Transcription of the
Nov 11, 2008
University Senate Meeting
Beginning missing
Dr. Heilman, Provost: …Ah, it is tragic, and Virgil will be missed. The next thing I’d like to talk about, also very briefly is jut to offer a comment on the budget process and how it’s unfolding, I think it’s fair to say that it appears that there will be some degree of proration this year—how much is not known, we may know more in December. I’m very happy to say and appreciative to the offices in Samford Hall, beyond mine, that which there is agreement that there should be no plans right now for freezes on such things as: hiring, travel, those are measures that are not unknown at this and other institutions, if you want to see some really tough measures take a look at what’s happening now at Clemson. It’s going to be a real challenge up there. But I do think it’s fair to say that the budgetary picture is not as strong as we might wish and I expect that there’ll be further discussions of that running into next year and I’d say caution and anticipation will be warranted. Third a brief note on the Board Meeting, specifically at the Board Meeting Dr. Gogue presented an update on 35 first year goals in the Strategic Plan. This is the same plan that was discussed under Dr. Gogue’s leadership at the General Faculty Meeting here recently. I think this is worth mentioning because the meaning of it that we do have in place 35 specific objectives that we can work toward to strengthen the academy, and I think that specificity and that fixedness of strategic goals is important for this institution. I believe finally it’s worth noting that Dr. Gogue emphasized that of those top 35 priorities by far the most important one was the need to increase our graduation rate, and I know there’s a committee that’s working on ways of doing that right now and believe that would be one of the prime strategic objectives that the academic divisions and student affairs divisions be working on in the months to come. Thank you very much I’ll be glad to entertain questions.
Seeing none, thank you.
Bob Locy, Chair: Thank you Dr. Heilman. For the chairs remarks, which is the next item on agenda, I’d like to add my condolences to those of the Provost concerning the passing of Virgil Starks. During his tenure as the senior associate athletic director he came before this body and spoke on several occasions, two to my recollection. In both instances it was clear that Virgil added fresh air to the relationship between academics and athletics on this campus and I think he should be remembered in that spirit. So I’d like you all to take a moment of silence here in your own way, contemplate what Virgil has meant to Auburn University.
The second item on our agenda in my remarks concerns the fact that one of the University Committees, specifically the Persons with Disabilities Committee, sent a request to the faculty senate leadership requesting to change the composition of that committee. Specifically they requested that someone with a background in distance education be added to the Persons with Disabilities Committee, they have apparently been deliberating and there is some need for some input from the distance ed. area to the persons with disabilities committee in terms of issues that they are dealing with. Accordingly we took a recommendation to the Provost that he consider adding the director of the Distance Learning Outreach Technology Program as a continuing member of the university committee, Persons with Disabilities Committee. Since this isn’t the Senate Committee, we don’t require an action of the Senate in order to amend the composition of this committee, however the President did agree that he thought that was a good idea as well, as so I believe the President instructed the Provost to make that addition, so that accommodates that need.
The next thing I want to talk about is there’s going to be kind of a change of how we do business. The chairs remarks have been exclusively the chair’s remarks in the past. It was a suggestion of the Steering Committee, some of the more announcement type things that we do, be done as announcements during the chair’s remarks rather than be made full information items at the end. If they could be kept relatively short and to the point it would therefore take less Senate time on such announcements. So the first such announcement I’d like to ask Dean Schneller to come forward and talk with us briefly about the state of the Provost search and upcoming activities that have been planned and distributed by e-mail.
5:45
Dean Schneller: OK, I think most of you are aware that the candidate’s for the Provost position begins today. Actually the first candidate is Dr. Tom Apple. He is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Delaware and he’ll be here two days beginning with dinner tonight and ending about this time on Thursday. [6:08] Mary Ellen Mazey, who will arrive on Sunday night and be here for the two days, Monday and Tuesday is the Dean of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University. And then beginning next Wednesday arriving for dinner and leaving Friday, from the 19 -21 is Bruce Rafert who is the Dean of the Graduate School at Clemson. Now all the information on these candidates has been posted on the Provost’s search site, which you can retrieve through the Auburn University home site. So if you go to that site you will see the three pictures of the three candidates, their cover letter and their curriculum vitae. I encourage all of you to study those. Now there’ll be an open forum for all three candidates, they are all at 3 p.m. The open forum for Tom Apple is tomorrow in Broun auditorium 238 (I don’t know if this is 239 or 238 here, but one of these two). They are all in the same room. Mary Ellen Mazey will be Monday at 3 and Bruce Rafert will be next Thursday at 3. Now we plan to stream these live on the Internet, so each of the three open forums will be streamed during the actual presentation. This will come out on AU Daily tomorrow announcing this, but if you want to access the steaming video of each of the open forums you will again go to the Provost site on the Auburn University home page there will be a link there that will take you to the streaming videos. These videos will be available only on campus, so if you are not going to be on campus you are not going to be able to access it. There will be a firewall between the external cyberworld and the campus, and we’ve done that for several reasons one is to protect the integrity of the presentation of each of the candidates to the other candidates. We will be archiving these and if you would like to see these, you’ll have to let my office know, but we won’t have each one ready until two days following the streaming of it. That will be problem with Rafert, I’ll tell you about in just a minute if your waiting to see his archived open forum. It will provide tow ways for people who have participated in either process to evaluate the candidates. Also on the Provost’s web site will be an electronic submission form, I encourage you to use that. Fill it out, there’s a submit button at the bottom or reset if you want to change and send that to us. There will also be paper (forms), the traditional paper evaluation forms which will be exactly like the electronic forms. On the electronic forms you will have a short period of time to submit those. That is so we may begin collecting the data as soon as we can to provide a summary to the President. He is anxious for the result of these so we are putting time frames on the submission of these evaluation forms. So pay attention to the date on the electronic form and on the paper form. Now there’s no way to stop submission on the paper forms until the last minute, but we can on the electronic form so pay attention to how much time you have for that and encourage you to do that.
The scheduling, I’ve been asked about the scheduling. It was just impossible for us to include every unit on campus in some way or the other with each of these candidates so what we have attempted to do with the schedules is to see that the supervisor or superintendant of a unit has an opportunity to meet with the candidates. So if some of you report to someone else who will meet the candidates, that’s how we’ve been able to manage all this in the period of time that we have. So I apologize if we have not been able to include every particular special interest group or unit in this schedule but it’s just impossible to do. We put the schedules as best we could and people who are on the schedule or could not attend could send substitutes. I encourage you to attend each of the forums and ask your questions, there will be. I’ve asked each of the candidates to talk for about 20 minutes, no PowerPoint, and then to open it up for questions from the floor. In their 20 minute presentation they’ve been asked to give their vision and their philosophy as they would function as a Provost as well as experience that they have had that they feel like makes them appropriate candidates for this position. Anything that you need to know you need to go back to that Provost site on the Web, I think we have everything there. Any questions? If you have any questions, maybe something comes up we haven’t thought of, it’s not too late to implement that. Yes.
Robin Jaffe, theater department: Mary Ellen Mazey’s time, is that 4:00 or 3:00?
Bob Locy, chair: We’ve changed it this afternoon to 3:00, that way we could have the same time for all of them. There had to be a class switch so the class could move to the other room and we could open up the same room and use 3:00, so that’s correct it’s been changed. And there’ll be a reminder next Monday again, but that’s a good point.
Robin Jaffe: OK thanks, Bob.
Bob Locy, chair: The second item of announcement I want to make is that Auburn University is having an environmental self-audit, it’s coming up in a brief period of time and Steve Nelson is going to give us some guidance on what this involves and acquaint us with how we will be able to get information as we proceed through this audit process.
Steve Nelson: Thank you Dr. Locy, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk to the faculty senate and I promise I’ll be very brief. My main purpose in coming here today is to spread the word. The audits going to cover the entire university campus of the AU operations so we’re trying to make as many people aware that auditors will be on campus during that time so it’s not a surprise. I will be posting information on our Web site and I’ve got a reference to the Web site that I’ll have at the end of this and I’ll also send information out to the AU profs newsletter, to try and get information out as well as AU Daily. I’m just trying to spread the word as much as possible. I’m going to give you a brief overview for the scope of the audit and location where you can find more information. Again my name is Steve Nelson, I’m the Associate Director of Environmental Health and Safety with the department of Risk Management and Safety. Basically the scope of the audit covers all environmental regulations and it will cover all areas of campus operations, which have environmental regulatory responsibilities. Most people know who they are and for the most part for faculty responsibilities revolve around chemical storage and use, chemical handling and chemical waste disposal. You can read that and I have more information and list of the regulations that are covered by the audit and what areas are covered, what area of the campus will be covered, available on our Web site. Real quick, I’ll give you a pictorial view of things we’re talking about. Above ground storage tanks, storage of petroleum products, chemical storage, underground storage tanks, fuel, that kind of thing, land disturbance activities, erosion and sediment control, air emissions from our operations, as well as chlora flora carbons or ozone depleting substances, asbestos and lead paint within our buildings and residential units, chemical storage and handling-as I said that’s going to be a major focus of the audit especially where faculty is concerned, waste management is always a popular issue with the EPA and folks. The audit schedule, a more detailed audit schedule is posted with dates and time when the auditors will be in each building, I can’t provide the actual locations where we’ll be auditing, but you’ll at least know what buildings we’ll be in at what time so you’ll know if we’ll be in your area. We did complete the audit of the AUM Campus [15:52] the last week of September. We’re in the process of working on the report for that. We’ll be doing the Auburn main campus, as I said, the first week of December and we’re in the process of trying to schedule the outlying units, for the most part it’s talking about the Experimental Station as well as NCAT, airport, and forest units. The audit will cover roughly 50 departments on campus that have areas that will be covered within the audit, and I need to refine this list a bit more but this is basically the list. As far as a timeline for the audit, once the audit’s conducted the first week of December we’ll get a draft report, we’ll review and refine that, then to put it into a final report. That final report and the findings will be disclosed to the EPA and that’s kind of part of the program is that the self-audit we agree to audit our processes and disclose those finding to EPA and correct those issue that are identified, EPA agrees not to inflict fines or penalties on us for the items that we disclose, which is a very good deal. There is a timeline, once we have the final report and disclose those findings, there is 60 days to complete the corrective actions. We can request extensions if necessary if something’s not feasible to complete corrective actions within that tine period, most things we will be able to complete corrective action on, then once that’s completed we do a final report and submit that to EPA as well. There’s a handout in the back that provides some basic information on the audit. It’s up on the table in the back feel free to take a copy as you leave. It’s got information on the process we’re going through, the audit process, as well as some information on a similar process which has been done by EPA regions up in the Northeast, EPA regions 1, 2, and 3, and those regions they’ve issued some substantial finds for noncompliance. It’s interesting that none of the colleges and universities that participated in this self-audit program that are offered by EPA received fine or penalties. So it’s in our best interest to participate in the program and it’s the right thing to do. As I said, I’ll be posting information as the schedule is refined and information on the audit will be available on our Web site, that’s the URL for it. You can also contact me if need be and I’ll be sending more information out to campus as we get closer to the audit. If there are any questions, I be happy to try and answer them, if not, thank you for your time.
Bob Locy, chair: The last announcement then is from the Sustainability Initiative, and are you ready Claire? Apparently I mis-communicated there is no announcement form the Sustainability Initiative. So that concludes the chair’s remarks. The first item on our agenda, for action items is a resolution. It’s a resolution commending Dr. John Heilman on the occasion of his retirement.
Whereas Dr.John Heilman, has served Auburn University for 35 years as a professor of Political Science, as the Associate Dean and then the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, as a senior assistant and advisor to the President, and as Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs since 2005, and
Whereas Dr.John Heilman has served with distinction and played a critical role in guiding the academic mission of the university during his tenure, and
Whereas Dr.John Heilman has announced his retirement on December 31, 2008, be it resolved that the University Senate and its constituent groups gratefully acknowledge the outstanding service and dedication of Dr. John Heilman and extend warm wishes to him on the event of his retirement from Auburn University.
Are there any discussion of the resolution? The resolution comes from Steering and therefore needs no second.
I’d just like to personally say that during my tenure as Senate Chair it’s been a pleasure to work with Dr. Heilman and we’re both going to miss him and the wise input he has given the Senate Leadership through his service on the Steering Committee and in working with the Executive Committee.
OK, all in favor of the resolution signify by saying aye.
Group: Aye
Bob Locy, chair: Opposed, same sigh. (pause) The resolution passes.
Second Item on the agenda is the University Senate Constitutional Amendment creating a faculty research committee. [22:35}
The parts of this resolution, or the parts of this amendment to the Constitution which were circulated in advance. In red are the intended words to be added to our University Senate Constitution. Specifically we’re going to add a Faculty Research Committee to the list of committees in article 4 of the Constitution, and then we’re going to add a section 24, which describes the composition and charge of the Faculty Research Committee. Without reading the wording completely the charge of the committee is basically to act a s a communication link liaison between this body and the Vice President for Research on matter relating to the research enterprise of Auburn University. The Research Committee will take issues from the faculty to the VPR and should there need to be policy changes that come before us, they would then have the charge to bring those policy changes to us for a vote. This committee was suggested by our new Vice President for Research upon his arrival, and so we’re proposing this amendment to accommodate the establishment of that committee. This is coming from the Rules Committee to the floor of the Senate so as such it needs no second, but I would remind you that a vote on a Constitutional Amendment change requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate in order for approval. Are there any comment, discussion of the Constitutional Amendment? Hearing and seeing none then, all in favor of amending the Constitution of the Senate article 4 as shown in the attachment that’s up on the screen, signify by saying aye.
Group: Aye
Bob Locy, chair: Opposed? (pause) Hearing no opposition. Motion carries…amendment passes. Next item on the action agenda is an item that was postponed from our last meeting. It concerns undergraduate certificates. Dr. Linda Glaze the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs will bring changes to what we looked at last month to our attention for our consideration.
Dr. Linda Glaze: At the last meeting, the Senate reviewed the definition of the undergraduate certificates and there were some questions and concerns related to implementation and the revised document has been submitted to you. The changes that are included are in red so that it’s very clear what was changed. I terms of the policy per se, there was just a clarification added to make sure that everyone understands that any course that’s involved in a certificate would need to be a graded course that it could not be an SU course. The other is to insure that everyone understands that all academic standards related to academic standing affect these students, that was just to emphasize something that was understood. And then there were questions concerning how a student or who could participate and so what you have here is included that in terms of how one would become part of a certificate program, basically it would be regularly admitted undergraduates students and if there were an event or in the case of and individual who wanted to only study for a certificate, it’s clarified that the student must meet all university minimum for the class. I would like to point out that we also as an institution also transient students, that’s not a very good term but that’s what we call them, We would not accept transient students as part of certificate program, because a transient student is a student that is in good academic standing at his or her own institution and for most institutions including ours, being in good academic standing means that the individual has just a 2.0 whereas for a student to be admitted as a transfer student as Auburn University we require that a student have a 2.5. So that’s very explicit where a student already has the degree the other are just details on our admissions process. The other area that there was some concern is how these would come about and following all of our policies, it’s very explicit, to appear in the Auburn University Bulletin and to be indicated on the official Auburn University transcript the proposed undergraduate certificate program must be approved through the regular curricular process. And that also in terms of who clears or who designates, just like in the case of minors, on the academic unit that offers the minor is the unit that certifies that the student has finished that in the event that it is interdisciplinary program then the proposal needs to indicate who will do the certifying for the certificate. So those are the changes that were made to address the concerns that were express at the last meeting. Questions?
Rik Blumenthal, Chemistry & Bio Chemistry: Linda, we had some e-mails back and forth and I’m still, one of my first considerations is that anytime something new is being created, who wants it and why? And I asked you this and I did not really get a good answer to which department is asking for these certificates, What certificates do they intend to have so we can have an idea of what the purpose of this program might even be.
Linda Glaze: OK, in terms of I was not personally involved as I indicated to you in my e-mail, I believe the group that really first started with the certificates is that there was a planning group that proposed a leadership minor that involved a university group, at that time it was led by Dotty Cavender, I know that the College of Agriculture was involved with that, and so I believe really that it started as a…looking at it as the possibility of having a designation more than just a minor to have a leadership certificate. That I believe is where it started. It did not start in a department. Now I have since the last meeting, I did go out on the Web, I always do and see what some of our peers do and I do know that Texas A&M has certificate is very specified areas, university of Georgia in their College of Forestry and Natural Resources have undergraduate certificates. And really what I see as I’ve looked at other schools in terms of the potential for it is certificates are more for interdisciplinary type areas, maybe very technical and that they are either for their current students that they want to certify in terms of business or industry or for post baccalaureate individuals who are not going to pursue a graduate degree but need for their job some sort of certification. So that I see is again there are not a lot of undergraduate certificates nationally, but those are quite in terms of—I always look at Texas A&M and NC State also has, they have a very lengthy and policy procedure on undergraduate certificates, the one that I found that they had–it wasn’t interdisciplinary but it was professional or technical writing for individuals that wanted to demonstrate that competency. So that’s my answer. That’s all I know Rik.
Rik Blumenthal: In terms of that it’s all very useful, but I still don’t know who here wants a certificate and what the purpose is. I have polled my faculty, I have sent a copy of my e-mail to everyone on the Senate list that I was sending to my faculty. My faculty broke into two groups, one group said “Absolutely no,” to undergraduate certificate only students, one faculty member said to express his opinion as violently NO on certificate only undergraduate students. The argument that was made by one of our faculty members was that we should not have any degree below a bachelor’s degree, we’re a university–my opinion we should not be expanding into the junior college realm and offering something less than a certificate. In my personal opinion, I fall into the second group that said “there’s no harm in any way to the University and it could be beneficial to have certificates that are handed out with bachelor’s degrees to certify special knowledge and special course work taken. [33:30] So my faculty broke into two groups, one said, “absolutely no to certificates only,” the other said “no to certificates only, but it might be acceptable to have some sort of certificate but only with a bachelor’s degree, commensurate and to be issued when they have a bachelor’s degree.” So the way this is written I have no choice for my faculty but to vote no. The certificate only is very, very strongly opposed in my department. It would represent in our minds the University taking up something less than an Associates Degree and offering it. And I have no wish to wake up at 2 a.m. when I watching TV and see the commercial for “Get your bookkeeping certificate at Auburn University online.” I do not think that would benefit this University, I don’t think it benefits our stature, I’m not seeing the Harvard University online bookkeeping program, I don’t care for Auburn University to compete with ITT Tech or University of Phoenix.
Linda Glaze: As I said at the last meeting, again, this would be an option open to departments and so we would only be giving certificates in areas where we, where it’s our mission to teach. I do not envision academic departments giving certificates in areas where we do not teach. Again, I understand what you concern is, to my knowledge we don’t offer bookkeeping, so therefore we would not be giving a bookkeeping certificate. We do have areas of expertise where it might very well be possible that we would give a certificate along with graduation, but also if a student already has a bachelor’s degree, that’s where I personally see where we would give a certificate. The individual has the degree, they want specific expertise that we offer at an advanced level, and once again departments design their own certificate, no one else does.
Rik Blumenthal: As a post-baccalaureate issue I fully support it. I supported the one in the graduate school I don’t see why we need one called undergraduate when the graduate school has a certificate program. But if we had one that was specified specifically post-baccalaureate or at least not to be issued until the baccalaureate is issued the you could get the support of at least part of my department.
Linda Glaze: OK
Rik Blumenthal: But as this is structured now, my department is strongly opposed.
Tony Moss, Biological Sciences: Hi Linda, I didn’t nearly as strong a response as Rik’s message to his fellow faculty, but the few responses I did get were more or less in line with my own personal view on this and that is that I think that it is a mistake for us to be offering a degree that might be construed to be less than a bachelor’s degree. We don’t need to go forward with something that’s on the order of something that’s even less than an Associates degree. However from what I hear from what your saying it’s a little bit different in regard to structure and implementation than I realized when I had a chance to read it in some detail. As a post-baccalaureate or perhaps continuing education certificate for certain kinds of specific disciplines, I don’t have a problem with that it goes on all the time, but I didn’t think that that was how this was implemented. I thought that this was implemented mainly as an undergraduate option, and so I would be very much against that because I feel that we just don’t need to get into that kind of business. It could also, unfortunately, lore students into feeling that they are getting a significant amount of training for anywhere between from three to five courses in an area and although of course in a concentration area the end of a degree students may take not much more than that. I still think that standing by itself might give the impression to an outside student that this is somehow of some value if it were implemented only as an undergraduate option, so under those circumstances, I agree with Rik, I am very much against it. [38:09]
Linda Glaze: Well I think the understanding is a certificate really is less than a major, and a major is less than a degree and that is the understanding, but it does give the student and potentially the department the ability to designate that there is some area, what I’ve seen in terms of how these have developed they’re more in the area of the interdisciplinary studies which cross different lines and where we do not really have one academic unit, so
Tony Moss: Part of my concern was that if it were implemented as I originally thought, and I’ve got to get this off my chest because…
Linda Glaze: Sure, you want to vent. I’m not the chair, but go ahead and vent.
Tony Moss: …is that if it became a popular option within a particular degree program it may start to suck up resources normally used for regular class offerings. I could see students who would not then necessarily carry forth the legacy of the University in a most desirable manner that we would like to see them carry forth, in other words without full degrees and without full training and could compete for regular training programs. So I guess that’s the decision of the individual unit, but this is still a concern I have.
Linda Glaze: Right, in terms of this again with definitions, definitions are frameworks within in which as an institution operate and so that if there is an area that might want to develop a certificate…my first request actually came several years ago from mechanical engineering, and I said we don’t have a certificate program, and so they couldn’t opt for it, but this is just a generic definition and the control really rests with the unit that offers the certificate. And if a unit does not want to offer a certificate and believes that it will compete with its own majors, just because we offer certain certificates, again they have to be approved also in terms of if we offer certificates with an official designation we also have to inform ACHE, we do not need its approval to offer certificates, but we have to inform them that yes we are offering them. And again I think if you look at the certificates that are offered at our aspiration peers I think you will find that they tend to be in interdisciplinary areas, emerging interdisciplinary areas and also in potentially what I would call more technical fields, applied and technical fields.
Tony Moss: Right I can see the implementation in an area that’s heavily governed by society like engineering and maybe possibly chemistry, thank you.
Linda Glaze: Anything else? [41:27]
Bob Locy, chair: All right, this matter was postponed from the previous Senate meeting as such it was made and seconded there, it does not require a second from the floor. Yes, more discussion?
Sanjeev Baskiyar, computer science & software engineering: Yes, I had a comment, I polled my faculty and there were similar issues and people wanted to know how many of the universities are actually offering these certificate programs and whether our degrees will be diluted as a result of offering these certificate programs? So these were some of the concerns raised by the faculty.
Bob Locy, chair: So it seems like the summary would be that if there is a way to define undergraduate certificates to those who are getting degrees or who already have degrees, probably makes it a lot more acceptable program to more people in terms of the input that we are getting. So as such then, the resolution comes to you to approve the undergraduate certificates as the paper work was distributed. Unless there’s further discussion I’m going to call the question. All those in favor of approving undergraduate certificates, signify by saying aye. (pause) all those opposed [43:12]
Group: Aye
Bob Locy, chair: The motion fails then.
Barbara Kemppainen, anatomy, physiology & pharmacology: I’m not sure about the protocol for this but it seems like it would be welcome to come back with a proposal for an undergraduate certificate that would be awarded with a bachelor’s degree, but I’m not sure.
Bob Locy, chair: Thank you, that’s really the Associate Provost decision…I’m sorry…
Linda Glaze: I don’t have a problem with amending the (cannot hear talking)
Bob Locy, chair: I hate to ask you to come back again, but I think we’ve moved on past this at this point in time. That perhaps should have been a solution proposed before. Thank you.
I’d like to ask the Senate’s indulgence to consider changing the order of the next two items on the agenda. They were submitted to keep it nice and tidy and have the action items all together, but I believe it would be useful to first of all discuss the interdisciplinary degree program that we briefly looked at last month. Put that on the table for discussion and then discuss the resolution on whether we want to establish interdisciplinary degree programs or not. And so I’d like to amend the agenda to flip those two items around, is there any objections to amending the agenda to allow that to occur? Seeing none then, Patricia would you tell us about interdisciplinary degree pro grams?
45:40
Patricia Duffy: I want to thank everyone for having me back again. I don’t have a formal presentation I gave one last month and since then everyone should have had the opportunity to read the proposal which was posted on the Senate site. I just have a few remarks to make and then we’ll let you ask any questions that you may have. The basic structure some history on the program, the basic structure of this proposal comes from similar programs at Mississippi State, Texas A&M, and the University of Maryland. Most closely it resembles Mississippi State program. One difference between this proposal and the other universities degrees is this one has much more oversight in terms of faculty approvals that need to be given and a faculty oversight committee. The basic structure of the degree you have that in the proposal, you have 41 to 42 hours of core courses, 36 hours in the concentration areas, this is the interdisciplinary areas, 6 hours required of interdisciplinary coursework itself, intro course, capstone course, 8 to 9 hours of general education support courses, which would all total up to about 91 to 93 hours. The remaining 27 to 29 hours would go for supporting courses primarily those would be prereq. A number of courses require statistics, some would require chemistry, biology if it wasn’t a core level biology or chemistry you might need to take both, so you’d need those sort of things and then the rest could be electives. I’ve had people ask me about the number of electives, but we do have a number of programs on campus that have a lot of free electives over 20 electives in several degrees in different colleges, not in the hard sciences, but in a number of other areas that have a number of free electives for the students. So this one would not be unusual in having so many free electives and a lot of those hours would go actually not to electives but to supporting coursework that they would need to take to be able to take the upper level courses that they would need to have in the major. The individual degree plan by the students would be developed in an introductory course, a major assignment in that course would be for the students to come up with an individualized degree plan. They would be working with a career counselor and a faculty member to prepare that course. That faculty member, that career counselor, will not be approving the courses. To get the approvals they must go to an existing faculty advisor in a department, for example in the College of Agriculture and Ag Econ., that would be Bill Hardy, the undergraduate program coordinator. In Agronomy it would be Beth Guertol, I just happen to know who occupies these positions. It wouldn’t be the easiest professor in the department; it says it has to be an existing faculty advisor, so they cannot pick Professor Creampuff who will sign off on anything. That’s clearly spelled out, existing faculty advisor. They also need approval of a faculty mentor, who’s going to look at the two parts or the three parts of the program, see how it all fits together, and make sure that the supporting course work is good solid supporting course work. Then it needs to be approved in the Office of the Undergraduate Studies. In addition to those levels of individual oversight the proposal outlines and oversight committee, a Faculty Oversight Committee that would function, and once this gets up and going would function as the curriculum committee for this particular interdisciplinary degree.
In the proposal the ideal place to get these faculty members is from existing college or school level curriculum committees if the unit has one. I know the College of Agriculture has one, Liberal Arts has one, most of the units do have one—Why get the person there? These are people that are already answering to their faculty in terms of curriculum. They know curriculum and they would have that sort of knowledge to bring, so they could serve as a function between the faculty in the unit and the University Curriculum Committee. So if a unit does not have, and there’s at least one unit that does not have a curriculum committee, Rules would need to appoint someone from that unit to serve in that function. The Faculty Oversight Committee would prepare a report every semester to go to the University Curriculum Committee. And certainly that report could be brought to the Senate as desired. That was the basic oversight of it. Substitutions, that’s another question that comes up. So what happens if a student prepares a really good plan but they want to substitute and they get this faculty mentor to sign off on to substitute for the good course that the faculty advisor set. In the proposal it says that a substitution within a concentration you must go back to that faculty advisor in the concentration, get that approval and also the mentor’s approval and also our offices approval. That’s all I had prepared to say today since it’s been presented before and you’ve all seen the proposal so with your indulgence I’d like to open it up for questions. (pause) Thank you. If you think of a question or comment later on, I would love to get email, I’m out the next three days, but I would love to get e-mail or comments or if you are interested in this degree and would like to talk to me more about I would be happy to visit with anybody that would like to talk about it. Thank you.
51:05
Bob Locy, chair: Perhaps I should have mentioned in the beginning of this issue, to you I apologize, that the Rules Committee was bringing this forward and asked that it be presented in this way. That is to say that there was a presentation about the specific Interdisciplinary Degree Program currently being contemplated for the Senate to give input to that degree program if there were things about it that were objectionable. The Rules Committee felt that there did need to be a vote taken of the Senate on the issue of whether we in fact wanted an Interdisciplinary Degree Program. And in response to that then Katheryn Flynn will bring a report of the Rules Committee forward concerning a resolution to that effect.
Katheryn Flynn, chair-elect: Some of what I say will be a little bit repetitious, but I speak better from a script. At the last Senate meeting you were provided information on the proposed Interdisciplinary Degree Program. You just heard additional information on that and as Bob mentioned the purpose of the resolution before you right now is not to approve or disapprove of the Interdisciplinary Degree Program that Patricia just outlined for you; but rather it’s to ascertain the level of support for the concept of an Interdisciplinary Degree or Degrees at Auburn University. The Rules Committee debated about this at some length and it was the majority opinion of the Rule Committee that the approval of specific curricula or programs, degree programs rested with the Curriculum Committee, which is a Senate Committee, and that it was the Senate’s role to look at things at kind of a higher level than that. A little bit higher elevation, I guess you could say. So I’ll read the resolution to you.
This is a resolution on the establishment of an Interdisciplinary Degree Program
Whereas individualized Interdisciplinary Degrees provide flexibility for combining the study of several academic disciplines to create a single major resulting in a practical and employable degree, and
Whereas Interdisciplinary Degrees with a focus on career development allow students to experience greater confidence when making career choices and
Whereas an Interdisciplinary format provides students with the flexibility to combine coherent areas of study that are of special interest and combine courses that are not possible through existing degree plans, therefore,
Be it resolved that the Auburn University Senate supports the concept of having and Interdisciplinary Degree program at Auburn University.
As Bob mentioned this comes forward from the Rules Committee so it doesn’t require a second. So I go ahead and open the floor for questions or comments.
54:39
Rik Blumenthal, Senator, chemistry and biochemistry: I also polled my faculty on this concept and they were much more mixed, there were some people who strongly support the concept and other people who didn’t support it. However there was an overriding concern about faculty oversight of any degree program and a general principle that there should be faculty oversight of any degree program. Now the proposal that we just heard has a faculty oversight committee, which I think serves that purpose, and would be an adequate faculty oversight. I don’t think faculty oversight should ever be the curriculum committee because they’re the judge. You don’t want the judge doing the directing. So I think you want two bodies, the first one looking over a program, being the faculty oversight. So as far as the proposal that was presented for the specific program goes I really have no objections. But as far as this resolution goes, I have reservations because the resolution makes no reference to interdisciplinary studies programs having faculty oversight in some form. And I guess I would like to see something added to the resolution that included the fact the principle that faculty oversight should exist for any degree-bearing program.
Bob Locy, chair: Are you suggesting that as an amendment?
Rik Blumenthal: Unfortunately I do not have the wording, but I guess that I would like to make an amendment to it before we vote on it. How about, is anybody taking notes? I can try to whip something out of –off the top of my head.
Whereas any Interdisciplinary Program, excuse me,
Whereas and degree-bearing program should have faculty oversight, any Interdisciplinary Program should also have some functioning faculty oversight.
Sort of adding…I want it to be compatible with what’s been proposed because I think the Faculty Oversight Committee serves that purpose, but I’d like something in the, of that sort added. I’ll give Bob freedom to word that if he wants. So I guess I move to amend it to add a sentence if somebody has written words up there that fit.
Bob Locy, chair: This amendment would need a second.
Someone: I’ll second
Katheryn Flynn, chair-elect: Do we have any comments related to the amendment on the floor?
Constance Hendricks, senator form the School of Nursing: Now that you have your second, Might I offer a grammatical modification to what I think I heard…
Perhaps you want us to add another Whereas
Rik Blumenthal: yes
Constance Hendricks: and Whereas the proposed Interdisciplinary Degree Program will include a faculty oversight committee, therefore, right before the therefore,
Bob Locy, chair: Whereas what?
Constance Hendricks: and, Whereas will go before the therefore, and… Whereas the proposed Interdisciplinary Degree Program will include a faculty oversight
Bob Locy: Slow down, I can’t write that fast.
Constance Hendricks: Oh, I see you writing ok, …will include a …ok, Whereas the proposed Interdisciplinary Degree Program, the IDP, will include a faculty oversight committee, therefore
Be it resolved…
Will you accept that?
Rik Blumenthal: I like the wording.
Raymond Kessler from Horticulture: I just want to reiterate about the same thing that Rick said. I had sent it out to my faculty and they had strong objections, several of them had strong objections for the same reason, it just seems that all this does is ask for in principle a conformation that we want something like this without giving any details. They kind of viewed it as handing the fox the keys to the hen house, as it were without providing any details and I’m sitting back there listening to what you all envision, this program, how it’s to be oversighted, and that sound pretty good. So why didn’t we get the details to start with? Because my faculty was coming back with questions, that what you said would have answered. And they are voting against it because they didn’t have answers to those questions. OK?
Katheryn Flynn, chair-elect: OK. Dr. Heilman.
John Heilman, Provost: I believe the approach that Rik Blumenthal has proposed makes a lot of sense. I’m very supportive of it. I have some reservation about the way the Whereas is being worded because it seems to me the effect of wording the Whereas this way takes us exactly down the path that we didn’t want to go down. Which is what we’re doing is identifying a very specific feature of this and we’re saying because we agree with the details of this feature then it’s okay. What that gets us out of is the posture that you just described, which is the Senate setting the policy guidelines and then other bodies working out the details. It seems to me therefore it would be better, it would be preferable from just my perspective, and I’m not going to be here very long, so what I think about it may not matter that much, I understand, I’m for the very, very nice and much appreciated resolution of a few minutes ago not withstanding, this is going to affect other people than me but it seems to me to go with the Whereas as Rik basically outlined and was originally drafted and Whereas it…this is just my general wording…
Whereas it is important to ensure that there be adequate faculty oversight of all degree-bearing programs,
Therefore be it resolved that the Auburn University Senate supports the concept of having an interdisciplinary Degree Program accompanied by appropriate faculty oversight at Auburn University.
In other words I would…
Katheryn Flynn, chair-elect: …Put it in the therefore…
John Heilman, Provost: That’ how I would handle it because what we don’t want to do, and I’m saying this based on nineteen years full time as a faculty member, and having served as a Senate member during some of those years in which other issues came up, I think we want the Senate oversight of this issue at the high policy level, not at the details. Thank you.
Dean Gropper: I’m Dean Gropper, I’m substitute senator for today for the dean from the College of Business: But I think that in some ways I support this because, One, it provides options for some of our best students. Second it provides options for some students who change major two or three times and I think there is adequate faculty oversight, It’s been discussed it’s gone through the curriculum committees and I think at least from my standpoint people I’ve talk to, people are supportive it.
Katheryn Flynn, chair-elect: Let me make sure I have this right. We had the introduction of the faculty oversight as a Whereas, but the Dr. Heilman has suggested that being moved into the last statement, the Therefore statement. So is that a second for that. Is that a motion? Friendly amendment.
Bob Locy, chair: So the amendment would be to insert:
Whereas all degree programs deserve faculty oversight and the proposed Interdisciplinary Degree Program will include a faculty oversight
From floor: NO, we understand
Rik Blumenthal: added it at the very end. He said this would carry with faculty oversight [1:04:05] Add the faculty oversight at the very end.
Katheryn Flynn, chair-elect:at the end…interdisciplinary degree program with faculty oversight.
Rik Blumenthal:so the whereas is now, whereas all degree-bearing programs should have faculty oversight. That’s all (?)
Mincing wording here. (Lots of back and forth of the remembering of John Heilman’s statement.)
Katheryn Flynn, chair-elect: …should have… OK do you want me to reread this to make sure that at least the last two statements, or is this clear?
Is there any other discussion?
Emily Myers, faculty senator, department of sociology: I have a question from my faculty who was interested in supporting this Interdisciplinary Degree Program or major because women’s studies minors could then get an interdisciplinary degree in Women’s Studies. Is that correct?
Katheryn Flynn, chair-elect: That would be…
Emily Myers: The amendment? No, I’m talking about the whole program. I’m out of order, ok. The amendment is great. Sounds good.
Bob Locy, chair: We’ll get back to you on that.
Are there any other comments on the amendment?
Someone: Call for the question
Katheryn Flynn, chair-elect: We have a call for the question.
Bob Locy, chair: We are voting on the amendment as written.
Katheryn Flynn, chair-elect: All in favor on the amendment as written?
Group: Aye
Bob Locy, chair: Any opposed? (pause) Motion carries. [1:06:59] We now have an amended resolution. Is there any discussion on the amended resolution?
Someone: Do I have to repeat myself?
Bob Locy, chair: officially for the record yes.
Someone: officially for the record a) Emily Myers, officially for the record, sociology department. Can a Women’s Studies minor get an interdisciplinary degree in women’s studies now under this proposal?
Bob Locy, chair: I would think it would be an interdisciplinary degree, but it wouldn’t necessarily be an interdisciplinary degree in women’s studies it would be an interdisciplinary degree in Women’s Studies and x, y, or z, whatever that would be.
Emily Myers: OK so you’d have to add some other departmental affiliation to that?
Bob Locy, chair: Yes.
Emily Myers: OK
Bob Locy, chair: But that’s actually also somewhat out of order because it doesn’t really… The existing program that was discussed before is not necessarily the only thing that this resolution would apply to. It’s simply about interdisciplinary degrees in general.
Norbert Wilson: My name is Norbert Wilson, I’m senator from agricultural economics and rural sociology and I’m also on the Curriculum Committee, but my comment is now out of order because I was going to respond to that question, but I will offer it anyhow. Yes a student if they are interested in following the minor in women’s studies they could follow that minor and say minor in something else that is already on the books and therefore complete an interdisciplinary studies degree program in say women’s studies and, I don’t know if there’s a minor in English but this person can do that. And also just to support, being on the curriculum committee there was a great deal of discussion about this particular program, it actually came to us twice and as I said there was a great deal of discussion, it was ultimately voted for in favor of that particular program with a great deal of support, it wasn’t unanimously supported but it was supported.
Very faint:…Call for the question.
Bob Locy, chair: The question’s been called. All in favor of the resolution on interdisciplinary degree programs as amended which you see before you, signify by saying aye.
Group: aye
Bob Locy, chair: Opposed, same sigh. (pause) The resolution passes the motion carries.
The last item on our agenda for today is an information item, this comes from the academic program review committee and it’s an academic program review implementation plan. Now this is the plan that the committee has worked out with the Provost for how academic program is going to be reviewed. It’s as such the plan of the committee it’s being presented to you as an information item to inform you on how academic program review is proceeding as opposed to something that requires your vote, because it’s the committee’s business really. I’m sorry, this presentation will be given by Yasser Gowyed, who is the chair of the academic program review.
Yasser Gowyed: My name is Yasser Gowyed from the department of engineering: what we’re presenting today as well as mentioned is an information item on the activities of program review and the committee members are outlined here with a faculty member from each college and school and the representatives are members from the Provost Office, the Vice President of Outreach, the Vice President of Research, as well as the graduate school. Just to put things in perspective in 03–04 President Richardson approved of the academic review process [1:11:44], In '05 the faculty Senate approved a document that was prepared by the academic program review committee and that document was presented to be used for academic program review. The year after that the review was carried out with a completely different document, we informed the faculty Senate at that point with what happened and if we call the document that the Senate had agreed on as document 1, the document in '06 that was used was document 2, in '07 the document 2 was amended by adding document 1 as an appendix to it, and what I’m bring to you today is a change to that document conducted over the summer and will be used in the current academic program review committee. The document has many aspects to it, I think the document is posted on the Provost’s Web site and the purpose of the document is that it’s an activity based on data relative to an institution mission, goals and proceeding plan and the goal of the review is to strengthen the academic activities of the university as a whole nevertheless in the purpose statement that occasionally a program review may provide sufficient evidence to actively refocus the decision to reorganize, curtail, or eliminate some academic activities or even departments, most often however the process will lead to action plans for improving a departments various academic activities either singularly or in combination. In the scope and criteria the main highlights is that the activities are coordinated through the Office of Provost and the unit that is under review is an academic department or school are the basic units and every program within that unit is reviewed at the same time as much as possible. The review has two main parts self-assessment and an external review. The self-assessment, that the unit itself defines its own mission developing assessment methods and tools and to report these results. We tried as much as possible to emphasize that since we are a large university with many activities that each unit should be responsible to create that philosophy that approaches assessment worth. [1:14:20] The unit defines its performance indicators as well that fits its mission and that fits within five broad criteria, mission governance, institution commitment and resources, curriculum teaching learning practices, student performance and faculty accomplishments as well as assessment of the units strengths and weakness.
The external review is coordinated by four reviewers, two of them are from Auburn, two of them are from outside Auburn and they are selected, they are eliminated by unit and selected by the dean of that unit. And these reviewers conduct the review and submit the final report to the dean who also will submit it to the Provost accompanied by the dean’s recommendation. In some units where there’s a national review, like in engineering, we have ACHE(?) that comes and reviews us every six years. This review may be used as an external review and instead of the external review there will be what’s called expedited review, that’s arranged with the dean and department heads.
What our role in that as a committee of the Senate committee in that is that this is part of the role that will play and was actually approved by you at last month’s meeting this is part of what’s written in the faculty handbook, that we review the final written products or the documents of it resulting from each year’s round of academic review and confer with the Provost on ways to strengthen the academic program review process. And review any proposal to discontinue, merge or otherwise restructure any academic program and confer with the Provost and reach a decision on the feasibility of the proposal. The timeline for the review for every program on campus is written in appendix one. In cases where that timeline will not be adopted, the document says that it has to be done in consultation with academic program review committee, so to target a program subtly has to go through the academic program review committee. The review process is? third year[3:23] implementation and this is the first year that we have a document that we agree upon so we expect that the academic program review will be fully functional and coordinating with the office of the Provost on that. And I guess that’s it. Any questions or comments? The reason we’re bringing this in is to get your input on what we are doing so you can give me comments today or comments by e-mail just to help us out in our function and with what we’re doing, and if you have input on the document itself it’s a great time to do that as well.
Guy Rorbaugh, senator from philosophy: I wasn’t crystal clear to me is the idea that…philosophy just underwent this very process last year and I guess we only dealt with our dean and the Provost’s office and there was sort of no contact with the review committee and I…Is it a change in how this will be conducted? That a copy of these documents is going to go to the committee and there so to speak part of the process above the department or was that always supposed to be the case… having just done this I’m very interested to learn that is doesn’t just have to end with the Provost but sort of the Provost office and a faculty body which would be different that what we did.
Yasser Gowyed: The review itself goes through the Provost office so it goes, the deans send to the Provost and we get a copy for review. In the previous two years the committee has been really active the old review process has been active for three years. After the disagreement on the document the committee found itself in a position that was not able to contribute or do much so we did not really contribute to that process at all. At the end of last year, in the spring of last year, communication with the Provost office got much easier we were able to work together and create that document, Will Sauser and Sharon Gaber were instrumental in that. We were able to come to a…sort of an agreement of how a document should go through as well as the role of the committee. So these elements are new but the process has been going for three years. And hopefully this would be our first year to be fully engaged in this process.
Guy Rorbaugh: yeah, that sounds great it would be nice to have more faculty in the loop and not just the sensation of you and the administration sort of talking.
Bob Locy, chair: Any other discussion? (pause) Thank you Yasser. That concludes the information items on the agenda, there was an earlier version of the agenda where there would be and information item on learning communities, however Nancy McDaniel has asked to postpone that until our January meeting as something came up and it was impossible for her to be here today. So is there any unfinished business of the Senate? (pause) Is there any new business of the Senate? Hearing and seeing none we stand adjourned until January. [1:20:01]