Members
Absent: Don Large,
VP for Business/Finance; Wes Williams, Associate Provost & VP for Student
Affairs; Vic Walker, Staff Council Chair; AAES; Mario Lightfoote,
ACES; Werner Bergen, Animal Sciences; Barry Fleming, Art; Raymond Hamilton,
Aviation Management & Logistics; Ted Tyson, Biosystems
Engineering; James Guin, Chemical Engineering; Ann
Beth Presley, Consumer Affairs; Darrel Hankerson,
Discrete & Statistical Science; Randy Beard, Economics; Christoph
Hinklemann, Finance; Ken Tilt, Horticulture; Roger Wolters, Management; Pharmacal
Sciences; Charles Taylor, Pharmacy Practice; Anthony Gadzey,
Political Science; Thomas W. White, ROTC Air Force; Howard Thomas, Textile
Engineering
Members Absent (Substitute): Martha Taylor, A&P Assembly Chair (Harriette
Huggins); James Shelley, Philosophy (Richard Penaskovic);
Paul D. Starr, Socio/Anthro/Soc Work (James Gundlach)
Call to
Order: The meeting
was called to order at
Willie
Larkin: I’m sure
that all of you have had an opportunity to look at the minutes of the
Is the
President here? Let me go forth with my
comments; he indicated the other day that he might just a bit late. The first thing I’d like to say is that the
research park project will be presented to the Board of Trustees by Dr.
Moriarty on the 17th of this month.
I had asked Dr. Moriarty to come and talk to the Senate and he indicated
he wanted to do that, but he had some conflicts on today and he’s going to be
in
The other
thing, several months ago I indicated that I would be naming a committee to
start looking at the search process and I want to do that. This Ad Hoc committee process has been run
past the Rules Committee members, also Steering Committee and the Executive
Committee, and we’ve named it The AU Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Process,
Criteria, and Timing of a Presidential Search. I am appointing at this time the following
members: Larry Gerber will serve as Chair, Jim Bradley
will be on the committee, Cindy Brunner, Kathryn Flynn, Bruce Gladden, Kimberly
King, Renee Middleton, Virginia O’Leary, Charlotte Sutton, and three persons
yet to be named. The Committee will be
made up of 12 persons. There were more
than 30 individuals that were recommended initially, and after we canvassed
those 30 names, we came up with these 9 initially and then there are 3 that I’m
going to name in very short order. I
want to read the charge that I’m giving the committee verbatim so that it can
be recorded for the record:
It has been
12 years since
1. The credentials, qualities, and
characteristics that we should look for in our next President
2.
How such a search should be conducted, including the appropriate composition of the search
committee and the role that the faculty should play in the search and the process
for the public presentation and review of candidates
3.
A timetable for the search
4.
Assurances that diversity will be a consideration
I encourage
this committee to review the experience of other recent national searches for
University Presidents at other reputable universities and extract best
practices. The committee will need to be
prepared to present its recommendations to the University Senate during the
The SACS
Committee will be here, from my understanding, on the 28th through
the 30th. I’m still waiting
on the schedule for those three days.
One reason is that I want, certainly the Senate leadership, and I’m sure
the faculty will be involved as well, in this whole process, but we need to see
the schedule before we can find an opportunity so that we can play a role in
this.
I want to
express my thanks and appreciation to a number of people-Connor Bailey in
particular-we’ve worked very closely together over the last few months. The Senate Executive Committee has been very
helpful in providing counsel and input; the Rules and Steering Committees have
been wonderful as well. I’ve gotten lots
of emails and phone calls and personal contact from many of you. I appreciate that. I apologize to those of you whose ideas I
have not been able to use, but for those who gave me input that we can readily
apply right now, I appreciate all of that.
There have been Alumni and others who have contacted me as well.
I want to
move into the action items. Recently in
the AU Daily, there was a statement that reaffirmed diversity as a core
practicing value here at
Connor
Bailey, Chair-elect:
Good afternoon. Thank you, Willie. My name is Connor Bailey and I’m Chair-elect
of the University Senate and I’m here to present this resolution on behalf of
the Steering Committee. I would like to
take the time to read through this resolution so that it will go on the record:
WHEREAS,
diversity in all its forms fosters an environment where creative scholarship
can flourish, and
WHEREAS, a
prime responsibility of Auburn University is to prepare students to succeed in
a world where success increasingly depends on the ability to communicate and
function effectively in an increasingly interconnected world, and
WHEREAS, a
Strategic Diversity Plan has been prepared but not yet released, and
WHEREAS,
Auburn University has made important strides but has not as yet accomplished
its stated goal of instilling diversity as a core value of its culture, as
witnessed by the proportionately small numbers of African-American and other
minorities on the faculty or in senior administrative positions on this campus,
and
WHEREAS,
similarly the small number of women on the faculty and in senior administrative
positions belies Auburn University’s commitment to diversity both to the
university community and our state and nation, and
WHEREAS,
Interim President Ed Richardson has reaffirmed Auburn University’s commitment
to diversity as a core campus value, and
WHEREAS,
the recent staff changes within the central administration of Auburn University
appear to be at variance from the stated commitment to diversity as a core
campus value, and
WHEREAS,
Auburn University’s Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity office,
prior to August 2004 an autonomous unit reporting to the Executive
Vice-President, is now housed within the Office of Human Resources, with the Assistant
Vice President for Human Resources designated as the University’s chief AA/EEO
officer,
THEREFORE,
the University Senate asks Dr. Richardson to release the Strategic Diversity
Plan, present to the University Senate at its October 12, 2004 meeting a
strategy for implementing this Plan and report to the University Senate at its
March 8, 2005 meeting progress made to that point and what further efforts are
planned to achieve the goals of this Plan.
I’d like to
thank-I’m not naming any one person-but a number of individuals on the Steering
Committee who were helpful in drafting this.
Dr. Larkin, I’d like to move that this resolution be adopted.
Willie
Larkin, Chair: Since
this is a committee resolution it does not need a second. Is there any discussion on this
resolution? If you plan to speak, you
would need to go to the microphones please, identify yourself and indicate
which department or unit you represent.
Yes?
Renee
Middleton, Counselor, Education Psychology/School
Psychology: We just
had a name change in our department. Our
faculty unanimously supported the resolution, but we did have- there were a
couple of faculty members who made a comment respecting a possible change to
the 7th WHEREAS, and I’d like to share that with you. That’s the third one from the bottom. And the faculty members’ comment is that they
do like the fact that there is a qualifier in that section, that word being appear,
where it says ‘the University, Auburn, appears-the administration at
Auburn University appear to be at variance. They say that even that is a little strong
under the circumstances. They would
prefer something like: ‘WHEREAS, the recent staff changes within the central
administration of Auburn University have actually decreased the overall
diversity of the administration.’ They
think that would be a behavioral observation which is stronger than speculating
on someone’s commitment to diversity.
That’s the feedback. Do you get
what they’re recommending? Shall I
repeat that again? They’re not saying
that this exact language has to be adopted, but this is what they have in mind:
‘WHEREAS, the recent staff changes within the central administration of Auburn
University have actually decreased the overall diversity of the
administration.’ That’s the....
Willie
Larkin, Chair: Let
me ask you, Renee. Do you want to make
this in the form of an amendment?
Renee
Middleton, Education Psychology/School Psychology: I would like to make this a
friendly amendment, if it would be deemed as such.
Willie
Larkin, Chair:
Well, it’s too substantive to have a friendly amendment. Stay there if you will, please. I need you to make that observation or
to.....
Renee
Middleton: I would
like to make that observation and ask that it be amended as indicated.
Willie
Larkin: Ok. Is there a second to this amendment? We have a second.
Connor
Bailey, Chair-elect: Ok,
I’m going to write it down as best I can.
Actually, instead of appear.....
Renee
Middleton: Have
actually decreased the overall diversity of the administration. And the idea is that is an actual behavioral
observation.....
Connor
Bailey: The overall.....say it again please.
Renee
Middleton: The
overall diversity of the administration...
Connor
Bailey: And how
does it go after administration to.....?
And to be at variance....?
Renee
Middleton: We want
to....the idea is not to question someone’s commitment, but stick to what is
behaviorally obvious.
Willie
Larkin: Makes
sense. I appreciate that very much. Other comments? If you’ll go to the
microphones. Oh, I’m sorry. Thank you.
Is there any other discussion?
Rik Blumenthal, Chemistry & Biochemistry: I didn’t come here prepared to ask
that this be amended at all, but when Renee expressed her point I did feel that
this was a little bit strongly worded. I
think this body has to be careful. We’ve
been very critical of the trustees meddling in business they shouldn’t be
in. When I read this, I was a little bit
wondering how much we should be telling the President which one of his
administrators he should be rearranging and reorganizing his offices. He should have his area to work in as well,
without our interference. We shouldn’t
be second-guessing him every staff change, and I feel that this amendment is a
little better worded to respect the administration’s right to run itself.
Willie
Larkin: Great, I
appreciate that very much. Are there
other comments, particularly on the amendment?
We have someone coming down.....
Judith Lechner, EFLT: My department unanimously supported the resolution, but two
people emailed me about the 1,2,3, the fourth one down
from the top. They would like to have
Hispanic American and
Native American included as named
groups, instead of just saying other minorities.
Willie
Larkin: Ok. If you would just stand there for a moment,
since you are introducing a different thought or idea. Let me ask, are
there any more questions or any more discussion about the original
amendment? Alright, here is what I need
to do and you need to help me, Bill, on this.
We’re going to vote on the amendment first and then we’ll come back to
the resolution and then we’ll entertain...is that right? Alright, all those in favor of the amendment
as stated by Renee, please indicate by saying Aye. Opposed, nay. The amendment carries. Now let’s vote on the original resolution.
Connor
Bailey: (inaudible)
Willie
Larkin: Ok, we’ve
got that passed. Let’s go to the second
one. What I need you to do is to offer
this in the form of an amendment, where you would insert the words and you can
name the two categories that you’d like inserted.
Judith Lechner, EFLT: I would like to offer the amendment: ‘WHEREAS Auburn
University has made important strides but has not as yet accomplished its
stated goal of instilling diversity as a core value of its culture, as
witnessed by the proportionately small numbers of African American...
Willie
Larkin: Comma.......
Judith Lechner: Comma, Hispanic American, Native American and other
minorities on the faculty or in senior administrative positions on this campus.
Willie
Larkin: Ok, we have
an amendment as read. Is there a second
to that amendment? Ok, Patricia Duffy
seconds. Is there any discussion on this
amendment, adding, inserting those two groups?
Yes, please go to the microphone; state your name and department you
represent please.
Chi Chi Lovett, Steering Committee/Art: If we include Hispanic and American
Indian, we need to include Asian-American and other minority groups as well.
Willie
Larkin: So now that
could be a friendly amendment, because she’s adding one. Would you accept that as an amendment?
Chi Chi Lovett: Yes, I would.
Willie
Larkin: Any other
discussion on this amendment? Alright,
all those persons in favor of this amendment please indicate by saying
Aye. Opposed, nay. Well, it looks like the ayes, although low,
have it. That amendment carries. Any discussion on the main,
or original, resolution? Please
go to the microphones.
Jim
Gravois, Library: You
mentioned the Diversity Plan, and you’ve described how it was put together by
which people involved, etc., but the only problem the Library seems to have
with this resolution, of course, diversity is like liberty, everybody’s in
favor of it, but we haven’t seen that Diversity Plan and we want to know that
if we support this, are we implying that we are also approving a plan that we
haven’t seen yet. So that’s my question
and I’m referring to the THEREFORE clause.
Willie
Larkin: I think you
raise a very good point. And I guess the
way it sounds, if we do endorse and ask him to make public that plan, it sounds
as if we’re embracing it totally, but what I would...well, I’m going to open it
up for discussion. What do you think we
need to do in terms of if we accept this resolution, Jim is saying that the
implication is that we automatically accept the plan sight unseen.
Jim
Gravois: I’m asking
is that the case. Are we automatically
accepting that plan that we haven’t seen, which might be a great plan, but we
haven’t seen it.
Willie
Larkin: Let me
listen to Renee, and then I might have an answer at the end.
Renee
Middleton: I would
think that...I would hope that’s not what we’re saying in this resolution, that
we are endorsing, that we’re making any kind of response about the Diversity
Plan because it hasn’t come before the body.
I think that what that last paragraph is saying is that it should come
before the Senate and I think that before we can really endorse it, and I
haven’t seen it, I would hope that we can, but we don’t know yet. So, I don’t want this to send that message,
that we’re endorsing that plan, because we haven’t seen it. I think...shouldn’t it appropriately come
before the body to review and endorse?
Willie
Larkin: You know,
when I look back, I think asking that it be made public is not an endorsement.
Renee
Middleton: Right,
it should be made public so that we can appropriately respond to it and
either...come on board or not or make any suggestions.
Willie
Larkin: Alright,
take that under consideration. Yes sir?
Tom
Williams, Naval ROTC:
I think when we’re saying there that we want the President to present a
strategy for implementing the Plan, we’re saying that
we support the plan. And so I’m not
prepared to make an amendment, but if we’re gonna say
that, then we’re saying that we support the plan.
Willie
Larkin: Ok, let me
ask you in that last THEREFORE, can we place in there somewhere a statement....
pending presentation.......I don’t know what the wording ought to be, but,
pending that it’s presented to the Senate and there’s ample debate and
discussion....say again?
Dan
Bennett, Dean,
Willie
Larkin: Well,
that’s a good way to do it, pending ratification, we’ll hold on to that. Yes, John?
John
Mouton, Immediate Past Chair: I think perhaps we ought to ask Dr. Richardson to release
the plan and present it to the University Senate on October 12th,
2004 and stop there. We’re not taking
any action, we want to see the plan on October the 12th and then
move forward from there. So I would
propose an amendment that puts a period after ‘2004' and leave the rest of it
out.
Willie
Larkin: Can we get
a second to that amendment? (Jim Gravois, Library, seconded the amendment)
Connor
Bailey: ...present
it, after Plan on the second line, to the left?
Willie
Larkin: To present
to the University Senate at its October 2004 meeting...and you’re saying a
period after that?
John
Mouton: Just stop
there because I think it’s the rest of the language where we begin to make it
look like an endorsement.
Willie
Larkin: Yeah, ok
now, Jim Gravois seconded that amendment by John Mouton. Are you going to speak to this
amendment? Ok.
Gary
Martin, Curriculum & Teaching: I like the general direction of this, but I think including
a strategy for implementing the plan may help us evaluate the value of the plan
and, in other words, here’s the plan and here’s how he perceives that it might
proceed. So I would like to offer that
as a friendly amendment, to keep going until..right there.
Willie
Larkin: Are you
capturing all of this?
Connor
Bailey: Did I see
you accepting that, John?
Willie
Larkin: John has
accepted that as a friendly amendment.
I’m going to allow it. Is there
any discussion? Virginia, come to the
microphone please.
Virginia
O’Leary, Psychology:
I guess what I’d like to suggest, although I’m certainly in support of the
general tenor of this discussion, is that we not lose in the wording by
eliminating entirely an expectation for both a review and discussion of the
Plan, an implementation process based on that review and discussion but
finally, and this is the part that I really don’t want to lose, a clear
expectation that there be some reporting function that would address the issue
of progress at a time certain. Now
whether, which I think was the goal of this last amendment, although I’m
certainly sympathetic to the endorsement or the implication that the body is
endorsing something that it hasn’t seen yet, and I don’t want us to do
that. But I would not want us to lose,
in some fashion, the expectation that there would be a monitoring function and
that there would be a formal procedure for measuring progress, etc., once a
discussion and approval process had occurred.
And if I had five minutes I surely could draft something, but I just walked
in from a class....
Willie
Larkin: Is there
another comment on the.....
John
Mouton: Willie, I
certainly agree with Virginia’s comments.
I think that those are words for a resolution after we’ve reviewed the
plan. We make a resolution then,
whatever we want to say about the plan that’s been presented to us, but we may
at that time reject portions of the plan or other things. I agree with Virginia, all of Virginia’s
points. I think that we need to do
another resolution after we’ve reviewed the plan.
Willie
Larkin: Ok. Other significant
discussion on the resolution? I
mean on the amendment, not the resolution.
Alright, all of those persons in favor of the.....Yes?
Cindy
Brunner, Pathobiology: (inaudible-Dr. Brunner did not
approach the microphone) Read that last paragraph as it stands,
I think there is a syntax error.
Connor
Bailey: ‘THEREFORE,
the University Senate asks Dr. Richardson to release the strategic diversity
plan, present it to the University Senate at its October 12, 2004
meeting’. I see...’present it and a
strategy for implementation at the University Senate meeting of October 12th’....reword
the...yeah?
Patricia
Duffy: (inaudible)
Connor
Bailey: Ok, that’s
fine.
Willie
Larkin: Yeah. I
appreciate those eagle eyes out there. Any other discussion on the amendment? All of those in favor of the amendment
indicate by saying Aye. Opposed, nay. The
amendment carries. Now we need to go
back to the original resolution. Are
there any final comments? Those in favor
of the final resolution please indicate it by saying Aye. Opposed, nay. The resolution carries. Thank you.
Connor, we appreciate it very much.
The President has come in, so...Debra, do you want to do your piece real
quick or is it gonna take.....Dr. Richardson, if you
are ready, we’ll have you come up and make your comments.
Dr. Ed
Richardson, Interim President: Looks like I got here just at the right time. I’ve been driving in from Birmingham and the
weather is not great between here and there, so hence being late. Let me just make two or three comments, I
don’t know, Dr. Larkin, if you wish to comment on the action just taken or
instructions to me since I got here a little late.
Willie
Larkin: There was a
resolution in support of your reaffirmation to diversity on campus and the
resolution was basically as a result of the comment that came out in the AU
Daily and so we took that and sort of tore it apart and put it in the form
of a resolution praising you in a sense and encouraging you to go forward and
do the right thing.
Dr.
Richardson: Do
better.
Willie
Larkin: Yes sir.
Dr.
Richardson: Thank
you. Let me just comment on a couple of
things and then I certainly will respond to questions if you have any. As we know on September 28th, I
don’t know if Dr. Glaze has mentioned it, a team will be here from SACS to
review basically whether or not we’re doing what we said we were going to do,
that would deal with the five issues that, with which you’re all familiar with
concerning the reason that SACS placed us on probation. So I wanted you to be aware of that. We have a Board of Trustees meeting next week
on September 17th, which will deal with several things, one of those
will be six initiatives that I would like to put on the table, some of those
already quite apparent, such as research park and so
forth. And I wanted to just describe for
you the reason for this.
I see as my
sole criterion for success as whether or not my successor has a long and
successful tenure as President is to put into play certain regulations; that’s
the easy part; establishing a pattern of behavior that the Trustees understand
that these are policy issues, these are administrative issues, is quite
another. So it is a rather aggressive
agenda that will go on all this next year.
All the data will be on the table and certainly the discussion will be
open and I encourage you to participate in those discussions, either through
your committees or through this forum that we have here today. But I would indicate that it is my intention
that by pushing this agenda, several areas will clear up that will not require
that my successor will have to deal with it.
I believe that someone coming in to have to deal with certain
problematic issues of major consequence as well as having to make an adjustment
to a new institution as well as a new set of Trustees would weaken that person
and I think, contribute to the person having more difficulty than would be
necessary. So I would ask that you keep
that in mind for September 17th and the purpose for that.
I’m not
sure what else is of particular interest.
I would say to you that on the athletic side, we’re looking-Tim Boosinger and company at the Vet School, who have done a
great job-we’re examining whether or not the eagle can fly, that is the most
frequently asked question I get as President, so I wanted you to know what the
top priority happens to be and no pressure, Tim, but everybody asks me about
that, including the largest Kiwanis Club in the world today. So I would say to you that the Athletic Director
search is continuing and interviews will start next week and I hope to make a
decision on that certainly by the first week or so of October.
On the
other side, as I have put all my cards on the table since I have spoken with
you in the past, we have completed our reorganization efforts, for the most
part, in Athletics as well as in Samford Hall and
will start moving forward in terms of Facilities and Construction and will
hopefully have that completed within the next week or so. After that, I hope that we will be able to
focus on those initiatives and discuss those for the next year, and it is my
intention that by June of ‘05, whatever that annual meeting date will be, to
make specific recommendations to the Trustees for action in that regard.
So, I
think, Dr. Larkin, that’s basically what I could offer as an update and will be
glad to yield for any questions that someone might wish to ask.
Dr.
Larkin: Are there
questions please? Go to the microphones,
identify yourself and state the department or unit you represent.
Rik Blumenthal, Chemistry/Biochemistry: Mr. President, at the last time you
spoke to this group, you made a comment about if things didn’t turn out the
right way with respect to the Alumni Association, you might dissolve it and
form a new one. I listened to that, I
did not react immediately and then I left with a feeling of revulsion. That’s something that Fidel Castro would say
if his legislature went against him.
This is a group of Alumni that has been formed and standing. How could you think about dissolving them, simply
because they don’t agree with you and the Board of Trustees?
Dr.
Richardson: That’s
not the issue. The issue is quite
clear. It’s a fair question and I
appreciate you asking the question because I think it’s good to put on the
table. It makes no difference to me
who’s elected President of the Board of the Alumni Association at all. What is of importance to me is whether or not
the Alumni Association chooses to go in a direction which some have advocated,
separate from the University. That’s
been the public statement made and it’s actually been in writing. So I would say to you that my concern is that
if the Alumni Association on its own chooses to go on an independent basis,
then it leaves me no choice but to form a separate organization. That is not what I wish to do. Whatever time I have left, it would take all
that time to reconstitute another Alumni Association. It would create additional turmoil within the
ranks, which obviously I do not wish to do.
So I would say to just keep in mind that the employees are
Dr.
Larkin: Other
questions? Please go to the microphone.
Daowei Zhang, Forestry & Wildlife Services: Dr. Richardson, could you repeat
what are the six initiatives you just mentioned, other than the research park?
Dr.
Richardson: I would
prefer not to do that, to list the six at this point. I can list the three that I have mentioned in
the course of conversation, which have really been on top of the table, because
I have not presented them to the Board of Trustees yet, that’s the reason. But I’ll list the three. So far, that’s what the Birmingham News tried
to get me to do a few minutes ago, but I stopped short there, too. The research park is clearly a top priority,
one that I would like to push and I believe, Dr. Larkin, that Dr. Moriarty will
be here for your October meeting and will be prepared to respond to whatever
questions you might have in that regard.
The second is the
Daowei Zhang: Thank you.
Dr.
Larkin: Other
questions please?
Dr.
Richardson: I think
Dr. Penascovic has a question. Oh, excuse me, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.
Ruth
Crocker, History:
Just, actually before you came in, Dr. Richardson, we unanimously, almost
unanimously approved this resolution and I’d like to just read you one of these
points of the resolution and ask for your comment. This is the not with its fine grammatical
changes that I didn’t quite get them all. ‘WHEREAS the recent staff changes within
the central administration of Auburn University appear to be at variance with
the stated commitment to diversity as a core campus value’, and as you know,
there was concern expressed about this.
How do the recent changes that we’ve read about in the newspaper help to
forward diversity on this campus, if you could comment on that? Thank you.
Dr.
Richardson: I
couldn’t answer that affirmatively at this point. I would say, I would compare
it to an analogy such as this: If you’re taking a trip of 100 miles and you
analyze it each mile of the way and you’re going through heavy traffic, as I
was in Dadeville or something, you would say: ‘This is a miserable trip, but
I’m here.’ But I would say if you
analyze everything we do step by step without waiting until we get to the end,
I think it would be a mistake. I think
you would have to say this, that the steps that we’ve taken to date really have
not, was not intended to have an impact on diversity at all. But obviously when you get into personnel and
when you talk about diversity, you get into just one person as it pertains to
these initiatives, then obviously I’m somewhat restricted as to what I can
say. But I would, that was not a hollow
ring, I do believe that it’s something that needs to be accomplished, and I am
committed to doing that. I just ask that
you would give us just a little more time to at least demonstrate that an
individual decision may not always be made for the purpose that some may
surmise. I know that is not a great
answer, but that is the best I can do since personnel issues are involved. And of course, we’re talking about, I don’t
know, with Athletics, 15 or 16 administrative personnel and we’re talking about
a very small percentage of the whole staff that has been restricted to administrative
type personnel. Dr. Penascovic...
Richard Penascovic, Philosophy: My question is in a similar vein. I, too, I’m upset with these firings that
have gone on recently. I’m concerned
about the effect on employee morale. I
also think that it sends the wrong message.
Universities don’t normally fire people.
They usually give them another job on campus. It just bothers me to see this, someone in an
older age, even in their 50's, lose their job, because it’s so difficult to
find a job again and I wonder. When I
came here 20 years ago, they spoke about
Dr.
Richardson: Sure
will, thank you. First, Dr. Penascovic, it’s just a basic difference in philosophy,
which you expressed and my own. I
believe morale is impacted more by having people that are not working at a
satisfactory level and being paid the same thing while others are over here
working very hard, very productively, and getting paid the same thing. I think that we must recognize that the
funding that we’re going to be looking at in the future from the state is not
bright, not going to get any better.
Cost, whether it’s salary or otherwise, will continue to be
elevated. We’ve got to find a way-that’s
why I feel good about the research park.
To some extent,
But the
issue, and I’ll just say, and I’ve had long conversations with Don and Lee
about this, is that I do believe the University has used that philosophy that
you described, which I personally think is inappropriate, and that is the
musical chair philosophy. That is, if you don’t work here, try you here and if
you don’t work here, try you here and it just keeps going around. So, as a result we have many over-lapping
assignments and, in some cases, counterproductive assignments. And, no, it’s
not something you like to do. I’ll tell
you that, it’s not something you do haphazardly and I think if you look at the
total numbers, you’ll find that they’re relatively small. But I believe that to pull all of this
together, you’re going to see people now that are assigned to a position that
has authority, they will be able to grow professionally and I think morale will
improve. Initially,
no. Would you say after the cuts,
is your morale up? Absolutely
not. But I don’t believe the
philosophy in just finding someone else another job to do is the correct
position. I think it conveys negatives
and I would say to you, as I intend to hopefully generate a substantial sum of
money in the Legislature, push very hard to getting our information straight on
that, that is clearly something in which we’ll have to deal; what form of
accountability are you going through and I believe Auburn will be in a better
position than most. We have examined our
situation and we’ve made the necessary decisions, and I think they’re minimal
in nature. And it’s just a disagreement;
I don’t believe in having a person that’s not productive. Now we’ve had three categories: if you’re not
fully employed, that’s one thing; if they are fully employed and willing to
work satisfactorily, fine; if they’re inappropriately assigned, because of
whatever changes have gone on over the years, the person could be better placed
somewhere else, then you should give them that chance; and the third, of
course, if they’re not performing satisfactorily, I don’t feel an obligation to
give them another chance. That’s just
the way I see it. I think Dr. Gerber
has.....
Larry
Gerber, History: If
I could have the privilege of the floor please, since I am not a Senator....
Willie
Larkin: By all
means...
Larry
Gerber, History: In
line with what you just said, Dr. Richardson, and much of what you said could
be a compelling argument, but given our recent history with some positions
don’t seem to have been treated in exactly the same way that you just described
in the last twelve months, or at least since you’ve become President. I think of the former University President,
the Athletic Director; so it does seem to many people
that there’s not the same standard or the philosophy that you’re discussing is
being applied across the board.
Dr. Richardson:
I’d say, Larry,
that’s a fair assessment. Let me, since
you mentioned two, let me just respond to those. In dealing with the Athletic Director, it was
my decision to make the change. He was
currently under a 4 ½ year contract; in order to make that change we would have
either had to pay off Mr. Housel and a person that loves Auburn as much as
anyone, agreed that for a 2 year window, of which I could do that. Now I would say that was a contract to which
I was obligated and by cutting it a little over than half, I felt it was at
least progress. In dealing with
President Walker, who by the way, I believe is teaching this quarter or
semester, excuse me, he has announced to you some months before his resignation
that it was his intention to retire June 30, 2005. That’s what was reported in the media and
that’s what I understood as a Trustee at the time and I felt that President,
I’ll just say it again, the
Larry
Gerber: No, it’s
not my place to have equal time here, but I still think there is a problem and a difference between the two sides of the
house that is of concern, I think, not just to me, but to a number of people
connected to
Dr.
Richardson: Well,
let...excuse me, I’m sorry.
Larry
Gerber: I do think
that there was an issue in terms of even if you are employed, to letting
somebody go from an administrative position.
I’m not totally adverse to your philosophy-if somebody is not doing
their job and they’re in administration and they don’t have the protection that
academic tenure provides, then there needs to be more flexibility-but it’s my
understanding that some of the people let go had virtually no notice whatsoever
and were told ‘You can’t even go back to your office’. I do think that there is a contrast that’s so
striking that I think it sends a very problematic message and when Rich was
talking about morale, it’s not just the firings. I think it’s the nature of the firings and
the contrast to these other situations that you’re talking about.
Dr.
Richardson: Well,
that’s certainly a valid point. I would
say that I did not personally make all of those. Some came a little later than I had hoped,
but I would ask that we’ll just review that.
Lee, will you sort of walk me through that to see if someone has been
treated in an unfair fashion? That’s not
my intention. I understand, Dr. Penascovic, in getting rehired. I understand the agony, particularly when you
have families; but I will look at that to see if there were steps taken that
were unfair to the individual, other than whether or not we would examine the
dismissal itself. I’m not saying that,
but I would see about giving them some window to land on their feet.
Willie
Larkin: Thank
you. Cindy?
Cindy
Brunner, Pathobiology: Dr. Richardson, earlier this summer
you told the Senate a little bit about a plan you had for developing University
priorities in advance of budget requests to the Legislature. You emphasized the importance that we have
clearly defined University priorities.
At the time you mentioned that one of your strategies for establishing
the priorities would be to do a series of polls at the state level. I read that you have conducted one such
poll. At the time you told the Senate
about this plan, I asked you if you could involve, if you would be interested
in involving faculty in the establishment of the priorities, and I think I
asked you for more detail about how you would develop the plan and enable it to
be embraced by the University community.
Can you address that question again today, please?
Dr.
Richardson: Sure,
that’s a fair question and again, as I said, if you ask me a question, I’m
going to give you my answer. You may not
like it, and I’m assuming that you understand as you have done so far, that you
have every right to ask me any question you want. So let’s just put it on the table.
First, one
of my priorities, not one of the six-it’s just something I believe I can make
happen and needs to happen-that Auburn traditionally has not received a fair
cut of funds allocated to higher education.
And I could sit here and talk about several reasons why, but let me just
boil it down to one-that is,
Cindy
Brunner: A
comment-one is that you again alluded to the six initiatives that you’re not
going to tell us about. But I guess my
actual question is: Between now and the end of October, how do you intend to
get faculty involved in the development of this one issue that you want to use
as the focal point of the plan?
Dr.
Richardson: I
thought that would be a good follow-up question and it certainly is
appropriate. And I would say to Dr.
Larkin and to you, you’re going to have to help me with that one, because I’m
running about as fast as I can. It takes
a lot of time to deal with the Legislature; it’s going to take almost everyday. I’m doing
the necessary legwork to make sure they haven’t forgotten me in terms of the
role that I currently play. And we will
have the data to analyze, but now I’ve already run into two problems. First, we have some from other institutions
of higher education that want to know the nature of those data and in that
case, I think they would use it against us.
We have four levels of higher education in
Renee
Middleton: Dr.
Richardson, as a follow-up to Cindy Brunner’s question, and I guess related to
a question Daowei asked, with the three initiatives
that you mentioned: one was Agriculture or Forestry looking at expanding
programs, you said....
Dr.
Richardson: We’re
looking at positioning the college for the next 10-20 years and looking at what
programs we may not currently offer that may need to be emphasized. I do not foresee us necessarily eliminating
some of the stronger programs we have within traditional Agriculture, but keep
in mind, based on-I don’t know if Dr. Weiss is here-based on terms of
Undergraduate Students in Agriculture, we have 800-850 students. So I think that we need to position that
college, and I think we can, so that it will be viable and will grow and
contribute to the research park and everything else.
Renee
Middleton: My
question is, I guess as you look at expanding, one
can’t help but automatically think that might mean elimination as well,
although that may not be the intent. You
asked how the University Senate, which is a voice of the faculty, to think
about ways to involve that body. There
are committees within the University and perhaps even within the Senate
committees that can help play a role in providing and reviewing feedback,
looking at programs, etc. So the
question is: Do you intend to use the appropriate University and Senate
committees to be involved in that process prior to taking any action? Will that involvement be forthcoming?
Dr.
Richardson: That
was two questions-yes and yes....
Renee
Middleton: And
when, with the six issues, there were three you hadn’t yet presented to the
Board; when do you anticipate you’ll be making those other priority areas
available to the faculty for our knowing?
Dr.
Richardson:
September 17th. I would say
that there are two issues. The one
dealing with the lobbying is where I was asking for assistance, because, really
how I would involve a broad group in that, I really don’t have a good answer; I
don’t have an answer, but I’m open if there’s some ways we can do that in an
open yet confidential way, keeping in mind we have others that would like to
see us fail. In terms of the
initiatives, it’s nothing. These are not
clandestine type situations. I just would
prefer to be able to make sure that the trustees are aware of them before they
start reading about them in the newspaper.
It just makes it a bit of a problem for me. So I would say the committees-I’ve already
talked with Dr. Heilman-did he ever come back yet?
No? He’s been somewhere for a couple of weeks.
To form those committees, this would go on for a whole year and those
committees would be actively involved in this discussion. I or John or others-we have different people
that would be providing leadership role and they’ll be available to talk to
those committees. So absolutely you’ll
be fully involved and will have a whole year.
Now when I say a year, a year is basically to decide on what action we
need to take. Some of these will take
two or five years, certainly after I’m gone, before they would fully be
implemented. But I want to be able to
make some of the decisions by the end of this academic year. So, the answer’s yes, the committees are very
appropriate, but again not to get the issues confused, the lobbying side is a
different issue and I need some help there.
Dr.
Larkin: Our provost
has been sitting, you can stand there for a second, very patiently and I really
want to hear, because he’s going to be talking about some of the objectives and
goals on the academic side of the house and he has a couple of other pieces
that he has to do. So, unless there is a
real pressing question or comment, we’re going to allow Chi Chi’s to be the
very last one, if that’s alright with everybody. OK.
Chi Chi Lovett, Art: Would you please comment on your perceived advantages to
Dr.
Richardson: I can’t
give you a good answer to that one, because we’re into issues other than just a
philosophical decision. I would say to
you that you’re going to see the issue of diversity a high priority with
us. But it is not a higher priority to
me than getting SACS probation off, I assure you of that. It’s not a higher priority to me than making
sure that we get this lobbying effort going to make sure that we generate the
money, because either we’re going to do it by the end of this calendar year or
we’re going to miss it. It does mean there’s some time-sensitive issues here, and I don’t see the
diversity issue being time-sensitive.
So, I would say to you that you’ve asked, I believe, in yours, to
release that. I thought it had already
been done, but evidently not. Is that
correct, the plan? We have not....
Dr.
Larkin: No, unless
it was done today.
Dr.
Richardson:
Ok. Again, I don’t have a great answer
for you in this regard, I just see again, I would ask that you keep in mind
that there are other issues associated with personnel rather than just a
philosophical issue of what is a priority for diversity.
Chi Chi Lovett: Well, that really wasn’t my question. It wasn’t very clear...
Dr.
Richardson: I’m sorry, give me a second shot....
Chi Chi Lovett: I’m sorry. My
understanding is that before the office was fairly autonomous and I think that
with that autonomy quite possibly came a lot of trust from the faculty and from
other people, from the staff and other members of the University and I’m
wondering, I guess, I’m wondering about the possibility of that in some way
being compromised since it’s no longer an autonomous office. Thank you.
Dr.
Richardson: If you
look at, as I said, every step of the way, you’ll probably find more negatives
than positives. I would say that this is
an issue, in my view, that
Dr.
Larkin: Thank you
very much. Before the Provost comes up,
I’m going to ask Debra to come. It will
take just a minute or so to take care of this...We have a report from the Rules
Committee.
Debra
Cobia, Senate Secretary: I’m here to present this report
on behalf of the Rules Committee. This
report was posted on the Web for those who had an opportunity to look at
it. If there are any questions, I’ll be
happy to respond to those. Thank you.
Otherwise, Chair Larkin, I move that the report be accepted.
Dr.
Larkin: Since this
comes from a committee, it does not need a second. Is there any discussion? I invite you to go to the Web and look at all
the committee assignments and if you have any comments about that, you can
contact us later on. All those persons
in favor of receiving this or approving this report,
please indicate by saying Aye. Opposed, nay. Thank
you very much. The Rules Committee did
an awesome job of putting that together.
Provost
Hanley, if you will come...He’s going to do three things in a row. First of all, update, well let me back up,
he’s going to give the initiatives and goals that he has been thinking about
for quite some time, sort of like a vision for the academic side of the house;
then he’ll move to update on the Deans’ searches and then finally he’ll give us
an update on the Graduate Student Parking.
Dr.
Hanley, Provost: Thank
you. When Dr. Larkin asked me to do
this, I decided to rather than do it in order, I would
just mix them all up again so that you wouldn’t know when the presentation was
over so that you would stay until the end.
We’re going to talk a little bit about the initiatives, and this has to
do with the assessment process that we have going on. We’re going to talk to you a little bit about
planning, also talk about parking some and hopefully get some discussion on
that.
The
assessment activities, and just to bring you up to date on where we are and how
this fits into a yearly process, the first thing we did was a capacity study
and that was a question that went out to all departments that said ‘With no new
resources, how many more students can you take and where would you put them?
Include freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, and graduate students. To give us an idea about how many more people
we could take, if we put them all in the right place, the results of that study
came out 75% of the departments said they could take more students, 25%
indicated they could take fewer students, and the net total of that was if we
put the students in exactly the right place, we could add about 2,000 students
to the population. The interesting thing
about that is that we had 100% freshmen, actually we had 5100 freshmen, and I
really couldn’t understand that when I first looked at it because we only take
in 3700 freshmen a year, and so that means we have some freshmen who are not
making 30 hours the first year; at any given time, we had about 5000 freshmen
on campus, so that was full. The junior
and sophomore classes were at 86% and 83% capacity and the senior class went up
to 100% again, but again that’s believable because we have 4th year seniors,
5th year seniors, 6th year seniors, people that aren’t
finished. And so the net result of this
we do have capacity to add a few students, probably in the sophomore and junior
years; we are working on things right now-I’ve asked Dr. Williams and his job
of bringing transfer students onto campus to focus on trying to bring
sophomores and juniors onto campus that will help us fill this gap. Now remember that the 2000 students that
we’re talking about though, is perfectly placed students. So if we got 1000 of those, we’d be very
lucky. We’ll do this capacity study
again late this fall, after we’ve had a chance to see what the fall semester
looks like, get everybody acclimated, we’ll again ask for the information and
perform this study every fall.
We’re just
now finishing up the first Minimum Teaching Requirement (MTR) and that
typically, that analysis is typically done in the summer. The reason for that is that we use the fall
and spring semesters to do the MTR. What
the Minimum Teaching Requirement assumes is that if we give faculty the maximum
teaching load that we would like them to have, and that of course provides time
for them to do the professional development service-a lot of professions have
some pretty distinct ideas about that-but if we ask the faculty to teach the
maximum amount that we would like them to teach and we then calculate the
minimum courses we have to offer to offer to the curriculum and we do a simple
division, we come up with the Minimum Teaching Requirement, how many people we
need, at a minimum, to teach the courses that we have to offer over the course
of the year.
The second
part of that study is a resource count, and then we go in and say ‘Find how
many faculty we have on campus, how much are they teaching, how many adjuncts,
part-time people do we have teaching, how many students are taught by graduate
students’; we add all the resources up and we see where we are. Now part of this study is that we’re going to
have the Minimum Teaching Requirement because you did it last year. If Dan’s college taught all the courses last
year, then chances are he had the resources to teach all the courses and it
would add up to at least, at the minimum.
What the purpose of this study is, though, is an ongoing and ongoing
zero-based analysis. If you’ve looked at
University funding and the way we do our budgets, it’s not just here but
everyplace else, our incremental budgeting process is the one most commonly
used around the country. We don’t get
into zero-based budgeting, so this gives us an opportunity on a regular basis
to see what the minimum resources we would need to operate with. Now, bottom line on this, we don’t want to be
at that minimum, we want to be at the minimum times some factor and the factor
I’m most comfortable with is 1.5. I
think Drew’s analysis, and Drew Clark did a marvelous job, first of all, of
understanding what I was talking about which takes a scholar in some instances
for sure, and getting all the data put together, working with the various
colleges, and right now I think our number stands at between 1.3 and 1.4
University wide, if you take them all and add them up. Some are a little bit
shorter, some are a little bit longer, but now we have this piece of data that
says that this is the minimum number of people we need to deliver the course
work. That analysis by itself does not,
is inadequate, because there are ways that people could play to the analysis
and maximize the minimum to make their minimum higher.
Well, the
other side of that analysis is what we’re starting now, the Performance
Assessments and those performance assessments will typically be done in the
spring. We’re working on this right now,
we’re either going to do academic year analysis-we have to do all three
semesters, summer, fall and spring-or we’re going to do calendar year; we
haven’t quite figured out how we’re going to do it yet; but I think right now
we’re leaning towards calendar year assessments that we would do spring, summer,
and fall, and we’re going to have some problems adding these things up because
we’re crossing two evaluative years, but I think we can do that. What the performance assessment says is that
regardless of how many resources you have, how well are you performing, what
are you generating, and in the process of doing this, we will go through,
talking to each unit and determine what they think is important for their
faculty to be doing and then try to come up with a way, an analysis, of how
well they’re doing.
So, the net
result of this is that you have the Minimum Teaching Requirement on one side
and the Performance Assessment on the other side. If you do something that arbitrarily raises
your MTR, it will drop your PA, and vice versa.
Let me give you an example here.
The one thing that we’re discussing right now is that there is a lot of
choice involved here. We’re not
explicitly saying how you should do things, we’re giving the Deans a choice on
how to operate and they in turn will give the Chairs a choice on how to
operate. Let’s take this example: let’s
say that you have 40 people that need a class and you could, under the
University, teach it two ways, well actually there’s more than that, but one
way is to teach one section with 40 people in it. The other way that you could do it is to
split it up into two sections and teach 20 in each section. Both of those are legitimate. You could do either one if you want, but you
could see in one case, teaching the 40 would drop your Minimum Teaching
Requirement because you’re only teaching one course but it would improve your
Performance because now you’re getting 40 times 3 FTEs at one faculty member’s
work. If you did it the other way, you
would raise your MTR and drop your Performance.
So a lot of the things that you see with the two things are
counterbalancing each other. Again, what
I’ll be talking to the Deans about is the MTRs
designed primarily to get the minimum, although we don’t want to play the
minimum; what I’m really interested in is Performance, so how they balance
things off against one another and how this is translated to the Chairs and
departments is very important. As you
can see, this is a yearly process and we’ll do this over the course of the year
and I’m hoping to get the faculty and departments involved in this as we go
through it. The MTRs
are just about ready for release, although we’re still-Drew, how many more we
got there, seven or eight more do to, right?
Yeah, so we are going back and doing them, but it’s actually coming forth
pretty easy.
The last
thing on the bottom is something that I wanted to initiate. The top three things up there are effectively
management data. The
data that we’re going to use to look at how the University is being managed,
capacities, minimum teaching requirements, performance assessments. The bottom one is something I would like to
initiate, but that is something primarily a faculty driven process. Now for those of you who are in Engineering,
you know what I’m talking about. Our
assessment process requires us to have an annual review of the degree program
that we want to have accredited by our accrediting agency. There are specific rules on that, but for the
most part, it says for each department should have a series of goals,
objectives; it should come up with ways of measuring those goals and objectives
through consideration of the constituency groups that the school has, and that
this analysis should be done on a yearly basis.
The purpose of it is to go through the year to see what the constituency
groups think, to see where you are, and then in the process improve. And of course, the department and faculty
have the choice of doing what they choose.
You may get data that says you are not where you are, where you’d like
to be; well if that’s the case, you can either do something to improve or
become satisfied with where you are. But
it’s a process typically handled in Engineering right
now. Dr. Benefield
and his departments will be going through their first AVET2000 review here, but
they’ve been doing this now on the order of every 4-5 years. We would like to see that incorporated, at
least at some minimum degree, for all degree programs that we have. This to me means that we now have a process
in place that assures that the faculty are looking at the things and that there
is a process in place, something that we can pass along, not just to ACHE and
SACS but to other universities. I think
one of the things that we want to do this for is the next SACS review-we’re not
even worried about the next SACS review, you’re not going to be here, I won’t
be here, right-the next SACS review, which is 10 years away, they’re in all
likelihood, they’re going to have a requirement in there that degree programs
have some sort of analysis like this in it. It’s the direction they’re going right
now. So the quicker we get to this, the
easier it is for us to get this implemented and get it
rolling; that will be good. Again, the
top three are assessments, management tools, and the bottom more of a
departmental function.
We’re going
to do the periodic reviews of the deans, this is every five years and an all
constituents committee and a 60-day process will start October 1st. I’m in the process of putting the committee
together now. This fall, Deans Henton, Evans, Boosinger and Sneller, our four senior deans, will be reviewed and if
you’d like more information on that, if you have questions, I’d be happy to
answer them.
This is a
good place for parking, I’ve got you shifted over on
academic sides and reviews. Now we’ll
talk about parking. What happened? The Graduate Teaching Assistants who have
been cited by their department chair and dean as being in responsible charge of
a class have been given a B pass/permit.
Now what we tried to do, we tried to match this policy up with what we
do for our people who are non-permanent employees or adjuncts who are coming on campus, they also get a B permit if
they’re teaching a class. And so those
have been distributed and the one sticking point that we did that still may
be-to give you the example of what we had a little trouble with- in Biology,
the instructor of record for the course is the faculty member teaching the
lecture, but Biology does not separate the labs out. And so there are, as a four-hour Biology course,
but then there may be two labs associated with that, where the graduate student
instructing those labs is not the instructor of record. So we went to the person in responsible
charge and so those people were given B permits. The interesting thing on this is about two
weeks ago I had about four or five people come up to me and say ‘It’s great, we
have a lot more parking than we had last year’.
Well, last year’s B permits for graduate students didn’t run out until
August 31st. So maybe that’s
just perception, maybe that’s just wishful thinking. But really it wasn’t until September 1st
that you should have seen any impact, if you saw impact, because that would
have been the first day that graduate students would not have had a B sticker.
GRAs with
a demonstrated need, that again has gone back to the department chair. We’re
talking about if you’ve seen the emails, all the specimens that have to be
transported around campus and whether you’d like to see those on the bus or
not, all those things were discussed and we now gave the department chairs the
privilege of endorsing a student who has an inordinately difficult
transportation situation, that they could do that for GRAs. We’re looking at future options. There doesn’t seem to be a unanimous feeling
about the options. The only other thing
that we’ve been considering is setting up separate parking lots for graduate
assistants that would be different from B lots and different from C lots as
well so that the graduate students would not have to compete with the
undergraduate students for parking. That
was met with mixed reviews by the graduate students.
Dean
searches-the Library search is underway.
We will have the candidates to the committee on September 15th,
I think that’s the-not that we don’t close at that date-that’s the date we’d
like to have the applications by.
Committees formed and in place, we’re in the process now of forming
Liberal Arts and Education, we’re waiting on a couple of, as you know, I’ve asked
people for nominations for that and I’m still waiting on a couple of
nominations, so hopefully I can put those together this week. A Mr. Pementel, who
is the A. T. Kierney Education Representative in
In my
office, after some deliberation, I will be hiring an Associate Provost. One of the things that was brought to my
attention is the span of control that I had when I came here was somewhere
between 20 and 30 people. And that’s
direct reports. And so we had to do
something to get the number of direct reports down and so the Associate Provost
will have a significant part of what I’m doing on a daily basis, on a direct
report. However, since this is my
office, I don’t intend not to meet with the direct reports that are going to
this Associate Provost, but instead let them handle the day-to-day activities. We’ll still have the same meetings that we
have-we have a weekly meeting, Provost, staff, where we discuss issues and
things of that nature-but it will relieve me of the day-to-day operations and
will relieve me of the direct reports.
The
Graduate Dean, we have a parallel position where Linda Glaze is now the
Assistant Provost for Undergraduate Affairs, the position that Steve is in
right now is the Assistant Provost for Graduate Affairs-but that is, Steve is
in an interim position-so we’re going to have to advertise that position and
then the position that Keenan Grenell sits in, the
Assistant Provost for Diversity and Multicultural Affairs is also interim;
these will all go out within the next two weeks when we put the ads together
and start the search for these three positions.
Let me give
you a little bit of an update on Priorities and Planning. President Walker about, I guess not quite a
year ago, I guess about 10 months ago, created the Planning Commission and we
have been meeting on a regular basis.
Last spring, we came up with eight general goals. Those general goals were designed to help us
to get through the next five years. One
of the things I’m concerned about in my discussions with Dr. Large is that if
you look at the financial situation that faces the University over the next
five years, it’s not the most promising outlook I’ve ever seen, so we’re going
to be trying to look for things and ways for us to generate resources and these
eight goals generate those resources. We
received proposals from the units, and I asked the units to do some
reallocation in doing this, that reallocation basically came across in the
proposals as unclear. In most cases, the
proposals did not specify the impact that it was going to take. This is my fault. I did not tell them exactly what I was
thinking I wanted, so in response to this, we’ve got the proposals going out to
the committee now. We’re going to go
ahead and generate a University scorecard.
What this scorecard is going to use as a baseline is the 2003-2004
academic year where data is generated over a year or we’ll use Fall 2004. We’re
going to distribute the goals to units.
Right now I have asked the person in line to go through each of the
goals and to talk with various deans to see if we can’t distribute these goals
over the units to see if we can actually reach the goals. One of the-I’ll show them to you in just a
minute, they’re at the end-but one of the goals, for instance, is to increase
the graduate enrollment bu 1500 students. Well, if we’re going to do that, where are
the 1500 students going to come from, how are we going to pay for them, which
units are going to add, which units are going to take away. To me, a proposal that comes in should address
how many of those 1500 graduate students are you going to try to bring in and
how are you going to do it. So that
process is in place and we’ve got to reestablish the scorecard. The scorecard should be out in about two
weeks and it should be simple enough that we can use that as a way of measuring
our progress as we walk through these goals.
Questions?
Go to the
next one real quick. If you want to see
the Priority and Planning Goals, there they are. That’s not exactly the way they’re written:
Graduate and Professional students by 1500; Undergraduate enrollment by 1000,
particularly in the Sophomore and Junior years; increase enrollment of students
from low-income families by 15%; increase contracts and grants to $125 million;
increase revenue from discoveries to 10% of the contract and grant funding;
increase University endowment to $500 million; increase the annual gifts to $50
million, excuse me, that’s a mistake, it should be $65 million; and then to, we
want to reach the top 25 in the next five years in the US News and World
Report of Public Institutions. So
we’ve got goals set with respect to freshmen, ACT scores, six-year graduation
rate, freshmen retention, faculty salaries, National Student Fellowships,
Student International Experiences, distance education, student community engagement,
and a sustainable campus. So these all
are goals that we have in there that we are going to try to do. Now what we’re going to try to do is get all
of these on a scorecard-where are we now, where would we like to be in five
years and how do we propose to get there.
And then now I think we will have a little better framework to lay these
proposals on that come in. The baseline
of the proposals are is that if I can get some reallocated money from the unit,
that I’m going to work to try and get some additional money to put into
it. For the most part, we’re trying to
create programs here that will continue.
These are not necessarily one, I see, we want, for instance, if we do
something to increase graduate enrollment by 10 students, I want those 10
students to continue. So we’re talking
about continuing funds here, not necessarily one-time funds, although it is
likely that one-time funds will be involved in some of the proposals, but
basically its start-up funds. With that,
I’d be happy to answer any questions.
Dr.
Larkin: If you
think you’re going to ask a question, please go to the microphone.
Rik Blumenthal, Chemistry/Biology: With respect to increasing the
number of graduate students by 1500, Steve McFarland just spoke to our
department about that and we talked about the graduate tuition and how we are
forming these scholarships to cover that, and as he explained it, we’re
currently going to be asking the Legislature and Board of Trustees to make a
baseline amount for that which will cover the current number we have. And then if we go ahead and increase by 1500
the number of graduate students, we will not be able to go back and say ‘Hey,
we’d like their tuition paid, too.’ Will
we be creating a class of unpaid or un-tuition remitted graduate students or
are we going to suddenly end up in the position within a few years by our own
action where we don’t have enough money to cover the tuition of all the
graduate students or are we 50% short?
Well, 30% short?
Dr.
Hanley: Well, where
I come from, graduate students cost money.
I think what we’re trying to do here and Steve-is Steve still here? I
knew he’d take off once the questions got started-Steve has been to Oklahoma
State, up in North Carolina, he’s been looking at what some of the SRBC schools
are doing with respect to how they support graduate students and the general
conclusions we’re coming to is that we’re moving to try to bring the graduate
student more into the fold than they have in the past. Some things we’re considering: insurance is a
big issue for graduate students, but if they’re working for the University,
then chances are we’re going to try to find a way to forgo the out-of-state
tuition. What most people would have to
be looking for is for the in-state tuition and the stipend. Now that’s the first step, to at least get to
that point where that’s the case. Now in
addition, there will be a number of TAs, RAs, SGAs
that provide for that in-state tuition as well and a stipend of some sort. The biggest problem we’re going to have
though in going to 1500 is how to get that number up and where that money is
going to come from and of course, one of the places that it can come from is
from reallocation. In other words, there
is some new money that I’m hoping we’ll come up with, but we may reallocate
resources inside the college that we use for other purposes besides for the
graduate student. In a couple of my past lives, I took a faculty position and
turned it into, at that time, four graduate student stipends, because I felt
that the graduate student stipends were worth more to me, at the time, than the
one faculty member was. So that’s a
possibility. There are other ways of
making that conversion. One of the
things, though, that we’re going to have to depend on the deans to do is make
that decision and again, that will go down to the chairs as well.
Alice
Buchanan, Health and Human Performance: My office is over in Memorial Coliseum, which I think most
of you know, in addition to being a basketball arena; it’s also an academic building. There’s a huge parking lot on the east side
of the coliseum that’s a student parking lot and at
Dr.
Hanley: Well, see,
I’m on your side because I went over at noon last Friday to play basketball and
couldn’t find a parking place, so, I did find one, but I was just lucky. I don’t know why they were closing down-you’re
talking about the lot that’s just east of the coliseum, right?
Alice
Buchanan: Yes. I can tell you why. It’s so that RV’s can park later.
Dr.
Hanley: Well, it
was my understanding that lot was closed and we were asking the students to
move out by
Alice
Buchanan:
Dr.
Hanley:
Alice
Buchanan: Well, it
does bring up an academic issue, so if you could advocate for us....
Dr.
Hanley: I think
that it does seem strange that if you’re holding classes that we should be able
to park until the classes are over. I
would hope.....
Dr.
Larkin: I love it
when a new senator stands up and talks on their first meeting. Are there any questions for the Provost? Go to the microphone please if you think you
want to ask a question.
Dr.
Hanley: Turn that
microphone off over there....(laughter)
Richard Penascovic, Philosophy: What are some of the variables involved in
Performance Assessment?
Dr.
Hanley: We’ll be
talking-well, I can give you a few, Richard-but on the teaching side, we would
be looking at degrees generated, FTEs generated. On the research side, publications,
presentations, doctoral degrees, masters degrees generated. That’s one of the things; I’ve already had
this discussion with several people, I mean, Joanne Sellers said ‘This is
great;
The
Performance Assessments, quite frankly, are not designed for any other purpose
than self-improvement. If your
Performance Assessment shows this much this year, my major question is, ‘How do
you get 2/10 points higher next year?’
And as part of self-improvement, I think it works well.
Richard Penascovic: Thank you.
Dr.
Larkin: Before John
Mouton speaks, I want to apologize to him publicly because he and I had talked
about him being on the agenda. He is
always to report after a board meeting and the Board had their committee
meeting up in
John
Mouton: No apology
needed. Thank you. One question that I have is that if we’re
full at the senior year, if we’re at 100% and we take in these 1000 Juniors and Seniors, hopefully qualified to graduate, what’s
the topside impact on that?
Dr.
Hanley: Well, I
think it would make, give us even more seniors, but that senior class, even
though it is oversubscribed, all of those students are not taking full
loads. As a matter of fact, some of them
are not taking full loads at all. So I
think there is some hidden capacity that I don’t, that we would not
oversubscribe. But it’s like everything
else that you look at the data and you make a decision, then you go check to
see if the classes are full. And if our
classes are filled, then we’re going to have to do something else.
Dr. Larkin: Ok, when the staff starts getting their purses ready, it means that it’s time to go. If there are no pressing comments, is there any unfinished business that we have not discussed? Any new business? You are adjourned and let me thank all the participants on the program, the speakers and anyone who went to the microphones. Thank you for voting on the issues that were brought before you. This meeting is adjourned.