Draft Minutes of the Senate Meeting
March 6, 2007
3:00 p.m.
Broun Auditorium
Send Corrections or Comments to Kathryn Flynn
Present: Rich Penaskovic, David Cicci, Kathryn Flynn, Ann Beth Presley, Conner Bailey, Don Large, Debbie Shaw, Royrickers Cook, Overton Jenda, Stewart Schneller, Drew Clark, John Heilman, Bonnie MacEwan, Wendy Pechman, Drew Burgering, Gary Martin, Ronald Clark, Winfred Foster, Norbert Wilson, Sondra Parmer, Charles Mitchell, Anthony Moss, Timothy McDonald, Anoop Sattineni, Larry Crowley, Debra Worthington, Carol Carruth, Carol Centrallo, John Saye, Dan Gropper, James Witte, Scotte Hodel, Jon Bolton, Robin Huettel, Claire Crutchley, Michel Raby, Jim Saunders, Alice Buchanan, David Carter, Raymond Kessler, Chris Arnold, Saeed Maghsoodloo, Andrew Wohrley, Roger Wolters, Hugh Guffey, Darrel Hankerson, Bart Prorok, Robin Fellers, Don-Terry Veal, Jim Wright, Forrest Smith, Salisa Westrick, Bernie Olin, James Shelley, Francis Robicheaux, Anthony Gadzey, Robert Voitle, Dan Svyantek, Peggy Shippen, Carole Zugazaga, Scott Phillips, Todd Axlund
Absent, sending a substitute: Fran Kochan (Andrew Weaver), Roger Garrison (Dan Gropper), Keith Cummins (Werner Bergen), Ric Blumenthal (E. Duin), Suhyun Suh (Annette Kluck), Tom Williams (Mike Fortenberry), Howard Thomas (Gisela Buschle-Diller)
Absent, no substitute: June Henton, Johnny Green, Matt Jenkins, Ethan Trevino, Jack DeRuiter, Jim Bradley, Barbara Kemppainen, Charlene LeBleu, Barry Fleming, Brian Gibson, Robert Chambers, Alvin Sek See Lim, Allen Davis, Larry Teeter, Thomas Smith, Richard Good, John Rowe, Randy Tillery, William Shaw
Rich Penaskovic called the meeting to order at 3:01 p.m.
Approval of Minutes: The minutes of the February 6, 2007 Senate meeting were approved by voice vote without opposition.
Remarks and Announcements:
John Heilman noted that Dr. Richardson was in Washington, D.C. on University business and would return to campus tomorrow. He said that in deference to the number of important items on the agenda he would refrain from making any comments but would be happy to answer any questions.
There were no questions for John Heilman.
Rich Penaskovic announced that electronic voting for new Senate officers would begin this Thursday, March 8 at 7:45 am and conclude on Monday, March 12 at 4:45 pm. He encouraged everyone to vote.
Rich Penaskovic said that he and Conner Bailey attended the annual meeting of the Board of Directors of the Auburn University Alumni Association last Sunday. He said the Board of Directors had great praise for Conner Bailey. Rich Penaskovic said they learned that the Trustees Selection Committee had interviewed 21 candidates for Mr. Ball’s position. He said the Selection Committee, made up of Earlon McWhorter, Paul Spina, Governor Riley, and two members of the Alumni Association (Nancy Fortner and Dent Williams), would meet on March 16 and may select a new Trustee at that time.
Rich Penaskovic said he had met with three committees (Graduate Council, Curriculum Committee, and Academic Standards) to discuss the new directed readings policy. He said all three committee have recommended changes to the policy. David Cicci will take over work on this matter when he assumes the position of Chair next week.
Rich Penaskovic said there were on-going concerns about safety issues on campus. He said there had been instances of identity theft in one unit and that everyone should exercise caution with their personal information and that of students.
Rich Penaskovic said the Provost would make a report to the Board in April on both Academic Program Review and Post-Tenure Review. He said he hopes the Senate Executive Committee will have a chance to review the report prior to the Board meeting. He said that Grant Davis would meet this week to schedule meetings with faculty and the Presidential candidates. Rich Penaskovic reminded everyone that this was his last meeting as Chair, thanked everyone for their support over the last year and opened the floor for questions.
David Carter, Senator from History, had a question about the timing of the search. He asked when the Senate would meet again and if this was the time to talk about the recent acceleration of the search.
Rich Penaskovic asked Conner Bailey to address this question.
Conner Bailey replied that he would be out of town next Tuesday and there was not much he could say at this time. He said the Search Committee is driving the search and, even though there are five Board members on the Committee, the Board has not driven the process to this point. He said Mr. McCrary has done a very good job as Chair. Conner Bailey said the Search Committee would hold an open meeting on March 19 at 2:00 to determine who and how many people will be on the short list. He said one aspect will be how many of the candidates will be willing to have their names go forward publicly. He noted that many individuals may not be willing to have their name made public due to the effect such publicity might have on them in their current positions. Conner Bailey said he is confident we will have a President everyone is pleased with. He said that up until the March 19 meeting all Committee correspondence has gone to the Search Consultant because of confidentiality requirements. Conner Bailey said that on Thursday, March 22 faculty would have an opportunity to meet with the candidate. He said the scheduling would be complicated because the Governor wants to meet with the candidate and this is one reason it is anticipated the Board will meet to make a decision on March 22.
Action Item
Election of new Rules Committee members (Kathryn Flynn, Secretary)
Kathryn Flynn reminded the Senate of the three people (Scotte Hodel, Electrical and Computer Engineering; Dan Svyantek, Psychology; and Jim Wright, Pathobiology) nominated for the Rules Committee at the February 6 Senate meeting. She reminded Senators that additional nominations could be made from the floor at this time. John Saye, Curriculum and Teaching, nominated Alice Buchanan, Senator from Health and Human Performance. The nomination was seconded. No additional nominations were forthcoming. Kathryn Flynn mentioned that copies of the short bios for all 4 candidates were at the back of the room with copies of the agenda. Ann Beth Presley and David Cicci distributed paper ballots to all Senators. The audience was reminded that only Senators were eligible to vote and that each Senator should select three of the four names when voting. The ballots were collected and the votes counted while the meeting continued.
Information Items
Report on Intercollegiate Athletics (Marcia Boosinger, Chair, Intercollegiate Athletic Committee)
Marcia Boosinger provided a report on Intercollegiate Athletics using a power point presentation. She said a committee report was on the table with the sign-in sheet. She said the report included the annual report given to the President last year and a copy of the power point she would use in her presentation today. Marcia Boosinger noted that the committee would need four new members this year and requested that people consider volunteering for the vacancies.
After she completed her presentation Marcia Boosinger opened the floor for questions. There were no questions. Rich Penaskovic thanked her for her report and her work as Chair of this important and time-consuming committee.
Report from the Teaching Effectiveness Committee (Gisela Buschle-Diller, Chair, Teaching Effectiveness Committee)
Gisela Buschle-Diller used a power point presentation to report on the work the Teaching Effectiveness Committee has done on a new teaching evaluation instrument. She opened the floor for questions at the end of her presentation.
David Carter, Senator from History, asked if the Committee was recommending that every core section be evaluated. He noted that it could be difficult to get volunteers to administer the teaching evaluations now. He asked if there would be any administrative support for such a large undertaking.
Gisela Buschle-Diller responded that the Committee was recommending that every section of the core be evaluated when the new instrument is adopted. She said the Committee realizes this is an issue but believes that teaching should be evaluated in the same form as research is. She said the value would be higher if all sections are evaluated but the administrative costs would also be higher.
John Heilman thanked Gisela Buschle-Diller and her committee for all the important work they have done. He said he believes there is strong support for improving the instrument currently used to evaluate teaching. He said the issue of resources is not an issue for her committee to deal with. He said the committee will bring forward recommendations and the administration will deal with the issue of resources.
Alice Buchanan, Health and Human Performance, asked if the results would be processed at the University of Washington if Auburn adopts their evaluation instrument. She asked how that would affect the turn around time and if the evaluations would be transmitted to the University of Washington via physical or electronic transmission.
Gisela Buschle-Diller said the results would be processed at the University of Washington if this form were to be adopted. She said she was not sure what the turn-around time would be if the University of Washington instrument was adopted. She said that the transmission of the evaluation sheets would be physical because the form is not electronic. She noted that the committee was unaware of any complaints from other universities using the University of Washington instrument.
Anthony Gadzey, Political Science, asked what, if anything, was built into the instrument to offset any bias or grievance on the part of students. He further asked if there were nothing like this built into the instrument (i.e. counter-questions) would the committee consider proposals or ideas that would help to incorporate this into the instrument.
Gisela Buschle-Diller said that the instrument would have room on the backside of the survey for faculty to ask their own questions if they are not satisfied with the questions on the form. She said she is not sure how to answer the first part of his question. She read examples of the questions and said they are pretty factual.
Anthony Gadzey said a classic example of what he is talking about is if you have a student who is absent a lot, has submitted poor papers and comes to the evaluation with a grievance. He said the instrument would need questions or sections that would counter-balance each other. He said the instrument would need to be set up to detect such bias.
Gisela Buschle-Diller said she could find out how such things are built in to the survey at the University of Washington.
Scotte Hodel, Electrical and Computer Engineering, said he is very glad to see the current evaluation instrument being revamped. He noted that his most valuable feedback on his teaching has come from his colleagues, not from student evaluations. He asked if the committee has looked at the use of peer review for evaluating teaching.
Gisela Buschle-Diller said she felt the same way but the Committee had started with the forms because there was a more imminent need. She said the Committee is trying to get an improved form because the one currently used is not sufficient. She said peer evaluation could be done in a number of ways and the Biggio Center could help with the process.
There were no more questions for Gisela Buschle-Diller. Rich Penaskovic thanked her and the other committee members for the work they are doing.
Report on the Strategic Plan (Richard Messina, Messina and Graham and Julian Bene)
Rich Penaskovic introduced Richard Messina and his associate, Julian Bene. He said that Richard Messina was a graduate of Boston College where he majored in Physics and Philosophy. He received his Ph.D. from Dartmouth in Astrophysics and had been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkey. Richard Messina is the President of the management consulting firm Messina and Graham. This firm assists in developing winning strategies and developing high-performance organizations with a special interest in the management of research-intensive enterprises. Julian Bene received his B.A. in Economics and Politics from Oxford and his MBA from Harvard School of Business. He has 23 years of management consulting experience and significant international experience including work in the Sudan and for Britain on tax policy.
Richard Messina said today’s presentation was the initiation of a conversation with the faculty about the strategic planning process. He said he would hit the high points of what has been done so far in the strategic development process and then his associate, Julian Bene, would take us through a sample of the information they have collected. He said they would used a selection of slides from the Strategic Assessment Report to illustrate their comments. Richard Messina said they had profiled the environment, both globally and in higher education that Auburn University must pay attention to. He said he would provide an overview of the situation assessment document from October, 2006. He noted that this document was the most recent one and had been seen by the Board of Trustees. He noted the Board wants the faculty and staff to hear the information contained in the document. He said they had developed a profile of AU and AUM separately. He said the profile covers instruction, research and a small amount of extension/outreach all at a high aggregate level, i.e. not at the college or departmental level. He said the details would be filled in with the help of faculty using. Richard Messina said that, to date, the focus has primarily been on undergraduate education. He said other areas are being examined now. He said providing the information this way allows for a more meaningful discussion with the Board by avoiding one large, unwieldy document.
Richard Messina said the process is going forward and will characterize the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for Auburn University. He said this is a work in progress and the process needs broad ownership by Auburn University. He said he looks forward to spending more time with the faculty in forums where details and ideas could be shared. He said completion of the Situational Assessment would be a valuable building block for future administrators.
Richard Messina turned the podium over to Julian Bene who said they had used real data, asked questions, and analyzed the results to help understand the opportunities and constraints facing Auburn University. He used a series of slides from the draft report to illustrate Auburn’s high acceptance rate, rankings in comparison to other SREB Universities, ACT scores of our incoming students, AU’s value-added, and CLA and NSSE results. He noted that Auburn had room to become stronger, as do many institutions. He said we have a lot of room for improvement in the area of research and that we are a long way from the median in a lot of ways. Julian Bene said there are research areas on campus that are more successful at attracting R&D funding than are other areas. He said state money continues to decrease and this presents a challenge for Auburn. He said they had looked at lots of data and concluded his presentation with a list of strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. He said the university is under-resourced and has had a lack of cohesiveness in the last few years. He said the University has some real strengths and we need to proactively use these to attract high-quality students. He said research would need to be focused rather than broad due budget constraints and that Auburn should continue its fund raising efforts. Julian Bene opened the floor for questions.
Gary Martin, Curriculum and Teaching, asked what stakeholder involvement there was in the SWOT analysis.
Richard Messina said all of the material from the strategic planning effort led by Bill Sauser had been examined. He said the current effort was designed to prepare documents in draft form to educate the Board and then get rich input from the faculty and Auburn University community. He said they have just now reached the point of getting rich input.
Gary Martin asked how this input would be made. He noted that Richard Messina had said the Board was interested in people getting this information but we are just seeing information from a report generated in October.
Richard Messina said the Board is not really ready for public debate on the report. He plans a sequential review of the material by the Board (AU and AUM will be reviewed separately). He said the Board would be briefed and then the University community would be brought in to the process. He said the briefing of the Board had just been completed at the February Board meeting. He said discussions had already begun with Deans and other administrators. He expected he would establish several forums, first with named professors and then hold forums with faculty and others. He said all of this would take place over the next few months and the document would be treated as a working draft. He said there would be a report made at the June Board meeting per a request from Dr. Richardson and he expects there will have been many conversations by that time.
Werner Bergen, substitute for Keith Cummins from Animal Sciences, asked if any consideration of the size of Auburn University is being made. He said that for a long time Auburn had a no-growth philosophy and the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa is taking the opposite approach.
Richard Messina said this is a strategic situation assessment not a strategic plan so topics like that were not being addressed. He said the set of observations in the material would inform such a debate and discussion at a later time. He said this issue has been identified at the Board level but not deliberated on or decided on by the Board. He said it is a discussion that will need to take place especially given resource constraints. He said it is a key question for an institution shaping its future. He said there are always more ideas and choices than can be implemented. He said that is why it is important to go through the process in a methodical/organized/disciplined way to make decisions.
Julian Bene said the answer to how big Auburn University should be is also contingent on the number of students available. He said the state is relatively small and has two relatively large institutions. He said the question has been asked what the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa is thinking when the projected growth of high school graduates in Alabama is almost flat.
Rich Penaskovic thanked Richard Messina and Julian Bene and said he looks forward to working with them in the coming months.
Banner Student Update (Nick Backscheider, Leader of the Banner Student Implementation Team)
Nick Backscheider provided an update on the student portion of Banner. He said the conversion from OASIS to Banner was on schedule with only small, fairly easy to solve problems. He said this conversion does not have a “turn-on point” like the Human Resources portion did. He said the transition began last June and will continue through August or early September. He said registration of current students for Summer 2007 would be made on OASIS. He said current students would pay bills on OASIS until July. He said those faculty advising current students would find all the data they need on OASIS right now but that information was not yet available on Banner. He said registration for Fall 2007 would be done using Banner.
Nick Backscheider said the process had gone well because of the people working on this. He mentioned Greg Harris who has worked on the process for scheduling classes and Sarah Wolfe who developed outstanding training oriented towards student implementation at AU. He said there are a number of questions that he hears repeatedly.
Nick Backscheider said the first question is “How can I see the Fall schedule?” He accessed the AU Banner webpage to demonstrate how to access the system. He said you should access the AU browser and go to “STUDENT”. When prompted you should select “Fall 2007” and several options will pop up. He said you should select “Class Search” and a list of classes and schedules would pop up. He said you could get schedules for all courses from a single department or schedules for all courses. He said this information could be saved to your desktop but he recommends you replace it periodically to catch revisions that may be made in schedules.
He said there is an alternative method of obtaining the schedules in Banner. He said you could go to “Employees” and select “AU Access”. He said you would have to log in and then select “Employee Services”. He said you would need to look under “Quick Links” on the left-hand column and select “Faculty Quick Links” and then “Schedule Building Links”. He said this would take you to the same location as the first method.
Nick Backscheider said the second question he hears is “Why don’t I have a Banner account yet?” He said the reason is that you don’t need it yet because there is no information there yet. He said there is training taking place for those who create schedules, make exceptions or who are going to register students. He said the AU Report will soon have information on looking up information in the new system.
He said a third question is “What’s all this stuff about time ticketing?” He said this is no different than we have done in the past where seniors registered first, followed by juniors and so on. He said it breaks students into smaller groups by the number of credits they have towards graduation. He said students could not register until their allotted time. He said if everyone could/did register at once it would crash not just the registration and financial aid part of the system but the entire system including payroll. He said the system would be active all the time other than when it had to be taken down for maintenance. He said once the period during which a student is allowed to register is reached that student will be able to register at any time until Camp War Eagle begins.
Nick Backscheider said if you have problems or questions you should email him at: backsni@auburn.edu so he can get people working on problems. He then opened the floor for questions.
Norbert Wilson, Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, noted that many faculty advise students and they use information on OASIS that will not be available on Banner at the end of summer.
Nick Backscheider said the Banner system will completely match OASIS at the end of summer but the information available in OASIS is not currently in the Banner system.
Norbert Wilson asked how faculty could advise students if they have no access to transcripts or grades. He said they have been told that only one person (an administrative assistant) would have access in each unit.
Nick Backscheider said he did not know. He said this is a policy issue and lies outside the role of the implementation team. He noted that a survey of the OASIS system had revealed that 900 people on campus had the ability to alter information (i.e. add sections, change rooms, etc.). He said the University is being careful about access because of the large number of people who had had access in the past. He noted that his team would supply training to faculty who would be using the system.
Norbert Wilson asked who could answer the question of access for faculty advisors.
Nick Backscheider said the request should go to him and this would allow coordination of such requests to the Provost’s office where the policy would be established.
Andrew Wohrley, Library, noted that the AU Access system does not support Firefox 2.0 browsers. He wanted to know when this support would be available.
Nick Backscheider told him to send an email about this and he will forward it to the appropriate person. He said this is not part of the Banner System which runs within the AU Access system but he knows who to contact about this. He thanked everyone and reminded us to contact him with questions and problems.
Unfinished Business (Rich Penaskovic, Chair)
Rich Penaskovic called Kathryn Flynn to the podium to announce the people elected to serve on the Rules Committee.
Kathryn Flynn announced that the three people elected to serve on the Rules Committee were Scotte Hodel, Electrical and Computer Engineering; Jim Wright, Pathobiology; and Alice Buchanan, Health and Human Performance. She congratulated the new members thanked all of the people who ran for their willingness to serve on the important committee and reminded the new members that their terms would begin in August. She noted that the new members would be contacted by Ann Beth Presley, the incoming Secretary, when their terms begin.
New Business
There was no new business. Rich Penaskovic adjourned the meeting.