Auburn University Senate Meeting

January 13, 2004

3:00 p.m.

 

 

Members Absent:  Lee Evans, Dean, School of Pharmacy; Sheri Downer, Interim Dean of Libraries; Martha Taylor, A&P Assembly Chair; Leanne Lamke, Steering Committee; AAES Representative; Mario Lightfoote, ACES; Anoop Sattineni, Building Sciences; James Guin, Chemical Engineering; Rik Blumenthal, Chemistry; Renée Middleton, Counseling and Counseling Psychology; Jack DeRuiter, Pharmacal Sciences; Marllin Simon, Physics; Vivian Larkin, Rehabilitation and Special Education; Thomas White, ROTC - Air Force.

 

Members Absent (Substitute):  Bob McGinnis (Wil Miller), VP for Development; Fran Kochan (Bob Rowsey), Interim Dean, College of Education; Emmett Winn (David Sutton), Communication and Journalism; Charles Taylor (Bernie Olin), Pharmacy Practice.

 

Call to Order 

 

The meeting was called to order at 3:00 p.m. by the chair, John Mouton.

 

John Mouton, Chair of the Senate:             I’ll call the meeting to order; the first business of order is the approval of the minutes.  The minutes are on the senate home page for both November 11, 2003, and December 11, 2003.  Are there any corrections, additions, or deletions?  Please …

 

Richard Penaskovic, Philosophy [Not at Microphone]:  [Inaudible]

 

John Mouton:  Paula [Sullenger], would you respond to that please on the microphone?

 

Paula Sullenger, Secretary of the Senate:   I think the previous speaker is confusing the actual minutes – the transcripts which were put out – and the unofficial notes that I write up just to give people an idea of what went on in the meeting.  I always concentrate on what was said and not who said it.

 

John Mouton:  The transcripts of these meetings are posted now, and they do list the speaker.  Thank you.  The announcements for the President’s Office are going to be made by Provost Tom Hanley.

 

Announcements

 

President’s Office — Thomas Hanley, Provost:    Timing is everything … Thanks, John; I was tired of waiting back there.  [Audience Laughter]  I get a chance to speak twice today.  The first thing I want to talk about is the current thing, I think you will remember that when I interviewed for the job and in subsequent discussions, we’ve talked about ramping up the assessment process here.  So, what I want to bring you up-to-date on is what we’re doing now in an effort to start that assessment process on the campus – and to give you some idea of what to expect.  Is Drew – Drew [are] you here? Drew Clark (Office of Assessment) in my office is going to be running in front for most of these assessment things for me.  The first thing I’ve asked Drew to do is what amounts to a zero-based budgeting analysis.  If you – most of you know the way the budget’s done on campus – we typically do an incremental budget every year.  There is a lot of logical reasons to do that, but on occasion, we would like to know what our zero base is, and what it should be.  So, the first analysis we are going to run is what’s called a minimum teaching requirement (MTR). What this – how this is generated is working with the deans and the department chairs; we take the faculty in the department, we calculate the maximum amount we would like to see that faculty member teach – and that is in light of all the other requirements that are on faculty.  The best example that I can give you is, of course, in engineering where the typical accreditation agency in engineering doesn’t want the average engineering faculty member teaching more than half-time.  That leaves the other half-time for other activities including research and service and outreach if outreach is done.

 

If you figure out the maximum load that a person could teach and then we go in and divide that number into the minimum number of courses that we have to teach in a given year to deliver all of the curricula, we come up with a number which is called the minimum teaching requirement (MTR).  That gives us the lowest end – the lowest common denominator of the number of faculty we need to operate those programs.  One of the things that we will do is, of course, I don’t think anybody wants to be operating at the minimum, and so we would like to see most of the functioning departments operating at some multiple of the minimum.  In my past job, we looked at 1.5 times the minimum.  But, this gives us a concept and an idea of what the minimum number of people we need to keep the program viable; that includes your Bachelor’s, and your Master’s, and Ph.D. programs – any program that is currently being offered.  So, Drew is in the process now of collecting that data based on the 2003-2004 academic year data that we currently have right now.  The other side to that is working with the dean’s and the chairs – is to go in and do an assessment of the number – of the resources that are available in each of the operating units.  The dean’s are – we’re starting to that that now to get those resources in place.  So, this is the first piece of the puzzle that we are going to do.

 

The second piece which is something that is near and dear to the heart of several people in the room – Dr. Mouton being one – is that we are going to do a very cursory analysis of capacity.  Steve McFarland has generated the current enrollments in all the degree programs, and the – am I going blind or did the lights go out?  Thank you.  We’re then going to send this out to the various units and ask them to project the maximum number of students that could be handled with existing resources.  And so, for instance, if you’re operating a B.S. [Bachelor of Science] program, we’re going to try and figure out what the maximum capacity that B.S. [Bachelor of Science] program is.  Where we are now – I think most of us are convinced that we’re probably operating at or near the maximum at the freshmen and maybe the sophomore years; that there may be some capacity at the junior and senior year, depending on what we find.  But this will give us at least a cursory number of what we can do with what we have as far as enrollment goes.  I think that issue is going – could in fact – come to play in the near future, and think we’d all like to know what that number is.  So, this is a very easy analysis.  It’s based on opinion, but that number will be out, too.

 

The third analysis that we are doing will then be a performance assessment – and we will then go in and look at the various resources that are available and will do a calculation on how well those resources are performing.  Now, the – as I told Drew [Clark] this morning, we’re going to make sure everybody has the cheat sheet on this.  We’re going to make sure everybody understands how these analyses work.  The reason for it is – is that they’re not designed to be – they’re designed to gather information, and in my past job the MTR [minimum teaching requirement] in particular was designed to protect departments.  Primarily because we were in a situation – budget cuts – where an across-the-board budget cut might, in fact, run an existing program down below the minimum number of people if that cut is made across-the-board.  My former institution had a nasty habit of doing that.  So, this is designed to give a minimum to protect the programs that we have at some minimum level.

 

The department performance or the college performance assessment on the other end is a balancing analysis which says – okay, whatever resources you have – how well are you using them?  The result is if you make an adjustment to one that improves it, you typically knock the other one down.  They tend to balance each other.  So, change in activities to improve the performance might in fact decrease the MTR – and vice versa.  So, once these two analyses are out there, we can – it gives the deans and the chairs a tool to look at how the programs are functioning.  I think that we need to have those numbers.  Now, I am aware of the Texas-Alabama study on department size, and we are going to try to make some correlations between that – the advantage of the MTR is that it is entirely local.  It is what we do here, and what I’ve found in comparing ourselves to other universities is that they aren’t in exactly the same situation that we’re in.  The other thing that you have to take into account is when we compare programs – different programs at the same university have more cohesiveness – than say programs in agriculture at two different universities.  We might not be able to make appropriate comparisons just looking at program to program, but I think inside the university that we can make those analyses.  So, those are the three things that are coming down right now.  We hope to have those done, in place, and as far as I am concerned, it’s open information; it won’t be secret information.  If you want a copy of it, you are more than welcome to have it; and like I said, I know Drew [Clark] is going to be a very busy person trying to explain how these things work, but we want to make sure that everyone understands how the analyses work – and that as we go through we will probably see some checks and balances – some improvements made to this system – because as with any analysis, it’s not perfect and we’re going to take what we have and try to make the most out of it, and improve it as we go.  Can I answer any questions before I sit down on that particular initiative?  Yes, sir …

 

Doug White, Nutrition and Foods:  [Inaudible] minimum teaching requirements.  Do you take into account for service courses that have multiple sections?

 

Thomas Hanley:  The things that would count are – you would get credit for all the required courses that you teach; you would get credit for all multiple sections that you teach because of enrollment; you would get credit for all service courses that you offer; you would get credit – there is also credit for what people call a “drag section” – some programs have a first course that typically has a higher than normal failure rate, and so you offer a “drag section” to let the students stay in the curriculum and have a second try; those are included.  We typically include one set of electives.  So, if your program has twelve (12) hours of electives, you’d get twelve (12) hours of credit, but you probably want to teach twenty-four (24) or thirty-six (36) but you get credit for the twelve (12) because we going at the bare minimum – and that’s why in looking at this – what we’re at here is the bare minimum, and we don’t want anybody to operate at that figure – but it does give us a number that we can latch on to.

 

University Senate Chair – John Mouton:  Okay, I’ve got probably three or four announcements.  The first one is to ask the Senators about nominations for the Rules Committee; it is a two year term.  Nomination will be made at the February meeting and elections held at the March meeting.  All nominees must be Senators at the time that they are nominated.  So, we are looking for nominations.

 

Next topic is SACS Reaffirmation.  An open session for the faculty to meet with the visitation team will be scheduled the afternoon of Monday, February 23.  We’ll have more information at our February 10 meeting.  You may have read or heard that there was a SACS person on campus last week – actually, he was here for a few hours on Thursday.  He is the head of the visitation team; the meeting was about logistics and how they are going to schedule to take care of all the work that needs to be done.

 

On January 27, two weeks from today, there will be a University Faculty meeting.  The meeting is scheduled from 2:30 to 4:00 o’clock because of the Franklin Lecture and another use of this room.  The topic is Auburn’s plan to comply with the requirements of the SACS Probation. The Executive Committee is going to meet tomorrow to finalize the agenda.  I might mention that both the Executive Committee and the Steering Committee are meeting tomorrow, and I’ll come back to that in just a second.

 

A statement regarding the probation was posted on our website yesterday.  At the Administrative Council meeting yesterday – and I attend this meeting – it’s now once a month and it is the administrators of the university.  I raised questions and emphatically stated the need to communicate a clear plan to resolve the probation requirements.  As well as the importance of not pursuing legal remedies any further.  I would like to note that there were several key administrators that supported the position that was taken.  I’m going to meet later this week with [Board of Trustees] President Pro Tem [Earlon] McWhorter, and we’re going to have discussions along the same line.  I’m going to encourage the Board to take this opportunity to go beyond the probation requirements in order to restore confidence in the governance of our institution.  The Board meets on February 6 and probation will be on the agenda.  I think the one thing that’s a struggle for our university right now is the Board cannot meet outside of either regular or special meetings – they’ve got a meeting February 6.  They’re not in a position to take any action now, but I hope to have some communication – I will have some communication.  Two individuals have suggested to me that we endorse the Alumni Board’s plan.  I’ve studied the probation requirements in a lot of detail – I’ve actually dissected them, and looked into them, and I’m going to make an editorial comment on the back end.

 

One of the things that I think is that I think there is some issues that the Alumni raised that may not be consistent with what is actually stated in the probation, and I think that there’s some other opportunities.  I’ve identified seven things that I think we need to communicate to actually Dr. Walker – since we are advisory to Dr. Walker – one of the reasons for meeting with both the Executive Committee and the Steering Committee tomorrow is to make a determination about how we are going to move forward, and I will trust their counsel on that.  But, anyway we will look at those issues.

 

Before I take any questions, the last statement is tomorrow begins a six-week – a series of six weekly meetings regarding freshmen and transfer enrollment for next year.  As Dr. Hanley pointed out, it’s been something that I have been very interested in and have been a watch-dog – I’m actually not a member of the committee, but they do allow me to sit in and occasionally allow me to speak, and I appreciate that.  So, anyway those are my announcements, and I’ll take questions if there are questions.  Please, would you come to the microphone?

 

Judy Sheppard, Steering Committee:  John, tell us more about the possibility of further legal remedy that you mentioned.

 

John Mouton:  One of the things is if you read all the documentation on the SACS issue, okay, there was a consent decree.  The last statement in the consent decree was that at the end of the SACS action – whatever SACS decided to do – there was the opportunity for either side to return to court and take legal remedies.  Okay?  Ever since the probation has come out, I have been strongly advocating to those who listen, that that not be an alternative that’s being considered – and I don’t have any information that it is – okay; but I think that, you know, if you look at the history of what has happened up until then, to me it kind of looms in the background – and I think it’s something that required a strong position even though there was no inclination necessarily to the other direction.

 

Judy Sheppard:  Maybe the Senate ought to make a statement about that.  I would hope most people would feel that would be just disastrous route to take.

 

John Mouton:   Well, we could do that; I’m going tell you that I have spoken for this group, and for all, I mean, I don’t think there’s any doubt that all of the faculty feel very, very strongly about that, and what I will tell you is that there are other people in the administration and elsewhere that also feel very strongly about it.  Dr. Hanley, you’re up again.

 

Information Items

 

Thomas Hanley:   John, thank you, what I’d like to do is to give everyone an update of the activities that are going on with planning and assessment.  I think most of you know the President has appointed a commission – a committee to do the next five-year plan.  I chair that committee.  John, I would ask that the members of that committee be included in the minutes of this Senate meeting.  I don’t have them all with me right now, but there’s about ten people on the committee, and we’re going to be meeting probably on a weekly basis for the first month or so and then maybe a less hectic pace after that.  [Planning and Priorities Commission shown below]

 

AUBURN UNIVERSITY

PLANNING AND PRIORITIES COMMISSION

 

MEMBERSHIP

The Commission will serve for at least five years and will provide recommendations to the President for development of a five‑year plan as well as provide oversight for the implementation and ongoing assessment of the plan.

 

STEERING GROUP

Provost (chair) Thomas R. Hanley

                Executive Vice President Donald L. Large, Jr.

                Vice President for Research C. Michael Moriarty

                Vice President for Outreach David Wilson

                Vice President for Student Affairs Wes Williams

                Dean (selected by President from a list nominated by deans) two year term

                                Dean Dan Bennett

 

Five distinguished faculty (selected by President from a list of nine nominated by the Senate)                          

                                Professor Joseph A. Buckhalt

                                Professor Terry A. Byrd

                                Professor Curtis Jolly

                                Professor Chris Rodger

                                Professor Donna L. Sollie

                                Professor Linda Glaze

 

RESOURCE GROUP           

Special Assistant to the President

                Director, Alabama Cooperative Extension System

                Director, Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station

                President, Student Government Association

                President, Graduate Student Organization

                Vice President for Alumni Affairs

                Vice President for Development

                Director of Assessment

                Executive Director, Planning and Analysis

Assistant Provost, Multicultural Affairs

                Director, Intercollegiate Athletics

                Representative from Staff Council

                Representative from Administrative and Professional Assembly

                Chair, University Senate

 

But the concept is that the President would like to have this five-year plan in some form of near state completion toward the end of April  or the first of May.  So, we have about three or four months to finish this up and it’s going to take quite a bit of work to do that.  Let me tell you where we are right now, and then I’ll try to answer questions.  By the way, you have the opportunity – faculty will have the opportunity to impact this planning through a variety of sources because there are faculty representatives on the committee.  You will have the list of the people that are one the committee and I would encourage you to make sure that your thoughts are known.  As we go through the process, I think you’ll see an idea where you’re going to have the opportunity to have input.

 

The first thing that the committee is doing is we are reviewing the mission statement and the AUCUPS strategies to determine if these are adequate for the planning that we are going to do in the next five years; my cursory review of the mission statement in the AUCUPS is that they are.  The mission statement is rather general, the AUCUPS, if you’ve read it, it basically says that we’re going to do a lot of wonderful things – all the time – to everyone.  So, I think we can probably fit a plan into that.  It’s broad enough that I don’t think we need to go in with any significant changes in what’s in AUCUPS.  But the committee is going to be doing that and looking at those to make sure that the basic documents that we are going to use for the planning are in place.

 

The second thing we’re going to do is that we are going to evaluate the Peaks program for 1999-2004.  We’re going to look at the program; we are going to see how well those Peaks areas were funded, and how effective they were.  We are going to then make a decision to either recommend expanding, adding, or deleting certain areas of the Peaks program that were funded in the last five years.  I would think from what I know at the present time that these programs would either be left as they are if they’ve been successful – or added to slightly.  The other thing that we are trying to do is that we’re trying to expand the scope of the various Peaks to include more people on campus.  An example I will give you, and there’s numerous examples, but let’s take the one in sustainability that was operated primarily in Forestry.  I’d like to see us – if we’d like to stay with that – I’d like to see us pursue a Peak in sustainability period.  Where the Forestry sustainability program is one of the programs that we’ve funded, but now look for other things that we can do to add sustainability image to the university.  One of the things that we are trying to do – and I know I wasn’t here when you did it, but I was at another university when we did it, and the first thing that comes out is –“we’re not included in the program.”  Well, I’d hope that we’re not going to say that after this round, and one way to make it inclusive is to try to make the Peaks a little bit broader to give everyone an opportunity to participate.  The second thing, of course, is what we’re saying to you is that you have some expertise and you’ve typically applied that in certain areas.  Take a look at the Peaks program and see if you can apply your expertise in an area that the university is trying to focus in.  So, while you traditionally haven’t done work in the area, it might be appropriate for you to take your expertise to that area because in all likelihood it is needed.  So, there’s two things we are trying to do here: broaden a little bit to get more people in, and to encourage people who maybe haven’t felt included to include themselves in the next round.  We hoped – what we’re going to do is – Dr. Moriarty and Dr. Pritchett were available for all of the Peaks reviews.  We have the reports; we’re going to review all of the reports on the committee; we’re then going to have Dr. Moriarty and Dr. Pritchett come in with an assessment of how well they thought the programs ran and then we’ll use that as a starting point.  Dean Bennett brought up the fact that there were three Peaks programs that were effectively approved and not funded and the answer to that is

those Peaks programs are more than likely going to be included for consideration as we move forward in this Peaks program.  So, if they were a good idea five years ago and the mission of the university hasn’t changed significantly, they are probably still a good idea now.  That does not impair us though from adding new program initiatives.

 

So, how is this going to work?  Well, the Peaks program, for the most part, is a research graduate student initiative, and this is going to overlay the strategies that we are going to do.  But, the next thing is to set – I can’t read my own handwriting, so let me get my glasses out.  

We’re going to set tentative five-year objectives; they’re going to be mostly quantitative; things that we will include – we’ll include enrollment, undergraduate, graduate, professional, outside research funding, new construction, and renovation (including the airport).  But, we will go through the list of all the things that we’d like to do.  One of the things, if I have anything to do with it, on it will be faculty salaries.  We will have an initiative in the five-year plan that deals directly with faculty salaries.  That’s because, I think in my cursory review, and I’ve only had a chance – Margaret won’t let me see the budget yet, but I got – I snuck in and got a look at it the other day all by myself.  So, I think that there’s a significant to continue to increase faculty salaries on the campus.  So, I hope to include that in the planning process.

 

What we hope to do is to then take those tentative five-year objectives, and let’s say one of them is that we want to raise the graduate student enrollment here to 5,000 students.  That’s probably one that’s going be on there primarily because we have about 3,500 students and the trustees have indicated they’d like to see us have 5,000 students.  So, we will have that on as a tentative agenda item.  What we’ll then happen as these tentative agendas will float down to the deans, to the department chairs, and to the faculty.  We will solicit proposals on how you are going to meet this particular need; if you have a way of adding 20 graduate students, how you are going to do that, and what’s it going cost.  We will then bring the proposals up through the process, through the chairs, through the deans, and of course you are going to see a pyramiding effect.  We expect to have a lot of proposals and as it moves up it’s going to get a little narrower at the top.  [At] this point, we have a set of things that we would like to do that number one meets our objectives, and the other thing I’ll point out is let’s say we get back responses from the faculty, and we can’t add up to 5,000 graduate students.  Well, then I think we’re going to have to change that objective.  So, what I don’t want to do is, I don’t want to set quantitative goals for the university that we don’t think we can do or don’t have the money to push in place.  So, if it comes back and we can only go to 4,000 graduate students, fine.  That’s what we are going do, and we’ll alter that based on the input we’ll get from you.  Once we have those in place then I think the question is – is where are the funds going come from over the next five years?  I’ve talked to Dr. Large about that, and if you’ve talked to Dr. Large about money, you’ll find him typically non-communicative.  Okay?  [Audience laughter]  To have so much money, he doesn’t like to talk about it; I don’t understand that, but I’m just teasing, Don.

 

Don and I have had a discussion about this before, and what we think is with all the pressures, especially in 2005, that we anticipate on the budget that a lot of the money that we’re going to have to put into the program – into the five year plan – is there is going to be some reallocation inside the university.  Because any new monies that we get most likely are going to be focused on handling the year to year budget increases, perhaps faculty salaries, there are other issues that are going to take [Inaudible].  So, we have to look and anticipate what our budget needs are going to be for the next five years over and above what we do in the Peaks program, and then try to find a way to fund it.  Now, hopefully, Dr. Large can find all the money that we can possibly spend and that we’ll be able to fund initiatives.  But, chances are we will have “x dollars” in the first year; we will take the “x dollars” and will apply it to the top rated proposals that we get.  We will fund those; we will go for six to eight months; we will assess how well those are doing; if we have a second-round of funding, we’ll fund the next level programs.  What we’ll try to do is progressively over five years add funds to the program – assessing as we go.

 

Now the one reason that we have to assess while we go is - I don’t know about you all, I have never seen a five-year plan where I got to the second year.  We’ll have a one-year plan, and we’ll see how well we are doing, and then we’ll make the second-year plan.  I think it’s perfectly legitimate to have five-year goals, and we’re going to have five year goals; but I think we think we have to do the planning year-by-year seeing where we are and, of course, if any of you know what’s going to happen economically in the state of Alabama over the next five years, we would love to have you on the committee.  So, please send me a note, and I’ll see if I can get you on there.  In light of the fact that we’re probably not going to know then I think it’s prudent for us to think about following this and assessing this as we go.

 

I’m very positive about this; I think the process is going to work. The nice thing about it, I hope that you all will participate in pushing ideas forward and get those ideas incorporated into the plan.  If we do this the right way, and we cycle every year, eventually people forget whether this is a bottom-up or top-down planning mode; it’s just a university planning mode that rolls in a circle and we depend, quite frankly, on the faculty and the departments and the deans to generate the ideas and then our responsibility is to try to pick the best of those ideas; find the funding for them; put them in place; put the money back down where the rubber meets the road and go to the next round.  So, if we can do that, I’m going to be very pleased.  Let’s all hope that this process can be in place by May, and let’s hope that the funding scenario for ’04-05 looks pretty good.  I’ll be happy to answer any questions.

 

John Mouton:  The next topic is brought to us by the Student Government Association and it is going to be presented by Will Gaither, who is a Building Science major in our program, and I’m always glad to see our Building Science majors in a suit because it is a rare occasion.

 

Will Gaither, Vice President, Student Government Association:  Okay, first of all I want to thank you for letting us join you today.  My name is Will Gaither, and I am the Vice President of the Student Government Association.  Here with me is Tyler O’Connor, who is a student that serves on the university committee, the Academic Honesty Committee, or Dishonesty Committee (laughing).  I just want to brief you all a little bit, and then I will let Tyler take over, because he has put so much time into this.  As all of you know, we have an Academic Honesty Code or Honor Code that is already in place.  And as many of you could assume and do know, there are students who either ignore this Code or plead ignorance and there are problems that we have that result in punishments, too.  Basically what we’ve done is; students have taken the initiative, and Tyler, along with our Academic Affairs Committee, has done a lot of research and taken the initiative, with an attempt to make this Honor Code more visible.  So as he presents…we had a resolution pass December 8th, and it passed unanimously through our Student Senate.  We will share that with y’all, along with the statement that we are proposing, and then open the floor for any questions.  So again, thank you, and I’m just going to turn it over to Tyler.

 

Tyler O’Connor, Student Representative on the Academic Honesty Committee:  Like Will said, we do have an Honor Code here at Auburn.  Unfortunately, we are pretty much, along with people involved, are the only students that know that.  And that’s the truth.  Having sat on the Academic Honesty Committee with Dr. Erica Jackson… don’t know if she’s here today or not but I believe she came up here and spoke to you all before Christmas break.  We have case after case, Ms. Spencer up in the Provost’s office is backlogged with cases, and in many of those cases, the student will come in and they will have no idea what they’ve done.  And if they have any idea, they won’t know that that is wrong.  And so, I mean, the key word that he used is “ignorance” – really.  We have kids come in all the time that just have no idea what plagiarism is, what cheating is, and you know, you can take it back and blame it on the high schools or whatnot, but somewhere along the line there’s a miscommunication and people aren’t getting the message.  So what we’ve done is we’ve taken the initiative, along with Jonathan McConnell, our SGA President.  What we did is over the summer, kind of thought about how to make this more visible.  We did a lot of research into a lot of other schools, and we took the lead from Vanderbilt and William and Mary and UVA and schools like Washington & Lee that have just stellar honor codes that are respected within their school and throughout the nation.  The key trend between them all was that they had an Honor Pledge.  There was something that was binding to each and every student, and that binding was constantly being made aware to them on tests, quizzes, and syllabus.  In realizing that and in realizing the need for one here at Auburn, and the lack of visibility, we kind of went to the drawing board and drew up one that we thought would characterize the kind of feel and the tone of integrity that we, as Auburn men and women, strive to achieve.  With that, I’ll ask Will to put it up.

 

[Resolution passed by Student Senate, projected on screen]:

WHEREAS, Auburn University prides itself as a top tier institute of higher education and acknowledges the need for integrity in such an environment; and

 

WHEREAS, in striving to maintain its due accreditation and success, Auburn University pledges to set the example within the Southeastern Conference and throughout the nation as a University grounded in the principles of duty and honor; and

 

WHEREAS, we as a University and Auburn Family are proudly bound to such authenticity set forth in The Auburn Creed by stating, “I believe in Honesty and Truthfulness, without which I cannot win the respect and confidence of my fellow men;” and

 

WHEREAS, an existing honor code presides over each Auburn University student, yet lacks the visibility, respect, and obligation carried by an Oath of Honor; and

 

WHEREAS, the intent of such an Oath is simply to instill a code of conduct so rich in honor and integrity that one’s walk with virtue not stall upon graduation, but rather propel him or her into society as an example of those principles Auburn men and women hold most dear; therefore, be it

 

RESOLVED, first, through the consent of the Student Senate, as a representative and protective body over the rights of each student, the following be adopted as the Auburn University Oath of Honor:

 

In accordance with those virtues of Honesty and Truthfulness set forth
in the
Auburn creed, I, as a student and fellow member of the Auburn
family, do hereby pledge that all work is my own, achieved
through personal merit and without any unauthorized aid.  In the
promotion of integrity, and for the betterment of
Auburn, I
give honor to this, my oath and obligation.”

 

________________________

Signed

________________________

Dated

 

RESOLVED, second, that the presence of the Oath be made known to all students and that the signing of the pledge be effective Spring semester 2004 and first administered to incoming students at Camp War Eagle or any other first year transition; and

 

RESOLVED, third, that each student sign the Oath upon presentation of the individual syllabus by each instructor at the beginning of the semester, and that the signing further be encouraged at the instructor’s discretion on any other test, paper, or related assignment.

 

 

That’s it, two sentences.  Its length is about average for an Honor Pledge.  Your first sentence gets it all … you’ve got your pledge, and the bulk of it, you know, the basis behind it all is that statement:  “Do hereby pledge to all work as my own, achieve through personal merit and without any unauthorized aid”.  That’s it.  The second sentence is simply to hammer it home.  You know…almost make them feel as if they’ve got to buy into this, that this is a mark of Auburn and as an Auburn man or woman, we would like to see you buy into this.  So it’s just two sentences.

 

I’ll move on to what we would like to see done with this.  We’ve got a resolution; Will, if you’d put the resolution up – that we passed like he said unanimously through the Student Senate, the last session before Christmas break.  If you will look at the final two resolved…never mind.  The implementation is going to be key.  We have passed this through the Student Senate because it’s from the students, it’s for the students, and so that was our first step.  Our second step is here today – implementation - and without your enforcement, this is null and void.  We must have your support.  In addition to that, we must have your help in holding us accountable.

 

We are taking the step here; we have taken the initiative as students to hold ourselves more accountable, and we must have you there to allow us to hold ourselves accountable, if you will.  We have to have it implemented, and the way that we’ve got it done, if you look down to the second and third resolves – the way that we kind of thought it out was, that any first year transition period, whether it be Camp War Eagle, whether it be SOS, every new student at Auburn will be introduced to the Pledge and will be asked to sign the Pledge.  At Camp War Eagle in front of their parents, whether it be their first day as a transition student, they’ll be introduced to the Pledge and taught its background and its meaning, and then asked to sign it.  So that, from here out, the incoming students of Fall 2005, everyone out will have signed the Auburn University “Oath of Honor,” which is what we’re calling it.  And so that is the first step, first year transition periods, each new student, and then, after that, all we’ve really asked is that each teacher, as opposed to the normal, how do I say this, lack of, I don’t even know, I don’t even know exactly, instruction or what have you, on the syllabus every day, the first day of class, I get my syllabus and it says “Academic Honesty” in bold.  And then under that, it says, “Please refer to title so and so of article so and so of the Tiger Cub”.  I don’t have the Tiger Cub.  I suppose I could go get one, but I would be willing to suppose that most students don’t have a Tiger Cub, nor are they willing to go home and look up what it means to cheat and how Auburn is going to hold you responsible for that cheating.

 

That’s a big problem, because basically it’s a blurb in their memory, along with the rest of the syllabus.  It’s just getting shot through one time – (Audience laughter) just FYI (laughing).  So, what we ask is we will do the job of administering it to each incoming student.  What we would like to see each faculty member do is put it on the syllabus, whether it be on a separate sheet, whether it be under “Academic Honesty”, we would ask that you put this pledge here and that you explain it to them, and encourage the student to sign it.  That way, when I go in to my four or five classes, I’m going to sign it four or five times the first two days of school.  And that’s going to…if it’s not ingrained in my memory, then it’s going to be pretty visible to me and I will know that that’s there.  In addition to that, we would further ask you, and this is maybe up for debate, we would further ask – or we don’t even ask – we leave this up to your discretion after that.  After that it is entirely up to you….you may stamp it on any bluebook, test, paper, quiz, or any related assignment that you deem necessary.  It’s in your hands.  We ask that you put it on the syllabus so that we know each student gets it once at Camp War Eagle, and then four or five times with their classes, and then after that, you can stamp it in their memory as much as you want.  The only thing with that is that some will say over repetition will devalue the Pledge.  And that’s a valid argument.  We as a Student Senate, surprisingly, gave you the opportunity to do it any time you want.  You can do it four times if you like, but we would ask that you put it on the syllabus and then any time else besides that.

 

Some may have questions.  What if a student doesn’t sign the Pledge?  You know, we can’t very well make someone sign an oath.  My response to that is that if I’m a teacher, if I’m going to put myself in your position, if I’m a teacher and I see that 99 people out of my 100-student class signed the Pledge and one student didn’t, my ears are going to poke up and I’m going to say, “Well, this guy has given me the green light to look into his work.”  Students that don’t sign the Pledge and students that do sign the Pledge can’t be held to any different standard.  All this is…this doesn’t….If you sign the Pledge and you get caught cheating, you don’t get a worse punishment.  We can’t do that.  This falls under the jurisdiction of any University-sponsored Honesty Committee.  Right now, it’s the Academic Honesty Committee.  So this is basically is just an advertisement.  It’s a visible advertisement for the Code.  And students that don’t sign it, you know, won’t be punished any more or any less than the students that do.  We would hope that with its presence, the students would think twice about cheating, and at least they would know that Auburn University expects you not to cheat and will hold you accountable in response to that.

 

Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology:  I don’t want to address the specific honor oath that you’ve proposed because this is the first time I’ve seen it and I don’t really want to address the details of how you would implement it, but I do want to give you a word of encouragement.  You probably needn’t to have gone as far as Vanderbilt to find an institution that operates with a pretty strict honor code that’s actually adhered to in the program.  We’ve got one just down Wire Road.  Our students are all well aware of it, they have elections every year to constitute a Student Honor Court.  Those elections are very competitive, and the winners are held in high regard by their classmates.  We don’t do it here at Auburn, but I went through four years of Vet School at another institution.  I was 30 years of age when I graduated, and every single exam that I took in that program I signed a line that said I would adhere to the honor pledge, blah, blah, blah.  It wasn’t quite as flowery as what is being proposed here, but every single exam had a signature line that indicated that we were following the Honor Code, and it didn’t trivialize it.  I don’t know, maybe that’s a different situation in undergraduate students, but that little reminder, I think, put it up front in everybody’s minds again if it had gone to the back of their minds like you suggested.  So I say go for it.

 

Tyler O’Connor:  Thank you, and we did know that the Vet School did that; sorry, didn’t mean to overlook you.

 

Jim Saunders, Geology and Geography:  One other point, too.  I just happen to be aware that, maybe you’re not, that Auburn University used to have such a pledge.  But it was a long time ago.  It was abandoned, apparently, in the early 1920s along with hazing of freshmen at Auburn University, and I’m not sure why.  I do know that my uncle, who was editor of the student newspaper in 1922-23, was very upset that that was thrown out the window.  Apparently, Dr. Petrie had instituted it at Auburn.  I say right on!  You’re doing the right stuff here; it’s long overdue and we need to do something like that here.  Good job!

 

Melissa Brooks, Graduate Student Council:  I think you have sort of the right idea.  I think it is a little flowery.  I do have a problem with you implying that if a student does not sign it, that the professor therefore should feel that they are dishonest.  I think that it’s sort of a Big Brother effect, and that students should not be required to sign a statement.  But I do disagree about students who don’t know the academic policies here.  I’m a GTA, and I know that if you have any moral [inaudible] at all you know what’s right and what’s wrong [Inaudible] that a lot students tend to overlook the Academic Honesty and Academic Code of this University.  So, I think you’re on the right path, but I think that maybe you need to cut this down a little bit.  I’d also like to know what the next step is if someone is caught.  What do you plan to do?  Do you plan to have a student forum first, or will they go straight to the Academic Honesty or “Dishonesty Committee…as it were?

 

Tyler O’Connor:  No, if a student is caught it’s the same as if they’re caught today, without this Pledge.  This is so new, I mean it was created out of nothing, so it’s hard for me to mandate, you know, because it’s open for interpretation.  If a student doesn’t sign the Pledge, they don’t sign the Pledge.  We’re not making, I didn’t mean to come across and say we’re making people do this.  We can’t make someone sign an oath.  We can ask them to sign the oath, and if they don’t sign the oath, I’m not saying “guilty until proven innocent”, but I’m saying as a teacher, it turns a light on, because what this is saying is that I did this honestly.  If someone doesn’t sign it, it’s not saying that I didn’t do it honestly, but I don’t know how else to react.  You can’t hold anyone to a higher standard for signing it and for not signing it.  Ethical principles are intuitively placed within each person.  I know what cheating is, even though I don’t have to go look up the Tiger Cub.  I know what it is.  But a lot of students, you would be amazed, they come in front of this Committee having no idea.  No idea.  Copy and paste straight off the internet.  It’s so widespread that it’s become commonplace these days.  I mean, people copy and paste right off the internet, turn it in and put the web site, and assume that, because they’ve cited it, you know, great.  It’s their paper.

 

Christoph Hinklemann, Finance:  I’d also like to commend both of you for working on this.  I think it’s very, excellent from that standpoint.  The one question I had, or suggestion was; are you looking for students to only sign this Pledge or write out the whole Pledge?  Because I think there’s a big difference between these two things.  I think, as somebody previously mentioned, with repetition and things like that, we all sign things everyday that we don’t read whatsoever.  And I really wanted to suggest that be made something to think about.

 

Tyler O’Connor:  That’s a great question.  I don’t want to be the one to say whether we do or whether we don’t.  That’s up for us to decide.  You can almost drop the bottom sentence off and write the basis of the Pledge.  And that’s fine with me.  We’re here today I guess as an information item to show this to you and then we can do whatever we wish with it.

 

John Salvetti, ROTC-Army:  Let me give you West Point’s, and then follow up with a question.  West Point’s Code:  “I will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those that do.”  Did you guys think about a non-toleration clause?  Because that’s really huge for self-policing in the classroom.

 

Tyler O’Connor:  Yes sir, we sure did.  We actually talked to Dr. Hanley this morning about that.  It’s hard….that would be great.  The high school that I went to, you were just as guilty if you didn’t report someone, just like that.  It would be hard to go from not to all out, immediately, right now.  That would be great if we could do that, but I don’t know if it would be reasonable right off the bat.  I wish we could do that, and hopefully we can one day.  Maybe we can make a modification to it, or whatever.  I think that would be, not impractical but would be hard to expect students to go into that condition so fast.  I think it would be great if we could.

 

Norbert Wilson, Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology:  Once again, like others, congratulations.  It’s a good idea.  I attended a program at one point where every bluebook we would have to sign an oath similar.  But my concern is not so much about the Pledge itself, but in the beginning it was stated that there are students that don’t seem to understand whether the issues or whether the areas that a person can get in trouble – and I think that’s a problem.  It doesn’t seem to me to be the case that the Pledge will help them if the concern is “well, I didn’t know that I couldn’t do X, Y, or Z.”  How are you all going to actually do that or help students better understand beyond what this Pledge could actually do?

 

Tyler O’Connor:  That’s something that we need to think about, whether it be printing the entire Honor Code, you know unseen to most, in The Plainsman, we could do that.  We’ve pitched this to Dr. Walker, who has thrown his support behind it and is very excited about it.  One thing that he said, and is a good idea, is putting a report in The Plainsman, with it being the only news source and the loudest voice of the students beyond its faculty everyday.  Put a report in there saying that each semester we had 10 cases; 8 were plagiarism cases, these were the punishments and everything.  You can do that; you can print the entire Honor Code, as far as I’m concerned, in The Plainsman.  You can put it on your syllabus.  I don’t know.  This is basically a mouthpiece for the fact that we have one.  We expect you to work with integrity and with honor here at Auburn.

 

Bill Gale, Steering Committee:  As with everybody else, who has spoken, I thoroughly applaud you for addressing this issue and I think you’re certainly heading in the right direction.  I do explain to students at the start of a semester, both in writing and verbally, what cheating is, what plagiarism is.  I do remind them of this before every exam.  But there is another side to this issue as well, which you do want to think about, namely enforcement and penalties.  Having people understand what the rules are is very important, and it needs to be expressed in a simple and clear way.  But unless there’s also a reasonable confidence of people who cheat or plagiarize will be caught and that they’ll be punished severely, I don’t think you’ll stamp out the problem.  When I was going through college, the system was such, at least in examinations, the chance of cheats being caught was extremely high.  There were very stringent security measures, and the normal response to a first offense was expulsion from the university.  That did give people something to think about.  Thank you.

 

Judith Lechner, Educational Foundations, Leadership and Technology:  I had a very bad case of cheating last semester, and it made me realize that the web site that’s supposed to have the Academic Honor Code on it is no longer up.  So that’s another place where it really could be publicized.  It definitely needs to go back up.

 

Tyler O’Connor:  Yes, ma’am, and you know exactly what I’m talking about.  We sit on the Committee together, and I watch her.  This is all she does.  [Audience laughter]  I mean, it’s incredible.

 

Jim Saunders:  And while we’re in the planning mode…John, particularly this question may be addressed to you.  Can we look and entertain the idea in our Enrollment Management Department, which to me is an oxymoron, but that’s okay.  Seeing that if students have had past troubles with some of these issues in high school, is there a way to maybe prescreen some of those instead of just using ACT and GPA (grade point averages) and whatever else is being plugged into a computer to manage our enrollment?

 

John Mouton:  We have an Enrollment Management meeting tomorrow and I’ll ask that.

 

Bernie Olin, Substitute for Pharmacy Practice:  Again also, my congratulations on the very good initiative.  Just to let you know, the School of Pharmacy also deals with this issue.  We do have an Honor Code in place and we ask the students to sign it, basically before they start school, in their introduction and orientation period.  So any experience we can offer and help along the way, feel free to let us know.

 

Tyler O’Connor:  Thank you.  As far as the question was asked, “What happens next?”  Professor Mouton said the Board meets February 6.  We have spoken to Dr. Walker.  A few of the Trustees have been made aware that this was going to be pushed.  Nowhere along the way have we encountered anyone that had a big problem with it.  Everyone, like you said…this is good.  It means a lot more, I think, that it’s from the students and by the students and it’s for the students.  As far as what happens next – we’d like to see it proposed to the Board with the faculty’s consent, and with your approval, and with your support to the Board to be made as University policy.  In our third resolve, or in our second resolves; we would like to see it be made effective.  We were very optimistic that it be made effective Spring Semester.  Realistically, it will probably be the first students to see the Pledge will be Camp War Eagle this summer – realistically.  But we’d like to pitch it to the Board in resolution form so that they adopt it as University policy.  In the new Tiger Cub, that oath will be there on the front page next to the Creed.  We’re going to play our part making it visible, but we need to have your support in order to enforce it and administer it.

 

Herb Rotfeld, Marketing, Not a Senator:  Teacher of a course in the legal, social and ethical environment of business.  I want to be pragmatic here. How many students do not know the speed limit on I-85?  And how many of them are likely to be driving at 80 mph on a typical day as they go down that road?  I don’t know if you talked to many faculty here in terms of actual times that they’ve faced cases of cheating, but I have talked to, e-mailed with, and discussed things with a large number of them – and most of them will say, I brought a case once, never again, or I’ve had cases where I could’ve done something but I’m not going to bother.  The simple thing is the enforcement, the approach, is a pain.  It depends on the college.  Some colleges, or administrators, I should say, are driven by the students-are-always-right sort of attitude and the faculty is not supportive.  One colleague of mine that’s no longer here; she regularly tried to enforce it in her class and it was a major part of her life.  Just dealing with cases, and it is not a matter of student ignorance; it is a matter of enforcement.  That’s where we’re weak here.  It’s not student ignorance.  It’s a problem with just trying to enforce it.

 

Tyler O’Connor:  I know….sitting on the Committee, we have standards on the Committee.  I’d like the gentlemen here to be almost ruthless.  And I think students are almost harder on students within the Committee than faculty members are.  So I would beg to differ there.  I’d like to hear your input on how to make the process easier in reporting violations.  I’m sorry that there’s a bad taste in some people’s mouth.  I feel it should never be an excuse not to report a violation.  Maybe we can make that process a little easier.  I’m just a student.  I don’t run the…I don’t make it. (Laughter)

 

John Mouton:  I think the one thing is we have a University Academic Honesty Committee, and we’ve heard some things here that we need to make sure get back to them, and perhaps as part of the process of addressing that is we can include some students that have been engaged in this and see how they can help us improve the process.  Herb, I concur with your statements.  I think we’ve got to identify specifically what some potential solutions are, if in fact there are any.  We will certainly bring it to the Academic Honesty Committee.  Anybody else?  I’d like to thank you two fine gentlemen for coming here.  (Audience applause)

 

The next item on the agenda is another Information Item.  We had a discussion about the Intimate Relations Policy in November, and we have got a revise.  There were several suggestions, and we made an attempt to clean up the policy.  Paula Sullenger is going to present it, and I’ll just leave it up to her.

 

Paula Sullenger, Steering Committee:  The Steering Committee didn’t feel like we had a real clear sense of direction of where to go on this.  So what we did was, we tried to work on some of the words that people really had problems with, and see if people liked this wording better so we can have a…more likely to present something that people will pass at the next meeting.  I also included on the agenda, people had mentioned the harassment and nepotism policies that were already in the Handbook, so I had attached those to the agenda so people can review and see what they thought.  Anything that wasn’t addressed here was addressed on those other two policies.  So for that, we’re just going to open it up for discussion.

 

Proposed policy projected on screen:

Auburn University prohibits discourages all faculty, administrators and supervisors, including graduate teaching assistants, from pursuing engaging in romantic or sexual relationships with undergraduate students whom they are currently supervising or teaching.  Auburn University also prohibits discourages all faculty, administrators and supervisors from pursuing romantic or sexual relationships with graduate students and employee subordinates whose work they supervise.  Anyone involved in who intends to pursue a romantic or sexual relationship with someone over whom he/she has supervisory power must recuse him/herself from decisions that affect the evaluation, participation, employment conditions, instruction, grading and/or the academic status of the subordinate involved.

 

David Sutton, Substitute for Communication and Journalism:  I think the problem that I have with this policy is that there are no consequences for violating it.  If you look at a pack of cigarettes it tells you you’re going to get heart disease if you smoke.  But what happens if a faculty member or administrator or supervisor chooses to ignore this policy?  I would suggest that we add at least a sentence, something that sounds like, “Violation of this policy might subject an employee to disciplinary action up to and including discharge – or death by hanging – whichever.”  (Audience laughter)

 

John Mouton:  Is that on the record by recording?  So, we’ll have it for the Steering Committee.

 

John Mouton:  Dave, thank you.  The recording of that we have for the Steering Committee, so I’m not going to modify the statement, but we have that to bring to the Steering Committee.  Thank you very much.  Please…

 

Ruth Crocker, History:  I can’t quite see the top line, but I couldn’t have been more surprised if I’d seen a policy requiring female faculty to wear skirts and males to wear ties when they teach.  [It] seems to be clearly a step into the past.  Instead of prohibiting, we’re just discouraging – what could possibly cause such a shift back into the battle twentieth century.  So, could you tell us?  Secondly, there’s also a real problem – people’s intentions you’ve got half-way down here.  “Anyone involved who intends to pursue.”  How can we possibly police people’s intentions or even know what they are?  So we need to just say, “Anyone pursuing” I think would be better.  But this whole thing is just…..I mean, when I first saw it, I thought, well maybe they want us to talk about sex instead of SACS.  (Audience laughter)  Maybe, so perhaps just too much conspiracy thinking here.

 

John Mouton:  I will try to address that, and maybe some other people on the Steering Committee could help out.  I think that, as I understood it, one of the key issues is that relationships between somebody in responsibility and somebody they are responsible for should not exist in the University.  So that’s kind of a core, a core issue in this.  So the question then begins as you start to try and address this is you get to the lower part where it says “must recuse himself or herself from decisions that effect evaluation”, and I think the question is what happens if somebody doesn’t do that.  If somebody gets involved with a person that they have responsibility over, the relationship can continue if the responsibility relationship ends.  And I think that’s kind of what the bottom piece of this is.  When it was presented before, there was a contradiction between the top statement and the bottom statement, because what it said was if it was prohibited then how could you establish this criterion on the bottom end to make a recommendation?  So I think in the struggle to do that is where this idea about discourages comes.  The thing we have to recognize is that we were trying to struggle to deal with the input that we got the last time it was brought up, and the conflict was between the first statement and the second statement.  My concept, which wasn’t…didn’t float very far…was simply to eliminate the upper statement and make a statement that says, “Anyone involved in a romantic or sexual relationship with someone over whom he has supervisory power must recuse himself.”  And let that stand as a statement, but that wasn’t very popular.

 

Janet Saunders, Executive Director, AA-EEO:  I, in fact, presented this proposal at the November meeting.  So it should be no surprise that I am very much in favor of it.  However, I am in favor of the policy that prohibits the behavior.  I think it’s important for me to share with you the fact that we have some new situations that have come to our attention where we have students who are emotionally distraught, who are actually being harmed by these relationships that go awry.  The University is helpless to do anything about it until the student realizes that it’s the relationship that is the problem.  We will wind up losing students, either to illness or they will withdraw because they can’t do anything about the problem.  So I urge speedy action, and I would urge the Senate to prohibit the behavior for the sake of our students.

 

Virginia O’Leary, Psychology:  It seems to me that the appropriate way to deal with this perceived contradiction, if you’re going to eliminate something, would be to eliminate the last sentence, and to restore “prohibit”.  It seems to me that the confusion stemmed from the acknowledgment that there are perhaps people, because of their historical relations with one another, who might be put in a situation where they would be, through promotion or something, find themselves over time in a supervisory position.  And that is point at which recusing oneself is appropriate in lieu of divorce, for example.  (Audience laughter)  That is quite a different situation than the situation that the first two sentences address.  Case law in this country has been perfectly clear for over 20 years regarding the prohibition of these kinds of relationships.  And all it will take is one of these distraught students to consult an attorney for that to be made perfectly clear to this entire campus.  The fact that that hasn’t happened is surprising to me actually, because all you have to do is to go back a few years and skim the Chronicle of Higher Education and you will become painfully aware of the numerous campuses on which these kinds of legal charges have been brought and the horrific consequences, both personal and institutional, that result from that.  So if you want to make a division, I would urge, in terms of this perceived contradiction, that the division be made around the issue of people who come to the situation in ongoing relationships – a faculty member whose spouse gains entrance into the graduate program which she teaches, for example, who would recuse herself from any involvement as a Committee member, etc, etc, would be appropriate.  There might be a section that addresses that.  But the first two, as I understand the intent of the first two sentences here, it is the prohibition of involvement on the part of faculty, administrators, and supervisors of romantic or sexual relationships with people who are powerless, or at least perceive themselves to be, to deflect their advances, whether or not in the beginning they perceive them as welcome.

 

Missy Josephson, Anatomy, Physiology, and Pharmacology  [Not at Microphone]:  I understand the argument just made about taking this out, because it does seem to be contradictory to what was proposed at first, which is, “this is bad, don’t do it.”  But there are situations, particularly in my college, where the person in responsibility is only one year ahead of the person they’re responsible for in their career development.  In other words, interns over [Inaudible], residents over interns.  While those are intense working relationships, they’re very temporary.  And relationships may develop, and it seems awfully constrictive to say that those people, knowing they’re going to leave the University in a year, might be called on the carpet for going out on a date.  Just keep that in mind [Inaudible].

 

Dan Bennett, Dean, College of Architecture, Design and Construction:  I’ve worked at two institutions – one which had prohibition in their policy, and this one which, at current time, has no policy.  I will tell you from experience that unless we have prohibition, we’re powerless to do anything at all about this.  And that’s from experiences both here and at a former institution, here where it doesn’t work and another where it did.  So I would encourage [you] to please put “prohibition” or “prohibit” back into the policy.  Thank you.

 

Paula Sullenger [Not at Microphone]:  I still feel like I’m kind of hearing people arguing both sides, and I’m not quite sure which is the majority opinion.  So I’m going to make a motion to hopefully feel out the Senate.  I move that the Steering Committee bring back a very restrictive policy next month for the Senate to vote on.

 

John Mouton:  Second here; please.  Okay.  Now, do you want to comment on the motion?

 

Gary Martin, Curriculum and Teaching:  It may have something that may be germane.  In fact, it seems that it’s two separate issues because the last part – really there are all kinds of improper, well not improper relationships but entangling relationships, like a son or daughter even might also come under this, you know, it’s a relationship where the person should not be exercising supervisory power.  So in fact it seems that maybe that last issue is not really completely germane to the first issue, in terms of prohibiting those kinds of relationships.  Maybe there should be some sort of a broader attempt to deal with non-work relationships and how that impinges on supervisory relationships.

 

Virginia O’Leary:  I just want to recommend that the Women’s Studies Director, as well as anyone else that she might feel appropriate, be called upon by the Steering Committee to consult on this issue.  I think that they have a perspective representing students, as well as faculty and administration that would be appropriate, and also some extensive background and knowledge.

 

John Mouton:  Thank you, that’s a good suggestion.

 

Christopher Hinklemann:  With this and a lot of other things that we’re doing, we act as though we’re launching a spaceship to Venus, that we’re the only ones that have ever encountered this.  I would recommend to the Steering Committee to somehow make available to the other Senators – maybe a sampling of similar statements from other universities.  You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a land-grant university.  There are so many peer institutions to choose from.  That way perhaps we can see what the consensus is, especially from universities that have probably been sued for these types of things, as was mentioned earlier.

 

John Mouton:  We will do that.  One of the things that I do want to make clear is that we did not get here without research – that the EE Office certainly did do research.

 

Christopher Hinklemann:  My point is simply if we could all see it, either on the web site or somewhere else.

 

Unidentified speaker:  Call the question.

 

John Mouton:  Anybody else to speak on the motion?  We’ve got a call for question.  Now we have to vote on the call for the questions.  Senators …

 

Cindy Brunner:  Real quick, Paula.  I just wanted to know what “restrictive” meant in your motion?  You said something about introducing a new policy that was much more restrictive.

 

Paula Sullenger:  I wasn’t trying to get into wordsmithing; I just wanted to know if the Senate wants a mild, medium, or very strong policy. (Audience laughter)  If this motion passes, then the Steering Committee will work on something that has stronger language than what we see now.

 

John Mouton:  So, now we’re back to the call for the question.  Senators, please, all in favor signify by raising your hand.  Okay, the motion passes.  We have direction.  The other thing is that we will take the advice about consulting with Women’s Studies leadership, and we will get copies of policies from some other universities. 

 

The next topic on the agenda is new business.  Is there new business before we move to the discussion topic?  Okay, we can move to the discussion topic.  Actually, this topic was brought forward in November.  A couple of things have happened since November.  (Audience laughing)  Boy is that the understatement!  (Audience laughing)  One of the things that happened is that it’s evident now that a presidential search is going to take place.  The timing isn’t exactly known, but it’s certainly going to come. The other thing that’s happened is that the independent investigation that was called for referencing these motions has reached a status point to where probation came forward.  Please.

 

Paula Sullenger [Not at Microphone]:  There’s a little bit of confusion about what we were voting on before, because you mentioned the call for the question.  Someone thought maybe we were voting on the call for the question, so can we just very quickly just vote on the motion?

 

John Mouton:  Let’s use a voice vote, please, on the motion.  The motion is for the Steering Committee is to come back with a resolution that is stringent.  All in favor signify by saying “Aye”.

 

Audience:  “Aye”

 

John Mouton:  Opposed  nay”.  Okay, the “Aye’s” have it.  Thank you.

 

Discussion and Debate Topic

 

John Mouton:  One of the other things that was brought to my attention after November is that it was suggested that I bring forward some questions to stimulate the discussion.  So, I’ve got some questions today.  What we’re going to do is we’ve got three resolutions.  We’re going to look at them individually.  After that, we’ll be open to other comments and topics regarding the presidential search.  The first resolution that we’re going to look at is the resolution calling for the assessment of Board performance before providing a presidential search.  There’s several “Whereas’ “ – the actual resolve statement is, “Therefore, be it resolved that the presidential search not proceed until an external assessment of the Board performance as recommended by the Joint Assessment Committee has been accomplished and compliance with the recommendation of that assessment has been agreed to by the Board.”  So these questions don’t have to be taken in sequence, but somebody had asked me to come up with some questions.  I attempted to.  One of the questions might be, does the SACS probation detail the recommendations of the external assessment as recommended by the Joint Assessment Committee?  If that’s true, does the acceptance of the probation requirements and the University and the Board’s plans to comply with those requirements confirm agreement by the Board of Trustees?  And then the last question, which is really the significant, will the resolution as stated be satisfied by the Board agreement, and at that point would the Senate be willing to support and participate in the presidential search?  So do we have anybody that would like to address this specific resolve statement?

 

Jim Saunders:  We had a whole lot of resolutions before.  They’re sort of moot at this point, as you probably just alluded to.  I think the issue of the presidential search….maybe the best thing to do is just kind of start from scratch and say this body needs to make, as far as a recommendation, about how we’re going to do this.  Because we’re going to get a new presidential search, we don’t have time to hire somebody to look at our Board.  We know what the Board - all that sort of stuff is water under the bridge.  I would propose, and I have been doing a little homework talking with the leaders of the Alumni Association and I’m willing to propose some of the ideas about how we might go forward, and how the Alumni Association would like to see the faculty involved in this.  I would say that what we need to do is come up with a process and have this body propose a process to come up with guidelines for developing a presidential search that people can buy into.

 

John Mouton:  Jim, I think that one of the things is that I believe, as the leader of the Senate, I am bound by these resolutions.  Okay?  Whatever the intent was, whatever the language was, I don’t think that I can simply discount them and say let’s move on to the presidential search.  If it is the wishes of the body, we can figure out some way to do that.  The reason I bring these here is so that we can come to some idea about - these were passed and they are the wishes of the Senate at this time.  Please, Virginia.

 

Virginia O’Leary:  I’m frankly flabbergasted that these are back before us, because as you mentioned when you introduced this, things have changed enormously.  I’m sure that we could go back through the resolutions of this body for the last ten years and re-look at all of them and decide whether or not we still agree.  There are so many things that have occurred, including much more pressing issues as far as I’m concerned, such as the Institution being put on probation by SACS.  I don’t understand why we would be compelled to revisit this, given the things that we could not have possibly foreseen when we cast our votes at the time that these resolutions were passed have now occurred, including the five issues that must be responded to by the Institution.  As you pointed out, most of them having to do with the relationship among and between the administration and the Board.  There was no way we could have foreseen that, and I quite agree with my colleague.  This is now a moot point and we should move on to discuss a process that this body could endorse under the current circumstances.

 

John Mouton:  I appreciate the comment.  The issue that I struggle with is that I quite sincerely feel that if I launched off and took this body into a phase of operation where there were standing resolutions that were opposed to, we’ve got people coming out of the woodwork against it.  The external assessment that’s asked for here is...exactly what has happened is the external assessment has reached a point that produced the probation, and so certainly there was an assumption that something would happen.  The assessment would be completed and something would happen, and that’s exactly where we are.  Please.

 

Kathryn Flynn, Forestry and Wildlife Services:  I agree with Virginia and Jim, and I think that maybe what we need to do at this point is to determine if the Senate wishes to move on, as opposed to going through this process.  Because I think we’re beating a dead horse.  I think they’re so old at this point, and we’re so far past what those are dealing with that I think it’s sort of a waste of time.

 

Bill Gale, Steering Committee [Not at Microphone]:  While agreeing completely with previous comments, I think that we do need to move on.  I think just to avoid confusion, we need to say something.  It need be no more, to my mind, than whenever we pass a new resolution about the way we think we should proceed, that this ends with a statement that says, “This supersedes the things that we said before.”  Basically saying this is our last will and testament and it supersedes our previous one.(Audience laughter)

 

Cindy Brunner:  I agree.  Whether or not we voted in favor of these resolutions, we do have them on the books.  The one that you don’t have up there says that the presidential search be suspended until the members of the Board have tendered their resignations.  We really can’t call these resolutions moot because we still can follow the actions that they announced.  As long as that’s the case, they’re not moot.  But I really do think it’s time we set them aside.  I don’t know how to do that in a parliamentary fashion.  Maybe Willie could help us out there.  If we could pass another resolution that supersedes these or that sets them aside or somehow acknowledges that at the time they were approved they were appropriate, but due to the current circumstances we want to move on.

 

John Mouton:  I think that one of the things that we can do is we can bring back amendments to these resolutions that basically bring closure to these issues.  Please.

 

Jim Gravois, Library:  Basically the same thing.  Maybe there is a way of suspending previous resolutions...?  I think it’s very important that we reaffirm, as has been said, the importance of these things at the time that they were passed.  However, times have changed and we need to move on.

 

Virginia O’Leary:  My understanding of Robert’s Rules is that we cannot take an action now, because this is a discussion, there is no business before us on the floor.  I would like to recommend - I am violently opposed to an amendment of any of these resolutions.  They were passed at the time that they were passed in good faith.  People voted as they understood the situation to be at that time.  So to go back and rescind them or do something I think would be just totally inappropriate.  However, it seems to me that it would be appropriate for a resolution to come forward from the body, individual Senators or the Steering Committee that suggests that under the circumstances, in light of the situation as of a date certain, we move forward in a following fashion.

 

John Mouton:  We can bring that to the Steering Committee.  Thank you.  Paula.

 

Paula Sullenger:  [Inaudible]  We can’t wish these away.  We cannot say something that says “oh, we supersede it” because that would contradict what we’ve already said.  That’s why there is provision for rescinding or amending resolutions because circumstances do change.  We can’t just ignore them or pretend they’re not here.  We’re going to have to address them, each of those therefore statements, in some fashion.  After we hear what the administration and Board has to say, this one, we could vote that we think the resolved statement has been complied with.  The other two probably won’t be so easy to deal with.

 

Willie Larkin, Chair-elect of the Senate:  I wish I could say everything in this book…let me just say on the resolutions, it says that “resolutions are permanent in nature in force, until rescinded – page 85-86.”  So I’m going to have to take some time to read through all of this.  The cursory look at this says that, and I forget the exact amount of time that this has to be put before the body and then there has to be a two-thirds majority vote before that can be rescinded.  But resolutions can be rescinded, and I’ll have that information for you certainly before our next meeting.

 

Christa Slaton, Political Science:  I don’t understand the problem here.  Maybe I’m just dense, but the resolution calling for Board assessment before a presidential search.  In a sense, we have had a Board Assessment.  SACS has slapped us on probation, and they said it’s the Board’s fault.  So we’ve had that assessment.  That’s done.  That’s fine.

 

John Mouton:  I agree with you, and maybe that clears it.  It says that the assessment has been agreed to by the Board.  It does say that.

 

Christa Slaton:  Okay.  That was an oversight on our part, I think.  Okay.  Then, resolution calling for resignation of the Board of Trustees – we still want that.  Does anybody here want to rescind that?  We still want it!  Number three: resolution opposing removal of “Interim”.  It’s moot!  We opposed it, it was removed.  It’s moot!  Why do we have to act on this at all?  I don’t understand.  What’s going on?

 

Gary Martin:  I was just looking at the resolution on May 29, 2002 that she just referred to.  I was looking at the very final statement of that:  “Be it further resolved that once the SACS investigation is completed, the Board of Trustees will work cooperatively with the faculty to conduct a search for a new president, and so on…”   Adhering to shared governance – isn’t that really where we’re at?

 

John Mouton:  Not having gotten there, that was the question I had.  If the investigation is complete, this one goes away.  If we agree as a body, then that completes the SACS investigation.  Then this one is complete.

 

Jim Saunders:  Since this is a discussion item, and since we all seem to have an agreement, then we need to move on from this and whether we have to vote on it or not.  I just wanted to lay on the floor some ideas that have come back and forth from the Alumni Association and my discussions with them, so that we can start this process of coming up with a presidential search, which has to happen – whether or not the legal matters or whatever.  So let’s get some of that discussion going on right now, whether or not - because we’ve got to start that.  I have three points that have come out of my discussion with the Alumni Association, and again, I am an Alumnus of Auburn so I do know some of these people.

 

Number one, we are going to get some new Board members.  The Board is empowered, as John has pointed out to me, to come up with a new president, and that’s their constitutional job.  What we want to do is come up with a procedure that everybody can buy into and is happy with, and doesn’t think somebody is pulling strings from behind and all that sort of stuff.  So that’s where we were sort of talking about, just some ideas to throw out real quickly and I don’t want to take up your time because I hate the way all this important stuff gets thrown to the last of the meeting.

 

One thing would be that, okay, we’re going to be getting three or four new Board members, and we have a Governor that we seem to have some confidence in.  That’s enough of the Board of Trustees to be involved in the new presidential search.  Maybe let them do that, instead of the old people, that may be one idea.  Another idea is to be involved in the Board search.  If the faculty are going to be involved in this, and again there’s no reason to think that we’re not but we don’t have to be, that because of the nature of the past history here at Auburn that maybe the faculty representatives to this search committee might be elected by the entire faculty by electronic vote, as opposed to the usual suspects, as my friend at the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association said, that get appointed to these sorts of committees.

 

Thirdly, since we have some concerns, some people do, that a lot of administrators who have served at the pleasure of the Board of Trustees in the past and are - some may be suspicions about some of their motives and whatever.  Why not, Dr. Hanley excluded, we start fresh on a search committee with people from administration that haven’t been here through this history?

 

Tom Williams, ROTC-Navy :  If any of you are wondering why this ROTC guy keeps getting up and saying things -I am an Auburn graduate as well and I have a deep and abiding love for this institution and I want to see what’s best for it.  But, on the topic that we’re discussing right now – I think the answer is that we need to rescind those resolutions, even though they were passed in good faith at the time.  We put some things in there that have painted us into a corner. When we say things like don’t do something until a member of the Board resigns, knowing full well they’re not going to resign, we’ve put ourselves in the position where we will have to contradict ourselves sooner or later.  We need to rescind these resolutions, draft a resolution that addresses the salient points from the previous resolutions that we still believe in, and then resolve what we want to put into that, whether it be; conducting a presidential search now or whatever we want that to be.  I think we’ve got to rescind those first and then put those elements that we want included.

 

Kem Krueger, Pharmacy Care Systems:  I think the questions that you raised about the first whereases,  if the probation and if the Board agrees to the probation, I think that does satisfy their resolution.  So I don’t think there’s any need to rescind that.  I think we can move forward.  Looking at the resolution that the presidential search to select William Muse’s successor be suspended, I don’t think there’s any need to rescind that because we are not selecting Dr. Muse’s successor, we are selecting Dr. Walker’s successor.  So I don’t think that moving forward will violate that.  And then, the other one that is printed out here that the SACS investigation be completed and that the Board of Trustees work cooperatively with the faculty to conduct a search – I think that’s where we are now.  So as I’m looking over this, I don’t think any of these need to be rescinded, and I don’t think we will be contradicting any of these if we move forward with a new presidential search.

 

Cindy Brunner:  Boy, am I ever glad I let him speak before I did.  I wholeheartedly concur with what the previous speaker has said.  I did not have eyes good enough to realize that we did state specifically presidential search to select William V. Muse’s successor.  That, as far as I was concerned, was the only resolution we needed to worry about because it stipulated calling for the resignation of all members of the Board and the search would be suspended until they have tendered their resignation.  We have no search underway for President Muse, and we won’t have a search to replace President Muse.

 

John Mouton:  Okay, so what I would like to do then is if it’s acceptable to the body that the resolution William Muse was succeeded by William Walker, therefore, if that one is resolved...

 

This is the one that I guess still holds, and my sense is that once the Board of Trustees takes action or establishes a position in response to the probation, then in fact they’ve made the agreement and this one doesn’t need to be removed either.

 

It seems to me that I don’t think the presidential search will be ahead of the Board’s response to the probation.  I mean, there’s not that sense of urgency.  So I think that those two speakers have made those points.  I think the only one we’re dealing with is waiting to see if the Board will act on this.  Okay, are there any other comments in regard to these issues and regard to the presidential search?  I think we’re going to have other opportunities to discuss the presidential search, but I don’t see it on the near horizon.  We’re having a Steering Committee meeting tomorrow and an Executive Committee meeting tomorrow.  If anybody’s got any comments or input, forward them to one of the members of those committees.  Is there any objection to adjourning?  We’re adjourned. [The meeting was adjourned at 4:40 p.m.]

 

Adjournment