Auburn University Senate Meeting

March 9, 2004

Minutes

 

 

Members Absent:  Barbara Struempler, Immediate Past-chair; David Wilson, Vice President for Outreach; Lee Evans, Dean, School of Pharmacy; Richard Brinker, Dean, Forestry; John Jensen, Interim Dean, College of Agriculture; Vic Walker, Staff Council Chair; Martha Taylor, A&P Assembly Chair; Mario Lightfoote, ACES; Barry Fleming, Art; Scott Kramer, Building Sciences; James Guin, Chemical Engineering; Larry Crowley, Civil Engineering; Sridhar Krishnamurti, Communication Disorders; Judith Lechner, Educational Foundations, Leadership & Technology; Charles Gross, Electrical & Computer Engineering; Jack DeRuiter, Pharmacal Sciences; Marllin Simon, Physics; Robert Norton, Poultry Science; Thomas White, ROTC-Air Force, Howard Thomas, Textile Engineering

 

Members Absent (Substitute):  Sheri Downer, Acting Dean of Libraries (Harmon Straiton); Norbert Wilson, Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology (Conner Bailey); David Bransby, Agronomy & Soils (Charles Mitchell)

 

Call to Order 

 

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

 

John Mouton, Chair: I would like to ask all senators and substitutes to please sign in and then sit from the third row to the third from the top row so that we will be able to do the balloting for the Rules Committee positions.  Thank you.  Okay, if we’ve got the senators seated between the third row and the third to last row, I think we’ve allocated enough time for those that had to come through the head wind on the way over here so we’ll go ahead and get started.  I’m going to call the meeting to order and remind all the senators and substitutes to have signed in so we can make sure we have a quorum.  We’ve got four action items today.  The first order of business is the approval of the minutes.  These are the minutes from the February 10, 2004 meeting.  The minutes are on the senate home page.  Are there any corrections, additions or deletions to the minutes?  If not, then the minutes are approved.  The first item on the agenda is the announcements by the President’s Office and Provost Tom Hanley is here to make those announcements.

 

Tom Hanley, Provost:  Good afternoon.  The President has asked me to give you the timing and the dates for some of the future board meetings and orientations.  On the 18th of this month we will have a board orientation for the new members.  It’s gonna probably last about 3 or 4 hours. A variety of things will be given to the trustees to bring them up to speed on what’s happening here.  The Board Meeting then will follow on the 19th.  There is a called Board Meeting on the 7th of May.  There will be an additional orientation meeting on the 6th in front of that.  The President also indicated that the SACS report dealing with the governance issues would be delayed until the 14th of May and that would give the opportunity for the Board to meet twice between now and then so that’s when that report will go in. 

 

This is not an announcement but I do want to take the opportunity to thank all of you for the part that you played in the SACS visit that we just completed.  I’ve sat through a number of accreditation visits.  I have never witnessed a better SACS exit interview or a better accreditation interview than the one I heard here.  There was effectively no recommendations and no suggestions, with a long list of commendations to be had with this university.  I think it bodes well for us.  I think it speaks well for you.  I think it also casts a very favorable light on the effectiveness of the self-study that we did and the fact that, in the process of doing the self-study, we made up a list of things that needed to be remedied before they got here and those were handled.  I think the SACS team was highly impressed with what they saw and the one note I would add is that this was not an amateur team by any stretch of the imagination.  These people were seasoned veterans of accreditation and knew what to look for so I think you should take the opportunity to applaud yourselves on putting forth what I consider to be a really strong effort and one I think that will help us as we move through the accreditation issues this fall, especially dealing with the ones with probation.  Thank you for the time in doing that.  I would be happy to answer any questions that you have. 

 

Richard Penaskovic, Philosophy:  Dr. Hanley, how come Dr. Walker was named Special Counsel or Special Assistant, or something like that, to the President:  apparently without going through Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity.  If we do a search on the departmental level, we have forms to fill out and a whole bunch of red tape to go through.  How come that wasn’t the case here?  I don’t even think he has a job description right now.  So, it seems very strange to me.

 

Hanley:   Richard, I will be happy to explain that.  Again, what I’m going to do here is I’ll give you the facts as they have been related to me.  At the end I’ll be happy to give you my opinion as to whether I think they are appropriate or not.  I guess the things that we need to talk about here is that when Bill resigned as President he did not resign as Professor of Mechanical Engineering and so he still holds that position with the university.  I think the Board had worked out an agreement with Bill that he had annunciated here in this meeting that he would continue on as President through June of 2005 and it is my understanding that the Board, working through Dr. Richardson, has maintained that agreement.  So what we have now is:  we have an administrative leave for Dr. Walker that will last until the 14th of August of this year, at which time he joins the faculty in the Engineering Department and he will then serve in that capacity until the 30th of June.  This time, as I understand it, (through the 30th of June, 2005) will be at his current salary.  After 2005, if he stays on with the faculty in engineering, his salary will be negotiated to that appropriate for a senior full professor in Mechanical Engineering.  That, in my opinion, is what the Board felt that they would do based on the agreement they had previously.

 

In past experiences and, not only in my experiences but also in past experiences here, I have been told that Dr. Muse was offered and accepted a similar position when he stepped down as President here several years go.  In my past position as a Dean, I did have the option of one year of retooling, if I stepped down from the dean’s position to prepare to go back to the faculty, and that one year at my old institution would have been at my current pay.  So I don’t think that the policies followed here are out of line with what’s been done in Auburn in the past.  I also don’t think they are out of line for what’s being done at other universities.  I think it shows the proper amount of respect for a person who has served as President of the university and I honestly think that that respect is necessary if the rest of us are able to gain and garner the respect that we think we are due for the positions that we perform for the university as well.

 

Conner Bailey, Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Substitute:  Let me clarify that Dr. Muse, at the time that he was asked to step aside, was under contract.  I believe that’s a substantial and important difference that everybody needs to understand.

 

Hanley:  I think, Conner, that I knew Dr. Muse was under contract.  I think most of the other people that I have talked to and in most of the situations I have seen, most of the people are not under a contract.  It’s an agreement that’s typically made for people who take administrative jobs to allow them the opportunity to move back to the faculty.  I think if I were put in a similar situation it would probably take me that amount of time to regear to be going back to a teaching faculty from an administrative position.  I certainly think everyone has a right to an opinion on the issue but I don’t think that what’s been done here is really out of line and really what we are talking about is the difference in the pay between now and then.

 

Rik Blumenthal, Chemistry:  When Dr. Richardson was talking to us last at the faculty meeting, he said that he was going to have a list of proposals for putting limitations and restrictions on the actions of the Board and was going to bring that up to them.  You mentioned that they were going to put off voting on this.  Is this list of things that he was proposing to the Board available for us to read anywhere?  Are these posted on the Board website or on the President’s website?  Somewhere where we can know what it is he’s proposing to have the restrictions on the Board to get us through the SACS probation?

 

Hanley:  I haven’t seen that list yet.  I’m sure that Dr. Richardson is working on the list.  I haven’t seen the list as of today and I don’t think it’s available on any open forum at the present time.

 

Mouton:  We’ve got a long agenda today so I’m going to keep my announcements brief.  I want to remind everyone that the faculty officer voting is coming up beginning on Thursday.  It’s electronic voting:  March 11th, Thursday, through March 15th, Monday.  The spring general faculty meeting will be one week from today, on March 16th, with the election results out then.  Is the agenda out for that meeting?  It will be tonight.

 

Okay.  I do want to mention Dr. Hanley talked about the trustee orientation meeting.  The faculty does have a role in that and I’m going to do part of the presentation.  It’s about 20-25% of the overall presentation.  There is a meeting on Thursday where we are going to hash out exactly what’s going to be done and I’m sure the faculty will have a continuing role.

 

I might mention, in regard to my announcements, a couple of things.  Since our last meeting, I did attend a meeting in Atlanta with Dr. Richardson and Mr. McWhorter, the Governor was there and a number of other people with SACS to talk about the probation issues.  It appeared to me that there was significant progress made on two fronts:  On one front –rebuilding a working relationship between the administration of the university and the administrators of SACS.  On the other front I think there was some clarification and understanding about how to address the provisions of the SACS probation and resolve them and I think progress can be made.  I will say in particular that I was very impressed by the way Dr. Richardson handled it and also particularly the way the Governor did.  I thought it was outstanding that he participated.  They did make the statement that they had never been in a meeting with a Governor before and I think that it did have an impact on them and also Mr. McWhorter.

 

I also participated in the exit interview meeting.  I actually didn’t participate but sat through and would echo Dr. Hanley’s statements.  I would say that in general it felt really good to be a member of the Auburn University faculty after hearing the things the team members had to say.  I might add as an aside that one of the team members was here yesterday with his son looking into our program and again echoed the things that were brought out in that meeting.

 

The last statement I want to make is that there was a Cabinet meeting at the end of last week.  The chair and the members of the Board of Trustees committees attend that meeting:  it’s actually a pre-Board agenda setting meeting:  and my observation was that Dr. Richardson sought input:  he understood the issues and he recognized the difference in perspectives and he made decisions.  I think that one of the clear things that I saw there that was refreshing to me was some determination about what issues should really be on the Board’s agenda and what issues need to be decided by the administration of the university.  So in reference to the question that was asked about are things posted out there, I’m not sure that they are but I can tell you that at least from that meeting it’s clear that there is some change in the way that we are doing things.  I’ll be glad to entertain any questions or comments.  Please, in the back.

 

Christa Slaton, Political Science:  John, I read your outgoing interview in the AU Report about your year as university Senate Chair and you talked about the things that you felt went well and the things that you felt went wrong and you pointed out that you and Paula went to different departments at the beginning of the year to see how the departments felt and you said, and this is a quote, “The predominant perspective expressed to us in these visits was not the one advocated by the most vocal and unnecessarily vicious critics.”  I would like to know to whom were you referring in terms of vocal and vicious critic.  I would like to know if you consider me in that group of vicious critics, as I have been critical of the Board, and I would like to know if you think that anything that you heard from the Political Science Department indicates that I do not truly represent the views of my department?

 

Mouton:   Well, first of all, I think that you do represent the views of your department.  I think we visited 56 departments across campus -550 faculty.  I think, in regard to the critics, these were not critics of the Board but they were critics of me and the question was actually asked by the person doing the interview and my response was in regard to a specific question that was asked.  I don’t know if he’s got notes or tapes from it to find out exactly what it was but it had to do with people that were critical of me, not people that were critical of the Board.

 

Slaton:   Do you put me in that category?

 

Mouton:  I did read something that you—a quote from you in the newspaper in October or November of this year that I thought was unduly harsh.  Anybody else?  Please.

 

Judith Sheppard, Steering Committee:  I read about the reception given Dr. Walker.  Who paid for that?

 

Mouton:   I’ll tell you who paid for it.  It was a private event held off campus and we’ve all participated in that.  The three hosts paid for it.  Anybody else?  Okay.  We have four action items.  The first action item is the Rules Committee election and what I’d like to do real quick is look at the rules.  The steering committee had several discussions.  Please

 

Paula Sullenger, Secretary:  We didn’t officially close nominations last time and I think there is at least one more nomination forthcoming.  If we can do that, then we’ll go on to the next.

 

Mouton:  Are there any nominations from the floor for committee members for the Rules Committee?

 

Renée Middleton, Counseling & Counseling Psychology:  I would like to nominate Sadik Tuzun.

 

Mouton:  Any others?

 

Willie Larkin, Chair Elect:  I nominate Cindy Brunner.

 

Mouton:  Any others please?

 

Sullenger:  I move the nominations be closed.

 

Mouton:  Is there a second?  [Second]  Discussion?  Then have a show of hands vote.   All those in favor of closing the nominations raise your hand please.  [Raised hands]  Those opposed.  [No hands raised]  Okay, thank you.  The nominations are closed.

 

Mouton:   The rules of the senate require a majority to elect each of the members of the Rules Committee and apparently in some years past it was just plurality that the highest vote getters got it.  So what we need to do is that the Senate Steering Committee came up with a process to get to have a majority vote that is probably a multi-round process unless there wants to be some consideration for a suspension of the rules.  This has been posted on the web and the senate follows this process.  Can you distribute the ballots please?  Do we need to post up here the names of the additional candidates?

 

Sullenger:  There was a list of nominees sent out and I included all of those on the ballot but Cindy Brunner’s name wasn’t on that so if you want to vote for her you will need to write in her name.

 

While you are voting we need to remind you that there are three slots open so you can vote for a maximum of three.  You can turn in a blank ballot:  vote for one, two or three people but if there are more than three marks on the ballot then we will have to toss out the ballot--three maximum.

 

Mouton:  Do we have the ballots?  Last call for ballots please.  What we are going to do is, while they are counting the ballots:  we think there is going to be a couple of rounds:  we are going to move on to the next action item and then, after the next action item we will go back and get the information from the vote counters.

 

Action item “b” is a motion in regard to the Student Government Association Oath of Honor and I’m going to read the motion and then let the student Government representatives who were here in February get back up for a minute.  The motion that’s coming to the senate is that “The Auburn University Senate endorses the Student Government Association’s Oath of Honor.   Individual faculty reserve the right to decide upon the implementation of the oath as they choose”.  And so that will be the motion that we are considering and we’ll let – is Tyler, are you going to do the presentation?

 

Tyler O’Connor, SGA:   Good afternoon.  Thank you for having us back again. I’ll be very quick up here.  We should have gotten all our information out on the table during the first presentation.  I am here on behalf of the Student Government Association in order to propose to Auburn University our Oath of Honor which will be an honor pledge which every student would be asked to sign upon coming in to Camp War Eagle or SOS, any first year transition period and then we would further ask that the faculty implement it on their syllabus so that each student is made aware or exposed to the oath at least four or five times at the beginning of the semester with their individual classes and then, after that, we leave it completely up to you to your discretion to administer it on any other test, paper, quiz or related assignment.

 

Mouton:  Why don’t you put the Oath up and read the Oath?

[Projected on screen]: 

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.”

 

O’Connor:  Again, this is the Oath.  It’s just a very simple two sentence kind of exhortation to heighten not only awareness but kind of communal accountability towards academic integrity.  We thank you so much for your comments last time.  I feel like we had a very good response and since then I have sat down with President Richardson and he has been very warm to this and we would like to, following your endorsement today, hopefully, bring this to the Board as soon as possible.

 

Mouton:  Motion?

 

Bradford Boney, SGA President:  I so move.

 

Mouton:  Second?  We have a second.  Is there any discussion?

 

Richard Penaskovic, Philosophy:  This is a small question but, why are the words “Honesty” and “Truthfulness” capitalized?  If this were German, they would be nouns and they would be capitalized but since this is in English I would think that they should be small or lower case unless you want to emphasize these particular virtues.  I don’t mean to be smart when asking this question.

 

O’Connor:  No.  That’s fine.  They were capitalized in order to emphasize their meaning.

 

Penaskovic:  I suggest [Inaudible]  I move that we change...

 

Mouton:  That’s not part of our motion.  Our motion is that we are going to endorse it or not endorse it as it is.  It’s already passed through the SGA.  Anybody else?  Okay.  There being no other comments, we will call for a voice vote.  All in favor signify by saying “Aye”.  [Ayes]  All opposed, “Nay”  [No Nays]  The “Ayes” have it.  Thank you.  Do you want us to move on to the next item while ya’ll are still counting?

 

Jeff Evans is a student member of the Student Grievance Committee which is not a senate committee.  It is a University committee and he is going to do a presentation on proposed changes to the handbook so, if you would come up Jeff and make that.  I believe there are three changes and what we are going to do is deal with them individually so we will have each proposed change and then get a motion and a vote.

 

Jeff Evans, Student member of Student Academic Grievance Committee:  Good afternoon.  My name, like Mr. Chair said, is Jeff Evans and I am an alternate member on the Student Academic Grievance Committee and the chair of the committee, Dr. Charles Hendrix, has asked me to come before you today and present some changes to our Rules and Procedures.  You may or may not have those in front of you, or if you have your Tiger Cub, I am going to put those up on the display right now.  [Projected on screen:  Proposed changes to the Student Grievance Committee procedures]  They mainly apply to Section Four for Procedures and Hearings.  The first one that I want to mention to you is the second one you see there.  It’s bolded: 4.2.1.1.    Essentially, what we thought here is that a “complainant and respondent are encouraged to cooperate and communicate with the Committee chairman in the preparation of grievance materials”.  The reason we mentioned this is because several times the student tends to go beyond the professor or the department head or even the dean of the college and they’ll go straight to the Assistant Provost or other particular faculty when, according to the Tiger Cub, they should try to work with the chairman of the committee as well as, prior to that, working with their professor and then the department head and so on and so forth.  The second sentence is “At no time (outside of the formal hearing) should any person, whether or not directly involved in a complaint, communicate with any of the voting members of the University Student Grievance Committee.”   This is in relation to Article 1.1 at the beginning where it states that “this resolution should be achieved at the lowest level and in the most equitable way possible.”  Basically what we are trying to do is that we are trying to limit the amount of communication that’s going to be coming to our voting members on the committee.  A lot of the time, as many of you may know, is that it is possible for a student or faculty member to contact one of the voting members and introduce bias before the hearing has been even agreed upon.  So, that is essentially what this article is going to outline.

 

Would it be okay to address any questions?

 

Mouton:  We’ll take a motion.  My one question is:  Is this a new statement?  It’s not in place of any other statement?

 

Evans:  Yes.  This is going to be an addition.

 

Mouton:  All right.  Then what we are going to do is ask for a motion and then a second and then have a discussion on this.  Can I get a motion, please?

 

[Unidentified speaker]:  So moved.

 

Mouton:  We’ve got a motion.  Thank you.  A second?  And we’ve got a second.  Thank you.  Discussion in regard to this motion.

 

Rik Blumenthal, Chemistry:  The only question I have with this motion is the wording of the second sentence.  If you just read that as it says, we have to sequester the poor members of this committee from any contact with any person anywhere at any time.  It just needs to be filled out “with respect to any grievance issue” at the end of this.  So, I would like to make a motion that we amend it and add “with respect to any grievance issue.”  As it says right now that nobody is allowed to communicate with any voting member of the committee at any time.  I think the poor members of the committee would like to have their friends still be able to talk to them.

 

Mouton:  So what we have is an amendment to the motion to add what words, please?

 

Blumenthal:  [Inaudible]

 

Mouton:  We are speaking now to the amendment to the resolution.  Anybody want to speak to the amendment that was just offered?  Then we need to vote on the amendment and come back to the resolution so the voting now is acceptance of the addition of the language with respect to the grievance in question.  All in favor signify by saying, “Aye”.  [Ayes]  All opposed, “Nay”.  [No nays].  Okay, so we are back now to the original motion.  If you would like to speak.

 

Gary Martin, Curriculum & Teaching:  I had a question on the markup here.  Under 4.2.3 it originally said from sub-sections 1 to 4.  That’s marked out and now:  Do you see where I’m at? (4.2.3.1 to 4.2.3.4)  That’s crossed out and it now says it’s going to 5.  But below that, sections 4 and 5 are bolded as if they are new additions and my question is: Is something missing there?

 

Evans:  Okay.  It might be best if we discussed .4 and .5 before discussing 4.2.3 because in any instance that .4 and .5 are accepted and passed we would then have to modify .2 and .3 to include that.

 

Martin:  But I’m actually asking the question:  Shouldn’t there be another bolding under there that’s disappeared and isn’t marked as being deleted?

 

Evans:  As like a sub-clause of .2:   Under 4.2.3 there are . ..

 

Mouton:  Wait a minute.  Let’s get back to …   Can we deal with 4.2.1.1 and then move down.  That’s what we are discussing right now, please.  Anybody else?

 

Dennis DeVries, Fisheries:  I would suggest, as a friendly amendment I hope, to change the word “chairman” to “chair”.

 

Sullenger:  Second.

 

Mouton:  Any discussion?  All in favor of changing “chairman” to “chair” signify by saying, “Aye”.  All opposed, “Nay.”  [No nays]

Any other comments in regard to 4.2.1?  Then we are going to vote.  All in favor signify by saying “Aye.”  All opposed, “Nay.”  [No nays]  The “Ayes” have it.

 

Evans:  4.2.3 will be changed in the event that .4 and, or .5 are added.

 

Mouton:  So let’s leave and we will come back to 4.2.3 and go ahead to ….

 

Evans:  Okay.  I’ll just move to the next one on the list.  This one right here would be an addition.  The top one there: And the only persons present during the committee’s grievance review process shall be committee members except where provided under the listed articles right there which, of course, are not added as of yet. 

 

Mouton:  Can I get a motion and a second before we discuss?

 

[Unidentified speaker #2]:  [Made the motion]

 

Mouton:  We’ve got a motion.  Second?  Okay, we’ve got a second.  Go ahead, please.

 

Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology:  I would just like to echo the question that was asked earlier if there is something missing here.  There is a reference under 4.2.3:  The following … and then there in parenthesis is …. Can you back that up?  Am I allowed to ask this question?  I’ll ask it until I’m told I can’t.  4.2.3.1 through 4.2.3.4 has been crossed out.

 

Evans:  That’s a valid question.  According to the Tiger Cub on page 93, if you have it in front of you, there are only sub-articles under 4.2.3 are 1 and 2.  In the Tiger Cub it is listed as it is listed on the recommendations that you have before you.  So, that is a typo that you also may want to consider, regardless of whether you accept the change that I have proposed.

 

Brunner:  Thank you.  You have clarified the point.

 

Mouton:  4.2.3.2:  Are there any other comments or questions?

 

Missy Josephson, Anatomy, Physiology, & Pharmacology:  Shouldn’t we talk about .4 and .5 before voting on this in case they don’t pass?

 

Evans:  That is a valid recommendation.  I do not know your procedures so the Chair might have to handle that.

 

Mouton:  Can we suspend discussion on this and move down?  It’s interesting to have a reference early on that’s referencing something further down.  We are going to look at 4.

 

Evans:  That’s in response to the typo in the Tiger Cub that those would have to be .3 and .4 because .3 and .4 do not exist.

 

Mouton:  Let’s go ahead and read then, if you would please, 4.2.3.3.

 

Evans:  This is just a grammatical typo we found:  it’s “the only persons present at hearings of this committee.

 

Mouton:  This is an existing statement?

 

Evans:  I’m sorry.  I apologize.  Yes, this is an existing statement and I think I misheard you.  My apologies.  I thought you wanted to go over this one.  This one right here is the one I just read and this was a typo.  It is my understanding that this one is a suggested addition.  I was handed this document this afternoon and so, I’m not ... .

 

Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology:  If this is now appropriate, I would like to ask some questions about 4.2.3.3 as you have renumbered it and 4.2.3.4:  The one referring to Program for Students with Disabilities and the one referring to the Multicultural Affairs Office and I have some knowledge of why those were added.  My question is why were those the only two groups for whom there would be special representation at a hearing?  Why not someone, say, from the Athletic Department if a student athlete were involved in a charge.  Why not someone from the Interfraternity Council if there were an issue raised pertaining to the Greek organizations on campus.  Could someone explain why those particular groups were chosen to be given special representation at a hearing?

 

Josephson:  I think we need a point of order or some kind of parliamentary thing because we need to discuss a motion and my attempt was to have the next item of discussion being either 4.2.3.4 or .5.  We should start with .5 since that’s the last one and everything seems to be working backwards.

 

Evans:  How do you want to handle that, Mr. Chair?

 

Charlie Hendrix, Chair-Student Academic Grievance Committee:  Let me make this real easy for you.  That 4.3.5 that is down there by the Office of Multicultural Affairs:  it’ll be okay to go ahead and scratch that.  We found 4.2.4 which will get around that particular statement.  “The committee as a whole shall arrange for a swift and comprehensive review of the stated grievance and may request from the parties additional information.”  If we need any information from the Athletic Department, from the Office of Multicultural Affairs or from anyone else, we can get that information.  So, 4.2.3.5 is a rather moot point and voted down that would be fine.  4.3.2.4, in Academic Grievances about the ADA, that is law.  That one right there is law.  If you have any type of committee that involves removing students or student discipline, or problems with students, you have to have a person from say the Students with Disabilities present in the room as a non-voting resource person.  So 4.3.5, scratch it.

 

Mouton:  We have a motion and a second.  What we are dealing with is what is known as 4.2.3.4 dealing with students with disabilities.  Comments or questions please.

 

Blumenthal:  Again, this question then relates back to one of the previous things we haven’t voted on before.  But faculty in my department were concerned with the fact that the representatives from ADA tend to be advocates for one of the two parties in the system of grievances, generally the complainant, and if we are closing this committee to all advocates basically the previous motion that we jumped over, says that we are going to not allow anyone in for discussion of the review and I guess the decision process then my faculty feel that it is inappropriate to allow any advocate, whether that be the complainant, the respondent or an advocate for the complainant or respondent to be there in addition to the committee.  The committee ought to get its information it needs from ADA but, at the time of the review process that you have locked the complainant and the respondent out of, you should not have an advocate for the complainant which is generally what the ADA is.  We don’t think that’s fair.

 

Ruth Crocker, History:  There might be a time in the future when Auburn University did not need advocates for disabled and people covered under 4.2.3.5.  I do not believe we are at that point yet by any means so I would not vote for removing either of these at this point.

 

Josephson:  Can I get a definition of the review process?

 

Evans:  I would be more than happy to do that.  The review process is the process that goes on before an actual hearing is agreed upon.  The committee will look over the materials submitted by both the student and the professor.  They will then decide on whether there is sufficient evidence to have a hearing at which point they will notify both of the parties and a hearing date and place will be decided upon.  So the review process would be the time in which we determine whether or not a hearing is even necessary.  Does that answer your question?  Thank you.

 

Mouton:  Any other discussion?  Let’s have a vote on the motion to accept 4.2.3.4. as it is written.  All in favor signify by saying “Aye.”  [Ayes]  Opposed, “nay.”  [Nays]  Okay.  Now. Do we need to go back up?  4.2.3.5:  it has been decided it’s not to be considered yet …… withdrawn by the committee.

 

Evans:  The next one I have on my agenda here is 4.2.3.3.  That was just a simple grammatical change. 

 

Mouton:  Do we have a motion on that?

 

Unidentified Speaker #3:  I so move.

 

Mouton:  Is there a second?  Any discussion on that?  All in favor signify by saying “Aye.”  [Ayes]  Opposed “Nay”.  [No nays]  The “Ayes” have it.

 

Evans:  Thank you.  The next one, the one above it:  “The only persons present during the committee grievance review process shall be committee members except for provided.” under the articles listed, which would be:  not this.

 

Mouton:  Do we have a motion for this?

 

Unidentified Speaker #4:  So move.

 

Mouton:  Is there a second?  Thank you.  Any comments?

 

Tom Smith, Human Development & Family Studies:  I thought that your comment was that 4.2.4 was going to take care of what you had in the other one.  That one that has all the dots behind it that we don’t really see all of.

 

Hendrix:  [Inaudible]

 

Tom Smith:  Could those people attend the review process:  because, if they can, that 4.2.4 needs to be added after the “and” in the review process?  So they could be present, the people who are mentioned in 4.2.4?  So it should probably -- as a friendly amendment, the “and” should probably say “4.2.4”.

 

Mouton:  [Inaudible]  We have a second.  We’re voting on the “and 4.2.4”

 

Tom Williams, Navy ROTC:  I think we ought to see exactly what 4.2.4 says before we add it to that paragraph.

 

Evans:  If you would like, I can place it.  Basically it says:  and this is the first sentence:  “The Committee, as a whole, shall arrange for a swift and comprehensive review of the stated grievance and may request from the parties additional information.  It shall then decide on the basis of this evidence whether or not there are sufficient grounds to hear a case and whether or not it will accept written statements in lieu of personal appearances.  If the Committee decides that there are not sufficient grounds to hear a case and closes the case it shall notify the complainant and respondent in writing as to the reasons for its action.”

 

Mouton:  Is there a reason to include that?

 

[Inaudible audience discussion]

 

Mouton:  So we need to vote on the “and for 4.2.4.”  [Inaudible audience discussion]  All those in favor signify by saying “Aye”.  [Ayes]  Opposed, “Nay”.  [Nays]  The “Nays” have it.  Now we’ve got to go back to the original statement:  Is this a new statement?

 

Evans:  This is actually modified.  There is a 4.2.3.2 that reads “the only person present at meetings of this committee shall be committee members parties to the action being considered by the Committee and witnesses who are actually...”  So, I guess this is a typo on the labeling of the new clause.  Yes, yes, it appears to be just the sentence structure.  If you look at 4.2.3.2 in your Tiger Cub on page 93 it reads similar to this so this appears to be a modification to clarify that.

 

We have a question, Mr. Chair.

 

Renée Middleton, Counseling & Counseling Psychology:  I would like some clarification on the difference between meetings and hearings because, can this Committee meet and call it a meeting and not a hearing and conduct business?

 

Evans:  That’s a very good question.  Recent...I’m sorry, did you have anything else?

 

Middleton:  I just think it causes some concern if there is a difference between meetings and hearings and I think there is.

 

Evans:  There is a difference between a meeting and a hearing.  As I said before, a hearing will be something that should determine the result of a grievance that was filed against a faculty member, whereas a meeting might simply be what do you want to do next week with this particular case, when do you want to meet?  It may be settling certain procedural issues of among the committee, things like that, just general meetings.

 

Mouton:  We’ve already voted on 4.2.3.3 and now I would like to submit 4.2.3.2 which states  “The only persons present during the Committee's grievance review process shall be Committee members, except where provided under 4.2.3.4and 4.2.3.5.”  Do you have a question?

 

Blumenthal:  I just want a clarification of what the process is now.  I wanted to know:  Right now, the way it reads is with just that statement there that we did the minor wording modification and it said that the only persons allowed at the hearing are the parties considered by the committee and witnesses testifying before the committee.  We are now changing that to exclude all persons during the review process part of your meetings.  Is that what you mean to do:  is that what you mean to say and then I will just reiterate the complaint my department has, which is if you are going to close the review process meetings to all parties it should be closed to all parties except for the committee.  No advocates of any sort should be allowed in if advocates are not allowed for both sides.

 

Evans:  That’s a very good question.  This was brought up in committee as well.  Essentially what we are trying to do here is that in the review process, of course, there is no need for the student or the faculty member.  That’s why we are changing it to “the only persons present at the hearings”, which of course we have already changed that.  And then it says, of course, the only persons present during the grievance review process shall be the members except where provided.  Now the reason we are allowing for the ADA representative to be there is because it is law, as Dr. Hendrix said earlier.  Does that answer your question?

 

 

Blumenthal:  Complainants and respondents are not allowed, then?

 

Evans:  During the review process?  No.  Dr. Hendrix, would you like to say something?

 

Hendrix, Chair-Student Academics Grievance Committee:  During the review process complainants and respondents are not allowed.  It’s just the committee members or if we have any special clarification we can call in resources provided by the complainant or respondent.  But they are just for additional questions.  That’s all.  They don’t attend.  They are in there and then they are out.

 

Blumenthal:  [Inaudible]

 

Hendrix:  That is correct.  The meetings hearing things:  it wasn’t specific enough so someone could come in for the review process, whatever.  We are trying just to separate this out to keep it as closed as possible.

 

Brunner:  I’m muddleheaded today.  I guess I just need to get this straight.  We’ve got a two-step process from what I see.  Correct me if I’m wrong.  There is first a hearing.  No, I’m sorry.  There is a review process where the committee meets, they talk about what’s going on and they decide whether or not to have a hearing.  I’m understanding, from what we are looking at here, that if this is all approved then, at that review process, it’s the committee and it’s an ADA representative if that’s appropriate to the charges being levied.  I heard Dr. Hendrix say, “or other people that the committee might wish to call”.  If the committee wants that to be the case then we need to write that in to the phrase where we are talking about review process, which would be 4.2.3.2.  Right?  And then there is a second step, which is the hearing if there needs to be a hearing and at the hearing you can call the parties, you can call witnesses –whoever you need.  Is that correct?

 

Evans:  As a matter of fact, everything I heard you say was correct.  There is a review process if we want to call in any resource persons at any time, including ADA, then we can.

 

Brunner:  Shouldn’t we say that in the policy, though?

 

Evans:  We just voted on that where it would read “and 4.2.4” as one of the senate members suggested and then it, of course, failed.

 

Brunner:  It was voted down.  So you can’t bring in resource persons.

 

Evans –According to how you have labeled it you can bring in, if this passes, only ADA representatives so that would be up to the body to motion it again.

 

Brunner:  I think we blew it.

 

Evans:  Good question.

 

Paula Sullenger, Secretary:  If we wanted to reconsider that, someone who voted against it the first time would need to make a motion to reconsider adding the “and 4.2.4.”

 

Middleton:  I’m going to admit I’m duly confused.  But, my question is:  Are there meetings that take place in this committee between the review process and the actual hearing itself?  And, if there are, are you saying that that person, if you are calling me—let’s say I filed a grievance and you are having a meeting, it’s at the review process.

 

Hendrix?:  [Inaudible]

 

Middleton:  So, at any point in the review process, who is allowed in the review?  Just the committee?

 

Hendrix:  Just the committee[Inaudible]

 

Middleton:  Well, the reason I’m confused:  I know a student who has filed a grievance and I know that the hearing hasn’t taken place and I know that the person met with your committee and it was after the review process.  Or maybe it was during the review process:  I don’t know.

 

Hendrix:  [Inaudible]

 

Middleton:  Was it during the review process?  I just think that anytime a student files a grievance, they need an advocate to come with them.

 

Mouton:  Point of order.  We’ve got a motion on the floor that we’re discussing.  Please

 

Sullenger:  The motion on the floor is to accept 4.2.3.2 and I actually didn’t vote on that last amendment so I’m going to suggest the amendment again. At the very end of the sentence, “except where provided under 4.2.3.4”, I move we add, “and 4.2.4”, which will allow other people in the grievance review if the committee wants them.

 

Mouton:  Is there a second?  We have a second.  So, we are discussing the amendment.

 

Blumenthal:  On the amendment, I just don’t think “and 4.2.4” does what you want it to do.  Not that I’m going to say that I’m supporting it.  I really think you are adding something that says, “They are allowed to seek other information”.  That does not mean other people being invited to the meeting.  If we want to add inviting whatever experts the committee wants to, why don’t we just add that wording and be straightforward about it?

 

Sullenger:  Since we haven’t gotten a second yet, I’ll withdraw that motion.

 

Mouton:  Are there any other suggestions or recommendations to the motion?

 

Penaskovic:  How’s about this?  “The only persons present during the committee’s grievance review process shall be committee members and those whom the committee wants to consult except where provided under 4.2.3.4.”

 

Mouton:  We have a suggestion to the amendment.  Do we have a second?

 

Sullenger:  Could you write that out?  Thank you.

 

Evans:  I believe that what the senator suggested is that after committee members it would read, “the only persons present during the committee’s grievance review process shall be committee members and those whom the committee wants to consult except where provided under 4.2.4.  Is that correct?

 

Sullenger:  I think that would work if we reverse it. “The only persons present, except where provided under 4.2.3.4 and those whom the committee wants to consult.”  Is that the motion, to add that at the end?  (Yes)  Okay, I move that we add that phrase at the end.

 

[Second]

 

Mouton:  We have a second.  Are there any comments or questions?  Reviewing what the amendment, adding the last sentence, “and those whom the committee wants to consult.”  All in favor signify by saying, “Aye”.  [Ayes]  Opposed, “Nay.”  [No nays]  The “Ayes” have it.  Are we near the end?

 

Now we are going back to the resolution to the conclusion of that statement.  Any comments or questions?  All in favor signify by saying “Aye”.  [Ayes]  Opposed “Nay.”  [No nays] I believe we are near the end.

 

Evans:  I believe we are.  We just finished here.  I have one more to mention to you guys:  4.2.3.  This was brought up earlier, about what was crossed out in the modification right there and the fact that .3 and .4 at the time did not exist.  But, conveniently enough, they do now.

 

Mouton:    Thank you very much, Jeff, for all that hard work you have done.  (Round of applause)

 

[Policy as changed by Senate:]

________

4.2 Procedures for hearings

 

4.2.1 Grievances must be filed with the Committee chairman within 20 class days of the term following that in which the grievance occurred.

 

4.2.1.1 Complainant and respondent are encouraged to cooperate and communicate with the Committee chair in the preparation of grievance materials.  At no time (outside of the formal hearing) should any person, whether or not directly involved in a complaint, communicate with any of the voting members of the University Student Grievance Committee, with respect to the grievance in question.

 

4.2.2 Where previous efforts for redress have failed, the student should file a grievance in writing to the chair of this Committee, accompanied by any initial documentary evidence.

 

4.2.3 The following (4.2.3.1-4.2.3.4) represents general guidelines regarding hearing procedures.  However, additional guidelines will be made available to the parties at least one week prior to the hearing.

 

4.2.3.1 Upon receipt of the stated grievance, the chairman shall forward a copy of the grievance to the instructor, who is invited to submit a written response.

 

4.2.3.2 The only persons present during the Committee's grievance review process shall be Committee members, except where provided under 4.2.3.4 and those whom the Committee wants to consult.

 

4.2.3.3  The only persons present at hearings of this Committee shall be Committee members, parties to the action being considered by the Committee, and witnesses actually testifying before the Committee.

 

4.2.3.4  In academic grievances where either the complainant or the respondent is affected by the Americans with Disabilities Act, a representative of Auburn University's Program for Students with Disabilities will be present during the review process and the formal hearing.  This person shall serve as a non-voting resource person.

 

4.2.4 The Committee, as a whole, shall arrange for a swift and comprehensive review...

_______________

 

Mouton:  We are going to pass out the ballots again.  The only person receiving a majority of the votes was Cindy Brunner.  We have scratched one name off of the ballot sheet so you will now vote for two or one or zero of the remaining five candidates.  Thank you.

 

We have one committee member already selected so you can vote for up to 2 out of the remainder on the beige ballot.  Are all the ballots in?

 

The next business of the senate is the Intimate Relations Policy.  Paula Sullenger was going to present it for the Steering Committee. She is busy counting votes.  So I’m going to put this back up.  The last time we had this up there were some corrections made here.  Since that time, there has been some input.  I’ll read it.  It’s a three-sentence policy and it’s broken out here into three different paragraphs.  It’s not intended to be three different paragraphs.  It’s just easier for us to deal with if people want to make comments.

 

Auburn University prohibits all faculty, administrators and supervisors, including graduate teaching assistants, from pursuing and engaging in romantic or sexual relationships with students, both graduate and undergraduate, whom they are currently supervising or teaching”.

 

The second sentence says, “Auburn University also prohibits all faculty, administrators, and supervisors from pursuing or engaging in romantic or sexual relationships with employee subordinates whose work that they supervise.”

 

The final statement says, “Violations should be promptly reported to the University’s Affirmative Action Office.  Violations of this policy will be addressed through appropriate disciplinary action, up to and including termination.”

 

So, if I could make a couple of comments.  One of the issues before had been the choice of words where it now reads, “prohibits” and in both of the first two sentences it deals with prohibiting.  The other thing that had bounced back and forth a little bit was where it said, are they prohibited from pursuing relationships or from engaging in relationships:  this text now has been prohibited from either engaging in or pursuing.  And then the last statement is consistent with:  and help me out Leanne –is consistent with sexual harassment language?  This language is already in the Handbook and Policies.  We had agreed last time to get Mary Kuntz’s input on it.  She has some input for how it should be placed in the Handbook, which we will give the Faculty Handbook Committee.  The enforcement here is consistent with elsewhere in the University.  She thinks maybe all of that needs to be looked at:  not as a criticism:  she did not have a specific criticism.  Mary could not be here today and she said she might have somebody to represent her.  Is anybody here doing that?

 

I cannot make a motion as the Chair so I will ask someone to make a motion on this.  We have a motion and second so we will open it up for discussion.

 

Jim Gravois, Library:  I thought what I heard you say is that this is supposed to say, ”pursuing or engaging” but, in fact, in both paragraphs it says “pursuing and engaging”.  So, which is it? 

 

Mouton:  Help me out, Steering Committee.  It should have been “or” and so, if that can be proposed from the floor I think that’s acceptable for the Steering Committee.  Thank you, Jim.  Anybody else?

 

Darrel Hankerson, Discrete and Statistical Sciences:  I can see that this is pointless, but I will speak against this.  This policy uses the strongest language “prohibits” and talks about significant consequences, namely, termination without any definition.  This has been my complaint to the Steering Committee in the past.  I don’t know what it means to pursue romantic relationships and I would vote against this strictly on that basis.  I can’t do much if the administration wants to shove this down our throats but I don’t see any reason to participate in this myself.  This is a tool for them to use to harass faculty and research assistants as far as I can tell. When this was originally presented, there was no hard data on why we needed this for activities that weren’t already covered by harassment policies.  There should have been some hard data or, at least, some indication on why we need a new policy on this.  And, finally, there was concern that undergraduates need to be protected but I’m reluctant to vote for anything that seems to be saying that we think students are too stupid to understand their rights and ethical obligations offaculty:  these are adults, after all.

 

Mouton:  Thank you.  Anyone else?

 

Tom Smith, Human Development & Family Studies:  I believe this is a significant step in the right direction but I have two comments:  One:  this is a question about (this is a reminder) where does this go if we vote on it and where does it go next?

 

Mouton:  It goes to the Board of Trustees.  Well, it goes to the President:  the administration.  But it came to us from the administration:  we’ve made some modifications.  It will go to the President and then to the Board.

 

Tom Smith:  Well then, I have an issue with the second paragraph because it appears that we are making rules about people that aren’t faculty:  like they have their own representatives, etc. and I’m wondering about like the A&P, etc.  I mean we’re saying, if you are a supervisor you can’t do this with subordinates, etc.  I believe we may be overstepping our bounds as the Faculty Senate in that regard.

 

Mouton:  First of all, both of those groups are represented here.  But we did run it by them.  That was one of the recommendations when we had the discussion and this policy had gone by both of them.

 

Tom Smith:  So, the other bodies have both approved to this.

 

Mouton:  I don’t think as bodies they have but, we submitted it to their leadership groups and didn’t get any opposition to it from them.

 

Tom Smith:  Are there those representatives here today?

 

Mouton:  Anybody from staff or A&P?

 

Sullenger:  It was given to Vic [Walker, Staff Council President].

 

John Varner, President-elect, Staff Council:  [Inaudible- indicating that the Staff Council had not voted on the policy]

 

Tom Smith:  Point made.  I’m just concerned about that.

 

Mouton:  The only thing about it is that we will make sure the administration takes it by those bodies.  We are a University Senate, not just a Faculty Senate.  But we will make sure that the administration of this board body passes on it and we will see to it that they take it past them.  The other alternative was to leave them out which would have been an incomplete policy.

 

Tom Smith:  Well, I’m just stating that it is a concern of mine that there are huge constituencies that apparently have not had the same opportunity that we have had to see this several times and talk back and forth about it.

 

Mouton:  Well, we will see to it when we sent it to the administration that they are aware of that and they need to get the input of those groups specifically, if we pass it.

 

Tom Smith, Human Development & Family Studies:  My other comment is:  In the first paragraph, I see the settling is on people you are currently supervising or teaching.  I have some concern in that because, like I said, I think this is a good direction but you could avoid teaching someone that you are having a relationship with but you could still be, like, involved in things like the whole department decides how assistantships are going to be divided or whatever and you were in a relationship with a graduate student I think that’s too narrow:  to say teaching or supervising.  If a student is in your department or you in any way as a faculty member or administrator have some kind of decision making that might effect those students, I believe you would still be open, whether this policy prohibits it or not.  So, I have that concern as well.

 

Mouton:  We’ve got two down here, please.

 

Josephson:  First, to comment to the previous speaker, I think supervising could be read as taking in anything that’s not teaching and involves decision making over another member or student.  My question is:  Do we need to have something in here, particularly in the second sentence about spouse employees?  So should this somehow limit spouses who are sub-ordinates?  Is there already a policy for that?

 

Mouton:  There is a nepotism policy and what Mary’s [Kuntz] point was that this needed to be between the nepotism policy and the sexual harassment policy and then we needed to look at those in relationship to each other and make sure they were in alignment.

 

Brunner:  This is Mom Apple Pie and all that.  I know that Janet Saunders supported this change with some passion and I think Senator Virginia O’Leary, at past meetings, told us that the policy we were looking at, at the time, was actually much watered down compared with what she thought was case law and what I’m asking is for other experience from the body.  I’m still uneasy about legislating romantic relationships among adults and I understand all of the ramifications of harassment and all that.  But, it still makes me uneasy to say you could be subject to dismissal from Auburn University as a tenured faculty member should you engage in a romantic relationship with a graduate student who is 35 years old.  Is this policy consistent with what others among the group have experienced at other universities?

 

Virginia O’Leary, Psychology:  My comment was not directed at this wording.  My comment was directed at the word “discouraged” and we are no longer looking at that.  In my experience — and, in fact, I did go back and I did look at some other institutions and I have myself participated on several other senate bodies at other institutions that prohibit these kinds of relationships; so, in my experience this is consistent with what is done at other places and, in fact, has been for many, many years.  I also am familiar because I served for a period of 6 years on the American Psychological Association’s National Committee on accreditation with the expectation of that particular accrediting body:  and, of course, that only governs departments of psychology that have clinical or clinical and counseling or school, etc.:  that this kind of wording be institutionally endorsed in the larger frame of policies of institutions as a protection to the graduate students.  For example, under the purview of those particular programs and one of the rationales for that stricture is the now almost 25 years worth of case law in this domain that is a national body of case law.

 

Janet Saunders, Affirmative Action:  I just wanted to clarify for those who are wondering what other institutions are doing.  The Steering Committee was provided with about eight policies from other institutions that address consensual relations or intimate relations policies and I believe they discussed those other policies before reaching the final conclusion regarding the wording in this policy you see today.

 

Sullenger:  Sorry I couldn’t bring this up earlier.  I didn’t receive those in an electronic format so I didn’t have a good way to distribute them but there were a couple that were very concise and it looks like Dr. Saunders, and whoever she consulted with, pretty much copied the original policy from another institution.  But, for a lot of them, because they are, remember when she first presented it she had this long two-page rationale and things like that?  We are only dealing with the policy, a lot of the other universities included that in their entire policy or mixed in with the sexual harassment or the nepotism, so it’s hard to make a direct comparison, but for the ones that were small and concise it was much like this.

 

Blumenthal:  I agree we need a policy of some sort but I’m very concerned with how we word this.  I would ask how many people in this room can say they know none of their faculty members in their department or their friends at other universities who have not dated and ended up marrying a graduate student or someone who they, at some point, supervised?  And usually the relationship started there.  These are happily married couples.  We have a faculty member who is married to a former graduate student.  They are happily married.  I don’t think she was forced into this relationship.  I just wonder what we are doing here.  It seems to me like we could be very much overstepping this.  This says, you know, that was wrong and can’t happen.  Supervising was just expanded in our discussion.  I’m just responding to Renée.  She said not while you are teaching, you are supervising.  But supervising has just been expanded to include anytime a faculty member deals with a graduate student because you have some supervisory control of graduate assistantships and other things having to do with graduate students and I think that’s a fair interpretation of supervising.

 

Janet Saunders:  The laws have changed, society has changed.  There is nothing retroactive in this policy.  So, there is no attempt to imply that previous relationships are in any way condemned, forbidden or frowned upon.  What was acceptable and legal 10 years ago is fine and we are not saying anything is wrong with those relationships.  Right now, we have identified problems from relationships between superiors and subordinates and that’s what we are trying to protect.

 

Josephson:  While I agree in spirit with what the senator in Chemistry said about adults, I have to weigh what the Affirmative Action officer says because she is in a position to see the relationships that don’t work out and harm students and while I work with adults in my college and I think they are perfectly capable of making decisions about their romantic relationships I think as a University we need to discourage people in positions of authority from fraternizing with their subordinates.

 

Penaskovic:  I move that we strike the word, the last five words of this policy, “up to and including termination”.  I think it’s enough to say that violations of this policy will be addressed to the appropriate disciplinary action.

 

Mouton:  Do we have a second to that please?  We’ve got a second.  Is there any discussion on the amendment to change the language which was proposed to remove?  Is that accurate, Richard?  To end it with disciplinary action?  Not seeing any comment then we will have a voice vote.  All in favor of removing the last five words as shown here signify by saying, “Aye”.  [Ayes]  Opposed, “Nay”.  [Nays]  Let’s do a hand count.  All in favor signify by raising your hand please.  [Hands raised]  All opposed.  [Hands raised]  It passes.  Thank you.

 

We are now back to the original resolution.  The changes that have been made are: “and” to “or” in two sentences and then the elimination of the last five words.  Any other comment please?  We’ve got Ruth back here, and SGA vice-president here.

 

Crocker:  [Inaudible, not at microphone]

 

Gary Martin, Curriculum & Teaching:  I really do support this.  Someone made the comment that this falls between sexual harassment and nepotism and I wonder if maybe we should look at kind of all three together because of pre-existing relationships it would sort of seem to suggest that, say a married couple would have to abstain from sexual relationships if they found themselves in one of these situations.

 

Mouton:  First of all to respond to that is that has been done by the people who developed this wording.  We can bring that language here but the nepotism policy and the harassment policy have both been reviewed in the development of this.  Mary Kuntz had some suggestions about as we go to implement it to make the connection.  So, it’s a good point but I think we can be comfortable that it will fit between them.  Please.

 

Bradford Boney, SGA President:  In response to previous senators who have been opposed to this I feel like [Inadudible]  Students feel this is an educational institution and any relationship between a teacher and a student should be truly educational until they’re outside [Inaudible]  I agree with this...

 

Penaskovic:  I move that we accept this policy as amended.

 

Mouton:  We have a second.  Any further discussion?  Then we are going to vote by voice.  All in favor signify by saying, “Aye”.  [Ayes]  Opposed “Nay”.  [Nays]  [The “Ayes” have it.  Thank you.

 

[Policy as passed by the Senate]

Auburn University prohibits all faculty, administrators and supervisors, including graduate teaching assistants, from pursuing or engaging in romantic or sexual relationships with students, both graduate and undergraduate, whom they are currently supervising or teaching.  Auburn University also prohibits all faculty, administrators, and supervisors from pursuing or engaging in romantic or sexual relationships with employee subordinates whose work they supervise.  Violations should be promptly reported to the University's Affirmative Action Office.  Violations of this policy will be addressed through appropriate disciplinary action.

 

 

Mouton:  We are going to do the next round of voting.  There was actually no one in the last round that got a majority so they have now scratched another name off the list and they are going to pass it around for the next vote.  You can still vote for two or one or none.  That’s the maximum on this ballot please.  Any more than that they will throw out the ballot.  Okay, all the ballots should be in please.

 

The next item is an information item.  Alyson Whyte from Curriculum and Teaching and Chair of the Calendar Committee has passed out—most people should have a copy.  I’ll grab some in the back for those that don’t, the recommendations coming forth.

 

Alyson Whyte, Chair, Calendar & Schedules Committee:  In response to faculty input Calendar Committee has generated two configurations of calendars that represent change from the 75-day fall and spring and ten-week summer semester calendar.  The desired result of these configurations is academic rigor together with as close to a 10-day break between semesters as we can achieve.  One reason being to provide blocks of time for course planning and writing for some faculty who teach twelve months of the calendar year.  The present form of the calendar provides thirteen to fifteen days between fall and spring, five to six days between spring and summer and five to six days between summer and fall.  One of the new configurations is the summer semester of nine weeks without loss of contact hours.  That would provide eight days between summer and fall and five to six days between spring and summer.  The other new configuration would shorten the fall and spring semesters from 75 to 73 days and that configuration would provide eight to nine days between spring and summer, and eight to nine days between summer and fall.  The proposed calendars are for fall, 05 through summer, 07, and the committee is asking for input today as to what consideration you might give to either of the new two configurations.

 

Blumenthal:  [Inaudible] My concern as graduate program officer in Chemistry is to place our graduate students in courses, we administer placement exams, graduate placement exams, and before they begin classes, we hope, and over the last 5 years we have watched the time between when we tell them they must be here, August 15 the day we start giving them, and the day classes begin grow shorter and shorter to the point that, we now do not have time to administer these five 90-minute exams before they have to decide to register for classes.  [Inaudible]  We need to prepare our graduate students we don’t have time to advise them on what courses to take.  We don’t have enough time to give these exams to everyone or sit down with them and intelligently discuss what they need to take and what they don’t need to take, what they are interested in taking.  We have to just sort of throw them in there...

 

Whyte:  Thank you.  And the reason we are here today is to find out as much as we can of those kinds of consideration.  One of the things I have learned is that there is no perfect calendar and we want to take everything that you can tell us back and then come back with a proposal in April then as much as we can reflect what you know.

 

Missy Josephson, Anatomy, Physiology, & Pharmacology:  I don’t know if this calendar change would affect the College of Veterinary Medicine.  No?  Cindy is shaking her head.  Because, if we shortened fall and spring from 75 to 73 days that’s six days, that’s a week loss.  I’m sorry, that’s four days, still a week loss and our curriculum is crowded as it is.  So I would say please don’t do that if it affects the Vet School.

 

John Rowe, School of Nursing:  Discussed this with faculty—I even got a call from my Dean this morning.  A nine-week summer would have a very damaging impact on the School of Nursing.  Our students spend two days in class and three days in clinical through the summer.  We really need every one of those ten weeks.  It’s very difficult as it is.  We are very stretched to get fifteen weeks of content into ten weeks.  I don’t think we can do it in nine.

 

Whyte:  Thanks for that input from Nursing.

 

Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology:  I can’t address the question about the Vet School as asked by a previous senator because I don’t know what our Associate Dean would say but I can claim that she has been very successful in negotiating things with Dr. Linda Glaze that would allow us to work on a calendar slightly different from that followed by the rest of the University.  For instance, our students have a four-day weekend in October that we call a fall break which would be consistent with the majority of schools in the SEC conference.  This senate has refused to endorse a fall break and prefers a week-long break at Thanksgiving which we have to live with because everybody else is off, too.

 

I have to admit when I read your proposal, I was concerned about decreasing the possibility of decreasing the semester from 75 days to 73 days because I was on the original committee that investigated the changes in the calendar that would allow us to go to a semester system if that were approved and, at that time, we proposed and the senate endorsed a 75 day semester and I know of at least one occasion when the calendar committee came to the senate and said, “Oh, please, let us back down from that.  Let us use that as a working average.  Let us use the 72, 73 day.”  And the senate said, “No.”  I’m here to tell you that we are now one of the few schools in the SEC that actually has a 75-day or 74-day semester.  One of the other schools happens to be Alabama.  They are operating on what appears to be a 77-day spring semester at the moment.  They had a 74-day fall semester.  Between Auburn, Alabama and, occasionally, Georgia, everybody else is well below us.  Everybody else works with 70, 71, 72 days.  I was stunned.  I really thought that we were probably in the middle of the pack.  But, we are leading, for a change.  And I guess I’ll take a deep breath and swallow hard and say if the Calendar Committee wants to cut us back to 73 we’ll be average again, and maybe that’s not so bad if it helps the nine-month faculty.

 

Kathryn Flynn, Forestry & Wildlife Sciences:  We have a summer practicum residential camp that is held in Andalusia, Alabama and we had to do some fairly significant tweaking to get it toned down to the current length of time.  We have an Advisory Committee Meeting so I didn’t have time to talk to anybody when I got the agenda today but I suspect that there would be a lack of enthusiasm for a shorter summer semester from our faculty.  Thank you.

 

Rebekah Pindzola, Dean, College of Liberal Arts:  I have two comments.  The first is:  Has your committee consulted with the College of Sciences and Mathematics with regard to the impact of a nine-week summer session on their ability to do lab?.  I think it is very significant and that needs to be explored.

 

Whyte:  It’s been discussed at committee meetings but it certainly would be good to talk with that administrator as well.

 

Pindzola:  You certainly do.  Second is:  Would you run by me one more time how the first five-week summer session will overlap the nine-week summer session and the logistics of how students can do that?

 

Whyte:  I’m going to ask one of the committee members who is here who worked on the sub-committee.  She did not work on the nine-week configuration but I’m going to ask both of us to check our understanding and Dr. Fletcher is here too who has been at our meetings.  My understanding is that the two terms would start at the same time and then they are configured for:  Is that correct?  And there is a slight amount of time after the end of the nine-week semester to allow the second minimester to conclude and the same graduation date.  Is that what everybody recalls?  Dr. Oleineck is here ,too.

 

Pindzola:  Students sometimes register for a five-week session and then a nine-week session and then another five-week session, up to the maximum hours.  Your model will not let them do that [Inaudible]

 

Whyte:  Is that correct, committee members?   That they could not register for a nine-week and minimester classes?

 

Pindzola:  [Inaudible]

 

Whyte:  So, we’ll discuss it and carefully talk about it.  Other comments about either configuration?  We are really looking to bring you something in April that reflects what your consensus may be.

 

Mouton:  Anybody else, please?

 

Brunner:  Would this apply to this coming fall?

 

Whyte:  No.  It would apply beginning fall 05.

 

Mouton:  Anybody else?  Okay, the results of the election for the Rules Committee have been finalized.  The new members are Cindy Brunner, Ruth Crocker and Kathryn Flynn.  Congratulations.

 

(Round of applause)

We have a discussion topic but it’s a quarter to five and I think we are about discussed out so I’ll pass it on to Willie.  The meeting is adjourned.