomorrow, that may be a different
story. As we go through this year, I
promise not to take any events or situations personally. Just like you, my goals and expectations for
this year are extremely high. My goal is
to be successful as Senate Chair, but I am smart enough to know that I cannot
do this job alone. I am going to need
the help of everyone who loves
After more than 28 years in the
arena of education and various leadership positions, I certainly understand
leadership and organizations very well.
So, let me apologize in advance; because, although I’d like to—I will
not be able to satisfy everyone.
Furthermore, I have learned that there are no perfect people,
organizations or processes. Therefore,
my only option is to be completely open, fair, honest, and above all, do what’s
right and best for
I have faith in the tripartite
system of shared governance. Shared
governance is like a tripod: The University Senate, the administration and the
Board of Trustees must work together to elevate the university — and to
maintain balance. When the governance structure gets out of balance, then everyone
loses.
I am a strong believer in the
democratic process and feel that truth always rises to the top when rational
men and women of purpose and goodwill allow the facts and rules of fair play to
reign supreme. So, as long as
we abide by the
rules established by the Senate, we will do fine. I have no problems with members of the
faculty or Senate putting forth their positions and defending them via strong
debate. However, I would remind all of us
of an old Japanese proverb that says “two
men may disagree yet not be enemies.”
My assumption is that everyone in the Auburn Family is striving for the
same result — a better
Rosabeth
Moss Kanter of Harvard University is one of my favorite business writers. She
uses the term “change master” to define what I think we as faculty leaders must
be if we are to meet the challenges ahead of us. In her writings, Dr. Kanter
states: and I quote, “The change master
is partly historian who knows which pieces of the past to honor and preserve
while moving toward a different future, but that is not the same as letting the
past define the future.” End of quote.
At
This year we will be about
healing and finding solutions to grave problems. The level of intellect is so
great at this university until there is not any problem or issue which we
cannot identify, frame, and eventually conquer in a spirit of friendship and
collegiality. We must be open, transparent, and willing to build coalitions and
respectful partnerships among the faculty, the administration and the Board of
Trustees. I am optimistic that,
especially with the new additions to the Board of Trustees, we will be able to
identify clear roles and responsibilities.
During the next 12 months, I will promote the four
initiatives that I laid out in my campaign statement more than a year ago. The four goals I listed were: No.1)
establishing a standing long-range planning committee to be chaired by the
incoming chair-elect; and I am hoping that Conner will be amenable to sharing
this particular initiative, No. 2)
placing an orange and blue box in the back of the senate chamber for people to
deposit their ideas and suggestions that are not expressed during the regular
senate or faculty meetings; No. 3) conducting an orientation for new senators
to learn the overall structure, processes, and general rules of the senate and
its functions and operations; No. 4)
creation of a Mentor of the Professoriate initiative designed to assist junior
faculty, particularly women and minorities, with tenure and promotion
processes. Unfortunately,
In addition to those issues, we
will undoubtedly have to work with the administration and the Board of Trustees
to meet the SACS probation demands before the end of this year. SACS and the process of launching a national
search for a permanent president have been mentioned as two of the most
important issues facing
To accomplish all my goals, we
must move quickly over the next few weeks.
My first task is to organize the leadership team and make major
decisions about the way faculty and senate business is addressed. Secondly, I will work closely with the Rules
Committee to get all of our committees appointed and working. Over the years, many of our committees have
been underutilized. For the good of the
faculty, we cannot allow any of our committees to be idle or unproductive. Committees must accomplish their jobs, which
will allow the Senate to be proactive in working with the administration and
the Board of Trustees.
Finally, during the next 12
months, I encourage everyone to become fully engaged in the business affairs of
the Senate and faculty. I will talk to anyone who is committed to advancing the
three-fold mission of teaching, research, and extension/outreach at
Throughout the coming year, we
will have our share of doubts, disagreements and also disputes. However, if we will all keep our eyes on the
prize, which is the enrichment, advancement, and betterment of
During this year, I pledge my
best work, my best thinking and my skills in bringing people of various
persuasions together for a common purpose.
I promise to listen to all ideas and readily implement those which are
timely and have merit. As mentioned
before, we will not be able to respond fully to every issue and concern;
however, all expressions will be heard and considered. I will be open with you on all issues and
will do my very best to keep the faculty informed of my efforts on your
behalf. Plus, I will consult regularly
with the Rules Committee, Steering Committee, Executive Committee, and the
Chairs of the various Senate Committees.
We want our leadership efforts to be truly a team approach.
In conclusion, the office of
Senate Chair is without a doubt the most formidable challenge I have ever
undertaken. But I accept this challenge
and all that goes along with it — the long hours, the many meetings, the
cheers, and yes, the occasional boos. I
invite you to join me on this continuous journey to make
Again, thank you very much for
placing your confidence in me. I’ll
pledge to do my very best at all times.
War Eagle!!!
(Round of applause)
At this point, I would like to call Dr. Gary Mullen to come up and make some very special presentations. I’m going to make an exception one more time and pass this microphone over to a good colleague and let him make that --- well, I don’t have to. John has come to my rescue.
Gary Mullen, Entomology
& Plant Pathology: I want you to
know that I don’t normally put on a jacket.
So this is, indeed, a special occasion.
The Auburn University Chapter of AAUP has an annual award that it
presents—this is the “AAUP Academic Freedom Award” and it’s presented annually
to a person who has demonstrated high ethical standards and professionalism in
his or her field of specialization and also has made significant contributions
to advocating, protecting, and extending academic freedom at
This year’s recipient is an alumna of
(Round of applause)
I have a few additional remarks that, Judith, if you will just come forward and listen. I do this because I hate to be kept in total suspense until the end of some long introduction. I do think it’s appropriate for the person to know who is being recognized and for the people who are here to know who is being recognized. So, Judy---
Prior to joining the AU faculty she was a free-lance
writer for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and the Mobile Register,
and several other
As a faculty member at Auburn Judy has served five years as an elected senator in the University Senate and is currently completing her fourth year as a member of the Senate Steering Committee. In nominating Judy for this award, a colleague cited, and I quote, “her courageous work in the University Senate” close quote and her participation by, quoting again, “asking probing questions and as a calm, strong voice in the Senate.” Another individual who nominated her noted her, quote, “willingness to stand up for what she believes to be right,” close quote, and that throughout her years in the Senate has stuck with her principles, and those of AAUP.
And finally, to quote two other individuals who supported
her nomination: The first said, “Judy’s
willingness to put her time and energy behind her convictions has been
inspirational.” And the second—and the
quote that I will close with--“My admiration for Judy is immense. She speaks so
directly, yet so eloquently. She’s been
unbelievably courageous. Yet, the great
charm of Judy is that she is so unaware of her bravery, her influence, her
extraordinary contribution to making a positive difference in the world.
And Judy, I would like to present you with this award that
reads: “AAUP Academic Freedom Award
presented by the American Association of University Professors, Auburn
University Chapter to Judith E. Sheppard in recognition of her advocacy and
support of academic freedom at
(Round of applause)
In addition to the Academic Freedom Award presented by the
Chapter of AAUP each year to a member of the
(Round of applause)
I’m going to subject you to the same thing I did Judy. If you will bear with me, I would like to make some additional remarks,
Since the1960s as a young reporter in
Paul Davis has continued to speak out as a reporter, as a columnist,
as a commentator on issues of public concern, including probing inquiries into
the governance of
(Round of applause)
Paul Davis: John never would let me speak in this room
so, John if you will bear with me for just one minute. This is quite an honor for me and despite
what you’ve heard—my sweet bride is with me today and we have two children who
went to school here. My wife went to
school here. I have two
grandchildren—one was accepted to the Air Force Academy – he turned it down and
accepted
(Round of applause)
Willie Larkin, Chair: Congratulations to all of the award recipients. Also congratulations to Conner, Patricia—we look forward to working with you. The task that’s ahead of us is not going to be an easy one but I think if we work together cooperatively we can make it happen. Tomorrow, Debra and I are going to meet for a couple of hours to start our organizational process and the presentation that I made will be up on the senate web, hopefully by tomorrow morning and then you will hear from us. All right—thank you all so much.