Minutes of the Senate Meeting
May 6, 2008
Broun Auditorium
3:00 p.m.
Present: Robert Locy, Sue Barry, Dennis DeVries, David Cicci, Stewart Schneller, Drew Clark (?), John Heilman, Todd Storey, Gary Martin, Ron Clark, Winfred Foster, Norbert Wilson, Sondra Parmer, Charles Mitchell, Werner Bergen, Christopher McNulty, Paul Swamidass, Anthony Moss, Rik Blumenthal, Larry Crowley, Brigitta Brunner, Laura Plexico, Alvin Sek See Lim, Carol Centrallo, Suhyun Suh, John Saye, Dan Gropper, James Witte, James Goldstein, Robin Huettel, Claire Crutchley, Allen Davis, Michel Raby, Larry Teeter, Jim Saunders, Mark Fischman, David Carter, Raymond Kessler, Thomas Smith, Chris Arnold, Robert Bulfin, Andrew Wohrley, Bart Prorok, Howard Goldstein, Constance Hendricks, Claire Zizza, Jim Wright, Bernie Olin, Francis Robicheaux, Changhoon Jung, Robert Voitle, Peggy Shippen, Jon Segars, Tom Williams, Carol Zugazaga, Gwen Thomas, R.D. Montgomery
Absent sending a substitute: Debbie Shaw (Betsy Robertson), Overton Jenda (?), Scotte Hodel (Michael Baginski), Don-Terry Veal (Maria Folmar), Scott Phillips (Heather May)
Absent no substitute: Kathryn Flynn, Don Large, Royrickers Cook, Dan Bennett, Johnny Green, Fran Kochan, Bonnie MacEwan, Lauren Hayes, Lindsey Stevenson, Valerie Morns-Riggins, Robert Gross, John Hung, Jim Bradley, Barbara Kemppainen, Charlene LeBleu, Timothy McDonald, Anooop Sattineni, Ronald Neuman, Casey Cegielski, Edith Davidson, Steve Stuckwisch, Daniel Parson, Salisa Wesrick, James Shelley, Dan Svyantek, Randy Tillery,
Bob Locy called the meeting to order at 3:00 p.m.
Approval of Minutes: The minutes of the April 8th, Senate meeting were approved by voice vote without opposition.
Remarks/Announcements from the President’s office:
Because Dr. Gogue was at the Employee Recognition Dinner, Dr. Heilman represented the President. He made the following remarks.
There were no questions following Dr. Heilman’s remarks.
Remarks/Announcements from Senate Chair
Bob Locy (President) reported that the search committee for the Ombudsperson had been selected and the search has begun. Committee members are Ronald Clark from the School of Business as Chair, Jack DeRuiter from the School of Pharmacy, Isabelle Thompson from the College of Liberal Arts, William Sauser representing the Provost’s Office, Todd Story representing the A&P Assembly, Wendy Peckman representing Staff Council, and William Hammond from Human Relations. This position will be filled by a tenured full professor or retired full professor or similar appropriate person for a two-year trial period. This position is 0.75 FTE or three quarter time, and the person chosen will serve faculty and staff needs. The advertisement for this position will appear on the Senate Webpage under Acts of the Senate. Dr. Locy requested that senators help in identifying candidates for the position in order to put forward an outstanding slate of candidates.
Bob attended the second SEC Faculty Senate Chair’s meeting at the University of South Carolina. Some of the programs discussed were Study Abroad programs and a series of new programs under consideration. It appears that the Auburn University Senate is addressing many of the same issues that are confronting other institutions in the SEC, such as hiring new administrators, PTR and hiring Ombudspersons. Our accomplishments are impressive in comparison with other institutions in the SEC. We seem to have emerged stronger after our probation.
The Staff Council recently brought forward for consideration a proposal to develop a child care facility on campus. This issue has been discussed many times in the past, and we will continue to study the issue.
Finally, Bob reminded the senators to proceed to the microphones and to speak clearly when announcing their names and departmental affiliations. Senators speak first, and then others will have an opportunity to speak.
Action Items
Calendar Committee Report – Academic Year 2010-2011 and Summer calendars 2009 & 2010. Revised Summer Calendar (Stan Reeves, Chair)
Stan proposed removing the extended mini-term one from the summer 2009 calendar. The mini-term one has been a headache in terms of scheduling and classroom usage in particular, and they have found a way to accommodate those needing a six week term. They start at the beginning of the ten week term and finish after six weeks. Therefore, the committee proposes getting rid of the six week term for 2009
For summer 2010, Stan proposed a 10 week semester finishing on August 2nd, with commencement on August 9th. The first summer mini semester begins on May 20th and ends on Jun 24th and the second one begins on June 28th and ends the same day as the full term. Fall semester 2010 looks exactly like fall semester 2009 which the Senate previously approved.
First, Stan Reeves moved to abolish the six week extended mini term for 2009.
Bob reminded the Senate that the motion coming from the calendar committee did not require a second. There was no discussion and the motion passed on a voice vote.
Stan made a second motion to line up the Thursday-Monday day so that both the full term and mini-term in 2009 would use the Thursday reassigned to Monday strategy.
Bob called for the question and the motion passed.
Stan’s next motion was to adopt the summer 2010 calendar as shown in the presentation and Bob called for discussion.
Questions and Remarks
Rik Blumenthal (Chemistry) asked that the Senate Leadership agree to revisit this strategy for turning a Thursday into a Monday next fall.
Stan Reeves assured the Senate that the Calendar Committee was sensitive to the issue and that there would be an opportunity to reassess this later.
Bob called for the question to approve the Thursday to Monday schedule for the summer 2010 calendar and the motion passed
Finally, Stan Reeves moved to adopt the Fall and Spring 2010 – 2011 Calendar. Again the motion passed on a voice vote.
Bob noted that this was one of the smoothest calendar discussions in the history of the Senate. He then thanked Stan and his committee for a job well done and noted that Stan would be leaving as Chair of the Calendar Committee.
Action Item
Core Curriculum Oversight Committee Student Learning Outcomes (Linda Glaze, Chair)
Linda reported that she had presented the Student Learning Outcomes document in March and then returned for input from the faculty in April. After reviewing comments from the faculty the committee decided to make one change. Under Effective Communications the original wording was “be able to integrate their own ideas with those of others”. Faculty suggested that be changed to “be able to integrate their own ideas with those of others”, and add “differentiating and crediting ideas of others, but editing and using them for their own persuasive and explanatory purposes.” She then moved for the acceptance of the document.
Bob reminded the Senate that since this originated from the Core Curriculum Oversight Committee, it didn’t require a second. There was no discussion and the motion carried.
Action Item
Bob Locy (Chair, Senate) introduced an amendment to the University Senate Constitution article 2 section 3, specifically the proposed change was to add the chair of the A&P to the list of Senate members. This change is to bring the constitution in line with current practices. The motion passed on a voice vote. There were no nays.
The second amendment deals with University Senate Constitution article 2 section 3E and then a parallel change to article 4 section 4 that would be necessitated by the change in section 3E. This change is to include the Immediate Past Chair as a sitting member on the Steering Committee. Since the Immediate Past Chair is a sitting member on the Board of Trustees, it seems prudent to include the Immediate Past Chair on Steering as well as on the Rules Committee. With no discussion the motion carried on a voice vote.
Information Item - Dual Career Hiring Policy (Donna Sollie, Asst. Provost for Women's Advancement )
Donna presented the two body challenge in academia, recent terminology for dual career couples moving into academia with changing expectations relating to work-life quality. She suggested an Ad-Hoc committee at Auburn to document the need for such a policy and to evaluate and assess best practices that other institutions have developed. Currently 80% of faculty members have spouses who are working professionals and many are academics. These couples view both careers as being of equal importance. We need to look at ways to make Auburn University more appealing in order to attract top male and female faculty. Virginia Tech initiated a policy in the Fall of 2005. After reviewing best practices at other institutions, they established policies and guidelines for Dual Career Hiring and provided programmatic support for assistance on and off campus job searches for accompanying partners of new hires at Virginia Tech where they have a relocation office to help place these spouses. In a percentage of the cases there will be two people who are both looking for tenure track academic positions, but in other cases the accompanying partner is looking for an administrative position, a research position or a position in the community.
Currently we have an existing relationship with Auburn University at Montgomery for help in hiring dual career couples, but there are other places within the academic world where we could begin to develop relationships. Therefore, I am recommending the creation of an Ad-Hoc Committee on Dual Partner Hiring Policies and Procedures at Auburn University. The committee would include representatives from all potential stake holders. The purpose of this committee would be to review best practices at other institutions and to develop procedures for dual hiring and for providing information and recommendations about the funding needs associated with such a policy to the administration.
Questions and Remarks
Tony Moss: (Biological Sciences) wanted to know the statistics at Virginia Tech before they implemented their program.
Donna Sollie responded that she didn’t have those statistics, but Universities reporting on the outcomes of this kind of policy indicate greater faculty productivity and greater loyalty. So retention increases, and there are positive outcomes from just having a policy.
Tony agreed and Donna reported that this was mostly anecdotal, but that we should investigate the question.
Drew Clark (Director of Institutional Research and Assessment) reminded the Senate that we already have evidence that our junior faculty would find a spousal partner hiring program of great interest. In the 2005 Harvard based survey of junior faculty nationwide Auburn scored exceptionally well on satisfaction of junior faculty, but a third of our respondents rated the policy of Spousal Partner hiring as their number one or number two effectiveness gap here at Auburn and for females it was over half. So we have some tangible evidence that there is a perceived need.
Donna replied that Lynne Hammond and Angela Irwinson in Human Resources have worked on this problem for several years.
Tom Smith (Human Development and Family Studies) wanted to know if the Senate would eventually act on this item or if we are just being informed and the actual action will come through some other University mechanism.
Bob Locy (Chair) stated that the Steering Committee was impressed with Donna’s work on this policy and that we wanted to it with the Senate. He indicated that at some point in the future the policy could become a concrete proposal for the Senate to act upon.
Tom Smith thanked Bob for the information.
Peggy Shippen (Rehabilitation and Special Education) asked if there would be an opportunity to discuss partner benefits for non-married partners to have benefits.
Donna believes that all relevant aspects should be looked at as they begin to work with the Faculty Welfare Committee on this matter.
Information Item - Auburn AUM Seamless Admission Policy (John Veres, Chancellor, Auburn University, Montgomery)
John Veres reported that the precipitating stimulus for this policy is money. AUM enrollment has been flat over the last six year, and they have tried to market AUM to those students who have been turned down by Auburn University. Many of these students have ACT scores of 22 and 23 while the average ACT score for AUM students has been 20. This attempt has met with mixed success. It appears that many of these students want a four year experience with athletics and the amenities available at Auburn. With the current budget problems and AUM’s dependence on appropriations from the Special Education Trust Fund and from tuition, AUM needs to find ways to pursue this group. After a discussing this with Dr. Gogue, he is proposing to rent facilities from Auburn University after 3 pm and into the early evening when our AU facilities are under-utilized. He proposes to admit these students in a one year experimental pilot study to live here and take classes at AU using our facilities. The classes would be taught primarily by AUM faculty. Perhaps, AU faculty and/or grad students might teach some courses as well. The idea is that these students would take 30 semester hours, basically core hours, and at the end of one year they would transfer to AU. The minimum requirement is 30 hours and a cumulative 2.5 GPA. He thanked all who helped him arrange and coordinate meetings with Auburn colleagues. The students will receive an Auburn ID card that says AUM student. They will pay fees, such as Tiger Transit, Student Union, and Student Activity fees, and AUM will remit those fees back to Auburn. Normally only 3.4% of their students are from out of state, and to date, slightly over 50% of the 100 students identified for full admittance in seamless admittance are out of state so this will be beneficial for AUM. These students may be second and third generation Auburn families with children whose ACT score is a 22, but they can’t attend AU. In this way, they can still get into Auburn in their second year.
Questions and Remarks
Andrew Wohrley (Library) wanted to know what the ultimate number of students participating in seamless admissions would be.
John Veres (Chancellor, AUM) hopes the program will grow, and he foresees an ultimate number being around 300. His rationale for this is that over the past five years there has been an approximate 320 student drop between the freshman and sophomore year at Auburn even after transferring in about 1400 students a year. Therefore, more than 300 would not be practical.
Tony Moss (Biological Sciences) wanted to know what the current requirements are for transfer students from any college and how those might compare to the Seamless Admission policy.
John Veres responded that the requirements would be whatever standard Auburn has set for incoming transfer students. However, it might be a bit more rigorous to obtain a 2.5 at AUM than at a 2 year institution.
Rik Blumenthal (Chemistry & Biochemistry) expressed several concerns. 1) The program compromises Auburn's effort to elevate the quality of the incoming student body. 2) As a net effect, it may decrease diversity by focusing on 2nd and 3rd generation AU alumni. 3) It may create a second class citizenry of both students and faculty. 4) The question of whether AUM faculty who teach at Auburn might somehow become eligible for tenure at Auburn could be troublesome. 5) The bottom line seemed to be that this program appears to be a backdoor channel to admit certain students who otherwise failed to meet the admission requirements.
John Veres (Chancellor, AUM) believes that it may increase diversity at AU because 30% of AUM students are African American, and they can’t get into AU with a 20 or 21 ACT score. Therefore, this program has the potential to increase diversity at AU. Also, most transfer students come from other institutions where they don’t have the tenured professional faculty that AUM has. Many AUM faculty have fine research and publishing records and at the same time are excellent teachers. We think we will do a better job of preparing students than some other 2 year institutions.
Bob Locy (Chair) asked Dr. Heilman to respond to the question as well.
Dr. Heilman (Provost) emphasized the importance of Dr. Gogue’s role in the creation of this policy. Diversity is an important component of the seamless admission policy, and since access is another component of AU’s land grant mission, this policy should help us reach that goal as well. Finally, AUM students on campus after 3:00 pm. would help to utilize facilities that normally sit idle every evening.
Francis Robicheaux (Physics) replied that his department’s reaction to this policy was very negative. Therefore, he wanted to know how we will measure the success of the program.
John Veres said that they will assess whether or not the policy increased the workload of staff or faculty on either campus. They will also look at the scheduling, delivery, and staffing of the program. Students will be surveyed as usual concerning their level of satisfaction, and there will be some metric to measure how successfully they transferred to Auburn. He also indicated that the survey would probably increase in length and depth over time.
Francis Robicheaux (Physics) responded that one aspect noticeably absent in this venue was the lack of input from Auburn University faculty as to whether the policy was a success or not.
John Veres felt that in one year it would be difficult to obtain data from Auburn University faculty. In two or three years it would be reasonable to determine problems and satisfaction as viewed by the AU faculty. For example, he feels confident that his physics faculty will prepare students better for AU physics classes than do other institutions whose students transfer to Auburn.
David Carter (History) indicated that his concerns were more in the area of staffing since with increasing gas prices, the administration might turn to graduate students or adjuncts to staff the program which would not be in the best interest of the students. Also, he felt that the Auburn faculty was a bit blindsided by this process and that the policy was completed without adequate input from the Auburn faculty side.
John Veres pointed out that the Governor’s budget probably had a great deal of influence on the rapidity of the decision.
Constance Hendricks (Nursing) has taught on the AUM campus, and she feels that the quality of the students on both campuses is comparable with only demographic differences. Also with AUM faculty teaching these courses, we will have more input into the caliber and quality of courses than we do for other transfer students.
John Veres replied that the courses will be taught primarily by AUM faculty and perhaps even with some AU faculty. For example, courses slated to be taught Auburn faculty are Architecture Appreciation and Political Science 2020. On Fridays from 5 pm. to 9 pm. AUM students will use the same experiments and textbooks as regular AU students do, and all labs will be taken down and set up for the following Monday as is currently practiced. The idea is to not inconvenience AU faculty and staff.
Tom Smith (Human Development & Family Studies) felt that this seamless policy with its match to our curriculum would better prepare transfer students for Auburn than institutions whose students transfer to a wide variety of institutions. He also pointed out that we have no input into the preparation of students for transferring from other two year institutions. Also this could be a financial gain for both Auburn and AUM.
Ron Montgomery (Veterinary Medicine) equated the policy with what we were doing with other places, such as Southern Union and even off shore universities in the Caribbean.
Dan Gropper(Economics) supported the quality of the AUM faculty and their courses, and pointed out that all transfer students must have a 2.5 GPA.
Larry Crowley (Civil Engineering) understood that the branch was not surviving with the kinds of students that it was able to attract. Therefore, we are going to collapse some of the branch onto the main campus. As a taxpayer, he wondered why we didn’t focus on shrinking capacity at AUM and increasing capacity at AU.
John Veres (Chancellor, AUM) responded that the precipitating stimulus is the budget, but they are not going broke. Instead they have had a long period of stable no growth. However, this policy will help AUM in two ways: 1) they will accommodate those who absolutely have to live in Auburn because it is special, and 2) they will effectively make use of the Auburn resources and infrastructure. In addition, the extra revenue will allow AUM to build a fitness center which will make the Montgomery campus more attractive to students who want a residential four year experience. This will increase their total enrollment, not just those 100 who will enter the seamless admission program. It is an opportunity for both campuses to work cooperatively and move forward in their strategic plans. Instead of existing in different silos, the two campuses can begin to complement each other.
Summary of final remarks
While some senators were not fully convinced as to the advantages of the seamless admission policy, others supported the policy whole heartedly, and the meeting was adjourned by Bob Locy at 4:45.