May 3, 2011
Senate Meeting Transcription

Claire Crutchley, chair: I call this meeting to order.

We are all saddened by the tragedies due to the storms last week, so let us just observe a moment of silence for the victims and all the families that have been affected by the storms.
Thank you.

Good afternoon. I am Claire Crutchley, Chair of the University Senate. I welcome you to the May Senate meeting. Senate membership is 87 Senators, a quorum requires 45 senators to be present. Please if you are a senator or substitute senator turn on your clicker and click in if you are here. A quorum has been established.

A short review of the rules of the Senate. Senators and substitutes for Senators, please sign in the back and get a clicker so you can vote. If you would like to speak about an issue, go to the microphone; state your name, whether you are a Senator and the unit you represent. The rules of the Senate require that Senators be allowed to speak first; after all comments by Senators on an issue, guests are welcome to speak.

The first item on the agenda is approval of the minutes from the April meeting. Russ Muntifering posted the minutes and sent a link to all Senators. Are there any additions, changes, or deletions to these minutes?  …. Hearing none, the minutes will stand approved as written.

I now invite Dr. Gogue to come forward to present the President’s remarks.

Dr. Gogue, president: Thank you Claire, I am delighted to be with you. Let me just echo our appreciation, I guess the morning after the tornados came through the university senate leadership had an opportunity to sit and meet with a group from the cabinet to try and make some decisions about a host of things at Auburn, what we could do, not do. And I want to thank our students and our faculty and our staff for, hopefully at this point doing the right thing. There’s going to be months and months of work that will be involved, but we tried to be generous. We had employees that were injured, employees throughout the state as you know that had damaged homes and a variety of things, so we are trying to be generous with leave, administrative leave, but if something comes to your attention that we may not know about, please let us know and let’s see if we can work out a way to make it work better.

We had lots of students that wanted to volunteer and take off and we tried to talk a little bit about the importance of finishing your final exams, so we hopefully have a system in place when there are legitimate things that students may have had, but I appreciate the response of this campus. And I certainly want to say thank you for the spring semester, I know that it’s a good semester from all accounts.

I want to mention a couple of things from the last Board of Trustees meeting, there were 7 items that were approved by the Board of Trustees that are of academic interest. They approved the graduate certificate in archival studies. They approved the graduate certificate in program evaluation. They approved the accelerated BS/MS in apparel merchandizing, design, and production. They also approved the accelerated BS/MS in Fisheries and Applied Aquaculture. They approved a revision of the PhD program in Nutrition and also an option in the PhD program in Psychology that had come through all the committees on campus and went to the Board. And then they did something that Drew would have to explain to you, they approved some kind of classification number change that is in the BS in Biology – Medical Sciences…Is that sort of right? Sort of right, okay. Anyway they approved that.
Let me give you an update on the Interim Provost search. [4:42] On Monday I received from Bonnie MacEwan, the chair of that search committee three names to work with, I think I interview two tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll be making a decision very shortly in terms of those individuals.

The permanent search committee has been formed, June Henton is the chair of that committee. I have met with them one time, basically gave a charge and the goal would be the following and you can understand why it’s probably a goal and probably not a reality, but still a goal; try to get your advertisement out within the month of May, it’s fine to do screening and sifting over say August, late July, you can do your airport interviews prior to the start of school if you want to but be prepared in September to actually bring candidates to campus for full and open review. It is open both internally and externally, the only person not eligible is who ever is selected as the interim provost. Hopefully that search process would go well. Theoretically you can make an offer September/October and hopefully have a person here during the break at the end of the fall semester. Or if we find somebody like Provost Mazey that left in the middle of her academic year and came, what month did you come in?, February, so anyway we’re going to do that.

I met two candidates on the COSAM dean search, another one comes in later this week, certainly excellent people so far, so we feel good about that search.

I want to offer my compliments to those of you at the department level that worked on P&T changes, P&T discussion, I appreciate it I know it takes a lot of work. I also want to say thank you for your work on the Handbook, don’t know where it will end up, but still I appreciate your work on that. And also I’d be remiss if I didn’t say special word of thanks to Jim Groccia who won a Fulbright in the last few weeks. I don’t know if Jim is here, but certainly we are proud of him.

The Board of Trustees selection I want to at least mention that. The committee met they submitted their names, 6 members were eligible for reappointment, they included all 6 in their recommendation. The committee is made up of the governor, two members of the alumni association, two trustees; so they recommended 6 be reappointed and they recommended 3 new trustees. BT Roberts from Mobile area,  Liz Huntley, from the Birmingham, Hoover area, and Jimmy Samford from Prattville area, I don’t know which district it is, so 3 new names. The process is then the governor then transfers that list to the pro-tem of the senate, Senator Marsh, it sits in his box and until he decides to move it to the confirmations committee. Chair of confirmations is Senator Wagnor. So at that point if the committee were to agree on one, all, some, then it goes to the full Senate for confirmation. So we don’t know where it is other than it hasn’t left the pro-tem’s box at this point.

Final thing I want to mention to you is, those of you who drew the short straws and will be at commencement Monday, you need to remind yourself that it is going to be outside. It’s probably going to be hot and I want to make sure that you understand the logic that this was driven in large part by students. Student leaders wanted to not graduate in 6 separate ceremonies, but to graduate as a single group. [8:41] So we agreed to try it, we’ll see how it works. There are all kinds of contingency plans, if it’s terrible on that Monday morning they will move to 2 p.m. and kids then will fuss because they only get 4 tickets for their loved ones to be there to see them, so there will be an aunt or grandmother left out…We’re hopeful the weather will be clear and it won’t be too hot that morning. I’d be happy to respond to questions. (pause) Thank you.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you Dr. Gogue.
I now invite Dr. Mazey to come forward to present the Provost’s remarks.

Dr. Mazey, provost: Thank you and although this is not my last meeting, I should be with you in June, I do want to make some remarks as though this is the last meeting that I will be speaking with you. First of all I want to thank President Gogue for selecting me as the Provost here at Auburn University because it’s just been such a great experience here. And obviously if I hadn’t had this experience I wouldn’t have had this new opportunity. That’s how I look at it and I will miss all of you. I certainly will miss working with so many of you that I’ve gotten to know. Don Large is in the audience and we’ve had we’ve had a great deal of fun working on the budget issue, and I’ll leave it at that, over the last two years. In fact I would really commend the campus because as I look throughout the country and certainly as I look at my new institution, we’ve been able to take these budget reductions better than many other places, so all of you are to be commended in terms of that.

As I told you when I arrived it’s not what one person can do it’s what that person working with many, many other individuals can do to really further this institution. So I need to say thank you to all the associate deans and to Julie Huff in our office, and certainly to all the deans that were here when I arrived and then to all the new deans. I’m very pleased with the selections and very gratified in terms of the quality of the candidates that we’ve had in all these searches and now this second COSAM search has been very, very good.

President Gogue asked me to be responsible for the strategic plan, and everyone is responsible for the strategic plan, so again it’s been a matter of facilitating leadership. But as I jotted down some quick notes on this and then I was fortunate enough to sit by Margaret Marshall when she came in here and I had Writing Initiative as number one and I guess there are a lot of people who wondered if we’d ever get this up and operational, we hired Margaret and she is the …certainly working with so many others is the person who has put together a number of not only writing in the programs, but new initiatives across campus. And she just told me the number of students that have come to the Writing Center. Last spring semester they had 792 visits and this spring semester we had 2,193, so I think that shows the degree to which that Writing Center was badly needed and is being used. She says we are getting second and third visits. We all know from reading books like “Academically Adrift,” that our students need to work on their writing skills. [12:24]

Thanks to the Core Curriculum Committee we are on schedule for the revision of general education and we will have assessment data when the SACS reaccreditation team arrives here in 2013. We need to thank Jim Hanson and Paul Harris for all they’ve done to not only increase and provide quality instruction to now 1,000 incoming freshmen in the Honors College, but also the number of prestigious scholarship winners. President Gogue just hosted a luncheon where we had 8 outstanding students that had won national awards this year. That’s very, very impressive for Auburn University. Thanks to John and Carl for all they have been doing in research and what we’ve done in terms of the graduate programs. In fact I am always amazed and you do all the work, every Board of Trustees meeting the number of graduate modifications or these accelerated Bachelor/Masters degrees, which I think we’re on the forefront in implementing those in the number that come forward. And the graduate certificate programs that are very good in terms of increasing our graduate numbers.

I think we need to work and continue to work on online instruction. We’ve been working in terms of coordinating thanks to Emmett with Facilities with Dan King and we have made some very good moves there. Certainly becoming more electronically oriented with digital measures thanks to Drew and others. And add astra for classroom scheduling and degree works where degree audit system for our students so we’ve all been very busy as President Gogue just mentioned, the P&T guidelines. We’re down to 2 colleges that really have not submitted a revised final version. Actually Education is working on those, we haven’t heard from Agriculture, so if you are an Agriculture senator I hope you will go back an work on this. Engineering, we know that we need to see those, so we need to get those done before I leave in June.

Thanks to Drew for SACS reaccreditation, we are on schedule. We’ve got proposals for the QEP and it will be our challenge to select one of those. Thank you to all you senators that supported the scholarship incentive program, we are trying to get that moving in order to increase our external funding. Thanks to all of you who supported the Lecturer/Senior Lecturer because that is very important to enhancing our quality of teaching here at Auburn and making our former instructors feel valued.

We’ve had the administrative review process that passed. But most of all none of this could have been done without the leadership of the Senate. I want to thank certainly Claire and Kathryn and Russ and Larry and Bob Locy and all those that have worked with us because it’s all been collaborative effort. So Bill you’ve got to keep this moving here in the future. And we’ve had the regular meetings with AAUP and those have been delightful. I’ve already had a letter from my AAUP person at Bowling Green saying that he wants me to carry on the tradition there of being a member of AAUP so I’ll have to determine if the Board will let me do that. So in the name of shared governance I thank you all for giving me this opportunity and what’s most important is that you continue to work together to build Auburn University. Thank you very much.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you Dr. Mazey. And we will have June.

I have just a few things and then we have another busy Senate meeting. Going back to the storms, some of our students have personally been affected by the storms, their families may have had homes that are affected. The students should contact the Student Affairs office for any excuses to be verified. So if you have a student who says I cannot take the final exam because my family’s home was destroyed…ask them to go through the division of Student Affairs, but do be sensitive.

There is a lot of fundraising and other efforts to gather needed supplies. All of that is on the Web site, so if you want to do something you can do it through Auburn University, there are several ways to do it. Auburn is taking all of the funds but it is going through the Red Cross, so you can donate directly to Red Cross if you prefer.

The administrator evaluation, the review that was passed last month in the Senate was amended that the reviews would be every 2–3 years, and there was some concern because these reviews are very large so we discussed it with the Provost’s Office and the Provost has amended it with the Steering Committees consent and hopefully the Senate will agree with this, we are going to put it back to the administrator reviews being every 3–5 years but also say that faculty will give input every year. We think this went with the spirit of the amendment, so faculty are giving input on their department chair every single year so that is better than it is now. So that goes with the spirit but does not require a huge report as often. If you have a problem with that decision please let me know.

A reminder that there is a June 7 Senate meeting. Today’s two information items will come to a vote in June. In addition nominees for Senate committees will be voted upon in June. Please arrange for a substitute if you cannot attend the meeting. We will also vote on Senate nominees for committees. (There will not be a July meeting and the August meeting will be after classes start.)

Again, a few reminders about the Senate: All Senators, whether ex-officio or not, have a vote and should attend every Senate meeting. If you cannot attend, please send a substitute (who is not a sitting Senator); the substitute has full voting rights. Each Senator or substitute Senator should have already signed in and picked up a clicker to vote.
Are there any questions or comments for the chair?

The first action item is a resolution on promotion of Non-Tenure track faculty. This was presented at the April meeting as information. It is coming from the Non-Tenure Track Faculty committee and will be presented by Bob Smith chair of the committee. [19:25]

Bob Smith, chair of Non-Tenure track Faculty committee: The motion is on the overhead and I’ll just read it again to you although I know you can do that yourself.
Non‐Tenure Track Faculty Committee
We propose that….
1. The length of time allowed for promotion to associate clinical or research professor be extended from six years to an indefinite period. This policy will be similar to the policy for individuals hired into the lecturer series.
2. Promotion to associate clinical or research professor or to clinical or research professor will be specific for each department, and criteria must be approved by the Provost’s Office. Promotion decisions will be determined by the specific department, department head, and the dean of the respective college or school.
3. All other criteria for clinician and research series faculty will remain as defined in the Auburn University Guidelines for Establishing and Filling Positions in the Research and Clinician Title Series (two separate documents).

As chairman of this committee I move that we accept this proposal.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Since this is a recommendation from a Senate committee, the chair will entertain a motion to adopt from a senator. At this time I open the floor for comments.

Tony Moss, biological sciences, senator: Why would there be any potential variation in the way these members of the faculty would be handled? There is no variation in the way that tenure-track faculty are handled so I am kind of confused by the intent and the approach.

Bob Smith, chair of Non-Tenure track Faculty committee: The intent currently for tenure-track faculty is that they have a 7-year duration. For some reason, and I was here when this was all passed but I missed it, and that was that the clinician and the research series only have 6 years. And that creates a difficulty for those individuals who spend 80–90% of their time in experiential education and in professional practice. Meeting the scholarship requirements of which there are in almost every department that has this. Upon examining other universities that had similar-type faculty we discovered that the vast majority of these and even those that are basically research intensive institutions like the University of Wisconsin, Ohio State, University of Oklahoma, Wayne State University, and there were others, they all had indefinite periods. So we felt like if we went with an indefinite period this would keep the criteria similar to what we have for the lecturer series. It would also put a little more emphasis on the importance of the department chair in managing these folks. It doesn’t take the responsibility for them being promoted away from the individual faculty member, but it does mean that the department heads will have to manage these individuals better because if they are not productive in the areas where they are supposed to be productive then they would not be kept at the university. Those were reasons behind our actions.

Tony Moss, biological sciences, senator: So it’s indefinite, there’s no cap?

Bob Smith, chair of Non-Tenure track Faculty committee: Based on this an individual could be an assistant clinical professor or assistant research professor indefinitely. And I could see where that could happen if they were exceptional as a clinical practioner, they were exceptional as an experiential educator, but they had no scholarship. In that case it would be in the best interest of the department to keep them on because of their excellence in those two areas. Scholarship may be determined as one area that would keep them from being promoted to an associate clinical professor.

Tony Moss, biological sciences, senator: Seems strange to me whether you bring into play the issue of scholarship or not. There’s scholarship involved in teaching as well as in any clinical or practice effort I think, and it seems to me that this creates a two-cadre system. I have no problem with it going to 7 years, but why not make all appointments indefinite? You see where I’m coming from? [24:34]

Claire Crutchley, chair: Given no more comments, we will now vote.
Check to see if your clicker is turned on.
All those in favor press A, those opposed press B. A=44 [49?], B=16, C=1. The motion passes.
The second action item is proposed changes to the Faculty Handbook. This was also presented in April as information. It will be presented by Bill Sauser, chair of the Faculty Handbook Review committee.

Bill Sauser, chair of the Faculty Handbook Review committee: Good afternoon everyone. I’m Bill Sauser senator from the department of management and chair of the Faculty Handbook Review committee. Last month I made an informational report to you on behalf of the Faculty Handbook Review committee. And that report in full has been posted for the past month, that’s why we just zipped through it real quick because you’ve had a whole month to read it, and you don’t want to hear it again.

During that particular presentation I did describe our 3 phase approach to seeking to update the Faculty Handbook. Phase One being, eliminate unnecessary information. Phase Two, add in policies that should be there but are not currently, Phase Three, work on the language and make sure that if there are any changes that are necessary there, that they get made. So I presented 2 documents that have also been posted for the past month. Those 2 documents were a summary of the Handbook changes from Phase One, that is all the language we were proposing to remove from the Handbook without changing policy. The other thing I posted was the full text of Phase One Handbook, which I hope all of you read in great detail.

At the end of my presentation I did request some action, so maybe we can back up one slide. I asked that you would review the 2 documents carefully and discuss with your faculty, which I know each of you did. And then contact any member of the committee if you had questions or suggestions for changes. And then be prepared for 2 motions that I am going to lay before you in just a moment. [27:59]

The first motion I intend to make in just a moment is to establish the Faculty Handbook as the official policies and procedures manual of the Auburn faculty. Why are we doing that? Because the Faculty Handbook in it’s current version doesn’t state what it is. So we wanted to be real clear what it was and that’s going to be on the very first page. Second I’m going to ask that we accept that “Phase One Handbook” that’s been on display as a transitional version of the Faculty Handbook. In other words adopt it as our policy procedure manual for now with the understanding that Phase Two and Phase Three are yet to come. Before I make that motion I do want to comment on the Promotion and Tenure policy changes that were adopted by the Senate at our last meeting. The Senate did pass several policy changes to the Promotion & Tenure policy, those are not included, not reflected in the Phase One changes that were brought forward that’s why you didn’t find them this month. However a redlined version, that is wording changes reflect all of these policies are being prepared and I believe I found them in my mailbox today, thank you to those that have been working on that. Those recommended policy changes that have been adopted by the Senate this version is going to come the Faculty Handbook Review committee for review of wording only, language only. In other words policies have been adopted, our task is simply to make sure that the wording reflects the desired action of the Senate. And we will do that. Then we are going to forward that back through faculty leadership and the Provost’s Office and the President who will make a decision about taking them to the Board of Trustees. At that point then they would be adopted. So I just wanted to let you know that, that’s why they are not reflected in what we are doing today.

With that understanding then on behalf of the committee and as Senator from Management I move to establish the Faculty Handbook as the official policy and procedures manual of the Auburn faculty and to accept the “Phase One Handbook” as a transitional version of the Faculty Handbook. So those are my motions.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you Bill.  Since this is motion from a Senate committee, it does not require a second.
At this time I open the floor for comments.
(No Comments)
Let’s vote on the two motions separately.  First we will vote on the first motion to establish the Faculty Handbook as the official policy and procedures manual of the Auburn faculty
Check to make sure your clickers are turned on. All those in favor press A, all opposed press B,  A=63, B=4
The motion passes.

Now we will vote on the second motion to accept the attached document as “Phase One Handbook” as a transitional version of the Faculty Handbook. Again vote A for yes and B for no. A=60, B=5

That motion passes also. Thank you very much Bill and thank you to the Handbook committee they have done a huge amount of work on this project. We will be doing more in the next year.

The next item is a proposal to create a smoke free campus. This is coming from a University committee, Campus Health and Wellness. This resolution is being brought to all constituency groups; in addition to the Senate, it has been or will be considered by the SGA, Staff Council and A&P Assembly. Eric Smith, Director of health promotion and wellness initiatives, presented the idea at the March General Faculty meeting and will present today. [33:04]

Eric Smith, Campus Health and Wellness Committee: Good afternoon everyone, I appreciate the opportunity to be before you here today. This resolution has gone before SGA already about two weeks ago and it passed 28 to 3 (scroll down to the therefore…) It will be going before A&P in a few and then Staff a few weeks after that as well, so SGA has given their approval so far.

The big change that we had to think about as a committee was the date. SGA throughout the feedback sessions brought it up to us that perhaps an August date would be better, August 1, 2012 is what we are shooting for with this. It really gives us a chance to put a good implementation plan into place and that’s the hallmark of success or failure with these policies that we’ve been able to find. All the “whereas” statements are based upon the good public health information that we know. Lastly the “therefore” statement: Therefore Auburn University expresses a commitment to become a smoke free campus therefore be it further resolved Auburn University implements the strategy and plan to become a smoke free campus by August 1, 2012.

This proposal is in response to a charge by Dr. Gogue to wrap up the feedback on this. We’ve been collecting feedback and having wonderful conversations since about January, so this proposal was designed as a way to just get good feedback from the big 4 governance groups and see where we stand on this issue as a campus. At this time I will move that it be adopted.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you. Since this comes from a University committee, the chair entertains a motion to adopt from a Senator. It has been moved. Is there a second? [second] Thank you. At this time I open the floor for comments.

Vicky van Santen, senator from pathobiology: I’m surprised that we’re voting on this already since it was just presented at the university faculty meeting, which wasn’t very well attended. I want to share some of the reactions and concerns from some of the faculty from my department. I want to make clear to everyone that I am not in favor of smoking and I really do enjoy our smoke free work environment, but I do have a couple of colleagues that do smoke and I and some other members of our department want to be sure that they are treated fairly. Of the members of my department that shared their opinion on this resolution with me, it was about an even split 50/50, people in favor of the resolution and people against the resolution. Of course those being against the resolution did include the small minority of people who smoke, but in addition to that there are people in our department who are against this resolution who are not smokers. I suspect that being against this resolution is going to be a minority opinion so I am going to emphasize the comments and concerns of the people in our department who are most opposed to the smoking ban. I’ll try to be brief and not go through every single little picky detail that people brought up, but I am going to bring up the ones that were brought up by more than one person.

Probably the most important is the question of whether there is any scientific evidence that exposure to secondhand smoke in an outdoor environment is detrimental. I know a lot of studies have been done on indoor environments and I think it is a huge extrapolation and probably a leap to say that exposure to secondhand smoke outside is harmful. There are other less drastic solutions to the problem of having to walk by people smoking or smoke being brought into air intakes, so a smoking ban outside doesn’t seem to be necessary. Another major issue is the issue of tolerance. As a university we should be fostering tolerance in our students and everyone to accept things about others that we don’t like. People brought up the point, smokers being treated unfairly therefore leading to a bad work environment and loss of productivity and the smokers in my department, and I emphasize that there are very few, are concerned about what the punishment is going to be. Because they assured me that a ban would not make them quit smoking, they are going to continue to smoke and just break the rules, so they want to know what’s going to happen to them.

Just to continue on here I think the clause about reducing litter from smoking just weakens the resolution because there are much more significant sources of litter. So in conclusion I don’t think we should pass this resolution because the drastic measure of banning smoking outside is not necessary to protect non-smokers, and it won’t protect the health of smokers either because it’s not going to make them quit, and I think that a smoking ban is not going to solve the problems that it is intended to solve.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you. Are there other comments?

Tin-Yau Tam, senator of mathematics and statistics: First of all I have to make it clear that I am not a smoker and enjoy very much a smoke free environment in my building, but I polled my department on that. We have 40 plus faculty members in our department and 6 strongly oppose this proposal, 6 others support the proposal, so it’s a split. ?porins is a concern [38:54] and if we didn’t have to vote on that, I think I would vote, abstain instead of support or not support. I’m thinking maybe there is a compromise, that is we can keep the smokers maybe 50 feet or 100 feet away from the building, any building. That may work so I throw out that suggestion, and then we all can enjoy the smoke free environment.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you.

Eric Smith, Campus Health and Wellness Committee: Just in reference to the boundary question, that is something we explored. From what we’ve seen at other institutions, it creates a mixed message, it creates a very gray area. For us to draw those boundaries actually pushes smokers onto areas that are most heavily trafficked as well and that’s one of the reasons we moved against that direction really. It is something that is being done and we have seen it in a few different places.

One other, this proposal is basically just to see where the campus stands on this. We would still spend the entire year before August 1, 2012 figuring out the finer details and points of that nature. This is to see where we stand as an institution.

Chris Correia, senator from the department of psychology: Speaking professionally who studies substance use and studies change. I know from a variety of ways that change is hard. Change is hard for individual smokers and change is difficult for institutions that are trying to promote public health, but if you look at the history of public health initiatives aimed at decreasing cigarette smoking it’s a slam dunk win in a variety of ways. Rates of smoking have changed in this country dramatically since the 1950s they have been cut in half and that’s because of a variety of kinds of proposals and I consider this under that umbrella of positive public health change designed to decrease a significant detrimental health behavior. So there will be critics of this, no doubt, they will come from a variety of sources and they are legitimate concerns and legitimate opinions that people will have against this, but I do feel that in a variety of ways it’s the right thing to do, it’s on the side of empirical evidence. And I know that this committee has considered a lot of alternatives, they’ve done their homework and so they have considered smoke free zones in addition to bans and if you look at what peer institutions are doing I think you’ll find that we’re kind of on the right side in terms of the perspective that we’re taking, that Eric’s committee has taken.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you.

Herb Rotfeld, senator from Marketing: I really don’t know who smokes in my building. At risk of sounding pragmatic for a second here, we drive on the highway where the average speed is 85 mph because there are not any police out there to stop you. Students are not allowed to drive on campus and yet if you walked in down War Eagle Way you probably saw about 5–10 students in cars waiting to pick up their friends or going through the other parts of campus. I’m in a building with signs all over the place saying no food or drink in the classrooms and you come in in the morning, if the custodial people haven’t gotten to it you’re cleaning up the food. I don’t see how you are proposing anything other than yet another ‘feels good–we aren’t going to have a way to enforce it’ set of guidelines for the campus. That’s good we’l have another lesson for students, okay we’re telling you to do this but we don’t care, along with speed limits, food in the classroom, and don’t drive here.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you.

Tony Moss, senator from biology: That’s interesting Herb. See I correct that problem by grading harder.

As a researcher who’s done research on smoking, there is no lower limit. I mean it’s bad all the way down. I had a lot of experience at doing that and I did it very carefully, but I don’t work in that area any more, so I think this is a no brainer. I completely agree with Chris, I think we’ve got the right move here. I think we need to go ahead with this and sure we won’t stop everyone who runs a light, but we’ll get some of them.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you.

Ruth Crocker, senator from History: It’s difficult for me to vote, well first it’s difficult to follow 3 persuasive people most of whom are on different sides from each other, but also I’m not sure what the alternative is if the committees not proposing the 50 yard, 50 foot distance are they proposing, I mean we’re not going to build little cages like they have at airports are we? What do we… what is the alternative? I’m certainly for clean air, but I’m not sure what freedom will be taken from people who not only still wish to smoke but are addicted to smoking? [44:17]

Eric Smith, Campus Health and Wellness Committee: So the buffer zones and smoking huts are not on the table at this point, this is strictly for a smoke free campus. The one recommendation that’s been circulating and we have seen it in place at a number of institutions, Michigan comes to mind, is in areas that border–this is strictly a proposed recommendation, this is nothing that is official by any stretch– in areas that border non-university property those sidewalks are left as smoking zones for lack of a better phrase. That’s where folks go at some institutions to smoke. It achieves the goal of moving smoking from the core of campus which in many institutions they’ve been able to find that very positive. And just on the enforcement front, with the students and with faculty and staff, the best recommendation is voluntary compliance, that’s why that date is so important. Moving it out to the August where we have time to prep, when we have time to say we are going to be smoke free, you might want to think about if it’s your thing and take advantage of the smoke free cessation resources and things of that nature. It’s a voluntary thing and it’s handled just as any other policy is, we’ve got policies in place that kind of dictate responses to different things at the institution will be handled in the same manner as those would be.

Ruth Crocker, senator from History: Thank you.

Mike Stern, senator, economics: A couple of questions. You say a smoke free campus, does this apply to the football stadium?

Eric Smith, Campus Health and Wellness Committee: It would apply to all athletic facilities as well.

Mike Stern, senator, economics: So on game day either maybe no smoking by the tailgaters or those people during the game?

Eric Smith, Campus Health and Wellness Committee: that’s a great question. We would aim to control it where we can, which would be inside the stadium solely. We have an alcohol policy on the game day that is what it is as well. And that kind of gets to your point; that’s just the way it is we know what we can control and what we can’t control we would use EOG staff and ask them to patrol for that and move folks out of the stadium as necessary. I imagine the conversation would go as simple as, “would you mind putting that out?” and if they disagree that’s when they may be asked to leave.

Mike Stern, senator, economics: Also if this is smoke free, does this apply only to tobacco or does it extend to marijuana and other types of things that people smoke?

Eric Smith, Campus Health and Wellness Committee: I would say any marijuana, the primary aim would be cigarettes but if marijuana was being smoked in public we would address that as well.

Mike Stern, senator, economics: the first amendment of the United States constitution which gives one freedom to expression of speech for instance, things such as burning of the American flag which emits smoke has been found a protected act. Now the first amendment was incorporated which means that Auburn University is subject to it. So you actually have a right, I believe, probably if you really want to to burn and American flag on this campus, and that would emit a lot of smoke and breathing the fumes isn’t going to be good for you. So to the extent that you can limit, some people may smoke as a James Dean figure, it seems to me that smoking is part of an active expression as many other things of rebellion or whatnot, so unless it’s going to be the policy of the institution saying that you can’t, anything that is bad for you becomes a basis to regulate. There is a very long list of those things including the things that we feed the students in the campus food. I had on occasion because I don’t have time to get off campus to eat at some of those, and there are some very unhealthy things being served as food that would probably cause a lot more damage than second hand outdoor smoke on this campus. So I’m not sure where our priorities are and also think that probably alcohol as I read in the newspaper again a student dying from accidents involving intoxication are being killed a lot younger than from smoking. Still, I would rather see an emphasis put on controlling such things as drinking alcohol by the student body and safe consumption of that; equal emphasis put on that as we are going to put on something like smoking given the asymmetric thread of just campus safety we hear about people getting killed on Magnolia or other places by cars, it seems to me there are things we should be working on, there’s a big list in front of this just to be honest.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you.

Eric Smith, Campus Health and Wellness Committee: I can assure the alcohol issue is one we are definitely working on and concerned about. By no means do we want any student to choose to drink and end up passing away from that. And the next few months and years we will be really getting into the alcohol issue with the coalition and town efforts as well. So it’s something that’s on the radar for sure.

Claire Crutchley, chair: We will now vote on the motion.
Check to make sure your clickers are turned on. All those in favor press A, all opposed press B. A=43, B=20, C=4
The motion passes.
The next two items are being presented as information prior to being brought for a vote at the June meeting. As I warned you earlier you need to come to the June meeting.

First is a proposal for a new grading option for graduate students. It is being presented by George Flowers, Dean of the Graduate School and Chair of the Graduate Council.  [50:05]

George Flowers, Dean of the Graduate School and Chair of the Graduate Council: Good afternoon. What we have before you is a proposal that went through the Graduate Council and was discussed at the Graduate Council and approved by that body as well as considered by Academic Standards. Basically the proposal if for a “GP” grade which would be analogous to the current TD grade, which is used for research thesis and dissertation courses. Right now we have only A, B, C, D, F grades or pass/fail for the 79 80 project type courses. there are students in some departments that take these 79 80 and it extends over multiple semesters, really its analogous in those departments, particularly civil engineering, it’s analogous to a thesis to a master’s type project, but under the current scheme students are either required to take it for a grade or pass/fail. And the way that the financial aid system works, as some of you are aware, we have 7@@0 and 8@@0 which allows students who are receiving federally guaranteed financial aid to register for that course along with one hour of graded course work, and be considered full time so that if they are taking out loans they can receive federally financed loans or if they are finished with the loans but not to the point of paying them back they still qualify as a full time student. And that’s really what we are looking for here is to extend that same privilege that we have for our thesis students to non-thesis students who are taking these project courses. And the only department that it will affect in any significant way is civil engineering. Their project courses, they have quite a few master’s of civil engineering students who take projects that are in a sense analogous to master’s projects except they are much more practice and applied oriented rather than the research based master’s projects. This is just extending the benefit to those students. So that’s the proposal that’s before you.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you. Are there any comments or questions about this grading policy? This will come back for a vote at the June meeting.
The next item is also for information, it will also come back for a vote at the June meeting. It is a proposal on student evaluation of courses. It is being presented by Kevin Phelps, Chair, Teaching Effectiveness committee.  [53:24]

Kevin Phelps, Chair, Teaching Effectiveness committee: I’ll give you a very brief background. I think it important to give the context that gave rise to this policy. The charge to the committee was to replace the University of Washington survey instrument, we were charged to recommend the process and vendor for conducting the surveys and develop policies for it’s use.

The process, I already gave information on that at a previous meeting of the Senate. The committee voted to move to an online survey process, the committee reviewed software products and recommended on called CoursEval, when I gave my informational talk we were still looking at a couple of products. Right now it’s currently waiting on action by the administration. CorusEval is currently used by the College of Vet Med. So the process drives some of the policies that we are proposing.

We’re also asked to come up with a survey instrument for general use and this is the survey, 8 questions or 9 questions, 8 questions and comments that the committee came up with, we decided to use a 4 point likert scale that’s known and the reference for that is modeled after Thirteen Strategies to Measure College Teaching which is recommended to us by an expert in the field.

The reason I put this up is because it’s referred to in this policy statement, so these are general purpose questions. This is basically the policy statement. If you look at it the purpose of the student evaluations are to assist and improve the teaching effectiveness and the effectiveness of the courses, and also to provide input in judging the teaching component in tenure and promotion and salary determinations. The changes that we propose are that every course must undergo the student evaluation of instruction each time it is offered. Currently, that’s not the case, it is only recommended in the Faculty Handbook.

The fact that we propose using an online process, you are paying a yearly fee to use the software and you can use it as many times as you want to, so there is no reason and no additional administrative cost to evaluating the courses every time it is offered as opposed to just in one semester. There is also the thought that by doing it regularly it becomes a habit and students would be more used to doing it. There are exceptions, we believe that courses of an individual nature; studio, directive reading, etc. would be exempt from that unless the college or department feels that they want it. There are some departments that do want to have student evaluations in some of these individual courses and that’s up to the discretion of the department.

Again instructor and relevant department chairs, designated by the department–there was some discussion of course coordinators–again with the online survey instruments you can designate that certain people get to see certain questions as opposed to the whole survey, but again that’s at the discretion of the department otherwise it’s just the normal faculty member and the department chair that get to see it.

In terms of summaries of university-wide questions, questions developed by the university Teaching Effectiveness committee, that’s why I put up that questionnaire. Those are questions that the committee developed and if you use those then summaries of those would be provided to the Provost. The fact the the online survey process allows for individual tailoring of the survey instrument for faculty or for department and individual courses makes the reporting requirements more difficult. So when they are tailored we defer to the discretion of the college or department as to what is relevant to be reported. [59:20]

Finally the survey instrument would give some guidelines. The survey instrument should be 8-10 questions and at least one free response question, can have no more than 15, again Teaching Effectiveness committee will provide 8–10 broadly applicable survey questions for general use. That was the previous slide. Colleges and Departments, in consultation with representative faculty, may change this survey instrument as needed and are responsible for determining the reporting of relevant results.  It can be modified as needed. We used the guidelines of Ronald A. Berk’s book, Thirteen Strategies to Measure College Teaching, the important thing is to keep it short, because that way you get better response rates. If you get it too long you won’t get students to fill it out. If we insisted on 8 questions be used across the campus that would leave very little flexibility for colleges and departments and many of the questions are of a general nature and there are situations where there are not really very informative or applicable. So that is the proposal in terms of the policy changes that lay the foundation for using an online process.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you. At this time I open the floor for comments.

Tony Moss, senator biological science: Adobe Acrobat provides for a means of collecting data from check boxes within it, couldn’t we just use what we all have now, Acrobat, and have that accumulate data? And then you have those data, I think with a little bit of manipulation you can get them into a spreadsheet and get them straightened out. Just an idea, I realize this is a one time cost and I appreciate the effort you put into that, but I wonder if we could practically do it for free, basically type it out, put the boxes in? Maybe it wouldn’t be as good.

Kevin Phelps, chair of the Teaching Effectiveness committee: Yes, there are various survey instruments that are free and can be used. The important thing about this software is that it allows for who gets to see what results, the results of what questions and what summaries. It gives you a number of statistical techniques that you can apply and develops this over a period of years, so there is a lot of other things that the software provides.

Herb Rotfeld, senator, Dept. of Marketing: In the decades plus that I’ve been attending Senate meetings I have never heard the Teaching Effectiveness committee come in to discuss anything except student evaluations of teaching. And I am amazed at how often things that were discussed here describing, “we believe”…and I’m sorry I don’t accept things as becoming valid, I don’t think you can assert something as becoming meaningful just because you label ignorance as a point of view (borrowed from Dilbert). In all the times we see things here you say to assist individual instructors in improving their own teaching. Not once has this campus seen any effort to see if these devises are used to improve teaching. Or to find from faculty members that you get an instance where this has helped you improve your teaching. To assist academic administrators and counseling instructors about their teaching, I have not seen any instances I don’t know of any instances, maybe you’ve had one where this has been used by administrators for counseling teachers saying this is what you need to do to improve. Other than the things I’m seeing on research that assessments of correlation between SET scores and actual learning to be negative, to assist faculty in reviewing the overall educational value and effectiveness of the course. After 2 decades plus of doing this have we ever assessed or looked at whether SETs were used for this purpose at any time to provide input in judging teaching component of tenure, promotion, and salary determinations? This becomes it. Actually this becomes the prime it. I have heard too many administrators make the weird assertion of anyone that is below our department average, on to some score, obviously is barely meeting expectations leaving out the little statement of half of any population is below average. Still with the different things that we have here for saying, it’s not even the individual items or the range of items that are used, people look at the sum score. We receive distributed from higher administration a few years ago for our department saying, “here’s all your faculty, here’s each faculty members sum score, here’s your department average.” And some administrators looked at this and said, you’re doing great, you’re not doing great. Fortunately, my department head expressed what he thought of it, using language I am not going to repeat.

I am also bothered, and this is the bottom line, that this is going to be brought before a vote making as a policy during June, when our attendance is at it’s lowest. Many people are gone even if they are on summer staff, I’ll be in another country.

I would like to make a motion. It might die for lack of a second here, but I still would like to move based on this agenda item, I would move that this policy be subject to a student [Senate] vote in the first fall semester meeting.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Student vote?

Herb Rotfeld, senator, Dept. of Marketing: I would like this policy to be voted upon…I’ll restate this, forgive my late afternoon stutter.
I move that this policy be subject to a Senate vote during the Senate meetings of the fall semester.

Claire Crutchley, chair: My parliamentarian says that you can request that the Steering committee take this under advisement.

Herb Rotfeld, senator, Dept. of marketing: Are you saying I can’t make a motion based on the agenda unless you approve it in advance?

Claire Crutchley, chair: this is what my parliamentarian has said to me. I don’t know the answer, but I am trusting my parliamentarian.

Herb Rotfeld, senator, Dept. of Marketing: Does your parliamentarian know the process for handling disputes of interpretation of the rules of order?

Claire Crutchley, chair: You can go ahead and make the motion.

Herb Rotfeld, senator, Dept. of Marketing: This is an agenda item that you stated will be up for a vote next meeting, that is stated as the intent. I am making a motion that this not be considered for a vote until the fall meetings of the Senate.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you, a motion has been made is there a second? Okay. I will give a comment, no I cannot unless I excuse myself as chair, does someone want to comment on why we…

Robin Jaffe, senator, theater: I believe it was brought up now to be voted in June, so it could be put in place for the fall semester. Evaluations are done at the end of a semester and it would give it enough time for it to be all put in place.

Herb Rotfeld, senator, Dept. of Marketing: My concern is that since this is something that’s the nature of primary use of faculty evaluation is that it should be at a time when the majority of faculty are present when it’s voted upon.

Robin Jaffe, senator, theater: My understanding, for the June 7 meeting everyone should have a representative here at that meeting so that there will be a majority present.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you, is there any further comments on the motion? We did get a second, so any further comments on the motion as an action item to postpone from June to the August meeting? I assume the first fall meeting will be in August.

Please vote on this. If you vote A this means you are voting to postpone this to the first meeting of the fall Senate; B is a vote against postponing it. So B says we want it to be brought to the June meeting.
A= 25, B=33. The motion fails. This will come back to the June meeting.

Further comments now based on the student evaluations.

Kevin Phelps, chair of the Teaching Effectiveness committee: Besides the motion there were a number of statements that he made, and as a department head I have to say that he is wrong on most of them. I use student evaluations to improve the teaching, I discussed with faculty situations or possible improvements based upon that and I don’t use a blanket number. The fact that numbers can be abused is certainly true in terms of statistics, but being in a department where you have a wide range of courses from pre-calculus up to graduate, I understand and I think most faculty understand that the student evaluations–you have to be judged in comparable courses, not across the board. That’s what I did as a department head and that’s what other department heads that I know do. So I have to disagree with your statements, I think it is the primary purpose and that is the committees belief that the primary purpose is to improve teaching.

Herb Rotfeld, senator, Dept. of Marketing: May I just say…

Claire Crutchley, chair: Sorry Herb, we are going to the next person.

Herb Rotfeld, senator, Dept. of Marketing: I just want to say I wasn’t talking about you.

Guy Rohrbaugh, senator from philosophy: I’d like to note briefly that it seems we keep mandating for ourselves the maximum amount of assessment even in cases where it’s not obvious that the sort of extra assessment has any concrete benefit. I guess I’d be much happier to see a policy that left somewhat more flexibility to the level of the department. Two regards particularly, I imagine we might do every class but I think room should be allowed to do it annually. I don’t see why if a department wanted to do it annually why they shouldn’t be permitted to. I think the gains of assessment come from regular assessment, but there’s not any particular time period.

I also think I am going to object to the, can’t have more than 15 questions, what if you’ve got 16? Why on earth are we locking ourselves into this? A policy could be a little more flexible, make some well-founded recommendations, but leave a little more discretion in the hands of the people that are close to the classes being taught. Thank you. [1:13:34]

Ruth Crocker, senator for History and Women studies: It’s very clear that this enhanced evaluation by students is a great benefit to the administration and to the determination of salary and promotion and so on, but it does push aside peer evaluation which I believe is still in the current handbook, is that right Bill? This part of the assessment is particularly necessary in cases where you have people teaching from say from different cultures, you have minorities teaching, and you have no provision in this kind of one size fits all evaluation to get around the questions of student bias and student reaction against different people teaching. I can see it’s advantage from the point of view of efficiency, it’s a step toward corporate view as described in a recent Chronicle article, but it doesn’t seem to offer so much to the professors as it does to the assessors. [1:14:45]

Kevin Phelps, chair of the Teaching Effectiveness committee: This only deals with student evaluations it does not, there is no intention to push aside peer evaluations as another component, it just says that this would be input, but not the only input. The Faculty Handbook does require other forms of assessment to be used. So there is no intention of pushing those aside.

Annette Kluck, senator from Special Ed Rehab and Counseling: I actually have a couple of concerns about the items. I read them very quickly so perhaps they are there or I didn’t get a chance to see them or they didn’t stand out enough for me to remember. I don’t recall reading anything that asked about whether the students actually learned something in the course, which should be the ultimate sort of evaluation in question. Also related to that, in the current evaluations there is a similar question about how much effort a student had to put into the course to succeed and I am a person who teaches courses that are not popular among students in my department, other faculty do not want to teach courses that I teach so they cannot find anyone else who is willing to do it and so I don’t often score in the top 10 percent on most items on that form except for the effort required to succeed in the course. I think that is an import thing for faculty members to have, because it really does matter if you are trying to…even within a department to compare courses or even at a doctoral level or master’s level, there are courses that students take that are widely of interest to them and then there are some courses that most of them believe they won’t ever use again, but they are mandated either because faculty perhaps know more than students do about the value of the content in the course or they may be mandated by accrediting bodies.

Kevin Phelps, chair of the Teaching Effectiveness committee: There are certainly other additional questions that you mentioned that would be valuable and the system is flexible enough except that you can add them to your student evaluations. Faculty and departments can add them and can tailor them, as I say, to individual courses. I am certainly in a department where we have many courses that students don’t want to take and don’t believe will ever use again, the raw score is not as important as a comparative score.

James Goldstein, senator from English: The form that we used before we went with the University of Washington had a 5 point scale and you are recommending a 4 point scale now, I’m wondering what impact that would have on the validity and reliability of this instrument compared to a 5 point scale?

Kevin Phelps, chair of the Teaching Effectiveness committee: We discussed the different scales. The recommendation for the 4 point scale was made by Ronald Burke in his book and he made a case for that is a better scale, again there is flexibility if a college feels a 5 point scale is better they can modify that, but we followed those recommendations.

Tin-Yau Tam, senator from Mathematics and Statistics: Personally I find student evaluations very useful to myself. It’s one way I can get feedback from the students and particularly the comments. I still remember a student who commented that I am blocking the blackboard too much while I am writing. Okay, I take that and I improve myself, and things like that, but some of my colleagues would like to share some of their feelings towards the administration of the student evaluation. Some thought that it’s not flexible enough and some would like to see it being done at the discretion of the department instead of every single time, could it be done annually instead of every semester each time the course is being taught?

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you.

Kevin Phelps, chair of the Teaching Effectiveness committee: Currently of course the Faculty Handbook requires it once a year and part of that had to do with the cost and the burden of the administration. You’re taking basically a sample as opposed to a census if you think of it that way and you get more reliable information from a census from taking it every time than taking it from selective times. That was part of the reason for moving to requiring it in every course every time it is taught.

Mike Stern, economics, senator: A couple of comments based upon my experiences. One thing that I have seen in the administration of course evaluations here which isn’t mentioned in your policy is, professors performing the evaluations themselves and even turning them in themselves. We’ve had faculty walk in with their student evaluations and hand them to the front office. Student evaluations need to be performed and delivered by a third party. And that should be written into the policy, because it doesn’t say how they are actually administered. Faculty administering their own evaluations is of course inapropriate, faculty should not be in the room they should be administered by a third party. When I was at Indiana University the department secretaries and administrative assistants would contact your for a good time to do it in your class and they would come and administer while you were not in the room and take them away, you never saw them, touched them, administered them, etc. Of course that’s not happening here at Auburn in all cases, so I would like to see something along those lines placed in there.

The second, I notice you have a paragraph about who is to see these evaluations. Some universities like Florida for instance you can get them on the Web on any professor if you so desire. If you’re suggesting as you do on a previous page of using tenure and promotion then all faculty need to be able to see them, so they may inform their decisions because the faculty must evaluate teaching if this is important instrument then the faculty should be able to see other faculty’s teaching evaluations. If you are going to be evaluated on the basis of your evaluations compared to others then I seen no reason why you shouldn’t see other people’s evaluations. So I would like to see in the statement that any tax paying citizen of this state, may review the teaching evaluations that are performed at this university, since they are of course public documents, rather than just the relevant per se administrators.  I know people are concerned about administrative abuse and (?) time bring up evaluations (?). The biggest cure to that is openness, right? So if you are going to see on your evaluation that you’ve been evaluated based on your student evaluations, then you should be able to see if the statements are actually accurate; if they suggest that you performed less than others and so on and so forth. I remember on my first teaching evaluation a this university my “acting” department chair wrote on my teaching, I did a good job, but my student evaluation scores were lower than someone that had taught the class 10 years ago, even though they were higher than anyone who was currently teaching as I found out many years later. And of course I had a lower teaching evaluation than others that had contemporaneously taught the course and that was the only basis for it. Of course when I requested to actually see the teaching evaluation I was told that I couldn’t see them of anybody other than my own. So I would like to see them be open to everyone in policy and I would also like to see them administered by 3rd parties. Thank you.
Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you.

Kevin Phelps, chair of the Teaching Effectiveness committee: The issue of administration of course is dealt with in the Faculty Handbook as is some direction as to who can see it. And it is a problem that there is no, there are cases I’m sure as you mentioned where it’s not administered by a third party or as dictated in the Faculty Handbook. An online process takes the administration out of the hands of the faculty member and so it would be completely independent and there would be no problem with that first concern of yours.

As to making this public there are universities that publish on the Web student evaluations of all faculty. Currently that’s not the policy. I’m not sure that would go over very well, I know Harvard and Stanford do it, but those are different situations. There is an open records act that says that they have to be open, but I think that would be maybe a bridge too far at this point.

Tony Moss, senator, bioscience: I hate to prolong this but could I ask another point here. In going to an online system, I presume students would be doing this on their own time, is that correct? It would not be in the classroom, so you wouldn’t be giving out papers for them to fill out so how could you be certain that you wouldn’t be selecting specific portion of the student populace? Either those with a bigger ax to grind or alternative.

Kevin Phelps, chair of the Teaching Effectiveness committee: Yes, that goes back to response rates, you have lower response rates in general according to the literature on these online forms, but they are representative. There are a number of steps to take to make sure that you have a decent response rate and representative sample. Software you will know, there will be a window of two weeks where the students would be asked to, and constantly reminded, to fill out the evaluations and faculty will have an idea of what the response rate is and can certainly ask their students to respond to the survey. There are mechanisms to try to make sure that there is a representative sample.

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you, that looks like all the comments.
That is the last item on the agenda.
Does anybody have any unfinished business?

Mike Stern, economics, senator: I did not want to bring this up on the item, but now that we moved to a separate stage of business, in case it comes up again, I thought and I’m not an expert on the Senate Constitution but I believe the role of various Senate Leadership positions is defined in duties and so forth which includes construction of agendas and so forth for meeting. Is that correct, the Senate Leadership forms an agenda for meetings, right?

Claire Crutchley, chair: With the Steering committee

Mike Stern, economics, senator: Right and that’s said in the Senate Constitution?

Claire Crutchley, chair: I believe so.

Mike Stern, economics, senator: You do so because you are instructed to do so in the Constitution as one of your duties. Well then I don’t see how the body of the Senate can by majority through a motion can compel you not to perform or how to perform your scripted duties under the Constitution, which is what we just voted on previously. You can vote to change the Constitution, okay, but I don’t think we can tell by vote to tell you what you can or cannot put on an agenda for a forward meeting. I don’t know, but the parliamentarian…

Claire Crutchley, chair: Thank you
Does anybody have any New business?
If there is no other business, then the meeting is now adjourned. Be sure to return the clickers on your way out. Thank you.