Auburn University Senate Meeting

July 13, 2004

Minutes

 

 

Members Absent: Don Large, VP for Business/Finance; Lee Evans, Dean, School of Pharmacy; Richard Brinker, Dean, School of  Forestry and Wildlife Sciences; Fran Kochan, Interim Dean, College of Education; Sheri Downer, Interim Dean of Libraries; Martha Taylor, A&P Assembly Chair; Chris Rodger, Steering Committee; Mario Lightfoote, ACES; John J. Pittari, Jr., Architecture; Raymond Hamilton, Aviation Management and Logistics; Scott Kramer, Building Sciences; Sridhar Krishnamurti, Communication Disorders; Alvin Sek See Lim, Computer Sciences & Software Engineering; Renée Middleton, Counseling & Counseling Psychology; Darrel Hankerson, Discrete & Statistical Science; Randy Beard, Economics; Jim Saunders, Geology & Geography; David Pascoe, Health & Human Performance; Ken Tilt, Horticulture; Thomas A. Smith, Human Development & Family Studies; Daniel Mackowski, Mechanical Engineering; Richard Good, Music; Jack DeRuiter, Pharmacal Sciences; Kem P. Kruger, Pharmacy Care Systems; Charles Taylor, Pharmacy Practice; Marllin L. Simon, Physics; Christa Slaton; Political Science; Thomas W. White, ROTC Air Force; LTC John Salvetti, ROTC Army; Howard Thomas, Textile Engineering

 

Members absent (Substitute): Melissa Brooks, GSC President (Mike Leslie); Jefferson P. Jones, Accountancy (Andrew McLelland); Diane Hite, Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology (Joe Molnar); Gary Martin, Curriculum & Teaching (K. Webb); Judith Lechner, Educational Foundations, Leadership & Technology (Maria M. Witte); Hugh Guffey, Marketing (Herb Rotfeld); Paul G. Schmidt, Mathematics (Michel Smith); Virginia O’Leary, Psychology (Barry Burkhart); Paul D. Starr, Socio/Anthro/Soc Work (Carole Zugazaga).

 

Call to Order: The meeting was called to order at 3:00pm by the Chair, Willie Larkin.

 

Dr. Willie Larkin, Chair: This meeting will now come to order.  Our agenda is robust, so we will be moving rather fast today.  The first thing I’d like to do is to entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the May 11, 2004 meeting.  This is not a test, yes….Jim Gravois-second.  Is there any discussion?  Those persons in favor of approving the May 11, 2004 minutes please indicate by saying Aye.  Opposers, nay.  The minutes are approved.  Secondly, I’d like to entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the June 8, 2004 meeting.  Do I hear a motion?  Ok, we have a motion to approve, can we get a second?  Jim Gravois-second.  Any discussion?  All those persons in favor of approving the June 8, 2004 minutes indicate by saying Aye.  Opposers, nay.  Those minutes are approved as well.

 

The President is going to be here; he is in a meeting right now so we’ll move through my comments and as he comes in we’ll ask him to come to the mike and address the Senate. 

 

First of all, I would like to introduce La Keeta White.  La Keeta, if you will stand…She is the new support staff person for the Senate.  She’s going to be working primarily with Debra Cobia to help make the Senate business run smoother and in a timely fashion.  Would you please welcome La Keeta? (Applause)  I don’t know whether she’s here or not, but I would also like to thank Mrs. Jeannette Hohlweig for her dedicated service to the Senate for several months while we were looking for a permanent replacement.  She did an excellent job and was extremely enjoyable to work with.  We wish her well in her next endeavor. 

On June the 9th, I participated in an orientation for new board members.  They were extremely interested in knowing more about what the faculty does and how the University works as it relates to the academic side of the House.  I would particularly like to make note of questions I received from Virginia Thompson, Sarah Newton and Charles Ball.  Other members were interested as well; these three expressed a particular interest and concern about the well-being of our faculty.  So I would like for you to keep that in mind. 

 

On June 22nd, I spoke to the McIntosh Auburn Alumni Club in Griffin, Georgia.  On July 22nd, I will speak to the Anniston Cleveland Auburn Alumni Club and then on the 29th of July I’ll speak to the Cullman Alumni Club.  When I go on these meetings, most of the things that I do include a little motivation, but primarily talking about academic accomplishments of the University and our strong faculty.  The alumni seem to be very interested in that.  And I do believe we have friends out in the alumni arena. 

 

During the June 8th meeting I indicated that I would be announcing the staffing of an Ad Hoc committee to craft a process for the permanent President search.  I have not had an opportunity to run the list of names that I have by the Rules Committee; therefore, I’m hesitant to do that all by myself.  So I will beg your indulgence to allow me to introduce this list of potential Ad Hoc Committee members, get the consultation and endorsement from the Rules Committee and then we will be posting that later on since we don’t have a meeting in August and won’t come back until September, that committee will have been put together by that time and we will put that on the website for you to see. 

 

The results of the Administrative Survey are not finished at this point, but should be completed by mid-August.  The report will certainly be ready for distribution by the next Senate meeting in September.  Unfortunately, I was informed that the Committee had trouble with the electronic scanning, and had to resort to tabulating the information by hand; causing a slight delay, but that will be forthcoming.  I’ll make another statement after Dr. Richardson comes and he makes his comments because I don’t want to pre-empt some things that he plans to say.

 

John Mouton is also in a meeting and he emailed me a few minutes ago and said he definitely would be here and that he would certainly like to make comments about the last Board of Trustees meeting. 

 

At this point, I’d like to invite Christine Curtis up, Special Assistant to the President and to give us an update on Traffic and Parking. 

 

As you know, at the beginning of the year, I put together this little Faculty Senate suggestion slip and put it in the back.  I’ve received three since we started this.  Two of them were about traffic and the other one was about football tickets.  And so that just shows you where the interest of the body lies.  But I want to remind you that these slips are in the back.  I do get a lot of emails and I try to respond to those, but sometimes it’s a little easier to collect these little slips with notes on them about your issues or things that you want us to address and then we can follow up on that.  So I would suggest that you keep that in mind.

 

Dr. Curtis, if you…oh, Dr. Richardson is here.  So we would like to invite him up to give his comments in regards to an update on whatever.

 

Dr. Ed Richardson, Interim President: I’ve just been involved in some very tedious discussion with people who haven’t done exactly what we wanted them to do in the construction area, so I’m a little bit aggressive right at this point, and if you’ll give me just a second; I’ve just walked out of the meeting, maybe I can speak civilly and we can make this a productive meeting.  I do thank John Mouton for sitting in on that meeting and providing some good advice from the faculty, but in this case with some particular expertise.  Dan, thank you for letting him work with us some in that regard. 

 

Ok, basically what I’d like to do is describe to you where we are on three issues; to some extent where we plan to go from here and then Dr. Larkin is to respond to any questions that might be of interest.  Just to make sure that we’re all together, is that the SACS proposal has been submitted and you probably are aware of that; just to start the process there.  I feel very good about accomplishing what we said.  The Audit Committee is in place, the Code of Ethics for Trustees is in place and is in the process of being finalized at this point in sense of completion and will be completed by the Trustees.  I got a letter today; I don’t know if Dr. Glaze, if you got that copy that I sent to you today from SACS; particularly they wanted to review the minutes of the Board to determine whether or not we had, in fact, effected those changes that I had mentioned to them in our letter, which we have.  We’ll wait until the next visit, which is, if I remember correctly, is September 28th, and then we will get the verdict the first week of December.  I feel very good about it and I feel we have accomplished the objectives that we needed to and I hope that we’ll get a good review.

 

The second issue that I’m working on deals again with not only part of the SACS charge, but also again, the reason I’m here.  I’ve stated that before on a couple of occasions; so I won’t repeat that I’m here with a rather narrowly defined agenda and that’s where I will focus most of my attention.  The first part of where we’ll go next deals with making sure that the President is in charge of the administration of the University, that institutional control issue.  And that’s obviously summed up the SACS’ reason for putting us on probation, that’s it.  We didn’t have it.  So part of what I’m going to say relates to that.  The other part relates to what I would see are trend lines that would work against us financially over the next five to ten years, and I’d like to address how I will deal with those trend lines, which obviously are against us in terms of being financially stable. 

 

The first issue that I’m dealing with is obviously attempting to look at all aspects of the University, in terms of what would enable us to deliver the services we think appropriate and yet reduce our costs.  Now the reducing of the costs is not to put into a sack in the bank somewhere, but to redirect those to more of an academic endeavor, which will become more apparent when we have our next meeting September 17th, but to also put more money into the scholarships for students, because that will increasingly become a problem as tuition continues to rise. 

 

I hope by the first part of next week that this discussion that has been going on now for about six weeks or so will be complete, and that I will be able to make those announcements.  We’re looking primarily at the Central Administration at this point, what I would call Samford Hall.  I’m looking also at the administration of Athletics at the same time.  Both of those should be ready for release sometime early next week, I hope.  We will continue to look at other areas.  We will look at Facilities and Construction.  Obviously construction is an issue of great concern, in fact, that is my greatest concern at this point, not that we’re about to fall the cliff, but we’ve got so many things going on that I want to make sure that we have a good idea of ‘Did we need this building?’ and ‘Is it designed in a way that will reduce the cost in the future?’.  So you’re going to see us working very hard over the next several weeks to try to bring all of that together.  So that will be the next phase.

 

When I come to the Board Meeting on September 17th, what I intend to do is to place about six major issues on the table.  I’d like to forgo most of those at this time, since I haven’t talked to the trustees yet, if you would allow me to hold them to put major issues that I think that this Board of Trustees should consider as we look at Auburn University in the future.  One of those factors that we’ll look at as we discuss these issues is how can we better define what we’re about; how can we better support what we think we should be supporting-of course, reducing costs in every way possible.  What I look at first is always your own house first and then Administrative and Support costs, which is where I’m going at this point.  I want to say though, that at some time during the year-now these factors will be on the table, rationality will be on the table-there will be no discussion of any significance on the 17th, but then subsequent board meetings over the coming year, then we will attempt to address those. 

 

What I would say is that I believe it’s essential that we again take a look at every aspect of the University, including all of our academic programs.  Now I say that and I want to make sure that you’re not unduly alarmed, since I’m the guy that co-chaired the one five years ago as a Trustee; obviously there was some discomfort and pain associated with that process.  I believe that if the President, no matter who that turns out to be, is going to be in charge of the institution, the administration of the institution, the President must drive the discussion, not wait to be pushed into a corner as  to why you haven’t put this on the table.  I do not foresee any problems in the area of academics, in fact, the only problems I see in some cases based on our SACS report and my own observations, and the work that Tom Hanley is doing, is that we have some staffing issues, and that means not enough in some cases.  So I really believe that you will see more corrections on a positive side of the ledger in regards to academic programs.  But I wish to push that; that will be on the table, and I wish for us to go through a process of review, and then make a presentation rather than have some external group do it for us.  So, I just wanted you to be aware of that.

 

In terms of other issues that I think that might be of interest to you, would be the following:  obviously one of the issues would be the research park.  I commend Dr. Moriarty for his presentation; I think I saw Mike here somewhere-there he is.  All of my friends are sitting down close to me here.  Mike did an excellent job with his presentation to the board.  I think that is a very compatible project associated with the mission of this university and I think it will bode well for us in the future if we accelerate that process.  The city has committed $5 million dollars to that project, the state has committed funds but we as yet, an unspecified amount, we’ve had the conversations with the Governor and staff, and we believe that will materialize.  So I think you’re going to see that as a very positive addition to the University. 

 

The second issue that I wanted to talk about, which I think is a little more difficult to explain, but I thought that perhaps you might want to know about what I choose to call the Gulf Shores Project.  And I think the only way that you can basically identify how we’re in that is to set a context, establish a context.  The first issue on the Gulf Shores Project was that the Governor asked me to come to Montgomery without telling me the reason why and indicated once I got there that he was very impressed-and this was an Alabama graduate-very impressed with the management group we have for our hotel and conference center, and the fact that Human Sciences and other colleges are working in that as an educational environment.  And he wished he wanted to know, if Auburn would be interested in having that property leased to it so that the land could be developed for a hotel and conference center-just to give you a figure, about 380 rooms and a conference center that would accommodate about 1200 people.  Well, the first thing I wanted to know was, ‘Is it going to cost us any money?’, and he assured me that it would not cost Auburn University any money.  And as it stands, we’ve had three subsequent meetings and that has been confirmed.  The reason that I think that we need to do that is first, I don’t know if anyone has had the pleasure of staying at the hotel and conference center within the last two or three years.  I have, last year, for one night and I was somewhat concerned that the 4x4s that were jacked up to hold the porches up were not as steady as I preferred, as I was on the second floor.  I also was concerned that one of the accoutrements that they give you when you go into the room was bug spray.  So it wasn’t really encouraging, but what I’m looking at is this: this is a 6000 acre tract of almost three miles of undeveloped beach that is of little use to us at this time.  Auburn, through its management group, will secure developers and about $100 million dollar project to develop that.  We will be able to use it as an educational venue for Human Sciences, Forestry, and others and, of course, we will then get a percentage of the proceeds once the hotel is opened.  So I do see it as a revenue generator, how large I could not project at this point, but it will certainly be revenue positive in terms of the university at this point.  So our involvement is to make sure the university is protected, to get the group, West Paces Group, that’s the Ritz-Carlton group that runs the hotel and conference center, going with the development, with the timeline being somewhere in the neighborhood of starting construction a year from this November.  So if all goes well, that’s a tight timeline but that’s what is projected.  So we wanted you to at least understand the context: There is no money on part of Auburn University involved in the Gulf Shores project and it should be a revenue generator at the end. 

 

So, when we come to the meeting on the 17th, I intend to put several issues on the table.  We will then have a discussion; I encourage your involvement and participation.  The only thing I would remind you as part of my charge is I have a more limited window; therefore, I must effect some decisions in this regard in a shorter period of time.  So I would see many of those decisions being made about this time next year, so we’ve got basically a twelve month period to consider these major issues.  Ok, is my time up, is that what it is?  So I want to say to you that I feel very optimistic that the Trustees are cooperating 100 percent.  I think that the efficiencies, if you will allow me to call them that, will affect several million dollars in positive revenue for the University without reducing services and I believe with the research center and others coming down the line, I believe in the future that Auburn will be positioned for whatever we see on the horizon at this time.  So I feel very good about that.  So, I’m about calmed down from my previous meeting and I’ll just stop at that point and see if there are any questions.  Yes sir?

 

Dr. Larkin: Will you come to the microphone if you plan to speak?

 

Richard Penaskovic, Philosophy: If as you say, Dr. Richardson, the future trend lines are not right for state aid to higher education in this state, I’m wondering why we have such massive construction going on right now to the tune of almost $300 million dollars. 

 

Dr. Richardson: Try 400.

 

Richard Penaskovic, Philosophy: Try 4?  $400 million dollars.  It’s just troubling.

 

 Dr. Richardson:  A little money here or there.  I would say, Richard, that’s a good question.  I would say that part of what we’ve been trying to get our hands around over these last few months is whether we need this and what’s the function and also to have a plan for the buildings we leave when we go to the new ones.  And I believe we have actually exceeded our capacity in some cases.  I think we’re working hard, we have it where we want to be but if you were going back to day one, this is not what I would recommend.  I would say in that regard and I appreciate Dr. Larkin for reminding me, I’ve asked John Mouton to be on loan for me for this next year and keep his office in the same building.  I don’t guess you’ll charge me rent for that, will you?  A surcharge, ok.  But John has considerable experience working with me in my previous job in terms of getting a handle on utilization and cost.  He has a construction background before coming here to Building Sciences.  So we’re going to beef up our capacity to try and resolve it.  Now what might be of interest to you Dr. Panescovic is that there are other construction projects that are in the pipeline that are not part of that count.  And some of those deal with parking decks, some of those deal with student center, which I am anxious to get going and some of them deal perhaps with student housing as there is at least an expressed intention to have the capacity to house all the freshmen, so there’s also an interest, as I understand it, from selected Congressmen to put more money into another Engineering building, which I think is something we cannot afford at this point.  So, we’ve got two phases: one, we’re trying to get our hand around what’s already going and we can’t do anything about that and to make sure that before we start any more projects, that we can handle it effectively.  It’s not what you would recommend if we were starting from scratch.  Yes sir?

 

Herb Rotfeld, Marketing: Sir, you have so many things on your plate and I know this is something different, but I think this is an issue that only from a strong statement from the President saying it matters and will be done immediately will something be taken care of.  And what I’m talking about is Auburn’s making it more possible and supporting the possibility of identity theft by using the social security numbers for faculty and student ID numbers.  I was complaining about our consistency with this to a former student of mine who, a week later, said: ‘I’ve now got Dr. Richardson’s social security number if you want it, from his ID’…

 

Dr. Richardson:  That’s cute.  Did he say anything else?

 

Herb Rotfeld, Marketing:  Seven years ago approximately an Ad Hoc committee did a report on how we can immediately make the change.  The then president did not act on it for two years, we blindsided the Provost at a meeting two years later who said we could do something right away.  Within a month, social security numbers were off of ID cards.  Nothing more has been done.  Every two years I come in and make this statement and …

 

Dr. Richardson: So you’re filing your report?

 

Herb Rotfeld, Marketing: Steve McFarland comes in and tells me ‘We’re doing something, it will change’-no offense, Steve-but it has no credibility anymore.  It’s going to change if you say change it and I know from experience with other faculty and other universities that the President says ‘Get this off of university IDs, get this out of places where it doesn’t belong, do it right away’ it can be done in relatively short order.  At least we don’t need to have visitors to campus be required to give their social security number to obtain a parking permit, which is one of the rules, by the way.  And while we don’t have student ID numbers given to us on rosters at the beginning, we get them on grade sheets, reports for students with disabilities; I receive them frequently.  And I have to give my social security number to get my parking permit, too.  Sir…

 

Dr. Richardson: I understand the message.  Dr. McFarland, do you have a response to that?  I mean somebody else?

 

Dr. Stephen McFarland, Acting Assoc. Provost & Dean: I’ve asked John Heilman, excuse me, John Fletcher to join me…

 

Dr. Richardson:  It’s ok…

 

Dr. McFarland:  As I told you two years ago, Herb, our problem is that we are prisoners of the SET Corporation.  They provide the basic administrative systems that run this university:  Human Resources, Financial Resources and Student Resources.  They sold us a bill of goods.  They told us that our previous existing system, OASIS, would be able to use what we call a campus-wide ID, which would be an eight-digit number that would be randomly assigned and would not be associated with social security numbers.  And it would then hide social security numbers to only those offices that would need it, and you would be able to use a unique identifier.  And if you’ve ever seen your class rolls, you know how important it is to have a unique identifier.  But the difficult thing is we quickly ran into two problems, one of which is the decision to go to a new system called BANNER, if you haven’t heard about that, we’ll talk about that in a second.  But the second problem we ran into is that we discovered that the universities that have tried to use the campus-wide ID, their central systems have come crashing to a halt.  Because we do batch jobs at night, and it would take 24 hours to run batch jobs, that means the next day you can’t do anything with the systems.  So again, we’re prisoners to the SET Corporation.  Now I asked John to come along because he knows a lot more about this than I do. We’re in the process of converting to something called the BANNER system, which will change all of our central core systems to a modern system that will use as its primary identifier a campus-wide ID.  So rather than try to modify and existing system to allow that, we’ll be starting from the ground up.  John, do you want to…..

 

John Fletcher, Assistant VP, Student Affairs:  Well, I think Dr. Richardson can comment on the parking services, but in terms of the record keeping system, the state is right on target.  We have engaged SET, is actually the vendor that sells BANNER.  It’s a client server system, 24/7 service, which is greatly enhanced over what we have.  It will allow us to move quickly to an 8-digit campus wide ID.  We also have had some problems with the existing on-campus systems.  I’m sure a lot of you use the library system, which also requires a 9-digit number, which happens to be the SSN also.  So we’ve had a lot of different conflicting demands on how we identify our users, particularly for the library and other things.  I do think this will get us there.  Now is this something we can turn on tomorrow?  No.  It will take us multiple years to get there.  Has the process started?  Yes, it has.

 

Dr. Richardson:  Well, two years is a long time for me.  Maybe you…what are we saying here in terms of timeline?

 

Dr. Fletcher:  Well, I think FRS, the Financial Reporting System, and if Marcie or Don was here, they could speak to that better, within a year from October is the target.  HRS, which is our Human Resource System, about a year and six months from now and Student would be the last because it’s a huge component and hopefully we could bring that up in probably two years.  I mean, it would be right at the two-year threshold.  Basically it means rethinking some of our business processes and making sure we have appropriate technology.

 

Dr. Richardson:  Would you agree that social security numbers present a problem?

 

Dr. Fletcher:  Absolutely.  And the very things Herb mentioned resulted from that previous discussion, where we were able to remove them from the ID and we were able to take them off the preliminary class rolls.  We can further take them probably out of, off of other documents, but they’re not out there much now. 

 

Dr. Richardson: What about this parking permit business?

 

Dr. Fletcher:  Well, now I can’t speak to that one.

 

Dave George, Parking Services: Well, Sir, when I took over parking last year one of the first things I did was eliminate the social security numbers from visitors, unless they want to give it.  That allows us to check if somebody is just…because parking passes used to be free, and their were some people, actually some students occasionally would pull in and say they were a visitor so they could get an A zone parking permit.  Of course, no one in this room ever did that!  What we do now is get the person’s driver’s license and check it against the name, against our rolls and we check the birth date.  We’re not using it for visitor passes, but it’s still on the form you fill out if you’re an employee to get your hangtag or if you’re a student to get your hangtag, it’s the only ID we have.  So we don’t get names confused.

 

Dr. McFarland:  If I could add, if you look around campus Herb, quite clearly you’ll see some changes.  I can just say, for the Graduate School in my case, we don’t have any forms that require social security numbers anymore.  We’re using the user ID and other such data.  We already know the students’ social security number; we don’t need to ask it again.  So once we establish who they are, we’re ok.

 

Dr. Richardson:  Where does the problem lie in terms of use?  What forms require the use of the social security number?

 

Dr. McFarland: The problem is, the central systems that everybody uses to look up salaries, to look up number of hours students are taking, to look up transcripts and such, all use a unique identifier and that unique identifier is the social security number.  And that’s because our central core computer administrators require that.  It’s the only way you can really do it; to really know for sure who that person is.  So the net result is usually shorthand, Dr. Richardson.  The first question you’ll get when you walk into an office is ‘Tell us your social security number’, because that way you don’t have to play the guessing game.  But I think that’s where you’ll still see it and if I may, you can get around it.  There are other ways to do it.  You can do a fishing expedition, ask someone their name and look up their social security number and you don’t have to ask them that information.  But I think most offices probably have the attitude ‘If we’re asking you and you’re the person with the social security number, then you can control whether you want to give it to us or not.’

 

Dr. Richardson:  I guess when we come back with our Bi-Annual Report in two years; can we reasonably predict that this will not be a problem?  Or will we just get a progress report?

 

Dr. McFarland: The progress report.  The first step is to get the central systems to allow it; the second step is to get all of those offices out there that are still using social security numbers to stop doing so.  But I think that will follow, because if you give somebody a social security number, it won’t work.  You will have to have the campus-wide ID number.

 

Dr. Richardson:  Ok.  Is there anything I can do to move that along?

 

Dr. McFarland: How much money you got?  It’s not a money thing; it’s time to implement the BANNER system.  It’s going to take time.  Every person that is working on that conversion process already has a full-time job, and they’ve got to do their current job plus the conversion.  So it really is just a matter of time, it’s not money.

 

Dr. Richardson: So you’re saying if we had a couple more people to work on that that didn’t have other jobs……

 

Dr. McFarland: The problem is, the key individuals, such as John Fletcher, and you can’t clone him, his knowledge of the university and how systems work cannot be cloned, so hiring a new person wouldn’t help.  And I think giving him a raise might help…

 

Dr. Richardson: If he can complete it in two years, I might….

 

Dr. Fletcher: I really don’t see that happening.  One thing we could practically do is perhaps initiate a process by which we encourage offices, under your authority, under your signature, to see if there’s not some way around it.  We do have some unique identifiers: your user ID, your global ID that everybody has.  And it’s not totally perfect in terms of identifying, but if you’ve ever used a central system, Herb, you know it asks you to identify your Windows domain password, your Windows domain user ID.  So we already have some unique identifiers.  If you would like, we could certainly draft a new policy, if you will, that will direct offices to do whatever they can to eliminate the use of social security numbers.

 

Dr. Richardson: Would you recommend that?  I just wasn’t sure I knew enough about the issue to respond.  I could…I mean, there’s an article I read last night that was recommending that you don’t give your social security number, I mean that was obviously…..

 

Dr. McFarland: When Herb was raised this issue in the Senate a couple of years ago, the previous President, we initiated such an effort but the decision was made to drop that at that point because of the problems we had in the central system.  The campus library card, your ID card that allows us to get into football games, the TigerClub card, they all have to use the same number or the system breaks down.  We can let students get into the library with an 8-digit number, but then you can’t get in.  So we don’t want faculty not to be able to use the library, and students be able to use the library, and vice versa.  But I think what we can do is try to get some of those offices out there to stop requesting numbers and I think Dave George did the right thing-we’ve eliminated that.  It’s a matter of chipping away, and I think just a general policy, if you will, if we ask all offices on campus to, wherever humanly possible, eliminate that use.  There’s other ways around it if they’ll put the time out for it.

 

Dr. Richardson:  Well, let’s start chipping it away, ok?  Send me something.  Any other questions?

 

Jim Gravois, Library:  Dr. Richardson, I don’t know if it was announced at a meeting at which you were present, but I understand there was a Deans’ meeting recently in which it was pointed out in the future, those faculty who switch from 12-month contracts to 9-month contracts would receive a smaller salary than those who are currently on 9-month contracts, by percentage.  Do you know?

 

Dr. Richardson: No, I did not attend.  Maybe we can find out who was present.  You said Deans’ meeting.  Dan, were you there at that meeting?  Tom? Ok, you want to see if we can elaborate on that?  Thank you.

 

Tom Hanley, Provost: I guess the first thing I need is a clarification, Jim, on what you mean by lesser percentage?  I think what Jim is addressing here, as far as I can tell, there was no clear policy on converting between 9- and 12-month policies.  So the policy was put into place that future conversions from a 9-month contract to a 12-month contract would be converted 4/3 and from 12 back to 9 would be converted ¾.  There were some provisos in it to take care of those people who had been converted at other rates, if they converted back within the next several years.  The Deans could request adjustment to that policy, if they thought it was warranted.  But, the policy was set up to make sure that on campus, there was a general policy for converting from 9 to 12.

 

Dr. Richardson: But you did allow some flexibility there in the event that someone had been converted under a different system?

 

Dr. Hanley:  There is flexibility and so far, Mr. President, all I’ve addressed are exceptions.

 

Dr. Richardson:  Alright, thank you.  Did that answer your question?  Alright, thank you.  Any other?  Yes, sir?

 

Richard Penaskovic, Philosophy:  Help me understand, Dr. Richardson, what’s happening with the Alumni Association?  I read in the O-A News that there is some kind of contract negotiation about to take place.  What’s the reason for it?  Is it financial?  I’d be interested in your opinion.

 

Dr. Richardson: Thank you for asking the question.  There are actually a couple of things I had left out and that is certainly one that needs to be brought up.  The University has had over the last several years a tenuous relationship with the Alumni Association.  And we have a service contract which requires we notify them within 90 days before it lapsed, whether or not we’re going to renew it.  The 90 days happen to be upon me and I did talk to Owen Brown first and assured him that until I could reasonably determine if we were all going to work from Auburn University or if we were going to have a group that was going to head off on it’s own, which is still up in the air, that I would work with him in this regard.  One, I was sending him a notice, that if the agency is not going to focus primarily on Auburn University but on its own agenda, then the service contract would not be renewed.  Two, if we would not know the answer, in some cases that may be September 30 is the time for it to lapse, then I think the vote on all this is sometime in October, as I would work with them on a month-by-month basis to see that service was not disrupted.  So the real issue, in cutting to the bottom line, is that I, it is my desire that the Alumni Association and the University would focus on one agenda, and that is to make this a better place and to support it, that’s what I want.  If that is impossible, then I would separate, or they would attempt to, and I would finalize the separation.  Now I would have to restart the formation of Alumni II, or something like that.  That’s not what I want to do; it would take all the time I have left just to get that going again.  I’m doing everything I can to avoid it by meeting regularly with the officers.  It doesn’t mean any more than I would think unanimous opinion in here; in fact, I would think that would be unhealthy if all of us agreed on the same decision; but that don’t mean the Alumni Association has to agree with every decision that I make.  But it does have to make a strong commitment to Auburn University, whether it be for scholarships or for promotion and if it wants to be a partner in that regard, then I see this as simply a warning shot that will not hurt anyone and we’ll be able to continue.  The jury is out in my opinion as to whether or not the Alumni Association will choose to work in that regard.  Dr. Shaw is working as hard as she can, Owen Brown and others are working as hard as they can to see that we have an agenda that would be mutually acceptable.  And it doesn’t have to be solely my agenda.  But I won’t know for another three months, and I had that contract provision that I had to let them know 90 days prior to doing this.  So I hope we’re able to work together.  If we are and we’re making progress, then September 30 goes by, then I can work with them on a month-to-month basis, so service is not interrupted.  That’s my answer, is that ok?  That’s it.

 

 Stacie Parkins, Graduate Student:  Dr. Richardson, are you staying for the remainder of the meeting?

 

Dr. Richardson:   No, I have another stop, so surely this won’t be about graduate student parking.  I thought I saw some familiar faces…

 

Stacie Parkins, Graduate Student:  I’m just interested in hearing if you would please present your position on what you’ve heard; let us be aware of what you know and your position on that, Sir.

 

Dr. Richardson:  That’s a fair question.  I’ve been getting a number of emails and probably 50 or 75 and that is a topic.  I’m not sure I can give you a complete answer on this.  Perhaps Dr. Curtis or someone could respond to the rationale.  Parking is a perpetual problem and what I’ve learned is that the A zone has more demand on it than any of the other parking.  In other words, there’s more A stickers than there are for the B zones.  What we are trying to do, in one way, is to afford more parking for faculty.  The second issue that complicated it there, so if you go back and change it reduces the parking for faculty.  The second issue is that I had understood that you had to reach a certain level in terms of a GTA in order to be afforded not only the parking but all the other tuition waivers and so forth.  We obviously are very flexible on that and we have some small 25%, for instance, that are meeting those requirements and that has to be addressed as well.  Dr. Curtis, would you like to respond to that or someone else in terms of the report itself?

 

Dr. Larkin: She’s giving a report later.

 

Dr. Richardson: OK.  I’ve told you about all I know, so that’s all I know.  Ok, she’ll give a report later?  Anybody else?  Thanks so much.  (Applause)

 

Dr. Larkin:  I’m going to ask John Mouton to come up and give a report as the Faculty Advisor Representative on the Board of Trustees.  But before he does, I want to make a comment about what Dr. Richardson said a few minutes ago about appointing him into a special assignment for one year.  We talked about this and John is not leaving faculty, he’s not moving from his office, and the other thing is that Conner Bailey and I talked-the Board of Trustees by-laws states that only the Immediate Past Chair can serve as the Faculty Advisor.  So we can’t bring Barb Strumpler back and I can’t move up to that position, so if we opted to ask John not to continue to serve, then we’d be void of someone representing the faculty as an advisor on there.  So, the other reason that I’m kind of excited about this, many faculty members over the years have complained that the University has brought in too many outside consultants to do work when they had people internal to the University with expertise.  I’m hopeful that this is a precedent, that establishes the fact that when special projects or things that need to be done in the University that will save us money, if we’ve got the right faculty persons to do that, that we look toward them rather than going outside and paying those expensive consultant fees.  So at this point, I’m going to ask John to come. 

 

I’ve asked all of the speakers as they come up to be mindful of the time because we do have-some, I mean everything is important-but we’ve got some really important things further down and maybe, Herb, I should have taken your advice and moved them up further on the agenda.  John is going to come; I’ll ask him to handle his own questions.  If you’re going to ask questions or speak, go to the microphones; identify yourself and what department you represent.  And then after he finishes, we’ll invite Dr. Curtis to come up and she will do the same thing, reminding you to always go to the mike and identify yourself.  John, if you will come up….

 

Dr. John Mouton, Facilities:  Thank you, Willie.  On June 11 it was the annual Board Meeting and one of the things that take place at the annual Board Meeting is that they elect leadership of the Board for the next year.  Earlon McWhorter was elected President Pro-Tempore and the Vice-President Pro-Tempore is Paul Spina. 

 

The other thing that takes place in June is that the budget guidelines are presented.  This is not the approval of the budget; that takes place right before the fiscal year, probably in September.  There is a Budget Advisory Committee that reviews all of this before it actually moves forward; and the budget guidelines for 2005 are up here and I’ll hit on a couple of key points.  There will be a tuition increase.  State appropriations are slightly up this year and one of the things, if you look on the income side, is that we had about $20 million last year that we spent but have not committed to on a continuing basis.  For the upcoming year, there’s $11 million in mandatory allocations, and if you look at them, it has to do with a number of things that have changed in the University that we have to cover.  There is also $14 million in essential budget items which includes the raises, the one-time raise allocation that was given last year will be put forward this year; I’m not sure where it’s at on here but promotion raises are included.  And then there’s benefit costs, as our salaries go up the benefits that the University contributes to, their contribution also goes up.  So, if you look at the bottom line, I think there’s a million dollars in scholarships.  One of the concerns is that as tuition continues to increase, we may have people who are losing access to the University, so one of the ideas is that as tuition continues to increase, there is money added to the scholarship pool.  So this is not a million dollars total in scholarships; it’s a million dollars that has been added to the scholarship pool.

 

The other thing that was done, of relevance to the faculty, the by-laws changed.  And the by-laws basically incorporated previous resolution regarding who the Faculty Advisors to the Board of Trustees are. 

 

The only other things I need to report is that the Academic Affairs Committee did some upgrading of the admission standards at AUM.  There were several property and facilities actions on various building projects.  So that’s my report.  Are there any questions?

 

Dr. Larkin: Because we have a number of action items that need voting on, we want to make sure we have a quorum here, so I’m going to ask Dr. Curtis to hold off just a moment and we’re going to move to the Calendar Committee and get that out of the way.  Before we do that, I want to set the stage as Alyson Whyte and one of her colleagues comes down.  As we look at the Calendar Committee, one of the things that I want to do is remind everybody, that according to Robert’s Rules of Order, an assembly can pass no action designed to encumber a future assembly in perpetuity.   That means that you can’t pass anything that lasts forever.  There are some vehicles through parliamentary procedure that will allow you to change anything that a previous assembly has put together.  Having said that, I want to share with you the responsibility of the Calendar Committee.  The Calendar Committee is a standing committee of the Senate.  Its duties are defined in the Senate Constitution as: The Committee shall submit a proposed university calendar for approval by the Senate.  It shall recommend policies concerning scheduling, to promote effective use of the University’s facilities. 

 

One of the issues that have been brought up several times is that in a previous meeting, there was instruction given to the Calendar Committee that they bring forth a 75-day calendar.  So I, along with Debra and some the other leadership did a little research; we had to go way back, but on January 14, 1997, during the discussion of the calendar, at the very end of that discussion, Herb Rotfeld said he would like to draft guidelines to somehow read, that after the transition period, which was from the quarter to the semester period, the intent would be to have 75 class days or equivalent for all three terms.  Rotfeld made the motion to instruct, and I’ve got that underlined; so there was a motion previously made to instruct the Calendar Committee to establish semester terms of 75 class days.  Dr. Brunner seconded the motion.  The motion carried by a slim margin of 31-28.  In light of those decisions, Jane Hanson proposed that there be further discussion on what the opposing opinions might be.  So now we’re going to ask Dr. Whyte to come, but I want to remind you, there are several options that we can look at.  From what I understand, she’s going to present two calendars and she’ll explain all of that.  We can vote on each one of those calendars individually and then we can decide which one the majority prefers; or there is a way in terms of parliamentary procedure we can rescind.  And you would simply say this at the top there: Mr. Chair, I move to rescind the motion relating to instructing the Calendar Committee to establish semester terms of 75 class days adopted at the January 14, 1997 Senate Meeting.  And of course, if we did this, the motion would require a second unless a member of the committee would make this motion.  So at this point, I’m going to ask Dr. Whyte to come down and whoever your colleague is-is that person here?-that person is invited to come down as well and I would like for you all to be gentle.

 

Rod Turochy, Civil Engineering:  My name is Rod Turochy from the Civil Engineering Dept. and I served on the committee with Ms. Whyte.

 

Dr. Alyson Whyte, Curriculum and Teaching:  What I wanted to ask is a matter of procedure.  Is it allowable to move that the Senate instruct the Calendar Committee to adopt the proposed 75-day or the proposed 72-day calendar?  We don’t want to impose one or the other on the Senate, if we could avoid doing so.

 

Dr. Larkin:  What I’m going to ask her to do is to present both calendars.  At that point, then I’ll work with Bill and then we’ll have some instructions on where to go from there.  But if you’ll just present those at this point….

 

Dr. Whyte:  Who needs a paper copy of what was posted electronically on July 6th?  Does anyone need those?  I have some here and there are some in the back on the table as well.  And I’ll just give a little bit of background.  As promised at the June Senate meeting, we’re bringing forth two proposed calendars to the Senate to consider: a calendar of 75-day fall and spring semesters and a 72-day fall and spring semesters.  Dr. Cobia requested that rather than electronically attach the table of SEC’s campus calendar descriptors, that we add those as a document on the camera, so I’ll do that.  And we’re hoping that the discussion can look at the proposed 72 versus 75-day and the issue of Spring Break can be raised separately as motions from the floor. 

 

Is there a motion to approve either of the proposed calendars?  May I do that? No.

 

Bill Sauser, College of Business:  I’m Bill Sauser, your disinterested Parliamentarian.  And the rules are that the Committee has followed the instructions that they were given appropriately to bring forth a 75-day calendar and they’re putting that before you as one of the options.  The Committee may now make a motion for one or the other, not both.  And that does not require a second.  Once a motion is on the floor, then this Body may debate it, may amend it, may revise it, may substitute-but a motion has to be brought forward and it can’t be ‘Approve one or the other.’  It has to be one or the other, right?

 

Dr. Whyte: Ok, I can do that.  Let me just preface what I’m going to move by the sequence of calendars that has been presented to you previously.  The Committee voted at one time and point to submit a 73-day fall semester calendar based on having been asked to consider what you see on the document camera and so I’m going to move that you approve the 72-day fall and spring calendar, because it’s the closest to what the Committee voted following proper procedure to bring to you today. 

 

Dr. Larkin:  Since this motion came from the Committee, no second is required.  If you would like to discuss or debate this motion, if you will go to the microphones and be prepared to speak.  Go to the microphones if you have questions or statements.

 

Herb Rotfeld, Marketing:   I have a request for information.  The motion is to accept the 72-day calendar?

 

Dr. Larkin:  Yes.

 

Herb Rotfeld: And the summer calendar, that you gave us along with the 72-day plan?

 

Dr. Whyte:  Correct. The document that labeled ‘Proposed Calendar B’.

 

Herb Rotfeld: I move for division, separating out discussion of the summer calendar from the discussion of the nine month fall and spring calendars, because I know a number of other people have some other issues with the summer.  And it is the fall and spring that need to be cited today, yes sir?

 

Dr. Larkin:  That’s right.

 

Herb Rotfeld:  So I would move for a division of discussion of this motion and move the summer option apart from the fall and spring.

 

Dr. Larkin:  We have a request for a division of this question.  Is there a second?  We have a second by Cindy Brunner.  Is there a discussion?

 

Ann Presley, Consumer Affairs:  Can you just reiterate briefly what the thought process was to go to an education-light 72-day calendar?  I’ve got to wait because apparently I’m not following Robert’s Rules of Order, so……

 

Dr. Larkin:  Is there any discussion on the division question?  All of those in favor of dividing out the schedule for the summer and discussing it; and then the schedule for the fall and spring indicate by saying Aye.  Opposers, nay.  Ok, we will separate those two items.  If you plan to speak, come to the microphones. (Motion to divide was approved, D. Cobia)

 

Ann Presley, Consumer Affairs: One comment, first.  For those of us who had to transition from five quarter hours to three semester hours, having been without an assistant for a while; we all know we’re short and we can’t cover as much material, but I would like to understand the thought process just briefly, because I know you did go over this at the last meeting.  Why we want to go to education-light and the 72-day calendar when we’ve already got our backs against the wall trying to cover and maintain integrity in our classes?

 

Dr. Whyte:  Sure.  I‘d like to repeat that the Committee is committed to approving a calendar, 72- or 75-day.  The history of the 72-day calendar in the proposal you received July 6th, which you also have in front of you, which I believe it’s-let me give you a paragraph-it’s the second paragraph under the boldface ‘Here is the proposal’.  And I’ll just read you the pertinent passage: We were, the present Calendar Committee, was approached by faculty members concerned within programs where faculty teach 12 months of the academic year.  The present length of fall and spring semester creates an imbalance, and the time available to these faculty to address the University’s mission of research, teaching, and service.  The Committee’s next step was voting to consult the Senate in March, for feedback on adjusting the fall and spring semester from 75 to 73 days.  At that March Senate meeting, a Senator who had been on the Calendar Committee during the quarter to semester transition recalled the strong concern of the Senate at that time, that a 75-day semester be preserved.  The same Senator said that she had examined all the academic calendars for the SEC schools and noted that very few schools maintained a 75-day semester.  Instead a 72 or 73 day term seemed to represent the norm.  This information was a surprise to the Senator, who commented that perhaps it may be time to reexamine the issue.  So the Committee proceeded on the basis of that input of the Senate in March.

 

Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology:  I am the author of the table you’re looking at and believe I am the Senator you just quoted as having brought the information to the Committee.  I was curious, I wanted to see what the norm was within the SEC and a few other schools, and I was surprised because I did expect to see a 75 day semester and a 150 day academic year.  I believe that when I handed you the table, I did say it may be time to give this a second look.  I would like to go on record as maintaining my previous support from 1997 for a 75 day academic calendar.  I believe, too, that going to 72 days is instruction-light. 

 

There have been some comparisons made in the crowd today about the weakness of an academic calendar, shortness of an academic semester, and the strength of a football program.  I guess I don’t want you to read too much into the columns you’re looking at because you’re not seeing the full equation.  You’re not looking at the number of credit hours required for a degree, you’re not looking at the length of an instructional period, you’re not looking at Monday, Wednesday, Friday versus Tuesday, Thursday hours, or any of the other adjustments that some colleges and universities make in trying to get their calendar to work out.  So, I do not support Plan B-the 72 day semester calendar.

 

Dr. Whyte: Thank you, Dr. Brunner.  I would like to say that I would need to consult the minutes.  I believe that my recollection was a different Senator, but I was so new to the Senate at that point, so it would certainly need to be checked in the minutes.  And thank you for the table.  One of the Calendar Committee sub-committee members who worked on the details of the calendar provided it to me and asked me to attach it as what we had reviewed at a committee meeting.

 

Missy Josephson, Anatomy, Physiology, and Pharmacology:  I just wanted to get some more information about what the imbalance is.  I have a 12 month appointment and I don’t understand what the benefit is of going to 72 days.

 

Dr. Whyte:  The imbalance referred to…

 

Missy Josephson:  The current length of fall and spring semester creates an imbalance in the distribution of time available to 12 month faculty to address the mission of the university.

 

Dr. Whyte:  I believe it says ‘was approached by faculty members who were concerned that it presents an imbalance’, and that was the information we were asked to consider.

 

Missy Josephson: So you’re saying you don’t know what that imbalance pertains to?

 

Dr. Whyte: I think it would be operational as by those faculty members who asked us to consider that there could be an imbalance.  And perhaps Senators here who have input about that would be able to comment.

 

Rik Blumenthal, Chemistry:  I may be out of line here, Senator and I’d like to draw us back to the issue.  We’re talking whether we want-the proposal right now is a 72 day calendar.  I polled my faculty and every response I got from my faculty was academic integrity indicates 10 weeks, 5 days a week, is in fact, is 50 days, that’s a quarter.  Semesters are 1 ½, 15 weeks.  15 times 5 equal 75.  I verified that with the Mathematics representative at the last meeting, and I do not understand academically why we are cutting days off.  I can say as a Chemist who’s taught Freshman Chemistry many times and there is not enough time with the days we have now to cover the material that is expected with a Freshman Chemistry course.  We do not cover all the chapters that are supposed to be covered now; cutting off days will be less knowledge to our students.  My faculty is unified that academic integrity dictates that 75 days versus 72-it’s 75.

 

Dr. Whyte:  And I again urge you, if you can in making your comments, address one another.  My efforts as Chair have been to follow correct procedure, act on what we were asked to act on and help get this done.  So if you are a Senator and you have faculty members who need to be spoken for, please do.

 

Herb Rotfeld, Marketing:  One point of history, I was on the Curriculum Committee during the fun-filled six years of transition and shortly after, and at a meeting of the Board of Trustees, the Board was very upset learning that a number of our students didn’t graduate in four years, to which one Board member said ‘Maybe we should go in and knock courses out of the programs so they can.’  To which the then-Provost said ‘No, no, no, we’re going to handle that in transition.’  We then went to the other extreme, actually.  During transition, the rule was before the Curriculum Committee: No program could go over 120 credits without special permission from the President and no program, under any conditions, any time, anywhere, can go over 128.  And you had to give us a schedule showing us how it could be done in 4 years.  And a number of programs, and there are a number of people here that I know would be for our committee, giving us great discussion, showing us how that at 124 credits, 123 credits, 128 credits, depending on the program, they would be the credit-lightest program of their type in the region or from a comparable place anywhere.  It was with that in mind that the person that was cited previously was pushing it at the Senate was strongly saying we should have a 75 day calendar.  I also think that at this time it would be a wonderful statement for us to make about a 72 day calendar.  Of course, during transition, I guess the Board felt that a value to the students of credit as saying: ‘You can pay tuition and get your degree in four years’.  As we go through another year of tuition increase, I notice the rationale for 72 day schedule.  Not once did it say anything about quality of education.  It does say we need more time for research and service.  I think that would be a wonderful message for us to publicly say to the students here, to the students that read about it, or anyone else that wants to write about it in the state’s newspapers-how Auburn says: ‘Well, other schools are short a term, I guess we should, too.’  I think it would be the wrong message to send and I encourage us to vote against the recommended 72 day calendar, which is now on the floor.

 

Dr. Larkin:   Thank you.  Sadik?

 

Sadik Tuzun, Entomology and Plant Pathology:  It’s funny because I was chairing the Calendar Committee at that time and I was serving in Transition Committee and also Academic Standards Committee.  This is an issue of Academic Standards Committee, not yours.  This is an academic issue.  You cannot, as just a Calendar Committee; your duty is what Academic Standards Committee decides-what is the best for the students, what is the best for the education of the students.  And this is choosing a 75 day, and this was passed at that time.  This was not just for transition.  Right now you cannot operate unless you get approval from Academic Standards Committee and you cannot change that date without looking at the impact, what will happen reducing that 3 days, major 3 days, from the students’ education at this university.  So I vote very much against the 72 day calendar and 75 days is already short enough to teach for many persons.

 

Dr. Whyte:  And I appreciate the fervor that’s attached to the issue.  At the same time, I had a desire to be of service.  I continue to have a desire to be of service.  I have followed the procedures that were provided to me and consulted with the Senate leadership.  Please, please understand that this work has been done in good faith.

 

Sadik Tuzun:  But you forgot to consult with Academic Standards Committee.  It’s an Academic Standards issue, not a Calendar Committee issue.

 

Dr. Whyte: And I will certainly follow through if I have done anything improper.

 

Sadik Tuzun:  Oh, you have to Academic Standards Committee.  You can’t just bring it to here.

 

Dr. Whyte: Maybe a Parliamentarian can help me…

 

Dr. Larkin: Let me just say that, during the course of the last three presentations of the Calendar Committee, I think that at the end of each presentation, everyone was asked to give feedback, to ask questions and I think they had an opportunity to do that.  The revisions that were made took all of those things into consideration.  Yes?

 

Kimberly Walls, Curriculum and Teaching: I’m substituting for Gary Martin.  Contrary to what others may be thinking, I want to commend the Calendar Committee for their work for trying to address the issue some in our department are experiencing, in which we feel that for the mission of the University, we must teach a summer term to meet the needs of music educators and all educators in our state who need to pursue graduate study.  In that situation, we have a very short time period to prepare for those intense graduate courses that occur in a short period and I think that perhaps the Committee was trying to work with the limitations of the fall break and other things to try to arrange the schedule so that some faculty would have more time to prepare to have better instruction for our students.  Perhaps?

 

Dr. Whyte:  That was raised in conversations.

 

Dr. Larkin:  Other questions?

 

Sadik Tuzun: I would like to make a motion. 

 

Dr. Larkin: We already have a motion on the floor, unless it’s-hold on, unless you’re going to do an amendment or a substitute motion.

 

Sadik Tuzun:  Maybe a substitute motion.  I would like that if you are going to discuss 72 day calendar, Academic Standards Committee should look into this issue in detail and bring a report to this Senate and then, only then, can we consider 72 day calendar.

 

Dr. Larkin: Now are you presenting an amendment?

 

Sadik Tuzun:  Yes, actually Academic Standards Committee should look into this issue in detail and how much impact it will be to students’ education, reducing those three days.  And then bring a report to the Senate, before we even discuss changing 72 day calendar.

 

Dr. Larkin:  We have a motion on the floor from the Committee that we approve a 72 day calendar for the spring and fall.  You can either vote the motion up or down, or you can amend it or offer a substitute motion, but we cannot delay this to another meeting.  Yes Kathryn?

 

Kathryn Flynn, Forestry and Wildlife Science:  I was comparing the 72 and 75 day calendar, and I have to admit, I’m still trying to decide which one I prefer.  If you look at from teaching a science course where you have labs, having the half weeks is always a big issue.  But the way they’ve got this arranged, all of the 72 day semesters have 13 complete weeks, as do both the fall semesters in the 75 day; they both have 13 complete weeks.  The only thing that differs in the complete week category is that the two spring semesters in the 75 day calendar are 14 weeks.  So in terms of labs, which had been something I was somewhat concerned about, it doesn’t seem to be a very large issue, because we always have to work around the part weeks you have even with the 75 day calendar.  That makes sense.  So I guess I’m not as concerned as I was with the lab perspective.  It may be that if we go to the 72 day, what we’re going to have to do is require that we’re a little more organized in the presentation and we put a little bit more work on the students, I think, to get there.  But I think if you’re looking at it from a lab perspective, I’m not as concerned about it as I was before I looked at this.

 

Dr. Larkin:  Thank you very much.  Before we vote on this motion, is there or are there other comments that greatly differ from previous comments?  Yes? Go on, Cindy.

 

Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology:  Yes, I have a very different comment.  I’d like to throw a lifeline to my colleague from Plant Pathology who wants to refer this to Academic Standards.  I have to admit that I disagree with him, but I believe it would be correct parliamentary procedure if he moved to postpone the vote on this motion, pending a consideration of the 72 day calendar and its educational impact by the Standards Committee.  I’m not going to do that for him, though.

 

Sadik Tuzun: That would be probably a good way to go.

 

Dr. Larkin: Sadik, if you don’t do it properly, I cannot…..

 

Sadik Tuzun:  Ok, I make a motion that we delay voting on this until Academic Standards Committee looks into impact on students’ education, reducing those 3 days and that we discuss this issue.

 

Dr. Larkin:  Ok, if you picked up one of those parliament procedure sheets there, there is an example where ‘I move that the motion be postponed’.  You can give a specific time or you can say indefinitely, pending referral to…so if you want to indicate that, I’ll entertain the motion.

 

Sadik Tuzun:  Sorry, I don’t have those parliamentary procedures.  I would like to…say it again?

 

Dr. Larkin:  Say what I said?  Alright, we’ll help.  Here’s what I think he’s trying to say: that he moves…

 

Sadik Tuzun: I move that the motion be postponed indefinitely right now, until-because we don’t know how long it will take Academic Standards Committee to discuss this and give us a report and during that time, Academic Standards Committee look into this issue here in detail and bring a report to the Senate.

 

Dr. Larkin:  Ok, there is a motion on the floor to postpone indefinitely until this can be referred to the Academic Standards Committee.  It requires a second.  Can I get one?  We have a second.  Is there any debate or discussion on the motion? Yes, go ahead.

 

Richard Penaskovic, Philosophy: Yes, I think it’s redundant to have the need for the Academic Curriculum Committee or whatever it’s called to decide this particular matter.  This committee needs a decision today and I want to give it to them.

 

Dr. Larkin:  Is there any other discussion?  We have a motion to postpone indefinitely, we have a second.  All of those persons in favor of postponing and referring to the Academic Committee please indicate by saying Aye.  Opposed, No.  Alright, now you can do that. (The motion to postpone indefinitely did not carry, D. Cobia, Secretary)

 

Jim Gravois, Library:   The point of information…..

 

Dr. Larkin: Yes?

 

Jim Gravois, Library:  I don’t know if this is the right place for this question-would it not make more sense to replace this motion with the 75 day first, because if the 75 day passes, then the 72 doesn’t matter.  If we pass the 72, does that automatically mean we can’t vote on the 75?

 

Dr. Whyte:  I put up the 72 versus the 75 because it was the closest allowable motion to our desire to present you with both to discuss and decide between, so you might perhaps want to vote on the 72 and then the other one would be my next step, representing the Academic Committee and bringing it to you.

 

Richard Penaskovic:  I’m in favor of the 72 day semester calendar.  I can’t see much of a difference between three days.  What if I-do the SEC schools that have the 72 day calendar, do their academic programs suffer because of that?  I don’t know.  The other thing is, what about if you’re sick for a few days?  Is the program all of a sudden going to deteriorate?  So I can’t see that much difference between the two.

 

 Dr. Larkin:  Let me just say that I’m willing to stay here as long as you want to discuss this, but I think we are waning.  The question has been called for.  Those in favor of the question indicate by saying Aye.  Opposers, Nay.  We still discuss I guess.  If you have a pertinent comment, please go to the microphone.

 

Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology:  I gather from what just happened that we’re still discussing this particular motion?  Help me out, Coach!  I would like to offer a substitute motion that we instead replace the motion on the floor with a motion to adopt the 75 day calendar, otherwise known as Plan A.

 

Dr. Larkin:  Alright, we’ve got a motion on the floor to adopt, to substitute, to adopt or replace 72 with 75.  Any discussion?  All of those in favor of this motion indicate by saying Aye.  Opposers, nay.  Alright, we can substitute this motion.  The motion on the floor at this point is a 75 day calendar…

 

Dr. Whyte:  The proposed 75 day calendar, Plan A….

 

Dr. Larkin:  The 75 day calendar; she substituted a motion…is there any discussion on this substitute motion?  All those persons in favor of passing a 75 day calendar motion please indicate by saying Aye.  Opposers, Nay.  The motion carries with the help of my daughter.  Thank you, Dr. Whyte, you did a great job.

 

Ok, now Herb, we have the summer calendar that’s still out there.  Did you indicate you wanted this calendar to be discussed at a later time or now?  If you’ll bring the microphone back down…

 

Herb Rotfeld:  My problem and my reason for asking for division of the summer was, after discussing the issue with several other people here and on the AUP line; I don’t know if it’s necessary to decide on the summer calendar today, but there is a concern for many people, that the summer calendar ends up with fewer days than the regular semester calendar by virtue of requiring final exams on the last class day, which also by not having a final exam period or a day for final exams for the five weeks’ semesters, by having a five week semester always having the finals on the last day, you only have an hour and a half for a final, where you have close to two and a half hour periods during the regular term.  And again, you lose that half-week of class time.  There is not an easy fix.  I say this and I wanted it split because I was to move on sending the summer calendars back to the Committee to find a way to have then a final exam period on the five week terms.

 

Dr. Whyte:  Is there anyone present who has information that everyone should know about the effects of postponing decision on the summer calendar until September?  I suppose the Committee will not begin work on this until the fall term.

 

Dr. Larkin:  I don’t really have a sense of the urgency of approving the summer calendar right now and I think it probably could be referred back to the committee for further study and brought back later.

 

Herb Rotfeld:  So moved.

 

Dr. Larkin:  We have a motion and a second that we refer the summer calendar schedule back to the Calendar Committee and ask them to bring back a recommendation at a later meeting?  We’ve got it.  All those in favor indicate by saying Aye.  Opposers, Nay.  The motion carries and we will refer back to the committee to bring that forward.

 

Very quickly, our graduate students have waited patiently and I know they are here about the traffic, but I do need to do this resolution first.  Dr. Virginia O’Leary is not here; she has brought a couple of times before the Senate discussion about establishing an Ombudsperson position.  So what I’d like to do now is present her resolution and then see if we can get the Senate to endorse this going forward to the Administration.  It reads: ‘Resolution in support of establishing the position of Ombudsperson, whereas students, faculty and staff are often unclear about University policies and procedures aimed at ensuring that the climate in which they work and study is fair and unbiased and whereas, students, faculty and staff are often ill-informed about the institutional resources available to them when they are concerned about protecting their rights and whereas, students, faculty and staff are often in need of someone who is independent and unbiased to advise them in assessing their options when they believe themselves to be unfairly or inequitably treated as members of the university community or distressed by the actions of a university policy on a particular issue, and whereas students, faculty, staff may need someone who can assist them to negotiate a solution or facilitate communication often in confidence and where the experience at other universities demonstrate an effective Ombudsperson would present a cost-effective approach to resolving disputes and other problems by reducing the time and effort involved in pursuing formal grievances, reducing the number of costs of legal actions and demonstrating to courts and other interested parties the university is doing all in its power to address problems affecting students and employees.’  Be it resolved that the University Senate recommends to the President that the position of Ombudsperson established, reporting to the President of the University for a trial period of two years, at the end of which the position will be reviewed and evaluated according to its effectiveness, utility and consumer satisfaction.  Is there a member of the committee to the Diversity Commission present here, since Virginia is not here? On behalf of Virginia-this is a little awkward since I’m Chair of the Senate-but on behalf of Virginia because she asked me to report this; I move that the Senate approves this recommendation and that it be sent forward to the Administration.  Someone has seconded.  Is there any discussion?  Hearing none, all those in favor of this resolution being passed, please indicate it by saying Aye.  Opposers, nay.  The motion carries.  Thank you.

 

At this point, we’re going to ask Dr. Curtis to come and give us a report dealing with traffic and parking and all of that good stuff at the University.

 

Dr. Christine Curtis, Special Assistant to the President:  Thank you, Willie.  I wanted to have the opportunity to present to the University Senate the information on the traffic and parking regulations changes.  Baker Melson, who is Chair of the Traffic and Parking Committee, was not able to be here today.  We do have representatives here: David George, who is the Transit and Parking Services Director, is here.  David, if you will let them know who you are.  And is Bob still here?  Ok, Bob Ritenbaugh came, but had to leave.  He is Interim Assistant Vice President for Auxiliary Services and is basically David George’s boss. 

 

Now, the reason that I’m involved in this is that I’ve been involved with pedestrian campus and also up until February 1, was Chair of the Traffic and Parking Regulations Committee.  The Traffic and Parking Regulations Committee is a University Committee.  The composition of that committee is prescribed by the Faculty Handbook.  There have been a number of emails recently that ask why this person or that person has come from different sectors of the University who’s not on the committee.  The reason is the committee is set by the President’s office and it is transmitted to the Chair of the committee and those are the people who are on the committee.  Therefore, if there are changes that different groups want to make, then the President’s office will be the group that you would petition to have it changed.

 

In terms of the traffic and parking changes that are going to occur this fall are: stronger enforcement, increased permit fees, increased fines, fewer vehicles in the B zones and that is because the graduate students are required to use C zone parking and that’s part of the contention here today.  I don’t know how many of the faculty know what is being-what the contention is, but the Traffic and Parking Committee on December 1st received a letter from the Deans’ Forum and the letter recommended that students and graduate students be given C zone parking.  Now there has been some discussions on the email as to what that sentence meant.  All I can say to you is that the people on the Traffic and Parking Committee are quite literal and what it said-students and graduate students-that’s what it meant to us. 

 

We therefore took the recommendations of the Deans and approved the C zone parking for graduate students, and that is why that change came into being.  It was subsequently sent on to the President’s office, and was approved.  There are many other changes that have occurred and these were worked on in April, May and June.  I’m reporting on Baker Melson’s and I’m reporting on all of those changes today.  Another question that has come up and forward is why those changes were not broadcast earlier.  The final approvals were received from the President’s office on May 26th for all the parking regulations changes.  Typically all the changes are announced in August, however, the committee met again, I believe it was June 4th to look at changes in the locations of the B zone and A zone parking and it was felt that we needed to try to get out and let people know ahead of time, chiefly the undergraduate students, and you’ll see why with the increased fines, so that they would be prepared and follow the regulations.  Therefore on June 23rd, I met with the Staff Council and presented it to their council meeting.  They were the first ones up in terms having a meeting.  On June 23rd, in the afternoon I met with Bradford Boney and the SGA and with Michael Leslie of the Graduate Student Council and presented the changes to them.  Roy Samford was also there and it is also in the AU Report that’s out today.  Is that correct, Roy?  Ok, so we have been trying to get the word out through the media and of course, same day emailed Debra and asked if we could send it to the University Senate and she was kind enough to let me do so.

 

We are and have been for a year trying to control visitor parking so that visitors cannot just come in and take anyone’s parking place.  They now have to pay for their parking privileges or the departments-if they have an official visitors and can issue official visitor permits.  And we are also trying to control thoroughfare traffic.  Some of the complaints that have been raised over the last several years is that people are driving through the campus-thoroughfare traffic-and some have seen some parking that are coming through inappropriately, and some of it is city traffic.  And, of course, with a pedestrian campus, that will help that because the East-West corridors at Thach and Roosevelt will be closed and Samford Avenue will only be open to A and B traffic during the zone enforcement hours and so that you know what the zone enforcement hours are, they are 7am to 5pm. 

 

Now what are some of the improvements that we’ve made to parking?  Well, it may seem strange to you that I say Tiger Transit first, but that is our biggest improvement to parking throughout campus.  And it has-we will have 33 buses and we have 16 routes and there will be 5 internal routes and 11 external routes.  Now we are carrying in and out of campus over 10,000 students a day on the Tiger Transit.  What it does is removes a number of vehicles from campus and also allows students and faculty and staff to move on campus without having to move their car.  Before, many people were moving their cars from The Hill Dorm to Lowder, etc. and that has basically stopped. 

 

There is a new parking deck that is planned and that is for north of the stadium and south of Petrie.  It’s planned to be in the 600-700 spaces range and it will be for A and B parking during the day and for students at night and on the weekends.  The architect and construction manager have been hired; they’re in the analysis stage right now and more should be available on that later.  This is the location: it would be replacing parking that currently at Haley Center, south of Haley Center. 

 

What are some of the changes?  The changes in the permit fees have gone up from $30 to $60 for A, B permits $20 to $30, and C from $15 to $30.  Motorcycle permits have gone from $3 to $9 and bicycle permits remain the same at $2, which is no change.  Now how do we compare to other universities?  Now this is abstracted from a study that Stewart Eddings of Student Affairs did in November of 2003.  So these are November 2003 numbers, and there are several other universities-if you would like a copy, I’ll be happy to send it to you.  I chose four of them: University of Alabama, as you can see there, they have both reserved and non-reserved spaces and their costs are equivalent for the faculty and higher in all other categories.  University of Florida has very complicated rates structure.  They have a lot of peripheral lots that students park in and commute, take the bus in and I have a niece who did that for a number of years.  And they also have some gated lots that you can see cost over $700 a year.  The University of Georgia does things differently; they have proximity parking, they have inner core-that is the most expensive and as you move out, it becomes less expensive, $120 a year.  The University of Mississippi has a equivalent rate for students, faculty and staff at $90 per year.  Mississippi State was less that we were this past year at $25 per year.

 

What are the benefits to employees?  What we have been working with the Business office is to allow us to pay with pre-tax dollars, which we’ve never done this before.  We have found out from other universities that they are doing it and our business office has been checking with the IRS and the tax cuts and it looks like we’re going to be able to do this.  I used the example here for $30-that would have been a B permit, $60 for an A permit-and federal income tax, Medicare, FICA, state income tax are not charged on pre-tax dollars.  Now you have to sign the form to say that we can use pre-tax dollars, but that’s really all that you would have to do.

 

Now I have with me, if anyone’s interested an analysis of a $60 permit that would show if you make a certain amount, you have a certain tax bracket, of course that varies per individual.  But this is an example; I have some copies if anyone is interested in it.

 

We are also working on providing payroll deductions so that for bi-weekly employees that they can pay over six pay periods and for monthly employees over a three month pay period-three different months, trying to lessen the burden of the increase.

 

Other changes are that we’ve increased the fees, the permit fees for visitors and for special people, as well, so that we’re trying to discourage the parking of a visitor coming in from taking the places from those of us who are here every day. 

 

Ok, now I had to base my numbers, in order to come up with some sort of accuracy, on 2003-2004 permit data and 2003-2004 parking data.  Now that won’t be what it is in the fall, and I realize that.  I also don’t know how to come up with exactly the number of parking spots we have on campus because of the construction.  And some of the construction is moving faster and some of it is moving slower than we anticipated and so I can’t tell you exactly how many number of parking spaces will be available in the fall.  I don’t think Baker Melson can, either.  These numbers were accurate when they were taken.  Now since then, we have added a hanger lot and taken the same number of spaces, 212, from the Max Morris lot.  The hanger lot was for students and the 212 B spaces at Max Morris.  That was in anticipation of construction this summer which came forward with fury and we took a number of parking lots out, more than what was anticipated.  So, those numbers aren’t reflected in here, but a few of the others that were taken are not, either, so it somewhat balances out.

 

Just to use an example of what it was in 2003-2004, with having the graduate students in the B zone.  You can see that the number of, the total number of B zone is very close to the number of spaces and the number of A permits is very large, over 3000 with less than a thousand spaces.  So the permits per space in the A zone was a very high ratio.  Now if you combine them, A and B, then you get a permit-per-space ratio of 1.6 in the way it was.  If you move the graduate students from the B zone, then the combined A and B becomes much better at 1.2.  Simultaneously, if you add 466 spaces of the B to the A, you can also improve that permit-per-space to 2.3.

 

Now one thing I need to describe to you is that in some areas of the campus, particularly in the northeast sector, there are very few parking spaces for anyone.  And so this ratio becomes very, very important, particularly in those areas where there is almost no parking. 

 

Now where the A and B spaces are being changed, where the B is going to A, the parking lot behind Lowder will become all A.  The bottom level of the parking deck at the library will be all A.  A small part of the Haley B lot will be A.  The parking lot between Wilmore and Aerospace will be A.  The western two-thirds of the lot in front of Comer will be A.  The eastern two bays will be B.

 

In the Max Morris area, as I told you before, that we took 212 spaces there for B parking and provided the lot at the hangar, there may be, depending on what the demand is, a need for additional B.  The consultant told us we needed between 600 and 700 spaces.  We’re holding out; we’re going to wait and see what happens.  We may not need to take another C space.  We may.  Just have to wait and see.  There is a Tiger Transit shuttle that runs from Max Morris parking lot to Haley on a continuous basis.

 

Now this is the parking map and I would direct your attention to the area on the northeast side, which would be the upper right hand corner as you’re looking at it.  You can see that there is very, very little parking in that whole area.  The areas coming by the library and just south, the Comer lots do provide parking for the northeast sector as does the area behind Louder and Petrie lot and the Haley lot provides parking for both the northeast sector, what we call the Cosam Precinct, which includes Liberal Arts and Goodwin and Telfair-Peet and Dudley.  There’s very little parking in there and the one patch of green that you see on Samford will be disappearing very soon, probably within 9-12 months, because the building for the new Science facility will be going into that area.  So you can see that the amount of parking in the main part of campus is very small.   Just forgot to tell you, I assumed you knew, that the yellow designates the yellow for the A, the green designates the B, and the red designates the C.

 

Now, I would like to talk a moment about Tiger Transit, but I think it would be better if David, if you would talk a moment about Tiger Transit.  David….

 

David George, Transportation and Parking Services:  We started a dedicated program October of last year or, I’m sorry, January of last year to improve Tiger Transit.  Some of the things we found were: the routes were way too long; buses were unreliable as far as getting there-sometimes there’d be 10 minutes between buses, sometimes there’d be 25 minutes between buses.  We’ve gone in now and we’ve increased ridership.  All of 2003, all of 2002, I’m sorry; we carried just over 765,000 riders.  Last year we carried almost 1.1 million.  And this year so far through the end of June we’ve carried 761,000 already.  And we’ve done a couple of surveys where we’ve had students get on buses with survey cards, handing them to every rider.  We’re looking pretty good on the issues we looked at: reliability, safety, and convenience and spaciousness and we’ve gotten almost, on reliability we’ve gotten close to 90% rating from the students that ride the transit; safety, even higher; convenience, good ratings.  We’ve gotten very good ratings.  We’re open to comments, we’re open to suggestions.  It’s not everybody’s answer, but it’s a lot of people’s answer obviously by the number of riders we have.

 

Dr. Curtis:  Thank you.  There is a need for increased enforcement.  When we closed Roosevelt, I went around and listened to the faculty and staff talk about the issues, and these are a number of them that were given: A & B parking not being reserved for faculty and staff but student vehicles were in there; students driving in restricted zones, etc.  And so what are the solutions?  Basically the ones that we have here are increased Tiger Transit ridership, higher fines that will go into effect this year-and I’ll show you what they are in a moment-towing or wheel-locking after five violations with a hangtag-that went into effect last year and it’s being done very effectively-towing or wheel-locking after two violations without a hangtag, increasing monitoring and Willie is telling me to hurry. 

 

So I will finish up here with making sure that you know what the fines are for 2004-2005: first of all, first parking violation will be $10.00, whereas previously it was $4.00.  The second violation will be $20.00, whereas previously it was $8.00.  The third violation will be $40.00, whereas previously it was $16.00.  The fourth violation will be $50.00, whereas previously it was $25.00.  And all subsequent violations thereafter will be $50.00.  The handicapped parking in a handicapped space when you do not have a handicapped hangtag will be $150.00.  All previous violations that were $25.00 will be $50.00 and most of the previous $50.00 fines will be $100.00.  Some of the $50.00 will remain $50.00.  The price of gas and the price of service have gone up.  The companies are charging us more for the towing, so the cost of towing and wheel-locking is $60.00 plus a $50.00 fine.

 

So those are the things that the committee recommended to the President; the President approved them and those are the regulations that will be going into effect come this fall.  Other changes will probably be occurring as the campus more pedestrian, parking garages are built; they are very expensive and they have to be paid for somehow.  So, I will open it to questions.

 

Dr. Larkin:  While we still have our quorum, I need to take of care of one action item.  The Rules Committee has worked diligently and we need to approve the committee assignments.

 

Debra Cobia, Senate Secretary:  The committees’ recommendations that the Rules Committee will be making today were posted on the Web and Senators were notified of those.  I’d like on behalf of the Rules Committee to make a motion that the Senate approve the nominations that we are submitting.

 

Dr. Larkin:  Since this is a committee report and a motion, we don’t need a second.  Is there any discussion?  We have a motion on the floor that we approve the Rules Committee’s recommendations for the committees’ assignments.  All of those persons in favor of this motion please indicate by saying Aye.  Opposers, nay.  That motion carries.  Those persons who have questions of Christine about traffic and parking and her presentation may continue.

 

Ruth Crocker, History:  Dr. Curtis, I think in implementing this policy, the committee overlooked a difference between different kinds of graduate students.  In our department, in History department, our students have considerable teaching responsibilities, some of them do and so in this way it really hurts them, to suddenly-not leaving aside the question of procedure-the way that this was done, without a lot of consultation.  I think it’s going to hurt the teaching mission of our department and I’m hoping very much, from what Dr. Richardson said about this, that the committee could actually revisit this and question them and reconsider this, taking away the C permits from graduate students.  I’d like to very much ask the committee to reconsider that decision.  (Applause)

 

Dr. Curtis:  Dr. Crocker, on behalf of the committee, the committee thought that the Deans had spoken and had taken those things into consideration.  It was not something that we did lightly.  It was-and I have the letter here if you would like to see it-but it was recommended by the Deans, the deans who are the deans of the graduate students.  Now maybe the Deans did not communicate what they wanted to communicate, I don’t know.  But what was written was very clear, and I can read it to you exactly, and that’s why we did what we did.

 

Dan Bennett, Dean of College of Architecture Design and Construction: Can I speak to that?

 

Dr. Curtis:  Yes you may, but if you would let me finish.  What I would suggest then, is that, if there is a desire to appeal it, and then it must go back through the process to the Traffic and Parking Committee.

 

Dan Bennett, Dean: As I recall what happened Christine, this happened at a Provost’s Council, not at a Dean’s forum, you made a presentation, as did Tom.  We were asked to present ideas for consideration.  Dick Brinker handled that.  We emailed him a series of recommendations, 12 or 13 of them for consideration.  There was no discussion by the Deans to do that.  We didn’t reach consensus on any of that.  There were things we said the committee should consider. 

 

Dr. Curtis:  Ok, well this is what it says….

 

Dan Bennett:  Is that from Dean Brinker?

 

Dr. Curtis:  The AU Deans have discussed this issue to address the immediate and long-term, long-range concern.  This is a direct quote: ‘At the intermediate level we would like to offer the following comments:  Students/graduate students should not be considered critical to parking….

 

Dan Bennett:  Is that the only thing on the list or are there more things?

 

Dr. Curtis:  There are a number of them.

 

Dan Bennett:  Well, the other things were not considered.  I can see…..

 

Dr. Curtis:  There were a number of them that were.  Due to frequent requirements to leave and return to campus during the workday, the President and VPs should have reserved parking places.  And that was….

 

Dan Bennett:   What I’m telling you that what’s happened is individual deans emails Brinker, who put that together, but there was no discussion and no consensus….

 

Dr. Curtis:  Dan, I’m sorry.  This is what we received.

 

Dan Bennett:   I understand you received that, but I’m telling you what happened…

 

Dr. Curtis:  I also emailed Dick back and said ‘Ok, is this, particularly on one statement, is this what you really mean?’  and he came back and said, three weeks later or so, ‘I’ve discussed it with the deans and this is what we want to say.’  All indications that I had….

 

Dan Bennett:  I may be the only Dean-I don’t see any other deans still here…

 

Dr. Curtis: All the indications I had was what was given to me, as was the Traffic and Parking Committee.

 

Dan Bennett:   I find it interesting that all of a sudden, this is being laid on the backs of the Deans.  We’ve recommended things over and over and over, and they haven’t happened.  (Applause and laughter) All of a sudden, now you want us to be the fall guy here. (Applause) The point I was making is that it was not consensus.  You do have a letter; I’ve seen the letter and checked on it this morning; that’s how it happened and there was no discussion.

 

Dr. Curtis: Ok, I’m sorry that there wasn’t and most of these items dealt with reserved parking spaces is the first one, better signage for visitors-that’s taken care of-the meter parking officials are being worked on, and so on and so forth.  So we did take very seriously what you sent and I’m sorry that was a miscommunication.  I do suggest that the proper way to go back through this is to appeal to the Traffic and Parking Committee.

 

Werner Bergen, Animal Sciences:  Not all gloves fit, not all sizes fit the same hand and so on.  We have special problems in our department.  Our students don’t just come to the building and do whatever.  We have university farms, not very far, but far enough that you can’t walk there.  To be perfectly honest, there’s no way that Tiger Transit is going to allow our graduate students to come back from the meat lab or the barns with bodily fluids or tissues that need to be processed immediately, if we’re going to fulfill the grants that our officer-sponsored programs are assigned to carry out.  So what I’m asking is what we discussed as a department: is there any possibility to have special parking permits for those students that have to go out and get samples and can park legally in the A areas while they’re processing their samples for the NIH plans, which we so dearly need around here and to pay for part of the overhead that we don’t have and not get a parking ticket at the same time?

 

Dr. Curtis:  Again, my same answer: I think you need to go to the Traffic and Parking Committee with those questions.

 

Dr. Larkin: We’ll switch back to this side here and we’ll go back and forth until everyone has an opportunity to speak.

 

Jim Gravois, Library: Dr. Curtis, this is not a criticism of you in any fashion.  However, I would like the-maybe it will be just to go back-but I would like us to consider the importance of graduate students in the mission of this campus.  One area I’m familiar with is English Composition, which is a core course in our university.  If the graduate students chose not to show up, there would be no English Composition program.  They teach the bulk of those classes.  They are part of the staff and as I said, this is not directed against you in any way, but I think we have to consider that they should have staff permits.  (Applause)

 

Michael Leslie, Graduate Student Council:  I like to thank first off all of the graduate students who actually showed up to hear your presentation and to make their feelings felt about this situation.  And thanks for sticking around through all the rest of the stuff to listen.  My first question has changed since I was waiting in line.  My first question is, How do you get this appeals process started?  How do I appeal?

 

Dr. Curtis:  I talked with Baker Melson this morning, who is the Chair of the Traffic and Parking committee, there is a planned committee meeting very soon.  I don’t know when-he didn’t give me the date.  I told him what I thought the process should be and asked him if he was in agreement with that process and he said he concurred.  Therefore, I would suggest that you work through the process, through the Traffic and Parking committee.

 

Michael Leslie:  My other concern is as you mentioned in the beginning, there is no graduate student representation, no graduate school representation.  You mentioned that I was made aware of this on the 29th I believe it was….

 

Dr. Curtis: The 23rd.

 

Michael Leslie:  The 23rd of June.  You didn’t mention in that email to email all grads about this situation, which never got sent out. 

 

Dr. Curtis:  I worked through the Communications and Marketing and asked them to do what they’re supposed to do, what their mission is and they decided it would be best to come through the AU Report, which came out today.  I can’t control when it comes out, folks, sorry.

 

Michael Leslie:  At any point did anybody on the committee think of telling myself, the President of the Graduate Student Council, any other graduate students or the President to say ‘Hey, maybe graduate students should be represented on this thing, since they’re being extremely affected by this bill?’  Did anybody say that?

 

Dr. Curtis: I don’t remember anyone saying that in the committee meeting.  I will give you a little bit more history.  In April or so of 2003, President Walker set up an Ad Hoc committee for Traffic and Parking Regulations, which we had the opportunity to go through every regulation and recommended changed to the President.  At that point, the discussion, particularly in the northeast part of campus, came up about graduate student taking the parking from faculty.  And the committee made a number of recommendations of higher fines, higher permit fees, greater enforcement and a number of other items.  And the committee decided not to recommend that the graduate students be put into C zone parking, and the discussion was also involved with the Administrative Council at that time as well as some of the Deans.  And so I believe that’s the Provost Council meeting Dan is here referring to, that I made a presentation and asked them for information on parking issues.  And most of these things we did.  I can go through it one-by-one and I have the minutes here and some of them we have subsequent-not we, I wasn’t on it-but some of them, the reserved spots, they subsequently approved.

 

Michael Leslie: What I would also like to point out is I was contacted, as you are well aware, by hundreds of graduate students, many of which, all of which, are GTAs or GRAs. 

 

I’ll give you an example of what one of their days would be like: First off, the average GTA or GRA has to transport equipment, whether it be presentation equipment or just teaching materials or research equipment or whatever.  It’s university-owned equipment and it’s expensive and they don’t want to take it on the bus, to start with.  So their day would look like going to Ski Lodge, getting their car, driving to the campus parking office, getting a loading zone pass, driving to their place where they keep the equipment, picking up the equipment, dropping it off and you have to do that in a half-hour or get a $100.00 ticket, which no graduate student can afford, then driving back to Ski Lodge, hopping on the bus and riding back, getting back to their class or wherever they’re doing their research.  And then they’d have to do it all again in the afternoon to bring the equipment back.  This doesn’t make sense to me; this isn’t an efficient use of graduate students’ time. 

 

The University is paying us to do a job and we’d like to be able to do it efficiently.  Is there any other way or alternative that you can think of?  Any other way to get equipment from one place to the other without having to request a B zone pass?

 

Dr. Curtis:  Well, it…..

 

Michael Leslie: Something that would take less than an hour preferably?

 

Dr. Curtis:  Depends on where you’re going and how you’re getting there.  I mean, I think faculty has the same issue in many areas of the campus.  I think we all have that issue, is that we have to plan our day to be efficient in getting to and from.

 

Michael Leslie:  I absolutely agree, I agree completely that the graduate students’ needs more closely approximate those of faculty than undergraduate students.  That’s my point.  Again, I also noticed the numbers on the sheet that I got the other day.  This plan doesn’t really change much for the faculty and staff, because to go from 1.6 in A & B zones to a 1.2…

 

Dr. Curtis:  This is substantial, that is a substantial change…

 

Michael Leslie: No, and graduate students are going from around 1.6 to now 3 in the C zone.

 

Dr. Curtis:  Well, students’ totals have gone up from 2.7 to3.

 

Michael Leslie: Hmm.  So now we’re expected to not only be on time for our classes, but we’ve got to come a little earlier to fight with 15,000 undergraduate students for a parking spot, from which we now have to bus to get to where we’re going.  I think the point of all of my questions and all of the emails here is that the requirements of graduate students have not been considered; they have been completely neglected, they have not been considered in this process.  So, you can expect that I’m going to appeal this process.

 

Dr. Curtis: I think that would be a very appropriate action for you to take.

 

Dr. Larkin:  Thank you very much.  Let me make a comment…(Applause) Normally as presiding officer I would not allow a person to ask that many questions, but because this issue affects graduate students directly and he’s the president of the Graduate Student Association, that was the reason I allowed him to ask so many questions.  At this time I’m going to switch over to Dr. Hanley and let him make whatever comments he’d like to make.

 

Dr. Tom Hanley, Provost:  Thank you, Willie.  I do have a few comments on this.  As Dean Bennett indicated, the process for forwarding this information was flawed.  Now I don’t know that we can necessarily criticize Christine or anyone for taking the information and going forward, but it is correct that this information was not reviewed, but it was a compilation of suggestions and there was no consensus reached.  I have to defend the Deans, I don’t think the Deans intended for this to happen in the way it did. 

 

The other issue that I want to bring up though is part of our Planning and Priorities Commission, one of the 11 objectives being considered right now is the move to increase our graduate student population.  We don’t know exactly how many we’re going to be able to get in this particular round, but the concept is to take our graduate student population up to about 5,000 students.  I’ve been working with Dr. McFarland on ways to enhance the quality of life for our graduate students on campus, particularly those who are engaged in teaching assistanceships and research assistanceships.  Things we are considering are: pay, percentage of time, of effort, health insurance and these things, I think, are very important to us if we do set a goal of raising our graduate student population to 5,000 students.  It is expensive to do that, but I think there is even more expense involved in the fact that we want to encourage graduate students to come on campus rather than discourage them from coming on campus. 

 

I will, I don’t think that this particular move is a step in the right direction for graduate students; however, based on the fact that parking is a continuing problem, I think that we’re always going to be faced with challenges of this nature.  I do have this on my agenda to speak with Dr. Richardson about on Friday morning.  I think that perhaps we’ve gone a little too far here in removing the TAs and the RAs from campus.  There may be an alternative plan and I will talk to the President about that so see if we can’t come up with a solution that’s a little more palatable for not just the graduate students but also for the faculty and staff who are looking for parking as well.  And I will try to get that accomplished within the next week.  (Applause)

 

Kelly Banna, Graduate Student Council Rep-Psychology:  I just wanted to make two points: one was sort of made before, that some of us are research assistants and we work in animal labs and losing our parking privileges near these animal labs, it’s created quite a problem.  For example, I work over at the Biological Research facility on Mell Street; we are required to transport equipment and animal carcasses to and from the Vet School throughout the day.  And without parking privileges, and even loading privileges, that forces us to get on Tiger Transit with a bag of, well, dead rats, and drive around campus until we get to the Vet School.  The other point that I wanted to make is that I don’t think that this would be so controversial if, over the past few months, we’ve had our tuition waivers affected, we’ve been knocked down to 80 hours, tuition waivers will only cover 80 hours.  I know for Psychology, we’re required to take about 75-76 hours, which means no extra classes for us for teaching assistants.  The on-campus housing for graduate students is being demolished without any plans to rebuild on-campus housing and I think about 80% of that affects international students.  And now our parking privileges are being taken away, all within the past few months.  A lot of feel more like staff than students here and are being left out of the process and frankly taken for granted and mistreated.  (Applause)

 

Dr. Larkin:  I’m going to entertain one more comment and then we’re going to move forward.  So…Cindy?

 

 Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology:  I feel like I’m cutting in line here.  As a member of the faculty, long time here at Auburn, I would like to apologize to the graduate students for what’s happened.  It seems to me that this is a very, very good example of very, very bad communication and bad policy.  I’m shocked to hear that this decision which impacts many, many hundreds of students who have a very important role to play on this campus; that this decision was based on one memo from one Dean.  And there apparently wasn’t follow-up done with other individuals, other Deans, or in particular, the graduate student organization or the faculty members to see whether the recommendation that was made in that memo-which apparently wasn’t substantiated by consensus, it was just discussion-that resulted in something of this impact.  This is really something that needs to be revisited and honestly, not to criticize you personally, Dr. Curtis, I think you’re really ducking the issue when you’re telling these people ‘Well, you’ll just have to go back through the appeal route, through the committee.’  You represent the President’s office in this matter.  The President wasn’t even fully aware of why this decision had been made….(Applause) I would like to suggest that on the basis of the concerns that we’ve heard raised here today, you take this issue back to the Traffic and Parking Committee and have them revisit the whole policy. (Applause)

 

Dr. Curtis: Dr. Brunner, there’s always many sides to the story.  The story that I heard from Dr. Brinker on how this was developed was a bit different from what we heard today.  So there are many different sides to the story.  I will check with the President to see how he would like this done in terms of the appeal, and if Dr. Hanley and President Richardson want to handle it themselves that would be their prerogative.

 

Dr. Larkin:  Thank you very much, Christine.  Is there any unfinished business?  Any new business?  This meeting is adjourned until called.