Transcript Senate Meeting
May 21, 2019
Michael Baginski, Chair: If you are a senator or a substitute for a senator, please be sure you sign in onto the sheet at the top of the room. Be sure you have your clicker, if this is your first time here they are in a box back there. Second, we need to establish a quorum. We have 87 Senators in the Senate and we need 44 for a quorum. Please turn on your clicker. Please press A on your clicker to show you are present.
Let the record show that we have 60 present to start the meeting, so a quorum is established. I now call the meeting to order. [1:17]
Welcome to the May 21, 2019 meeting of the University Senate. This is our ninth meeting of the 2018–19 academic year.
I would like to remind you of some basic procedures for the Senate meeting for senators and guests. Let me explain the Senate rules about speaking. If you’d like to speak about an issue or ask a question, please go to the microphone on either side aisle. When it is your turn, state your name and whether or not you are a senator or a substitute and the unit you represent. The rules of the Senate require that senators or substitute senators be allowed to speak first and then any guests are welcome to speak.
The Senate is not a time for personal conversation with the speaker or anyone else, please limit yourself to one or two questions unless you are making a motion or an amendment to a motion before the Senate. For additional discussion you should meet with the people or the speaker after the meeting.
The agenda today was set by the Senate Steering Committee and posted on the Web site in advance, it’s now up on the screen.
The first order of business is to approve the minutes for the meeting of April 9, 2019. Those minutes have been posted on the Senate Web site. Are there any additions, changes, or corrections to the minutes? (pause) Hearing none the minutes are approved by unanimous consent.
I now have a few brief remarks.
This past week Auburn has been a tough one for Auburn. We experienced a horrible tragedy with the shooting of three police officers resulting in the death of Officer William Buechner and the serious injury Officers Webb Sistrunk and Evan Elliott of the Auburn Police Department. I would like at this time to have a moment of silence to honor Officer William Buechner and for us to pray for the speedy recovery for Officers Sistrunk and Elliott. (Pause for 10 seconds). We are very grateful to police who protect and serve our community daily.
Let me encourage everyone to let us know if you see potential problems on campus related to academic or non-academic issues or have any concerns. You may contact myself or Beverly Marshall or any of the other Senate Officers.
Now I would now like to introduce the officers of the Senate and our administrative assistant. Dan Svyantek is the immediate past chair, Nedret Billor is the chair-elect, Beverly Marshal is the secretary this year, and Adrienne Wilson is the secretary-elect: Herbert Jack Rotfeld is our Parliamentarian. Finally, our administrative assistant is Laura Kloberg.
Now for Action items. Beverly Marshall will present the remaining Senate Committee Volunteers
Beverly Marshall, Senate Secretary: Without the help of many faculty across campus, the work that we do with the Senate, each of our various committees require faculty representation and often times that is from specific colleges. We have, hopefully this is the final slate, until of course in the fall some people have left or something has happened. (off mic)
At this time these have all been approved by our Rules Committee and also by Steering. If you would please indicate your approval by clicking A of this list of candidates. A=66,. B=0. All in? Okay great, thank you very much for those of you that have volunteered, appreciate it. [5:33]
Michael Baginski, Chair: Thank you Beverly.
Next, Emmett Winn will present the Revision to a Section of the Handbook
Emmett Winn, for the Faculty Handbook Committee: Hello again, good to see you all. My colleague, Ralph Kingston, and chair of the Faculty Handbook Review Committee presented this to you at the last Senate meeting as a pending action item. We are back today for the vote. It’s actually this third one at the bottom, it’s no longer in red, but it’s the addition. “Faculty who hold tenured or tenure-track Extension Specialist positions must have an evaluation letter from the Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES) Director included in their dossiers.” As a very brief reminder this originally came from the University Promotion and Tenure committee, who made this request looking for consistency in the dossiers by people that have an ACES assignment. It then went through various approvals through deans and Provost council and Steering Committee and finally the Faculty Handbook Review Committee reviewed it. So, it is here for your voting today, again just codifying practice that we have been doing for the last few years and was requested by the P&T Committee to offer some consistency in the dossiers.
Proposed amendment to Section 3.6.5.3.C
With that I will answer any questions that you have, but would prefer that we just vote and get this over with.
Michael Baginski, Chair: Are there any questions at all?
Emmett Winn, for the Faculty Handbook Committee: Alright, so please vote by pressing A on your clicker. A=67, B=2. Okay, thank you so much.
Michael Baginski, Chair: Thank you very much. Let the record show that the vote was 67 to 2 in favor.
Next are some pending action items. Mike Phillips, Associate Dean from Extension, College of Agriculture will be presenting this.
Mike Phillips, Associate Dean from Extension, College of Agriculture: Thank you. It’s an honor to be here this afternoon to present an item to you. This particular item is guidelines associated with establishing and filling positions with an Extension Series Track in the Faculty Handbook. That does not exist presently, so we are pursuing the opportunity to develop this Extension Title Series for the Handbook.
Extension Title Series document (word)
My approach today is a little bit about this from the standpoint of who it affects, what is it, when, where, why, how in terms of this title series. This title series specifically impacts 9 faculty presently in the College of Agriculture. These faculty are specifically non-tenure track faculty and they are appropriately qualified to contribute to the University’s Extension Mission by providing state-wide programmatic leadership and scholarship in the subject area or discipline that they are trained for and trained in. These faculty are either in 100% Extension appointments or in many cases in a joint appointment with Extension as well as the Agricultural Experiment Station. As I indicated earlier this impacts a small number of faculty presently (9 faculty) and is specific to the College of Agriculture.
This is a promotion track series that was developed and honestly, we utilized two existing tracks that are already in the Faculty Handbook which is the Research Title Series and the Clinical Title Series and we basically blended the two to develop this extension title series track for these particular faculty. It would ultimately involve the following titles; assistant extension professor, associate extension professor, and extension professor in regard to promotion.
So, upon approval of this particular process the College of Ag then would recommend title changes for those that are impacted through submission to the Office of the Provost. Ideally this would occur with title changes that would be implemented in the upcoming academic year.
So, why the Title Series? We have a number of faculty, 9 in specific, that contribute to the university’s Extension mission, they provide that state-wide programmatic support, these faculty are in academic departments currently within the College of Ag and they are recognized by their significant contributions they make in terms of scholarship. These scholarship expectations are defined at the departmental level and are the same as all other faculty associated with those departments. These faculty are also evaluated in relation to their appointment and they are described in their departmental guidelines.
The discussion of this process started last fall with some senior colleagues of mine in the CoA, the department heads and the administrators in the college have endorsed this title series. The document, once it was endorsed by those individuals, went to the Office of the Provost for consideration. The document then went on and was reviewed by the Provost’s Council and those changes, even though they were few, were documented in this particular document. It was then submitted for further review to the Non-tenure Track Faculty Committee of the Faculty Senate and changes were made not only from them but every step of the way.
That’s the title series that we have in presentation for you today to consider. The next step is to entertain any questions that anyone may have in regard to this request. [12:42] (no questions)
Michael Baginski, Chair: Thank you.
Now, we will talk about some information items. The Grant Listing Tool overview will be presented by Gina Bailey [13:10]
Gina Bailey, Contract and Grants Accounting: Good afternoon. I want to thank you all for having me here today and for the opportunity to share some information with you.
Contracts and Grants Accounting has been working on a number of process improvement initiatives since the fall of 2018. Today I will be sharing about the most recent enhancement. I am going to provide a little background information first before getting into the details of the grant listing. As some of you may be aware grant attribute information such as start date, end date, funding agency, PI, co-PI, indirect cost rate, and so on are located on multiple forms in Banner 9. One has to be familiar with navigating all of the various forms to find comprehensive information about sponsor funds. With the exception of my funding, which was developed by Auburn University to provide detailed information on a grant by grant investigator or unit basis our regular self-service Banner doesn’t include any grant attribute information. In addition, the availability of reporting tools was listed as a concern in recent research administration surveys.
So, in an effort to address reporting needs and combine information for multiple database tables into a streamline format the grant listing tool was developed by the office of information systems support based on a request by and with input from our office of contracts and grants accounting. It does not include information that’s not already in Banner and it is not intended to replace anything that is already used, rather it is offered as an additional resource in addition to things that are already available.
[14:56]
Before the version that we’ll see today was moved into the production environment, Mike Fogle in the FRC reviewed it and provided feedback which is incorporated into the final product. We appreciate their time commitment and their willingness to share the faculty perspective.
So, what is the grant listing? It’s a web-based report in the master contact list of self-service Banner. It provides current grant fund attribute information for active or expired sponsored awards for all contract and grants awarded since October of 2005. So there is a lot of information in there. I believe we have information on over 12,000 grants at this point. Each column includes filter and sort options and the information can be downloaded to Excel at any time. There is also a way to customize the view by displaying selected columns or hiding them if desired. In addition, there are columns for total budget, expenditure, encumbrance and budget balance information and the data in the columns are updated each time the Web page is refreshed. The budget and expenditure columns will include all transactions recorded in Banner finance at that time, keeping in mind that AU business processes and deadlines impact whether or not an expenditure is recorded in Banner finance. Some examples of that are; the purchase card transactions, payroll transactions, and indirect cost transactions, those will not be reflected here until they have been fully processed and posted to Banner finance.
Where do I find it? The master contact list can be found on either the employee tab or the finance tab inside self-service Banner, all of us should have at least one of those.
Using the Grants Listing in the Master Contact List
Once you click on the master contact list you will see hierarchies, then grants listing. Once you click on that which may take a few minutes to load, but once it loads, this is what you will see (demonstrating in real time on the computer). Immediately above the table, this is a link to a resource page. This link was provided to the Senate secretary and is included on the Web-site in the agenda for today (see link above).
So, I will now take a few minutes to do a quick query. [17:23] I will work from here and try to speak loudly. I will go to the finance tab master contact list. You may have difficulty seeing the content because the font is very small, but one thing this software has is the ability to download into Excel. And from there you can format and increase the font or whatever you need to do.
The first query I am going to do, If I were in COSAM and wanted to see a list of all my active national science foundation awards. I can take 3 shorts steps and get a comprehensive list of what’s active at this time. Active, according to this list means the fund record is active in Banner whether or not the index has passed. We inactivate the records in our office once the agreement has expired all expenditures have been reported and final payment has been received, this is part of our close-out.
So, if you can follow along, I am on the college column and anytime you hover to the right side of a column you get the option to drop-down and filter. [18:36] You can determine how you would like to filter. We’re going to use contains for this filter.
I said I was looking for the College of Science and Mathematics, if I know that the 3 digit code for COSAM is 136, I can enter it here. I just know that I am looking for math and science. I can type in here under contains; Math, contains; science. If you only put science you will also get the College of Human Sciences, so you want to make sure you also enter contains math.
I’ve got math and science, I am going to click filter, then scroll down and to the right to look for the National Science Foundation. I look for agency all the way over here. I will hover, get my drop down, then show me where it contains ‘National Science’ click filter, and I am almost done.… Now I want to see which ones are currently active, so I am going to scroll again to the right one more time, I will look at the fund status and type “A” for active. Again, Active means the record is active in the database it doesn’t necessarily mean that it has not expired.
Now, I have a list of all the ones that are in COSAM. I prefer to use Excel, I think it is easier to navigate than to work with the Web page. So I will now export to Excel. Now I have a list where I can really increase the font.
Two things I want to call to your attention, the short title, which is this column, is the standard naming convention we use in our office and it includes the Federal award identifier. If you have lots of awards or lots of NSF awards it probably doesn’t mean a whole lot to you. What will contain more helpful information is the long title which gives more information about the project.
One other possibility for using the Grants Listing is to prepare current and pending reports with a disclaimer that proposed effort is not captured in Banner, so you would have to get your list of active grants, look at what you proposed and then get your proposed efforts separately, so that is something to note.
Using the Grants Listing has some other sample queries and hints about how to use the form. If you go back to the form grants that start with G or zero are AU grants. Grants that start with M are AUM and we have some that might be sponsored to construct a building for example, like the Casic Building, those would be CON grants.
With this information I see several possibilities for queries at faculty, departmental, college and university levels, for example if you’ve made a connection with a sponsor you’d like to submit a proposal, but you want to see if anybody else has worked with that sponsor before, you can filer on the agency column, or if a department head is interested in the award history for her department, she could query on the responsible column. Information regarding the availability of this resource has also been shared with college level designees, research and financial administrators across campus, and associate deans for Research. Earlier this month I was invited to attend a meeting for departmental researchers in one college to do a focused discussion and demonstration on using the grant listing. I am happy to meet with other departments and colleges, if individuals, or groups are interested in that. I am also available by phone or e-mail to answer any questions you have or if you have comments or concerns regarding the grant listing. My contact information is included in the slides.
Are there any questions right now? (pause) okay thank you very much for this opportunity and your time today.
Michael Baginski, Chair: Thank you very much Gina.
Next Emmett is back up here to talk about the Professor of Practice.
Emmett Winn, for the Faculty Handbook Committee: Thanks Mike, again I am here for my colleague Dr. Ralph Kingston, who is chair of the Faculty Handbook Review Committee. You’ll remember that at the last Senate you approved the Professor of Practice title series, that document then went to the Provost and to the President, who both approved it. At that point it went to the Faculty Handbook Review Committee for their review, they made two very small edits. This is the first one in the entire document and the second is right below it. This is an information item to let you know that the Faculty Handbook Review Committee has reviewed it, approved it with two minor changes that were acceptable for everybody, so now it will go into the Faculty Handbook. I’ll be happy to answer any questions. (no questions). Thank you.
Michael Baginski, Chair: Thank you Emmett. Now, Beverly Marshall will be back to talk about Make-up Policy.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: Okay, this will be short and sweet because I am not changing anything, you are not voting on anything, it’s not a pending action item, it is just a reminder. [24:41] so, the reason I wanted to come up and refresh everybody’s memory is over the summer we got new courses ramping up, we’ve got new faculty coming on board, new instructors, adjuncts, and visitors, like in my department and we need to be aware that faculty in our departments are following university policy. This is just a reminder about existing policy, it is not a change.
Some people may not be aware of where this is, so, again directing faculty members to the AU Bulletin under class attendance and examination. This is strictly a cut and paste, I have plagiarized the AU Bulletin here, and I’ve underlined some things just to make for emphasis here. Arrangements to make up missed major examinations, the makeup policy covers major examinations, hour exams, mid-term exams is defining major; due to properly authorized excused absences as defined by the Student Policy e-Handbook. Again, that’s well documented what those authorized excuses are…shall be initiated by the student within one week from the end of the period of the excused absence. So if they missed the exam on Monday and their excuse is through Friday, they actually have a week. Are you with me? Normally a make-up exam shall occur within 2 weeks from the time that the student initiates arrangements for it. Instructors are encouraged to refrain from giving make-up examinations during the last 3 days prior to the first day of final examinations. [26:37]
Third, the format of make-up exams and opportunities for students to make-up work other than major examinations are at the discretion of the instructor, who’s make-up policy should be stated in writing at the beginning of the term. That’s the policy in a nutshell.
Now, it is generous, I’ve been at other institutions, it’s a generous make-up policy. And I do have a lot of make-ups in my classes. So, I understand that a lot of faculty are getting frustrated by the number of make-ups. So, what I’m seeing when I’m seeing syllabi, are efforts to thwart, I guess, make-up exams somewhat that are a clear violation of policy. For example, this wording; “make-up exams will not be given in the event of an excused missed exam. Instead there will be a cumulative make-up exam offered after the final exam during the remaining 75 minutes that will count for any excused missed exams,” is a clear violation of our policy which is supposed to be within 2 weeks of when the student initiates the request for make-up exam. [27:56] There is also another syllabus; a requirement to contact the instructor within 48 hours of the missed exam and take the make-up within one week of missed exam, regardless of the period of the excused absence. So, again, it’s wording like this in the syllabus, and this may have come from another institution where that was okay…this is not again, I think that is often the case when we have new faculty on board and they are not familiar with the policy.
So, what is okay? Make-ups can be in a different format, but this again should be indicated in the syllabus. Sample wording, and I took this from a syllabus in my department; the make-up exam may not be the same format as that given during the regular exam time, that is multiple choice. So the instructor is putting the student… and you all notice while the regular exam was multiple choice the make-up exam may not be in that same format. Make-ups are not required, notice it is for major exams, make-ups are not required for minor quizzes and assignments, but care should be taken to not penalize students for excused absences. So, be real careful there. If there are 10 minor quizzes and a student has excused absences for 2 of them, here is what I would tend to do, their grade would be the average of the 8 quizzes taken. That is okay. Some students might argue, I didn’t have as many opportunities. Professors using points to determine grade cutoff should be careful to properly… to maybe increase points available per quiz when they are valid missed quizzes. So, again, you don’t have to give a make-up for a quiz but you don’t want to be penalizing students that have a valid excused absence.
Any questions? Again, this is not a change in the policy, simply a reminder as you are preparing syllabus for the fall and as you welcome new faculty into your department.
Tony Moss, senator, Biological Sciences: Just to make sure Beverly, I’ve been doing this for years, if I have a circumstance where students miss a quiz, in some instances in some classes I don’t have a make-up but what I did is I regrade the total out of their remaining points. Let’s say I grade on 1000 points, this is what I usually do, they miss a 10 point quiz, it’s excused, I allow it and I grade on 990 points.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: Correct. Just not giving that student a zero, you don’t have to make up the quiz, but not penalize.
Tony Moss, senator, Biological Sciences: But if it’s not excused they don’t get it.
Stacey Hunt, senator, Political Science: I was just wondering if the criteria for not penalizing them was your wording or was that…because I didn’t see that in the original guidelines.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: It doesn’t say anything in the original document, but a lot of people ask what should I do about other assignments they miss. Again, if it is a valid university excused absence and a student could appeal a grade if they have a valid excused absence and they are assigned a zero that might not be…again trying not to penalize, but you don’t have to give them a make-up quiz or make-up homework assignment. Does everybody understand the difference? You can scall the points, you can average out of the quizzes taken, something like that and that would not assign a zero to them for a missed assignment/quiz for a valid reason.
Stacey Hunt, senator, Political Science: Okay, thanks.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: It’s a recommendation of how to do it, the student does not have to make it up. Does that clarify?
Scott Ketring, senator, Human Development and Family Studies: It does have to be two weeks for a make-up exam. I have seen a lot of faculty in my department say one week and you are saying it has to be two weeks.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: That’s the way the policy reads, within two weeks.
Scott Ketring, senator, Human Development and Family Studies: Within two weeks?
Beverly Marshall, secretary: Within two weeks. Again, that is so the professor…, that the make-up exam is in a timely basis.
Scott Ketring, senator, Human Development and Family Studies: It’s relative in 15 weeks (of a semester)
Beverly Marshall, secretary: I think is says within, so you don’t have to wait 2 weeks, just within 2 weeks from when they initiate it.
Scott Ketring, senator, Human Development and Family Studies: But the professor can’t write, I need you from 7 days after your excused absence a make-up exam? So they can’t write that they need to give them 2 weeks.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: No, no, hold on.
Scott Ketring, senator, Human Development and Family Studies: Make sure I am not confused.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: Formally a make-up exam shall occur within 2 weeks from the time the student initiates arrangements for it. So again, the comment here is within 2 weeks so you could, again it could be well before 2 weeks.
Scott Ketring, senator, Human Development and Family Studies: This is my problem because I see no limitation on the students. Some of my students get around to telling me about the make-up a week after they’ve been sick and everything. In the syllabi I’ve said to them; 7 days following your excuse you have to make it up. So, you have 7 days following your excuse to make up that exam. Do not wait 7 days to get a hold of me because you will pass your time frame. You are saying that’s not okay, you’re saying they have how much time to get ahold of me?
Beverly Marshall, secretary: That’s what’s in their bulletin. That’s what they see, yes.
Scott Ketring, senator, Human Development and Family Studies: So they have a week to get back with me and another 2 weeks out of a 15 week semester, one-fifth of the semester, and you said that’s kind of generous?
Beverly Marshall, secretary: That’s generous.
Scott Ketring, senator, Human Development and Family Studies: That’s bending over backwards. That’s like my mother generous or an addict generous, but…
Beverly Marshall, secretary: But that’s our policy.
Michael Tilson, senator, Steering: Beverly, I was interpreting that differently. [35:11] When I looked at it it said that as an instructor I am supposed to provide the exam or the make-up within 2 weeks, not that I couldn’t have it before then.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: That’s correct, I didn’t mean that, it can be up to 2 weeks.
Michael Tilson, senator, Steering: I can’t tell them that they have to take it at the end of the semester, but I can now, and the question I think you were asking (referring to Scott Ketring) is can I say it needs to be sooner than that.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: I think if you read the rest of the wording, the assumption is, the problem is the timely-ness of the instructor not waiting longer. But the student does have up to a week to initiate it.
Michael Tilson, senator, Steering: But I can say we are going to have it within a week of that time. So I think your original… (over-taliking here from several voices)
Beverly Marshall, secretary: It will occur within 2 weeks.
Michael Tilson, senator, Steering: I think that is telling me that I can’t do it after that time. But the questions becomes; can I require it before the end of that 2 week period?
Beverly Marshall, secretary: My assumption would be yes. You can require it before that. But you have to give the student a week to initiate it.
Someone: Mike you are saying that the student has to agree to that.
Michael Tilson, senator, Steering: I can’t make them do it while they are still sick.
Someone: Correct, I understand that.
Ed Youngblood, senator, Communication and Journalism: I really hate to ask this. I thought I had like 2 or 3 times and now I am confused again, which happens a lot.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: That’s okay.
Ed Youngblood, senator, Communication and Journalism: So, the student must contact us within a week? Once they do that we can say; thou shalt take this exam
Michael Baginski, chair: ?
Ed Youngblood, senator, Communication and Journalism: Sorry I can’t hear you.
Michael Baginski, chair: If they are sick or ill you can’t force a student to take
Ed Youngblood, senator, Communication and Journalism: Yea, but they contact me within a week after they’ve been sick. They come back and say doc, I need to schedule a make-up. I can say, which I’ve got in my syllabus, within a week after you contact me you are going to take the exam.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: Yes.
Ed Youngblood, senator, Communication and Journalism: Yes okay. Because that wasn’t the answer he got the first time.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: Or it can be 3 days from….
Ed Youngblood, senator, Communication and Journalism: We can say whatever we want…
Beverly Marshall, secretary: The bigger issue is using wording that suggests that we can put all the weight on the final, not give a make-up exam, um, unrealistic expectations about when that make-up is going to be given.
Ed Youngblood, senator, Communication and Journalism: We can, at our discretion, give them up to 2 weeks.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: Yes, you could.
Ed Youngblood, senator, Communication and Journalism: We can give them less than 2 weeks.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: Correct. [38:20] I think so. The wording is just within 2 weeks.
Michael Baginski, chair: Some of the time students try to get away with stuff we are not talking about that, we are talking about people who are genuinely (not hearing all that is said, not at the microphone) relatively convenient for the instructor and the student.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: I am a faculty member too, and I know there is so much abuse, I see the students that are not in my class 25% of the time and then all of the sudden a stomach bug come up at 2 a.m., which I think is when they got back from a local Bar and I think they didn’t have any idea of the material that was going to be on the exam. Then once they are ready they want to take it right then. (laughter)
Michael Baginski, chair: One last thing, a personal thing I just want to mention, one of the things I did was say you can have your final exams to replace the grade on one of your mid-terms and found out that I was way out of line about that about 7 or 8 years ago. I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong because I did what somebody else did who was older than me in the department. Just be aware of that. That is not allowed.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: So, I am not here to try to change the policy, I am just trying to inform and make sure that if you have new faculty that you point them in the direction of this policy.
Ed Youngblood, senator, Communication and Journalism: At the risk of further complicating, in thinking about your idea about letting the final count for one of the exams, could that be an option at the student’s discretion? I am just wondering. I am not going to do it because I don’t like the idea, but I could see somebody else saying, I’ve got 4 exams, let me give the student the option.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: The question may be that they don’t do well on the final and come back and…
Ed Youngblood, senator, Communication and Journalism: They opted for it.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: As long as you got that in writing. I guess
Ed Youngblood, senator, Communication and Journalism: Sure, thank you.
[40:45]
Alan Walker, senator, Management: This question may have already been asked in a slightly different flavor and I was confused. I put in my syllabus that students need to give me prior notification if they are going to miss an exam, unless there is a reason you cannot let me know prior to coming. But if somebody has strep throat and they get an excuse 2 days prior to an exam, I put in my syllabus that you need to let me know ahead of time. First, I emphasize, don’t miss an exam, and if you have to let me know ahead of time. Would that be consistent with the policy?
Beverly Marshall, secretary: Yes, and what else is consistent with the policy, again, it doesn’t really address situation where it’s a known absence in advance, it could be possible, again it’s not make-up work to ask a student to do it, if it’s possible, to do it before to turn in homework early. Or turn it in in an alternative format as an e-mail instead of turning it in in class.
Alan Walker, senator, Management: My big point is, if they know they are going to miss an exam, let me know. It really is unfair to the class when somebody pulls what you are talking about, and I get one of these e-mails, missed the exam I need to schedule my make-up. So, I say if you don’t let me know ahead of time and there was an opportunity to let me know ahead of time there isn’t going to be a make-up. Unless like Michael was saying they were sick. The example that I give is if you are on your way to the exam and get hit by a train and wake up in the emergency room, the first thing you need to say is I need to call Walker.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: It is amazing that they never miss the final. Isn’t it? I was at a school before Auburn where we had a policy where all the weight transferred to the final and had one student that missed the exam. They called me that night, the Braves were in the World Series so that gives you an idea of what time-frame it was, and she called me that night from jail, she. She had been arrested and wasn’t going to be at the exam and was in tears that she was going to miss the exam. One missed exam. [43:21]
not sure who asked this: Can we require a doctor’s excuse?
Beverly Marshall, secretary: Yes.
not sure who asked this: So, if you have the blue room flu, I can request the doctor's excuse, I don’t have to take any other illness other than the doctor’s excuse? Am I correct?
Michael Baginski, chair: you don’t have to believe they have to have a doctor’s excuse.
not sure who asked this: I can put in my syllabi that I can verify the doctor's excuse and they can verify through the deans’ office?
Beverly Marshall, secretary: Yes. My doctor says “don’t touch it, they have lots of germs.” Don’t touch the excuse [44:02 bkup] take a picture.
Michael Fogle, senator, Physics: As a shear appology of making work for someone obviously there’s ambiguity and interpretation variety and practice. Who is responsible for this and what does it take to get some clarification? With use cases scenarios?
Michael Baginski, chair: I have a feeling it is going to be the Senate Executive Committee that will talk about this shortly and Steering Committee will have another discussion about how we can make this policy exact and clear.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: It would come out of the Provost’s Office with perhaps better wording on some of the questions that have arrisen.
Michael Baginski, chair: Are there any other questions about this. We didn’t realize there would be such an important issue. But for me personally I got caught in this trap of putting the final exam as a replacement and got my wrists slapped.
Beverly Marshall, secretary: Thank you for your time.
Michael Baginski, Chair: Thank you Beverly.
This concludes our formal agenda for today.
Is there any unfinished business? Pause ….Hearing none, is there any new business? …. Hearing none, I now adjourn the meeting. [45:45 bkup]