Fall Meeting
Broun Auditorium
Call to Order
The meeting was called to
order at
John Mouton, Chair of the Senate: I
would like to call the meeting to order. Is the audio okay in the back? Can you hear?
I want to welcome everyone to the Fall 2003 Faculty Meeting. As a start up, I would like to remind
everyone that when you have comments or questions, please make your way to the
microphone. There is one down here and one in the back on this side and one in
the back over here. I will recognize you
to speak in the best order that I can.
Please identify yourself for the record, because we are doing a
transcript of the meeting. Before we get
into the agenda of the meeting, I want to take the opportunity – you know, we
have a lot of tremendous faculty here at Auburn and every once in a while there
is a recognition that is very, very special.
I think a lot of people are aware, but I want to recognize again – the
Lee County Youth Development Center built a new Psychological Services
Building, and they dedicated it Friday, a week ago, and they dedicated it to
Dr. Barry Burkhart. So, the building is named after you – The Dr. Barry
Burkhart Building. [Applause] I was very excited when I found out about it
and contacted my son who Barry had helped me with and he said, “I thought you
had to be dead to get a building named after you.” [Laughter] So, anyway – the
first business of order is the approval of the minutes from the Spring
University Faculty Meeting in March – on March 11, 2003. Does anybody have any corrections, additions,
or deletions? There being none, the
minutes are approved. The next business
of order is an address by our President, Dr. William Walker. Dr. Walker.
Announcements
William Walker, President: Thank
you John. Good afternoon. John asked me
to take a few moments today and talk about the budget situation and the
planning process that the University went through a few years ago and where we are. I then will add a few comments reflective of
where I think we need to be going. This presentation is in fact a bit of
plagiarism.
[Projected on Screen]
AUBURN
UNIVERSITY BUDGET UPDATE
As
presented to the Board of Trustees
It
was prepared and delivered by Don Large to the Board of Trustees at the June 2,
2003, meeting of the Board. He was
assisted on that by Marcie Smith. I very
much am indebted to Don for his allowing me to use this.
What
I want to do is to revisit, very briefly, the five year financial plan that we
have been in the process of experiencing.
[Projected on Screen]
OVERVIEW OF BUDGET
PRESENTATION
· Revisit
5 year financial plan
· Progress
to date
· Tuition
increase
· FY04
Budget Guidelines
What
progress have we made? Where are
we? Review the tuition increases that
have helped get us to the point where we are, and to talk a little bit about
the ‘04 Budget as well as the next planning cycle.
Those
of you who have been here for the last five-years will recall that – actually
back in April or May of 1998, the Board of Trustees put together a thing that
became known…well it became known as several things – but the official name was
the “Role and Scope Commission.” It was
comprised, membership-wise, of some faculty members, some members of the
administration, and four or five members of the Board of Trustees. That group was charged with developing a plan
to address some of the issues that had been raised, principally, by the faculty
pertaining to salaries. Back in 1997 and
1998, that was the years of the infamous Fob James administration, and our
budgets had been cut pretty severely, and raises for faculty simply were not
something that we had done in a consistent manner. Faculty salaries were below regional averages,
and we were in fact beginning to lose faculty.
Those complaints made their way to the Board and so they decided through
this rather frankly crude mechanism of this commission to try to do something
about that. It turns out the end result
was in fact, pretty good, in that we developed a plan that we have pretty well
stuck by it – we are in the fourth year of it. [Projected on Screen]
Role Commission Report
– Main Campus
APPROVED BY THE BOARD ON
· Major Goals
· Increase
salaries of faculty, A&P and
staff to 100% of the average of their respective peer groups by 2004
· Increase
funds for deferred maintenance to
$10M by 2004
· Increase
departmental operations &
maintenance budgets by 3% per year through 2004 to catch-up on inflation
· Allocate
$1M in continuing funding annually through 2003 to high priority academic areas (Peaks)
· Reallocate $13.25M in general fund
monies to high priority needs
· Increase
tuition charges to regional average
by 2004
What
was approved by the Board of Trustees at its January 22, 1999, meeting was, in
fact, that we would commit ourselves to increasing the salaries of faculty,
A&P, and staff to 100 percent of the regional average of whatever peer
group they compared to by 2004. We also were determined to increase funds for
deferred maintenance to $10 million per year by 2004. Sometimes we read that – and that is just ten
million dollars over five years – and that isn’t much. That is ten million per
year that we said that we want to lay aside for deferred maintenance. By the way, I don’t know how many of you
recall what this campus looked like ten or fifteen years ago – you compare it
to what it looks like now. The
difference is absolutely startling. Our
facilities people have just done a tremendous job in bringing this campus up to
par, and in fact, this deferred maintenance budget has helped incredibly. We also resolved to increase departmental
operating and maintenance budgets by three percent per year, through 2004 –
just trying to keep up with inflation.
We allocated – probably one of the most controversial parts – was to
allocate $1 million annually to high priority areas; Research areas, Academic
areas; so called “Peaks of Excellence.” One of the ways that we did all of this
was to reallocate money within the University – that is everyone, including
athletics, had to take a part of the money that they would otherwise have
budgeted and reallocate that back to the central fund for distribution to the
high priority areas. One way that we
were going to try to pay for these expenditures was to increase tuition charges
to the regional average by 2004. Well, we are in the fourth year of that plan –
so where are we? [Projected on Screen]
Progress Toward
Salaries Goal
AU
Salary Averages:
Rank FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03
Professor $69.5K 72.7K 76.6K 76.5K 84.6K
Assoc Prof $51.2K 54.0K 56.4K 56.6K 62.4K
Assist Prof $44.0K 45.8K 48.1K 47.3K 51.9K
The
faculty salaries in dollars are shown here, and you can see that every year has
not been a banner year. For example, we
went down in some of the areas from fiscal ‘01 to fiscal ‘02, and came back up
in the current fiscal year which is about to come to an end at the end of this
month. So, that now we see that our
Assistant Professors are making almost – averaging almost $52,000; $62,000 for
Associate [Professors]; and $85,000 for Full Professors. Now again, these are averages across the
campus. They vary dramatically – area to
area. The comparison to the regional
peer group is like this. [Projected on
Screen]
Progress Toward
Salaries Goal
AU
Salary Averages as a Percent of the Peer Averages:
FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03
Professor 91.2% 91.9% 91.8% 88.0% 94.8%
Assoc Prof 92.6% 93.7% 93.2% 90.8% 97.6%
Assist Prof 92.8% 92.7% 92.8% 87.8% 94.1%
You
can see that where we started in 1999 – Assistant Professors at 92.8%, and we
are now at 94.1%; Associate Professors at 92.6%, and we are at 97.6%; Full
Professors at 91.2%, and we are currently in the current fiscal year at 94.8%. So, we made some rather nice progress in
this goal.
The
other goals that were laid out – we’ve also made progress in. [Projected on Screen]
Progress Toward
Additional Goals
5
Year Actual
Projected
GOAL Plan to Date FY04
Deferred
Maintenance $10.0M $ 9.0M $10.25M
O&M Budgets $
5.2M $
2.85M $ 5.2M
High Priority
Academic Areas $
5.0M $
4.0M $ 5.0M
For
the five-year plan, the deferred maintenance, we wanted $10 million per year
and where we are – and this was as of June this year – we are averaging about
$9 million a year and the projection, if we went through with what we were planning
to do for the 2004 budget – would be about $10.25 million in deferred
maintenance. O&M budgets similarly –
the actual, as of June, was not quite where it should have been but our budget
was going to take that into account. The
high priority areas, the “Peaks” areas, have all been funded according to
plan. Now the interesting thing is that
a lot of other things have been funded too.
I don’t know, maybe that reflects the fact that this is the first time
we’ve had a plan that was really put into force and was taken seriously – but
we really didn’t spend that much time thinking about all of the other things we
might need in the five-year period. So,
things began to come up over the course of this thing. There were no additional things in the plan,
but we managed to generate about $8 million annually in additional
expenditures. Here are the things that
we spent that on. [Projected on Screen]
Other Improvements in
the
First Four Years
(00-03)
Not Included in the
Five Year Plan
Additional Academic Needs
Cumulative Increase (00-03): Plan
Actual
$0.0M $8.05M
Architecture Rural Studio $400,000
Business $250,000
Pharmacy $350,000
SACS Compliance $457,200
Biosystems $441,000
Enrollment Fluctuations $750,000
Instructional
Technology Needs $486,000
Semester Transition $563,000
The
Rural Studio – almost half a million dollars ($500,000); Business – we gave
business a quarter million dollars ($250,000) because of tremendous increases in
enrollments; Pharmacy had some accreditation issues that had to be addressed;
the whole University had some accreditation issues, and that is what the SACS
compliance is. Biosystems Engineering had some accreditation issues. Enrollment fluctuations – where we had to
hire folks for the core courses – last year as a matter of fact; Instructional
Technology; the semester transition; all of those things contributed to the
success of the University – but all of those things were costly. [Projected on Screen]
Other Improvements in
the
First Four Years
(00-03)
Not Included in the
Five Year Plan
Additional Academic
Needs (continued)
Institutional Assessment Office $ 225,000
Undergraduate Research $
127,500
GTA Tuition Waivers $2,500,000
Merit Scholarships $1,500,000
Additionally,
the Institutional Assessment Office, which we had to put in because that is now
an ongoing part of the accreditation process.
Probably the most important thing that we did was to decide to give
tuition waivers to the GTAs prior to probably 2000, I guess it was when we did
that or maybe it was 1999 – GTAs had to pay their own tuition and the quality
of the GTAs obviously was not going to be as high because the students who were
in fact the higher quality students, were going to take advantage of offers
where not only would they receive some sort of pay for their work, but also
where their tuition would be waived. We
also, as we were increasing tuition, the Board felt that it was important to
try to offset some of the deleterious effects of increased tuition, in the
sense of providing some Merit Scholarships – and so that is what that figure
is. So, as I said, that totaled about a
little over $8 million. However, there
were some other things that factored in that had to be done. These are additional things and in the plan
none of these items were provided for. [Projected
on Screen]
Other Improvements in
the
First Four Years
(00-03)
Not Included in the
Five Year Plan
Plan Actual
Additional Compensation $0.0M $ 4.667M
Tax Deferred Annuity $ 772,000
Health Insurance: Supplemental $ 987,000
Health Insurance: Inflation $2,847,000
_______________________________________________________________
Other Priorities $0.0M $ 4.1M
Insurance, Building Mtnce
Development, Air Transport
_______________________________________________________________
Proration Reserve - Continuing $0.0M $ 6.0M
For
example, the tax deferred annuity that we all benefited from or had an opportunity
to benefit from; health insurance, supplemental health insurance, and just
plain old inflation on health insurance amounted to almost $3 million – that we
had to find those funds. By the way, on
this next planning cycle, it seems to me, Don, that we need to start factoring
in this exorbitant rate of increase in health insurance. We can’t keep treating it every year as
though it is a surprise, and we didn’t anticipate it. This growth is just horrendous. You can see the other areas, proration reserve;
we have put about $6 million in the proration reserve – so we are in pretty
good shape there. How did we do it? [Projected on Screen]
Progress Accomplished
With
● Tuition Increases ● State Funding
FY00 –
4.9%
Expected net increase
FY01 –
5.3%
of 7.3% from FY99 to
FY02 –
6.9% FY04
FY03 –12.0%
● Reallocation
Will complete goals of Financial Plan in
FY04
We
had tuition increases that are frankly alarming, particularly if you are a
parent, but even if you are not. If you
believe that the greatness of the educational system in this country was built
on the principal of accessibility, this flies in the face of it. Remember that beginning the current semester,
tuition went up by another 16 percent.
So in the last two years, we have increased tuition by almost 30
percent. So, shows that part of the
funding for this came from tuition increase, part of it came from state funding. Now, one of our assumptions on the plan was
that the State Budget, the State Appropriation, would only increase about one
percent a year – and in fact – even considering the budget that we have
tentatively calculated for next year, based on a six plus percent budget cut –
it works out, if we take into account the whole five years – we have averaged
about 7.3 percent increase over that period of time. Also, we can’t forget the
reallocation – about $13 million was reallocated. But there should be another bullet there that
we have tended to overlook, but in fact was probably the principal cause for
the funds that we had to spend and that was in fact that we started charging
the out-of-state students three times the in-state tuition. We started doing that almost without
exception. Being an out-of-state student
prior to 1997 was almost a joke at Auburn.
It didn’t take very much effort at all to develop a resident
status. We changed that and what that
did to the budget was just phenomenal. I
mentioned that because in the next plan, those dollars are already there. You can’t count on the same kind of growth
that we have had over the last five years in income. So, looking at the 2004
situation – the budget which should be finished and ready to go to the Board of
Trustees next week – but in fact is not finished – for obvious reasons. [Projected on Screen]
FY2004 Key Priorities
● Mandatory ● Plan Related
Teacher’s Retirement Compensation Enhancement
rate increase
Deferred Maintenance
Utilities/Maintenance Operating Budgets
on new
Facilities – Peaks of
Excellence
Art Museum/Hotel
Staffing
SACS/INS
There
are things related to the plan that will require funds, compensation
enhancement; the faculty staff raises, if we do that; deferred maintenance;
operating budgets; Peaks of Excellence; and then there are all sorts of
mandatory stuff again that we simply have to do – not the least again, is
insurance. It turns out that we are going to have to start picking up – if this
passes the legislature and I think that there is no question that it will – we
are going to have to start picking up the PEEHIP for our retired employees –
that is the health insurance part that was paid by the state. That is going to start at about $5 million
per year. What it will ultimately grow
to – I don’t know. I think that’s an issue that we are going to have to begin
to have some discussions about concerning – what our responsibility is – are
there ways that we can help relieve that situation? We have the utilities and maintenance on new
facilities that are coming on line. That
is something that typically doesn’t get calculated into building budgets, but
something that we have to pay for. There
has been additional staffing in the Art Museum and the Hotel. So, those are all
things that are going to have to be accounted for in the ‘04 budget. Then there will be the other emerging
priorities that we will discover. [Projected
on Screen]
FY2004 Budget Guidelines
Key Priorities
● Other emerging priorities – will be prioritized and incorporated as
funding allows
Proration reserve
Other continuing and one-time commitments
Let
me, just with respect for the ‘04 budget – tell you that I am not really sure
at this point exactly how it is going to work out. We, at the June meeting of the Board, had a
robust discussion of tuition increase.
We convinced the Board of Trustees to agree to a 16 percent tuition
increase, which is probably the largest tuition increase that this institution
has ever seen. The argument that we used
was – that you, the Board of Trustees, promised the faculty this money for
raises. So, you don’t have any choice –
you have got to do it – and prevailed with that argument.
Now,
we are faced with a situation where it looks like the ‘04 budget situation
state-wide – probably what we have budgeted – will work. We have budgeted for a
6.34 percent budget reduction, and I think that will work. The problem is that budget year ‘05,
according to all reports, is going to be a major, major problem for this
state. I was told in the General Fund,
for example, which is not where higher education is funded from – that for the
‘04 year, the General Fund was going to just take a cut of 15 to 18 percent
across the board – and that is what they are talking about. If no new sources of revenue were discovered,
the ‘05 budget was looking at a 55 percent cut. Now, the education budget is
going to see the same kinds of pressures – not to the same percentage degree –
but what I am telling you is I don’t have any idea what the cut in ‘05 is going
to be; whether we are looking at a 6 or an 8 percent – which I would consider
to be modest now – or a 15 to 20 percent.
So, that gives me great pause as to whether or not I should recommend to
the Board of Trustees – yeah, let’s go through with these raises that he had
argued for. One thing that we could do
is to just roll over the ‘04 budget until the first of the year; until we get a
better idea for what the economy is doing.
Those were the discussions that we are having. Don is going to be convening the Budget
Advisory Committee next week, next Tuesday, and we will rely upon them for some
advice and some sage observations – hopefully, we can have something more to
report within the next two or three weeks concerning what our strategy will be.
The
other thing that I wanted to mention to you is, this process – this planning
process – clumsy as it was and as upsetting as it was, actually the results
were pretty good. It’s just that we
ought to be able to do it with a little bit more dignity and without as much
self-destruction as we did it the last time.
That is what I am hoping to do. I
am asking, in fact, I’m sending John [Mouton] a letter today, asking him to
recommend some faculty members to serve on another commission that will be
composed solely of administrators and faculty members – some staff and A&P
representatives – to begin to chart the course for the next five years for this
university based upon a lot of preliminary work that has already been done –
that several folks have been working on.
My hope is that that group can do that work, can come up with some
revenue income projections, and can develop some strategies that we can all buy
into, and we can set the course for the next five years. I would like to do it by next spring, but we
will just simply have to just wait and see.
Let me stop there and see if you have any questions. I will be happy to try to answer.
Conner Bailey, Agricultural Economics
and Rural Sociology: My question doesn’t pertain to your
presentation. If there is anybody who
has questions on that, I will back away, and we can carry on there. While people are maybe framing questions in
their minds – last year, we had President Bush come to our campus, and I
understand from comments that John Pritchett made at a Senate meeting in
November that the National Republican Committee was going to pay for virtually
all of those costs and my question is – how much did we charge the National
Republican Committee? When did we give them
that invoice? How much have they paid
us, and when was that paid?
William Walker: Well
Republicans are a bunch of cheapskates. [Laughter] Don, do you want to answer that? No offense to we Republicans.
Don Large, Vice President for Business & Finance: The bill that we finally agreed upon was for
a little over $38,000, and we have had difficulty in receiving that money and
at this point, we have none of it. We
have run into a whole lot of turnover in the Party apparently. We talked, as a matter of fact, Marcie
[Smith] and I talked yesterday to the new director of the Party who assured us
that he would get this bill paid – and could he do it in installments? Then we began the negotiation of well, let’s
talk about what installments means, and we were trying to push him that we
needed to get it before we closed out year-end, and he said that he simply did
not have $38,000. We agreed ultimately
that we would take a fourth of it this month, and a fourth for the next three
months, so that before we finished the calendar year, we would have the
money. He assured us that we would have
it. He apologized for the problems that
we have had in trying to collect and deal with the others in the Party. So, that is where we are. I at least felt good yesterday – he was the
first one that I felt took on the kind of responsibility for this that should
have occurred. I do think that we will
get paid, and I am going to trust that he was leveling with us, but that is the
status.
Conner
Bailey: Did he offer to pay interest?
Don Large: No.
William
Walker: Don did try to convince him
to pay a fourth for five quarters. [Laughter]
Conner
Bailey: I will ask you another question. [Laughter]
While we are looking at bills due, I remember Christine Curtis in a memorable phrase;
she says, “I lust after that money.”
This had to do with Athletic Department cleaning up outside of the
stadium after football season. Now, I
know that we heard that the Athletic is now going to pay more for the general
administrative costs of running the Athletic Program through the
University. Are they also going be
covering an expanded share of the costs of cleaning up the campus?
William
Walker: We actually haven’t talked
about that recently have we?
Don
Large [Not at Microphone]: [Inaudible.]
William
Walker: Okay.
John
Mouton: Conner, in response to your question, I think
that Don would tell you that I have asked him that question on a number of
occasions and on a continuing basis, and Marcia [Boosinger] actually has some
information in her presentation – and if it doesn’t get to the heart of what
you asked, let’s bring the question back up.
I have just got a couple of comments that I would
like to make. One of the things is that
all of the Committees, both the University Committees and the Senate
Committees, are now posted up on the web site, and you can access it from the
Senate Page. I would like to thank all
of the people that volunteered this year – and we are up and ready on that.
The faculty representatives on the Board of Trustees
Committees have been appointed for 2003 and 2004 and are sitting on those
Committees. At
We have one Information Item today. Marcia Boosinger is the Chair of the
Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics.
She, also by serving in that position, is our Faculty Athletic
Representative to the NCAA – is that right?
So, we had asked her to make a Committee report today that we thought
would be of interest to many of the faculty; both on the issues that you have
raised and some other issues. So, we
will give her a minute to get this up and running. Do we have a technician in the house please?
Information Item
Marcia
Boosinger, CIA Chair: I appreciate the opportunity to
speak to the faculty. One of the duties
of the Chair of the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics and the Faculty
Athletics Representative is to report to the faculty on the duties and the
actions of that committee. In looking
back through some files that I inherited when I took over this position, I find
that there hasn’t been a report for several years. So, given that, I am going to go pretty basic
and talk to you a little bit about the Committee membership, the subcommittee
structure, and what the Faculty Athletic Representative does. Also, I am going to talk a little bit about,
obviously academics, because part of the function of the Committee and the FAR
(Faculty Athletics Representative) – part of the function of that position is
to oversee certification of athletes for academic eligibility purposes. So, we are going to talk a little bit about
how our athletes are fairing academically.
We are also going to talk a fair amount about graduation rates, since
that is something that tends to make the national news about student athletes. I will be giving you, probably more tables
that you want on that, and we can go through those fairly quickly. The graduation rate for the year was released
by the NCAA just recently, so I have some breakdowns on that comparing us
across time and comparing us against our SEC peers. I also want to talk a little bit about the
change in the NCAA eligibility standards, which some of you may be aware of,
but if you are not, as faculty, you may need to be aware of what student
athletes in your classes are facing in terms of the standards that they have to
meet to remain in your class and to remain at Auburn. I am also going to talk a little bit about
the collaboration between athletics and other services on campus. The idea that a lot of what athletics does is
very much integrated with the other operations and offices on campus. Then some initiatives that I and the
Athletics Department are trying to begin in cooperation, and then end with, the
answer maybe to Conner’s question; however, in talking to Dr. Large before we
began, I think maybe I am looking at costs and revenue a little bit
differently, so he may need to correct those, but I at least have the numbers,
and we can get him to straighten that out.
So, without any further ado here – let’s see if I can get my Power Point
to work. CIA
presentation.ppt
The Committee is made up of eleven voting
members. There is a Chair and a Vice
Chair, who are appointed by the President, and they serve as continuing
members. I am currently Chair, and Gary
Waters, in Business, is the Vice Chair.
As Chair, I am the Faculty Athletics Representative to the NCAA. [Slide
2] Four faculty members also serve on the Committee. They serve staggered four-year terms, and the
four members are: [Slide 3]
n Mary Boudreaux [Pathobiology]
n Jim Hansen [History]
n Kimberly King [Counseling/Counseling Psychology]
n Gerry Dozier [Computer Science and Software
Engineering]
In
addition, there is one Administrative and Professional member, in this case,
Fred Bobo from the Bursar’s Office; the Chair of the Staff Council which means
the staff position rotates yearly; this year it is Vic Walker from the College
of Veterinary Medicine, and the SGA President or his designee – so, Jonathan
McConnell. [Slide 4]
In
addition, serving on the Committee are Executive Vice President,
Don Large; Vice President for Alumni, Betty Dement; and Vice President for
Development, Bob McGinnis. [Slide 5]
Then there are additional Ex-officio
members; non-voting members of the Committee:
– President William Walker
– Provost or designee
– Athletics Director David Housel or
designee
– Assistant Athletics Director for
Compliance Mark Richard [Slide 6]
So, that is the composition of that committee. The Faculty Handbook further states that,
“Members should have an interest in and a knowledge of Intercollegiate
Athletics.” [Slide 7] Whether or not
the Rules Committee meant to do so, they did appoint two faculty members who
were former student athletes. Some of us
have come up different routes in learning about athletics and serving on this
particular committee. The committee meets
fairly frequently for a campus committee and meets also as needed – so when
issues arise that the Committee needs to be made aware of, meetings are called,
sometimes on rather short notice.
This is the charge of the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics
from the Faculty Handbook and notice, in a minute, how it mirrors what the
Faculty Athletics Representative is also supposed to do. [Projected on Screen – Slides 8-9]
Charge of the Committee on
Intercollegiate Athletics (CIA)
n
”The committee shall
–
1) recommend to the President the policies for
the operation of the intercollegiate athletics program at Auburn,
–
2)
monitor for the President all aspects of the program for compliance with
University policies and with NCAA and SEC legislation, and
– 3) assist the President and the Director
of Athletics on any aspect of the intercollegiate athletics program for which
advice or assistance is requested. “
The committee recommends policies for the operation of the
Intercollegiate Athletics Program, monitors compliance issues related to NCA
and SEC regulations, and assists the President and the Director of Athletics
with any other issue for which they request assistance.
The subcommittees of the – and I am going to say CIA; that is our
shorthand for Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics – the subcommittees of the
CIA report through the larger committee to the President and conduct a lot of
the business of the Committee that then of course reports to the larger
committee, and it is actually the business of the subcommittees actually is a
lot of what is the monitoring function.
You will see as we go through these committees quickly that many of
those committees are charged with helping us remain compliant and keep on top
of regulations for NCAA and the SEC. [Projected on Screen – Slide 10]
Subcommittees of the CIA:
n
Report to the President
through the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics
n
Nine subcommittees
There are nine
subcommittees; I am going to run through them in a hurry. [Projected
on Screen – Slides 11-12]
–
Academic Standards—Jim
Hansen
–
Awards—Fred Bobo
–
CHAMPS/Life Skills—Mary
Boudreaux (**CHAMPS/Life Skills program designated a 2002-03 Program of
Merit**)
–
Compliance—Mark Richard
–
Drug Education/Testing
Advisory Group—Randall Clark
–
Equity, Sportsmanship and
Welfare—Kimberly King
–
Priority and Seating—Gary
Waters
–
Professional Sports
Counseling Panel—Stacy Danley
–
Summer Sports
Camps/Clinics—Shawn Asmuth
These are some of them; notice that they each have the Chair
listed there. I would like to point out
that the third committee there; the CHAMPS/Life Skills Committee is a committee
that deals with student development – the development of the student athlete as
an entire person; it has to do with things like, job skills, resumes, and
career placement – that kind of thing.
That program this year is going to receive a Program of Merit Award at
an upcoming Division I Athletics Director Meeting. It was a rather large self-study done of all
of those types of activities on our campus and submitted and did receive an
award. So, we have Academic Standards
Awards; CHAMPS/Life Skills; Compliance; Drug Education and Testing; Equity,
Sportsmanship and Welfare; Priority and Seating; Professional Sports
Counseling; and Summer Sports Camps and Clinics. As I said, a number of those deal with things
that help keep us compliant with NCAA and SEC regulations. [Projected
on Screen – Slide 13]
Work of the subcommittees:
n
Academic Standards: Seeks to
ensure quality academic support for all student-athletes.
n
Awards: Works with the CIA
and Athletics Department to ensure that deserving scholar-athletes are
recognized for their efforts and accomplishments.
Now very quickly – Academic Standards
works with the academic support services people, to see that student-athletes
receive adequate academic support.
Awards – there are several awards given by the Athletics Department, but
also several opportunities for our student athletes to be nominated for
post-graduate scholarships with the NCAA and the SEC, and those nominations are
organized through the Awards Committee. [Projected
on Screen – Slide 14]
n
CHAMPS/Life Skills: Assists
Student Athlete Support Services in attaining an Award of Excellence for
student development initiatives which enhance the quality of the
student-athlete experience within the university setting.
n
Compliance: Assists in
monitoring all aspects of the intercollegiate sports program and contributes to
the institutional control objectives of
Again, the CHAMPS/Life Skills is to bring the total student
athlete experience to the level of receipt of an award of excellence, which is
the next step that our program will be attempting to go for. Compliance is a committee that deals with
things like automobile registrations, housing arrangements; anything that could
get us into some sort of difficulty perhaps in terms of a secondary rules
violation. A group of people look at
certain things that the Compliance Director brings to us to see that we are
indeed in compliance with some of those issues.
[Projected on Screen – Slide 15]
n
Drug Education/Drug Testing:
Regularly reviews the Drug Testing Policy and Procedures and the Drug Education
efforts of the Athletics Department.
n
Equity, Welfare and
Sportsmanship: Works with the Athletics Department to ensure equitable
treatment of student-athletes and to enhance their physical and educational
welfare.
We have a Drug Education and Drug Testing
Committee which deals with drug tests for student athletes, as well as the Drug
Policy and the education efforts for drug and alcohol awareness.
Equity, Welfare and Sportsmanship was originally the Title IX
Committee, and now it has been broadened out to deal with all kinds of equity
and welfare issues related to student athletes, as well as, sportsmanship. The Athletics Department and this subcommittee,
as well as a group of students just developed a Student Sportsmanship statement
and Code of Conduct that student athletes will sign. [Projected on Screen – Slide 16]
n
Priority and Seating:
Advises the CIA on matters related to seating at athletic events and is
responsible for assuring equitable seating for faculty and staff at Auburn
University athletic events.
The Priority and Seating Committee may be the one that the
subcommittees of the CIA that most of you have had the most acquaintance with. This is the Committee that deals with
assigning priority points and making sure that faculty and staff receive their
proper credit for seating at athletic events.
Now because we this year, for the first time, had an over subscription
of football tickets, some of you may have received a letter from me saying that
we were returning your football ticket order.
We had 161 people who had to receive such letters, so if you did get one
of those, you were not alone. I thought
some of you might need just a quick word about how that happened this year and
what the policy for priority and seating is.
This is kind of faint, but I hope you can read it. This is actually a quote from the very
formal policy that we have for providing tickets to faculty and staff so that
it is done very consistently at all times. [Projected on Screen – Slides 17-18]
n
“Priority for allocation
of employee season tickets will be first afforded to those who purchase season tickets
the previous year. Tickets will be allocated based on the priority point system
established by the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics. This point system is based on rank or grade,
years of continuous service and years of purchasing season tickets.”
n
“In the event of an
over-subscription of ticket orders, employees’ orders not filled will be placed
in a random selection system in that a limited number of tickets will be
allocated on a random basis for the year of order only. Employees whose season tickets orders are not
filled will have first priority on full price mini season ticket books, if
available.”
If you ever have a difficulty with that,
you should feel free to contact me, as the Chair of Intercollegiate
Athletics. Those come through the office
of the Faculty Athletics Representative.
Please notice that priority allocation went to people who bought last
year, and then we have a point system, where you are given points based on your
rank and grade, your years of continuous service, and the years of purchasing
season tickets. When there is an
oversubscription, then we allot as many tickets as possible, based on points,
and then we take the remaining number of people left and we do a lottery with
the last few tickets – and that’s how in a year of oversubscription those last
few tickets are distributed. The
Committee would be happy to entertain any comments you have about that
procedure, but keep in mind that in all of this time, this is the only time
that we have ever had to invoke this policy.
We do receive a large number of tickets from the Athletics Department,
and no tickets were used this year for other sales. I was asked whether or not
the number of faculty tickets actually went down this year – they remained
exactly the same, even though as we know there was quite a large demand of
tickets from all sectors of the University Community. We did not lose any tickets from what was
considered the faculty pool of tickets, even though there was a large outside
demand for tickets this year. I will be
happy to discuss that with anybody who would like more information later –
because I was anticipating questions – that is why I gave that much time. Okay. Two more subcommittees – [Projected
on Screen – Slide 19]
Work of the subcommittees:
n
Professional Sports
Counseling Panel: Provides the student athlete with current information and
advice concerning future professional opportunities in sports.
n
Summer Sports Camps/Clinics:
Monitors summer sports camps/clinics records, particularly with respect to
financial records and compliance with NCAA rules and regulations.
The Professional Sports Counseling Panel
attempts to give information to student athletes who may be going professional
with their athletic skills and it also deals with registering athletics agents,
and monitoring the activities of those people who routinely come to campus to
try to speak to our student athletes.
The Summer Sports Camps and Clinics
Committee monitors the financial dealings related to sports camps and clinics
that coaches hold on our campus. Again,
many of these things, such as the Drug Testing Committee, Sports Camps,
Professional Sports Counseling, the Compliance Committee, are all dealing with
functions that attempt to keep us out of any kind of difficulty by violating
any sort of NCAA or SEC regulation.
Now the Faculty Athletics Representative, as I mentioned, is
mandated by the NCAA. [Projected on Screen – Slide 20]
The Faculty Athletics Representative
n
The Faculty Athletics Representative
is a member of the institution's faculty or an administrator who holds faculty
rank and shall not hold an administrative or coaching position in the athletics
department (Article 6.1.3 NCAA). For the Committee on Intercollegiate
Athletics, at least a majority of the members shall be from the administration,
faculty and staff (Article 6.1.2 NCAA).
Every campus has to designate a faculty member as the Faculty
Athletics Representative, and that person must hold a faculty appointment or is
an administrator holding faculty rank, and it can not be someone who is holding
any kind of administrative or coaching position in the Athletics
Department. Many of you may remember
that the two predecessors to my holding this position were Dr. Dennis Wilson in
HHP [Health and Human Performance] and Dr. Jane Moore in HHP as well. The Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics
should have at least a majority of its members from the faculty,
administration, or staff of the University rather than the Athletics Department. These are things that are actually in the
NCAA bylaws. Okay. [Projected
on Screen – Slide 21]
n
“The mission of the
Faculty Athletics Representative and the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics
at Auburn University is to (1) promote academic integrity in intercollegiate
athletics, (2) facilitate the integration of the athletics and academic
components of the collegiate community, and (3) promote institutional control
of athletics.”
This is the mission of the Faculty Athletics Representative and
the Committee. As written, it is not
what is written in the Handbook, but as you will see, it very closely mirrors
what is in the Faculty Handbook. This is
from the mission statement of the Office of the Committee on Intercollegiate
Athletics. The mission is to promote
academic integrity; facilitate the integration of academics in the academic
community; to promote institutional control of athletics. [Projected on Screen – Slide 22]
n
“Both the Faculty
Athletics Representative and the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics are
appointed by and advisory to the President.
n
The Faculty Athletics
Representative serves as Chair of the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics.
The Faculty Athletics Representative and the Committee of
Intercollegiate Athletics are appointed by the President. Again, the Faculty Athletics Representative
is the Chair of the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics. Just so that you are aware; this is a third
time appointment, so I am on one-third time release time from the library. My staff person and the budget for this
office come out of the President’s budget and have nothing to do with the
Athletics Department. [Projected on Screen – Slide 23]
n
The work of the Faculty
Athletics Representative and the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics is
carried on daily, throughout the year, in the Office of the Committee on
Intercollegiate Athletics, First Floor, RBD Library.”
There is an office for the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics
with a full-time staff person residing in the library, should you ever need to
contact that office. Okay. Let’s talk a little bit about academics and
athletics. [Projected on Screen – Slide 24]
Academics and Athletics
n
Students with Sp 03 term GPA
>= 3.0
–
All students = 36.63%
–
Athletes = 36.18%
These are some figures that John Fletcher’s office was kind enough
to provide, related to the academic achievement of our entire student body
versus the student athletes. I just asked
him to give me some comparisons from last spring for GPAs achieved at the end
of that particular semester; GPAs cumulatively; then I have a little more data
on academic warning as well. Notice that
for Spring ’03 term, 36% of all students have over 3.0 or above, as compared to
36.18% of student athletes had over 3.0
n
Students with Cumulative GPA
>= 3.0 at the end of Spring 03
–
All students = 45.54%
–
Athletes = 30.76%
Cumulative GPA at the end of the Spring Term, 2003; more students
had a cumulative average and 45% had over 3.0, as compared to 30.76% of student
athletes with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or above.
[Projected on Screen – Slide 25]
n
SEC Honor Roll—either a
cumulative 3.0 grade point average or a 3.0 GPA for the last academic year—102
athletes (did not include freshmen)
n
Top Tigers—either a
cumulative 3.0 grade point average or a 3.0 GPA for the last academic year—158
academic Top Tigers
However, athletics does honor those who achieve in both athletics
and academics. Two measures that are
also used for student athletes are the number of students on the SEC honor
roll. This year there were 102. The SEC does not give that award, or didn’t
last year, give that award to freshmen students.
n
Students on Academic Warning
n All students = 4.4%
n Athletes=3.9%
In another comparison, students on Academic
Warning; all students at the end of spring – there were 4.4% of all of our
students on Academic Warning and 3.9% of our student athletes on Academic
Warning. Okay.
Now, I would like to spend some time on graduation rates and I do
have quite a few tables. I will run
through them quickly – but since this is the measure of student athlete
academic success that seems to get the most press, I thought it might be
important for y’all to see some of these. [Projected on Screen – Slide 27]
Graduation Rates:
n
Cohort comprised of 1st time
college freshmen (all students) and 1st time freshmen scholarship athletes
(NCAA) entering summer or fall.
n
Six-year graduation rate (%
of the students graduating by the end of their sixth year)
I have a variety of slides gathered from institutional analysis
and from also the NCAA official report.
I tried to put them in tables, but I will run through them a little bit
quickly. You need to realize that the
graduation rate for student athletes is figured on a six-year graduation
rate. So, what we are looking at is the
graduation rate of students who were freshmen in 1996 – who recently graduated.
[Projected
on Screen – Slide 28]
Graduation Rates:
n
Cohort comprised of 1st time
college freshmen (all students) and 1st time freshmen scholarship athletes
(NCAA) entering summer or fall.
n
Six-year graduation rate (%
of the students graduating by the end of their sixth year)
Also, be aware that this
will include the comparisons between students and student athletes will include
all students, but it only includes student athletes who were first time
freshmen athletes; therefore, no transfer students entering in the summer or
fall of 1996. So, no one who entered in
the spring is included. The current data
collection includes these ends. Notice
that we have 3200 hundred plus all students and 65 student athletes – so, there
is quite a difference of students in this rate.
[Projected on Screen – Slide 29] Okay, I hope you can see that pretty well. This is a comparison of graduation rates of
Auburn student athletes and the Auburn student body over time. The blue bars are all students. The orange triangles are student athletes. You can see that in four to five of those
years, the student athlete graduation rate was very similar to that of the
overall student body. In fact in 1992,
it exceeded the graduation rate of the overall student body. It has rebounded after last year’s rate to
almost 62%, and the rate of all students this year at Auburn was 68%; 67.5% for
all students; 61.5% for student athletes.
Now this is student athletes’ graduation
rates by gender (a six-year rate). [Projected on Screen – Slide 30]
Going back to 1986 as the first year – and again that may be a little
bit hard – the large yellow bars are all students; the blue stars are male
athletes; the orange triangles are all athletes; and the green squares are
female athletes. Notice that this year,
the rates for all athletes are very, very similar there – again, all students
67.5%; female athletes 60%; male athletes 62.9%; all students 61.5% – all
athletes, pardon me, I can’t read my own chart here.
This is our comparison against all of
their Division I schools. [Projected on Screen – Slide 31] The graduation rate for all students at
overall Division I schools was 59%, and our all student rate was 67-68%. For athletes, we are exactly the same, we are
the average – we are at 62%, and so that is the average rate for all of the
other Division I schools – Division IA schools.
Now this is where, I hope these aren’t
too difficult to read. [Projected on Screen – Slide 32] This is a comparison of
[Projected on
Screen – Slide 35] The
men’s basketball rate – and you are wondering why there isn’t a basketball rate
at all schools. Again, the graduation
rates reflect those students who were here as freshmen in fall or summer of
1996. So, if our basketball team had graduates who were transfer students or
students who arrived in the spring, we get no credit for them. Neither does any other school. So you can see that there were only three SEC
schools with reportable data. Those are
not zero graduation rates – that is reportable data. And that is what you’ll see – you will see
here [Projected on Screen – Slide 36] we had no baseball data to report this year. I repeat that is not a zero graduation rate –
that is no data to report. Okay?
[Projected
on Screen – Slide 37] I am going to just keep going unless y’all
have – you can ask me, I guess later, about specific ones – again, no men’s
track to report. Now these are all other
sports, and we did report in swimming, golf, tennis, that kind of thing. [Projected on Screen – Slide 38] This is the graduation rate for other men’s
sports as comparable to other institutions in the conference.
[Projected
on Screen – Slides 39 - 41] This is the rate for
women’s basketball. Again, we have no
data to report this year, nor did we have any for track or cross country, but
for others we have a rate of about – I think it was 63% to 64% there. Okay?
Now, why is it interesting at this point to look at graduation rates,
other than what does seem be what gets a lot of publicity? You should know, if you are not aware already
as a faculty member, that things have changed a great deal in the past year
related to NCAA certification standards – eligibility standards. [Projected
on Screen – Slide 42]
There has always been a standard that athletes had to meet in terms of
satisfactory progress. A standard which
I’m not aware any of our other students have to meet. In other words, every year they have to have
passed a certain number of hours equivalent to a percentage of their degree requirements
in order to retain their eligibility.
Until this year, those standards were 25% after the second year, 50%
after the third year, and 75% after the fourth year. This year, the NCAA passed legislation to
change the satisfactory progress percentages to 40% of the degree requirements
after the second year, 60% after the third year and 80% after the fourth
year. More or less pushing graduates to
a five-year graduation date. Keep in
mind that all of our figures, including all students, are figured on a six-year
graduation rate, and I should have mentioned, if I didn’t, that is a rate that
the U.S. Department of Education uses.
That is their computation. So,
athletes are now being held to a much greater standard once they arrive at our
institution in terms of degree completion.
Presently, they have to come in with 14 core courses, which is up one
this year – it was 13, and in 2008 it will go up to 16. The gap in the 2003 to 2008, it quite
honestly is to give high-schools preparation time so that their students, who
might be prospective student athletes, are not caught in a bind of not having
enough core courses because the rule changed.
So this gives them time to prepare and have enough core courses when they
arrive as student athletes at that time.
I put another couple of things down here
related to NCAA requirements, because the NCAA is working very hard on
something that they are calling, the Annual Academic and Retention Rate, which
is going to give them a little better picture of what student athletes really
do as opposed to the graduation rate, which does not count transfers or
students who enter in the spring of an academic year. The Annual Academic and Retention Rate will
give students points for remaining eligible and for staying at the school – for
being retained. So, each student will
earn two points essentially, or has the potential to earn, two points a
semester by the end of the year earning four and that rate then will be figured
in various ways – against the student himself, against other sports at the
school, and against all other teams in that same sport across the division in
which the school participates. So this
Annual Academic and Retention Rate will actually give a better snapshot of what
is being done to graduate student athletes.
Some of the reporting requirements will begin this year. So, we will begin reporting some things like
retention and obviously we’ll report eligibility – but in these kinds of forms
this year.
The NCAA is also starting a large program
of incentives and disincentives to encourage a higher graduation rate. Schools who consistently have low graduation
rates will be penalized – very possibly through loss of scholarship or through
loss of revenue from their Conference or the NCAA. So, the Presidents and the Chancellors of
certainly Division I schools are very anxious for academic reform to take place
and these are some of the initiatives that the NCAA is putting in place to
guarantee that that does happen. I have
a lot more information about this, if any of you are curious, but that is
probably more than you can stand to know at this point. It is certainly something that the NCAA is
very concerned about, and I think you should be aware of that.
Okay, let’s talk a little bit about the
interface between academics and athletics, and I want to talk about that – kind
of – in making you aware of all the different things that our regular or
general student body participates in – the student athletes participate in as
well. [Projected on Screen – Slide 43] All student athletes
attend Camp War Eagle, and they are spread out in almost every session all
summer long. We piloted a Summer Bridge
Program this summer, and student athletes participated in that. It was a very small pilot, but one-third of
the participants in that program were student athletes, and as you can see, the
average GPA for the student athletes in that Summer Bridge Program was slightly
higher than that for other students. The
students, as I recall, took seven hours of credit. They took communications, math, and not in
composition – I think a “U” course anyway. I’m sorry …
Audience Participant: [Inaudible]
Marcia Boosinger:
1050? Oh, U1050. So, they were
able to get some credit this summer, and that is how the student athletes
certainly did and the other students as well.
Student athletes participate in Supplemental Instruction. To date, this semester, 211 are partaking of
Supplemental Instruction in history, sociology, biology, accounting, and
math. [Projected on Screen – Slide 44]
As you know, athletics offers tutoring, and presently 263 student
athletes out of about 400 are participating in some sort of tutoring situation
in an attempt to retain their academic eligibility. Many of the – not many – but some of the
student athletes are participating in sections of Counseling and Counseling
Psychology 2970 which has a service learning component, and they are
participating with other students where they participate in service learning
experiences for 20 hours a semester in at least one location. We had twelve student athletes complete that
and three in the fall and three in the spring.
They utilize heavily other services, such as the English Writing Center,
Counseling and Counseling Psychology Services, and the Office for Students with
Disabilities. So, in many ways they are
integrated into all of the academic support services offered on campus, just as
our regular students are.
There is something kind of unique to student athletes, in terms of how they
organize themselves. [Projected on Screen – Slide 45]
Another thing that the NCAA mandates is the Student Athlete Advisory
Committee which is a committee that brings the voice of the student athlete to
the Athletics Department for purposes of welfare issues, but also the Student Athlete
Advisory Committee organizes themselves into many service projects and
endeavors in the community. One hundred
fourteen student athletes from 13 sports participated in fourteen different
service projects this year, and I have listed a few of the projects. The group prides itself on their ability to
get out into the community and to contribute – particularly in the
schools. So, like many of our other
student organizations, the student athletes do this. Many of these projects that are listed there
are done in conjunction with other campus organizations. These are not just student athlete projects –
these are ones that they spearhead or they cooperate with other student
organizations.
Now, Student-Athlete Support Services, as many of you may
have read, will be the recipient – student athletes will be the recipients – of
a new academic center which is being built as the top two floors to the Weight
Training Facility, near the football complex. [Projected on Screen – Slide 46]
That has been approved by the Board and will contain 32,000 sq. feet of
computer labs, small and large classrooms, tutoring space, auditorium, office
spaces for academic counselors, and other academic support services. So, if you hear more about that, that is
something that the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics will be seeing the
schematics for, but the impetus for going ahead with that as quickly as it is
going to progress, again has a lot to do with the new academic standards being
brought forth for athletes by the NCAA.
The idea that this was a project that was definitely on the drawing
board, but it would appear that the need for that may be accelerated because of
the standards and the regulations that the student athletes will have to meet.
[Projected on Screen – Slide 47]
Okay, some initiatives that I am trying to undertake as the Faculty
Athletics Representative that I have brought to the President, to the Athletics
Department, to the CIA are the ones that I have listed here. Something fairly new in the athletics world
is the formation of a National College Athlete Honor Society – Chi Alpha
Sigma. It has sixty-six chapters right
now, and it is another way of honoring the academic achievements of student
athletes. So it’s an organization that I
am hoping to bring forward and get organized as a chapter here on campus. Another initiative I am hoping to bring
forth, that I hope some of you will participate in, is something called a Guest
Coach Program – which is something that is readily available on many other
campuses and involves student athletes nominating or selecting faculty members
or staff members on campus that they feel have made a contribution to their
academic life and would like to have those people know more about their life as
a student athlete. It usually involves
participation by the faculty or staff member in practices and possibly pre-game
warm-ups, in meals before a competition, in the competition itself by being
present and participating and supporting.
We are going to begin that with three fall sports this semester and the
members of the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics – Committee have
volunteered to be sort of guinea pigs, and so they will be the first ones to
sort of pilot this and see what works well with each sport and then the student
athletes after this will select faculty members and staff members that they
would like to have participate. So, if
this gets rolling next semester and you are approached by a student athlete in
one of your classes, I hope you will consent to participate. It is simply a way of showing appreciation to
you for your contributions to them athletically, but also gives you an
opportunity to see what their lives are like as student athletes.
A few years ago, we had a Game Day Lecture Series and I know
that there were some very favorable points about that series but it did not
continue. David Housel has asked John
Mouton and I to explore the possibility of re-instituting that, and I have
spoken to the President about it. We
know that there is such a program at the
The last thing is an initiative that
David Housel has started and he has talked to – I believe the officers of the
Senate and to Dr. Heilman about looking for ways in which athletic
administrators can be more active on campus committees – again, to further the
integration between the Athletics Department and the academic units on
campus. So that you may be serving on
committees in the future with persons who normally were not on those committees
– so he is very anxious to get that kind of integration going. Okay.
Whoops, I skipped something that was really important – Sorry Conner –
we have to go back one.
[Projected
on Screen – Slide 48] Coming
up in the next three years, the NCAA will make its certification visit to
Auburn University. If you think of NCAA
certification as equivalent to academic accreditation that is essentially what
it is. Every ten years, the NCAA visits
campus with a very thorough look at the Athletics Department and its operations. It is a staged process just like SACS
Accreditation is. This year the
Athletics Department will be reviewing its strategic plan and updating it, and
adding, subtracting to and from it. Next
year, there will be a self-study – and when that self-study begins a number of
you may be asked to serve on subcommittees of that self-study; much like many
of us were asked to serve on SACS self-study committees. So, I hope you will consent to
participate. Then there will be a Peer
Team visit in 2005-2006. So, this
actually works very much like an accreditation – only in this case, it is of
the Athletics Department. So, I just
wanted to make you aware of that schedule and you will be hearing more about it
in the future.
Now, I have some figures here – and I
think I possibly have – I know the numbers are right, but I think after talking
to Dr. Large, I may have put some of them in the wrong place. So, let’s just look at them very
quickly. I knew that some of you were
very interested in this. Some of you may
be aware that the Athletics Department is now going to be paying an indirect
overhead charge to the University equivalent to that of all other
auxiliaries. So, a 6.4% overhead charge
– which will be phased in over three years.
The $1.1 million dollars of that overhead charge is the third year
cost. So, this is what will happen by
the end of the third year. Then, the
Athletics Department is given credit for the revenue that could have been
generated from the football tickets that it sells to us at a reduced cost –
that is $553,000 worth of credit. Then
the University charges the Athletics Administration for administration of the
Tigers Unlimited Fund which is the foundation arm of the Athletics
Department. If you look at this as
contributions, which is what I did, but I understand that I should have been
looking at it slightly differently – the contributions to the General Fund
would be $1.9 million from the Athletics Department by the end of a three-year
period – I will let Dr. Large correct this.
The costs to the General Fund include an out-of-state tuition remission
amount this year of $975,000 and Game Day Cleanup/Security which I was given
kind of a range of figures, and I used the high end, which is $400,000. That total then is $1.275 million. The difference between those two – but once
again, if some of these are costs – they certainly aren’t revenue – the
difference between those two figures is $714,000; but if you look at indirect
costs as costs – if you look at the administration of the Tigers Unlimited Fund
as costs – then my figure is not quite correct there. If Dr. Large would like to change that in any
way, I would be more than happy to have him do that. These are the figures that I received, and I
kind of put them in columns – so those are my mistakes or my
interpretation. But those are the
numbers – depending on how you would like to arrange them. Conner, does that answer your question – or
not? If you need an answer, you can talk
to Don. I can’t answer them past
this. I know these were the numbers that
were given.
Conner Bailey: Could you go back to the previous [slide]?
Marcia Boosinger: This one?
Conner Bailey: Actually, one more. Thank you. Don is that $553
additive or subtractive from the $1.1 million?
My understanding was that the Athletic Program – Department wanted to
get a credit for that and that we being taken off the 6.4%?
Don Large: Yea – well, obviously it is additive. The way Marcia has put it together is a
little different than what maybe I might have done.
Marcia Boosinger: I
am a librarian Don – not an accountant.
[Laughter]
Don Large: No, it is just a different way to present – but the way we had
presented it – the 6.4% would actually be $1.6 something million minus the
credit given for $553,000 to a net billable to the Athletic Department of
around $1.1 million. So, interestingly
it comes back almost the same way – just a different way to present.
Marcia Boosinger: Will the $1.1 million also include the $336,000 TUF [Tigers
Unlimited Fund]?
Don Large: No.
Marcia Boosinger: No. Okay, so the total between the two….
Don Large: $1.6 and the 330 something – the numbers are right – it is just the
way that you …
Marcia Boosinger: ... just the way that you arrange
them. Okay.
Conner Bailey [Not at Microphone]: That $553,000, is that coming into our
budget, or is that money that [???]
Don Large: It is money that you individually benefit from. It does not enter into the budget – but they
are given credit because of the 50% discount.
Which some argue that they shouldn’t be given credit and some argue that
they should. The credit is actually a
good bit more than most other institutions, and probably we are at some risks
with IRS there because normally you shouldn’t be discounting more than 20%; but
we feel like we might have an argument.
We will probably lose it – but we will keep it there until they
challenge it, so.
Marcia Boosinger: Now, that is all that I have.
Are there questions about the Committee?
Herb.
Herb Rotfeld, Marketing: I have two, totally unrelated… go to the one with the costs of the Game
Day that you have.
Marcia Boosinger: Sure, yea.
Herb Rotfeld: And you’re saying that is just Game Day
cleanup – now that is just Game Day related not other cleanups?
Don Large: What other cleanups?
Herb Rotfeld: Is Dr. Curtis – oh, Dr. Curtis has since departed. In the OA News last spring, we had a
picture of members of the golf team throwing out their toilet paper at Toomer’s
Corner, as the athletes do after winning seasons. According to Dr. Curtis, every Monday morning
after a toilet papering incident costs the University $3200 – was it $3400 –
was the amount for cleaning up – the athletes’ damage to the Corner costs the
school $3400 dollars and she said that was paid out of the General Fund – and
it’s every Monday after we have another toilet papering – because that is what
it costs to call these people up from Columbus to clean up the Corner. So, it just says Game Day, and we have all of
these additional weekends of trashing.
So, is this the total year or…
Don Large: I don’t know how Christine …
Herb Rotfeld: As I said, she has departed.
Don Large: … figured those, and you know, costs again is sometimes a hard thing
to get your hands on and some things can be costed in one way or the other –
but you know the $400,000 is probably the upper end of a way to estimate Game
Day costs. Again, the Athletics
Department, and things can be argued in different ways – and you can certainly
argue if it is 400, they should pay it.
They argue that they should get credit for the discount tickets; they
should get credit for the activity on the campus that does generate a lot of
revenue. The Bookstore sells probably
close to $100,000 on a good day that they wouldn’t sell otherwise. You have got Campus Dining; you have got
colleges and deans and department heads bringing in alumni and others to the
campus that wouldn’t otherwise be here.
So, you know, it is not so clear cut that it is all about damage and
costs to the University and not benefit.
So, quite frankly in going to this more aggressive cost on the indirect
area where we are pulling $700,000 more than we were – and I would certainly
give Conner credit for bringing that to our attention as a way to do that. I at least felt that was reasonable, based on
all of the arguments that were being presented.
I will take the $700,000 and we will worry about Game Day costs the next
budget.
Herb Rotfeld: My second unrelated question has nothing to do with costs, but
about your graduation rates calculations.
Aand the reason that I ask is that periodically when I get the cards
from the Athletic Association asking for progress and work of student athletes.
I ask the athletes about how they feel about me giving the information, and I
get these comments back like, “Well, I quit the team, but I am still on the
rosters.” So, when you have the
graduation rates and the GPA rates, are these once an athlete - forever an
athlete calculations or are these people that spent all four years as athletics
[athletes]? I mean, do they stay on the records once they get a scholarship for
one year and leave? What determines who is there?
Marcia Boosinger: If they leave the university…
Herb Rotfeld: No, leave the team…
Marcia Boosinger: If they leave the team…
Herb Rotfeld: A lot of them leave the team and stay here – I shouldn’t say a lot
– but a number of them.
Marcia Boosinger: Yes, they are counted.
Because the graduation rate is sort of a fixed list of people who are
freshmen scholarship athletes at that point in time, Herb, as I understand it.
So, they do count – as far as I am aware – they count. Larry.
Larry Gerber, History: Just a quick question about the listing
of costs.
Marcia Boosinger: Wait a minute – sorry, I thought I was
going to need those others.
Larry Gerber:
Okay. That’s the contribution – where you have the overhead contribution
that would be listed as a financial contribution. Shouldn’t it also appear on the cost side? Shouldn’t it appear on both sides? It is not just the credit for discounted
faculty.
Marcia Boosinger: Yea, I guess it could be zeroed out essentially. You are right – that is what Dr. Large was
saying to me before.
Larry Gerber: So then, when you do that – then instead of showing a net
contribution you have a very different …
Marcia Boosinger: Right, you would have $400,000 …
Larry Gerber: You are in deficit rather than a contribution.
Marcia Boosinger: Yes. Anybody else?
Jim Bradley, Biological Sciences:
Marcia, my question is whether the CIA is responsible for monitoring
NCAA compliance with recruitment, and if so are you confident that mechanisms
are in place that you can do that?
Marcia Boosinger: The CIA per se – no, Jim.
As Faculty Athletics Representative, I work very closely with the
Compliance Officer, and all of those recruiting procedures are reviewed on an
annual basis and there are many checks and balances to the recruiting procedure
in terms of logs and accounting. One
thing that I didn’t present, which I certainly could have very easily – quite
honestly – when we are cited for secondary violations –that’s the area in which
there is probably the most in terms of secondary minor violations because of
all of the rules related to that – and one thing to remember about reporting of
secondary violations – it is important to have some secondary violations – that
seems like an odd thing to say – but that is sort of a check that the
Compliance Procedure is working. Auburn
routinely falls right in the middle of the SEC, in terms of the number of secondary
minor violations reported. It has been
my experience – since I have done this only for about nine months – that those
violations are most often related to recruiting – but they are things like – a
coach going to a recruit’s house not really realizing that there was a time
difference from where she started and where she ended up – and she stayed past
midnight which meant that she recruited for two days instead of one, and she
self-reported that. Now, those are the
kinds of secondary violations in recruiting that I have been seeing. So, I would have to say that the coaches are
very much aware of that. They take a
standardized test from the SEC every year – actually, no, from the NCAA; it is
administered by the SEC – that talks about recruiting and eligibility, and they
have to test on a set of rules. There
are a lot of checks and balances in place, and so from what I have seen in
terms of the routine recruiting activity – yes, I think that it is proceeding
with as much rule adherence as possible.
I hope that answers your question.
Anybody else? Thank you for your
time.
John Mouton: Thank you very much for that presentation. I think that it helped a lot just to get some
of that out in front of the faculty. We
have an Action Item today. We have a
proposed Faculty Handbook change. I
might mention that this is not coming from a committee, but it is coming out of
a suggestion made in a meeting. It has
to be brought to the faculty, and it takes a two-thirds majority in the faculty
to pass it after it has been submitted as an Action Item. So, Paula.
Action Item
Paula Sullenger, University Faculty
Secretary: There are a couple of changes from when I
presented this in August. https://auburn.edu/administration/governance/senate/elections2.htm I have sent this out for review from several
people, and I especially want to thank Conner Bailey, Cindy Brunner, and Larry
Gerber for all of the comments and help that they have given on the
wording. The major change in this part –
which would allow voting outside the meetings on officer elections – is that we
changed it from a write-in provision to a provision for petitions. That also moved the time period of the
notification back a little bit. We also
changed the nominating committee time frame from ninety days to the beginning
of the Fall Semester to allow for quicker nominations of the officers so we can
get those names out within twenty-one days of the spring meeting. For the past few years, we actually haven’t
met that twenty-one day for quite a while.
Again, a nominating committee will gather names, they will present it to
the faculty, there will be a time period where a nomination by petition could
be forwarded and then the vote will go out; the call for the voting – the
mechanism is not currently specified, and then a majority vote will be required
and a provision for a runoff election, in case there are three candidates and
no one gets a majority. The current
section on absentee voting would disappear completely. The only change in the final section would be
if a vacancy should occur in one of the offices then an election for filling
that vacancy would have to be held prior to the meeting rather that at the fall
meeting as is currently specified. As
Dr. Mouton pointed out, this was originally – there was a committee that, I
believe, Cindy Brunner headed up nearly two years ago to study the issue – she
presented the findings at the Spring Faculty Meeting, and we just have approved
those minutes. The Committee had
recommended that we do bring this forward, so I and the people that I mentioned
have worked on this wording and proposed changes, and at this point it is just
presented to the faculty. We’ll need –
there was no official committee, so we will need a formal motion to recommend
these changes to the Handbook. Then we
will need a second, and then we can open the floor for discussion.
John Mouton: Is there a motion?
Unknown Speaker from the Audience:
Is there a second?
Unknown Speaker from the Audience:
Second.
John Mouton: Then we will open it up for discussion. Please come to the microphone; please, in the
back.
Anthony Moss, Biological Sciences:
Hi Paula. How would you be
certain that each voting faculty member could only vote once, and so that this
could not be abused in some way? I
presume it can be done – but I’m not sure how.
Paula Sullenger: In August we briefly discussed three possible methods, and
anything that has been put up can be amended so that a method will be
specified. Probably the most sure-proof
way would be traditional paper ballots which are mailed out to each individual
faculty member – a double envelope system – so that when the ballots come back
we can check people off of the list. Example:
Tony Moss sent in a ballot; mark his name off of the list; take the outer
envelope and throw it away; and then a sealed envelope with only a vote is
stuck in a pile, and they are not opened until the day of the voting. Another way would be the way the students
used to do it, and this would call for a lot of coordination if we have
multiple polling places; then, of course, I think that the preferred way would
be an electronic voting system. Our
computing staff have assured us that they can monitor and make sure that no one
votes twice. We tested that in the
spring, in February, when we did the Budget Priority Vote.
Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology: I
would like to speak very briefly on behalf of this change, and I would like for
us to look at each other sitting in the room as my case. I really regret that so few members of the
Auburn University faculty are making a decision that affects the entire
faculty. We all have colleagues who
could not make this meeting; unfortunately absentee balloting is not allowed on
this kind of change. Absentee balloting
is only allowed for election of officers.
So, we have no option at present but to vote on changes like this and
other major issues in person, at this meeting, and I think it is time for that
to change.
Paula Sullenger: I do want to point out that this particular motion that is on the
table now, only deals with the officer elections. The other issue will come up separately.
Conner Bailey:
While Paula graciously indicated that I helped with the wording, please
don’t assume that I agree with this motion or my esteemed colleague.
Paula Sullenger: It was a bipartisan committee …
Conner Bailey: Yea, bipartisan committee – yea. [Laughter]
I would argue that one of the reasons that we have relatively poor turnout at
General Faculty Meetings is not only because people don’t think that these are
worth attending or that they are too busy, I think that we need to make sure
that these meetings have substance to them that draw people to these
meetings. I think that moving away from
votes where people who come and listen to the sides of the argument presented –
I think that moving toward either paper ballots or electronic ballots or
something else; in this case for election – but the same argument is for the
next motion. I think it removes the
importance of these meetings. It in fact
undermines the integrity of what I think is a very important body, the General
Faculty. The meetings recently, yes,
have been relatively thin – look at this body. We are, if not physically thin,
we are thin in numbers – [Laughter] thank you, David – but that has not always
been so. We have often had meetings with
large turnouts. Why did we open this
room double? Because there have been times in the past when the General Faculty
have been called to meetings. They have
been sometimes associated with a motion of no confidence or censure – in the
case of Jim Martin – for those of you that remember that far back. I think that any effort – any change – in our
voting pattern that tends to reduce the draw of these meetings is not in the
interest of the General Faculty. I think
that we need to participate. If we are
concerned with people showing up at these meetings, I think we need to think of
substantive means of bringing people in.
I do not support the motion for change in either voting for elections,
and I will speak to the other issue later if necessary. Thank you.
John
Mouton: Herb.
Herb Rotfeld:
Conner said this obliquely in part, but I want to put it for emphasis –
and that is the myth of disenfranchisement of people that aren’t here. As we have said, when we have had some
important meetings, we went to another part of campus to handle 300 hundred
people – they found a way to be here. We
can talk of the absentee ballots, which are possible right now on this thing
that we are talking about. I have not
been a Secretary of the Senate, I do not have direct data on this, but I have
talked to some past people that have counted the ballots. When we have had somebody from Extension
running for an officer, we will have a large number of absentee ballots come in
for just that one item and not for the other officer. The numbers that we have here that are thin for
different times, it is possible to vote absentee. People don’t even take advantage of absentee
ballots. So, you could go beyond the
factor of people caring for the meeting – I don’t think that we really gain
anything by adding people and then saying that we are going to make it even
easier for you. They are not taking
advantage of the ease now for absentee ballots in many cases, unless there is
someone that has a great draw for a large number of people who happen to work
away from campus.
Paula Sullenger:
Can I make a comment?
John
Mouton: Please …
Richard Penaskovic: I wonder if it would help if we had our
meetings at two o’clock rather than at three.
When I was a Senator – I am no longer a Senator – I noticed that as the
meeting drew closer to 4:30 p.m. or even later, many people would leave. So, if the meetings began at 2:00 p.m., I was
wondering if they might stay longer. The
other thing that I thought might help, like for today’s meeting – if you had
put on the agenda that this topic of electronic voting, would be the first item
on the agenda, that might have also helped more people stay, knowing that they
wouldn’t have to spend the whole time, like I did – not that I minded –
listening to the report on Intercollegiate Athletics – but I am not a Senator,
and I could read that also. So, if the
item of voting was on the agenda first, I think more people might be more prone
to come around. The other thing is, I
think that there is a general apathy on this campus, in regard to really what
is going on and that is really lamentable, and I don’t know if we can do
anything about it.
Paula Sullenger: I would like to respond to Dr. Rotfeld. I only counted votes once, and these are
secret ballots. So, I am not quite sure
how someone knows how many people from whatever unit voted, and how they
voted. That is the only comment that I
want to make.
Roy Summerford, Not a member of the
faculty: I would like to point out a discrepancy in
Section 3 – the final section on vacancies.
You have procedures for vacancies that occur before September 15, and
for vacancies that occur after September 15, what if a vacancy occurs on
September 15? [Laughter]
Unknown Speaker: It’s the editor speaking …
Paula Sullenger: There are a few minor ambiguities in this section, and Dr. Gerber
and I kind of looked over them and we thought that rather than try to expand
this by three or four times and cover every conceivable possibility…that if a
vacancy came up, that people would figure out how to handle it the right way. If you want to suggest a change, please do so
– that’s right, you are not a faculty member.
John Mouton: Anybody else?
Unknown Speaker: Call for the question.
John Mouton [Not at Microphone]: [Inaudible]
Audience:
We can’t hear you very well, John.
John Mouton: Never mind. First of all,
we would like to see the hands of all of those who are voting yes for the
approval of this proposal. [Audience voting by show of hands] At
least this side can put their hands down.
Then we have got to ask a show of hands
of all the nays, please. [Audience
voting by show of hands] You can put
your hands down. Thank you.
We would like to see the hands of all of
the people abstaining from voting, please.
[Audience show of hands] That motion
passed. So, we are going to move on to
the next item.
The count was 38 votes for; 14 against; 2
abstentions.
Paula Sullenger: The next item is voting on resolutions or
motions or any other matters. https://auburn.edu/administration/governance/senate/ballots.htm
The only change – this doesn’t actually occur in the body – I just noted what
section of the Handbook that it would go in, which would require some
renumbering below it – but no other section had any changes except for the
number. So, this one reads that, “Motions,
resolutions, or other matters presented for a University Faculty vote shall be
discussed at a regularly scheduled University Faculty meeting” or one that is called with proper
procedures – and there would be – absentee isn’t quite the right word, but
again, voting outside of meetings. Again, we need someone to make a formal
motion, and a second, and then we can discuss.
Unknown Speaker: I
move adoption.
John Mouton: Okay, we have a motion. Do
we have a second?
Unknown Speaker:
Second.
Larry Gerber: I
abstained on the first motion, because I saw advantages to voting outside the
meeting for officers. Since there is no
discussion of elections at the meeting, there is no chance for candidates at
the meeting to present cases, and I actually see a certain benefit in terms of
nomination by petition where candidates beyond the nominating committee could
be advanced before an election took place.
So, I had mixed feelings about the first one. I think that the arguments that Conner made
with regard to the importance of the discussion of resolutions is a compelling
one, as is the one about the importance of this body as a collegial
institution. So, I would strongly oppose
voting on resolutions outside the meeting.
I would urge my colleagues to defeat this motion.
Virginia O’Leary: I
want to second Dr. Gerber’s sentiments.
I think that it would be a tragic error of judgment if this body were to
vote in favor of this plan. Because,
what it means is that people would vote in an uninformed fashion. I don’t that that there is any way that one
can cast an informed vote without hearing the discussion that is pertinent to
it. To have a discussion in which only a
subset of individuals are engaged and then open it up to everyone, some of whom
will have heard a correct interpretation of what occurred, others of whom will
have heard nothing, and others whom will have heard incorrect interpretations
of the discussion – depending on various people’s perceptions, maybe none of it
intentional, would be in error. I think
that an informed vote is absolutely critical and I don’t see how the vote can
be informed unless we are to go to some kind of – well, there are technical means
that you might be able to do it, but I don’t think that we are considering
those at this point and time. So I would
urge my colleagues to defeat this motion.
John Mouton: Please identify yourself for the record.
Virginia O’Leary, Psychology.
Jim Bradley: I
also would like to speak strongly against this change, for the reasons that
have already been given. The change does
state that arguments for and against motions, resolutions, etc. will be
included in the instructions for voting, but it doesn’t stipulate who will
frame those arguments – I presume that it will be the Secretary – but I
strongly believe that there is absolutely no substitute for being at the
meeting; hearing the arguments from the people making the arguments in the
sequence in which they were made.
Herb Rotfeld:
As I look at the passage of the last motion with a number of people here
that rarely come – or I should say that I don’t recognize them as coming – I
guess that is beside the point. Let’s
talk about what we are passing on here.
Resolutions – that is what we are most dealing with. I rarely remember a motion coming before the
faculty meeting. What are the resolutions? The faculty making a statement? When we have something that is an important
resolution, we have reporters here, and they go back to the newspapers or it
comes out of here, and says, …“at the General Faculty Meeting, the faculty
voted to censure the Board of Trustees; honor someone that they felt strongly
about.” Now, we would have with the
passage of this change -- we would come out of our faculty meeting and, well we
sort of discussed it and there was kind of these views here and three days
later, we would quietly have an announcement from the Secretary that this vote
was held – no attention and not much of a statement.
Cindy Brunner:
Thanks, Herb. You gave me some ideas here. I don’t think that what we need to be dealing
with here today is trying to make a statement in the newspaper. I don’t think that is how we should approach
decision-making and discussion in advance of those decisions. I plan to vote in favor of this change. It is true that when the faculty and
attendance at a University Faculty Meeting vote to censure the Board of
Trustees, it makes the news. But rarely
makes the news is that there were actually – I don’t even remember what the
vote was that day because I was having an emergency appendectomy – but it was,
say, on the order of 190 faculty who vote to censure the Board of Trustees –
lost between the lines is the fact that there are what, 2000 faculty at Auburn
University. Anybody know the actual
number? Pete has left already.
Unknown Speaker:
It depends on how you count. [Laughter]
Cindy Brunner:
It depends on how you count – but let’s say better than 1000
anyway. So, we are talking at best –
except for those of us who have been 21 years and remember things like votes of
no confidence – it is rare that we have an attendance at a University Faculty
Meeting that exceeds 100 much less two or three hundred. I really have a problem with someone
advancing the decisions made at a University Faculty Meeting as representing
the decisions of the entire faculty at Auburn University. I would very much like to see a means that
would allow the entire university faculty a more convenient way of expressing
their opinion in those situations.
Missy Josephson, Anatomy, Physiology, and
Pharmacology: I agree that there should be discussion. I
agree that there should be people here at the meeting, but before I became a
Senator, I was one of the people who did not come; because it had no meaning in
my life. When there are important
issues, it will bring the people who want to express their opinions. As far as voting goes, I anticipate that the
people who aren’t here now probably won’t vote either. I doubt that it will change the outcome of
anything, whether there is computer voting or not. And the end result is still going to be that
a minority of the faculty is making the decisions for the rest of the faculty
at the University – and that is just the reality. If we do draw in new people who read the
discussions and decide to vote when they wouldn’t have otherwise, then I think
that is a small victory.
Katherine Flynn,
David Carter, History: I
agree in matters of precedence that absentee balloting certainly has a place –
but when I hear the term “convenient” linked to notions of participatory
democracy, I am somewhat troubled. I
think that if we look at newly emerging democracies in places where people may
wait in line for 18-hours, or two or three days, to cast a ballot that
convenience is not the most important measure, and that if we are to be an
informed faculty, those who care most about the issues have to look beyond
convenience and make an attempt to be present at the meetings. So I would encourage everyone to vote against
this measure.
Jim Bradley:
Paula, I would like to offer an amendment to this motion and that is to
insert one word, the word “verbatim,” in front of the word “arguments” in the
fifth line.
John Mouton: Is there any second to that?
So, we are going to open discussion on the amendment to the
resolution. We will call for a question
on the resolution. All in favor say aye.
Jim Bradley:
We need to vote on the amendment.
John Mouton: On the amendment. I’m sorry – All in favor of the amendment …
Jim Bradley:
Wait a minute. Is the any
discussion on the amendment?
John Mouton:
We asked for discussion and there was none.
Jim Bradley:
Oh, I didn’t hear you say that. I
would just like to say that although I have offered this amendment, I plan to
vote against the resolution. I hope this
will minimize the damage.
John Mouton:
All in favor of the amendment raise your hand please. [Audience voting by show of hands]
Opposed please raise your hand. [Audience voting by show of hands]
The amendment passes. Is there any more discussion on the
motion? We have got a call for the
question.
We will ask everyone in favor of the
motion, please raise your hand. [Audience
voting by show of hands]
Please keep your hands up. Okay, you can put your hands down please.
All opposed to the motion please raise
your hand. [Audience voting by show of hands] Okay, you can put your hands
down please.
Abstentions, please. Okay, we have got one abstention. Thank you. You can put your hands down now.
That motion didn’t pass. The numbers are 31 votes for; 18 votes
against; 1 abstention.
Unknown Speaker:
Is there a set number?
John Mouton: It has got to be two-thirds of the people voting. We have got a Discussion Item real quickly.
Discussion Item
Paula Sullenger: Yes, just very briefly.
When I was doing the investigation for the wording of this, I noticed
that several other Faculty Handbooks enumerated a little bit more clearly which
were actually the voting faculty and ours didn’t. https://auburn.edu/administration/governance/senate/faculty_definition.htm At the last meeting, there was indication
that people were interested in that topic.
Very quickly, right now, everyone who is in a tenure track or non-tenure
track position is on the AU Profs mailing list – the “aupmail” which you get
information on that I send out. For
tenure track positions, and remember that these numbers can change daily as
people leave or as they change their positions, so on tenure track titles it
would be very easy to enumerate. We have Assistant and Associate Professors,
Librarians, and Archivist I, II, III and so forth. When you get into the non-tenure track titles
though, it is a bit more complicated. I
just tried to make this fit on one page – like tenure track, we have 12-month
full-time, 12-month slightly less than full-time, 9-month full time, 9-month
less than full-time, and a couple of other categories that I am not real sure
about. But an enumeration wouldn’t
exactly fit into anything right now, unless we could collapse these a whole lot
more than I was able to just over the last couple of days. There were other issues that people have
brought up about: what is “main campus”; should there be a consideration of
percentage of time – 50%, 75% appointments and so forth – if anyone would like
to discuss that right now, we could – or everything could just drop here,
because I can’t proceed any further without some kind of motion from the
faculty. I hear no clamor for … Okay.
Conner Bailey: I
have a number of esteemed colleagues in my department who work for
Extension. They are Extension
Specialists, they are on this campus, they are members of the faculty, members
of my department, and have rank and tenure.
No question that they vote. I saw
in your lists, I believe, County Agents – people who might not be on campus,
and I am remembering what you showed us – and I looked back at it again in our
Handbook – about what is the definition of faculty – and the phrase “main
campus” does appear. So, this is
something that I don’t have an answer to but it is, of course, a very significant
question. There are – I don’t know what
the numbers are – but there are many people who are County Agents I, II, and
III; County Agent Coordinators; District Coordinators and the like – and they
are faculty with the rights to buy football tickets – I don’t know if that is
the same thing as being “main campus” for purposes of our Handbook and
Constitution. I just raise the question.
Paula Sullenger: I personally always took “main campus” to mean, non-AUM, not paid
out of AUM, but it is ambiguous. But
again, without a mandate from this body, I am not prepared to do any more work
on this. Okay.
Bill Daniels, Fisheries and Allied
Aquaculture: I think
this is a very important issue. It is a
very confusing issue when we are trying to deal with issues around campus. I was revising the graduate faculty criteria
and the question came up as to who is faculty and who is not. Depending on what you are looking at – you
may or may not be faculty based on definitions that are used on campus. But for lack of time, I don’t think that we
have the time to deal with that today.
Paula Sullenger: I
am Secretary until March. I am willing
to revisit this, as I said, but I have to have a strong mandate somehow and
maybe at the March meeting, if anyone feels strongly about it, they can bring
forth a motion to do something.
Larry Gerber:
Paula and John, this is just a suggestion, but I think that a lot of
people recognize this as a significant issue, and we are clearly not going to
deal with it right now – and you shouldn’t be dealing with it as an individual
– I don’t believe. I think it would not
be inappropriate for the Chair of the Faculty to appoint a committee to examine
the Handbook wording as to the definition of faculty and not just have it as
your project. That would be my – and I
don’t even believe that a formal motion is necessary. The Chair of the Senate and the Chair of the
Faculty could choose to do that at his own discretion.
Paula Sullenger: Thank you, Dr. Gerber.
John Mouton: Is
there any other business to come before the General Faculty. There being none, this meeting is
adjourned. Thank you for your
attendance. [Meeting adjourned at
Adjournment