Minutes Steering Committee Meeting
March 3, 2020
3:30pm 206 Samford Hall

Present: Nedret Billor (Chair), Don Mulvaney (Chair-Elect), Greg Schmidt (Secretary-Elect), Mike Baginski (Immediate Past Chair), , Jared Russell, Jong Won Hur, Emmett Winn, Bill Hardgrave

Absent: Adrienne Wilson (Secretary), Bob Norton

Chair Billor called the meeting to order at 3:30pm

Approval of Steering Committee Minutes, 2/11/2020: Approved

Remarks, Provost Bill Hardgrave: Coronavirus preparation at Auburn Auburn’s Coronavirus informational web page is online and being updated frequently. Per CDC recommendations, Auburn has recalled all faculty and students in international Study abroad programs.

The status of Summer Study Abroad programs will be discussed in the next few weeks. A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) is now available on the AU Coronavirus website. It is being updated with new information as it becomes available. In response to a question from Michael Baginski in regard to Auburn Global recruiting, the Provost reiterated that all international travel for Auburn is on hold.

https://ocm.auburn.edu/news/coronavirus/

Pending Action item: Title Change for Auburn University Librarians and Archivists, presenters, Jaena Alibi and Claudine Jenda, Auburn University Libraries.

Alibi spoke on proposal to change Librarian II, III, IV titles to align better with Auburn University faculty titles of Assistant, Associate, full Professor titles, respectively. The presentation gave information on titles from across academic libraries in the United States and discussed the Faculty Handbook text regarding librarians and archivists.

Librarians and Archivists at Auburn are faculty and have teaching, research publication and service requirements similar to other faculty at Auburn. The Roman numeral title series has been a source of confusion. Changing the titles from the Roman numeral style to the assistant, associate, and full titles has the potential to foster university service, bolster recruiting, and relate duties across Auburns faculty.

Questions and Comments: Chair Billor expressed support for the change and said that the Faculty Handbook Committee has been made aware of this proposal and has identified the sections in the Faculty Handbook that will need to be amended. Associate Provost Winn suggested that the presenters prepare a resolution for Senate approval for the action item in April.

Information Item: Wellness Initiatives and the Healthy Tiger Program at Auburn. Presenters, Kimberly Braxton, Harrison School of Pharmacy and Ann Shore, Office of Human Resources. This presentation discussed the genesis and growth of health initiatives at Auburn and gave data through 2018 on Healthy Tigers (HT).

HT began as a response to high medical claims relating to obesity, with a small percentage of the insured using a large proportion of healthcare dollars. The goal of the program was to keep healthy people healthy and to catch disease early, thereby combating rising health costs. The presentation gave data on:
Participation numbers in Healthy Tigers since its inception
Blood Glucose numbers over 5 years Diabetes and pre-diabetes over 5 years
Cholesterol numbers over 5 years
BMI data over 5 years

Insurance Premium growth at Auburn University 1985-2017. The presentation discussed how the healthy tigers program helped participants lower their risk categories for the health conditions being monitored. From a pharmacoeconomic perspective, the insurance discount for healthy tiger participation is an incentive that helps reduce overall health expenses.

Approval of Agenda for Senate Meeting, 3/17/2020: Approved

New Business: Results of Fall 2019 Quick Faculty Survey, Greg Schmidt, Secretary Elect This presentation, intended to be given at the 3/31/2020 General Faculty Meeting, gave an overview of the likert-scale results from the short survey conducted in September and October of 2019. The “Sense of the Faculty” survey asked Auburn faculty to give their opinions on Faculty Annual Review, Student Assessment of Teaching, Salaries and Benefits, and Senate Service. There were 530 responses to the survey.

In the presentation, strongly approve and approve responses were combined, as were disapprove and strongly disapprove responses. Results were shown in pie charts with brief discussion on the intensity of the responses and the overall “takeaway” that Senate leadership got from each area.

Chair Billor and others recommended that since the presentation did not include the extensive comments included in the responses to the survey that Schmidt extract relevant comments to the particular questions.

Chair Billor also suggested that Schmidt relate 2019/2020 Senate agenda items to these responses to indicate that the survey is helping guide Senate actions.

Election Discussion, Senate Executive Committee. Chair Elect Mulvaney noted that Campus Web Solutions will be running the election interface for the 2020/21 officer elections. He has planned meetings with CWS to go over the interface and to work to make sure all eligible voters included in the authorized voter list. The executives also discussed contacting Senators to ask them to strongly encourage participation by their constituents. The executive teal also plans to send out several “Faculty Faculty” emails during the voting period.

Census2020 Group Presentation. Chair Billor announced that the Census2020 Working Group intends to speak briefly at the General Faculty Meeting and encourage the Auburn community to participate.

Chair Billor adjourned the meeting at 4:35pm

Respectfully Submitted, Greg Schmidt Secretary-Elect, University Senate