Transcript for Senate Meeting, April 14, 2020 [a ZOOM meeting]
Nedret Billor, Chair: Thank you for participating in our Zoom webinar Senate meeting, we apologize for the inconvenience caused and we're still learning and hopefully next time we'll we fix this problem.
And so, welcome to the April 14th, 2020 meeting of the university Senate. So, this is our seventh meeting of the 2019 and '20 academic year. And a first Zoom senate meeting and we had our first General Faculty meeting on March 31st. Hope that everything is going to go smoothly as it did in the general faculty meeting.
So, this is a virtual meeting. We’d like the roster to physically sign upon entering the room. Therefore, I would like to ask all senate officers, administration, ex-official members and senators or substitutes for senators to send a Zoom chat message to Greg Schmidt, secretary elect with the "Present" remark.
So, I see that many of you sent that message to all panelists, that's okay. This is something, again, we didn't know. So, this was important for us to get the attendance list and hopefully we'll fix that problem next time as well.
So, speakers at the meeting will be considered panelists and will be able to speak and respond to questions and comments.
Since we are using Zoom webinar for this Senate meeting, most likely, we will be using Zoom webinar for the remaining senate meetings in this academic year. And we will use Zoom polling for action items that require voting. I just wanted to mention about that.
For Zoom polling, we are going to follow honor system, which we all are familiar with.
So, the next thing that we would like to do is to establish a quorum. We have 87 senators in the Senate and we need 45 for a quorum.
And so, Kyle, can we launch our first poll?
- [2:15 Kyle] All right, I just launched it.
Nedret Billor,chair: Please select here on the poll to show you are present. All right, so, we have 82, is that correct? 83?
Laura Kloberg: Now just for clarification, are all of these people who are present senators or substitute senators?
Nedret Billor,chair: It should be senators or substitutes for senators. We are assuming that you actually sign in. So, let's run it one more time. Would it be possible, Kyle? To poll one more time?
- [Kyle] Yes, ma'am. Do you want me to end the poll and start it again?
- [Nedret] Yes, please. Let's do it one more time just to make sure...Only senators or substitutes for senators are allowed to actually vote for this.
- [Kyle] All right, launching in three, two, one. All right, there we go.
- [Nedret] Let's vote.
- Robin Jaffe, senator, Theatre] There's two heres, which one?
- [Greg] Either here works.
(Nedret laughs)
- [Nedret] So, these are some glitches we have, Robin.
- [Robin] It's guests.
- [Nedret] All right, I think...So, we have, okay, 70. All right, it's 70, excellent.
- [Laura] 71.
- [Nedret] Yes, 71, right?
- [Greg] Okay.
Nedret Billor, chair: So, let the record show that we have 71 present, so, a quorum is established. I now called the meeting to order. (gavel bangs) I even have gavel.
So, I would like to remind you of some basic procedures for the Senate meeting for senators and guests. If you would like to speak about an issue or ask a question, please raise your hand option on Zoom so that the meeting host can authorize un-muting. When it is your turn, state your name and whether or not you're a Senator or a substitute and the unit you represent. The rules of the Senate require that senators or substitute senators be allowed to speak first and then after they are done, guests will come to speak. So, for the Zoom senate meeting, Robert's Rules of Order are still in effect, I just wanted to remind you.
The agenda today was set by the Senate Steering Committee and posted on the website in advance. So, the first order of business is to approve the minutes for the meeting of the February 18, 2020 senate meeting and those minutes have been posted on the website. Are there any additions, changes or corrections to the minutes? Hearing none, the minutes are approved by unanimous consent. Thank you.
6:05
So, I have brief remarks.
We have started our fifth week of off-campus operations. I hope that you all have adopted to this way of work and social life. Although I'm sure you prefer to teach and interact with your students in a classroom environment, I feel that we are, in a way, lucky to have this computer technology which enables us to continue our instruction as much as we can, continue research activities and even have social interaction with our colleagues and our loved ones.
No doubt, this transition has tested the resilience of all of us. Beyond this transition and other daily operations, many of us also had to adapt to additional responsibilities while you're working under these circumstances such as homeschooling and elder care and childcare.
I genuinely recognize and applaud every one of you for doing your best to manage, to compete for demands while you're working remotely. I appreciate your hard work and efforts and firmly believe that the administration agrees with me on this.
The Faculty Senate Executive Committee is working collaboratively and closely with the administration on many academic related matters and we are having continued conversations about ways to lessen the anxiety for faculty and students as we face this developing situation.
Despite many complex challenges, Auburn University faculty embrace them all with integrity and resilience and have been working tirelessly on advancing knowledge and maintain progress. This defines who we are.
Thank you again.
8:10
We, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee are here to advocate on behalf of you, all faculty, and to offer support. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me or any member of executive committee with any issues or concerns.
So, my second (?) remark is, I would like to congratulate Todd Steury of the School Forestry and Wildlife Sciences and Doctor Ralph Kingston of the history department for their successes in the election for Senate offices.
We, the executive team, appreciate everyone who participated in this very important election process.
Chair-elect, Todd Steury and secretary-elect, Ralph Kingston, will move into these positions during the annual change of faculty leadership on July 1st when Don Mulvaney, current chair elect will assume the office of chair of the university Senate and Greg Schmidt will become secretary of the Senate.
After in the electoral for a year, Steury and Kingston will move into the leadership positions in July, 2021. Todd and Ralph, I once again congratulate you both and wish you the very best in your new roles. I am confident that the future of the Auburn University Senate will be in good hands.
So, next, actually, I would like to invite General Ron Burgess to give us information on parking for next year.
Actually, General Ron Burgess was going to give this information at the general faculty meeting
and we got carried away with the first Zoom meeting, I forgot to remind him, he forgot to mention. So, I invited him again this time to actually present this information for us. Ron?
10:09
General Ron Burgess, Executive VP:Yes, thank you, Nedret.
So, officially the university has decided to suspend any increase in parking fees or changes, next year, as it regards to anything from the financial side of the house.
So, all financial pieces that were in place for this last year will remain in place. I would like to remind, because it comes up in terms of parking. Currently the guidance that is being given out
to the folks is that we are not ticketing personnel on campus at this time. In fact, the last ticket that we gave on campus was on 14 March and we have not ticketed since then. The only time someone will be ticketed is if they are parked inappropriately, in a fire lane or in a non-parking area or in a handicap spot and aren't displaying the handicap placard. So, that's where we sit.
We will look at the recommendations that have been made and take a look at those, and as Doctor Gogue has always reminded me, we will socialize those as we look next year. So currently, that's where we sit.
We may look at one or two policy changes in terms of how we go about parking on campus. We will decide that in the next month or so, but we will not be changing any parking lots, any current assignments or future assignments in the coming year. Nedret, that's all I have.
Nedret Billor, chair: All right, thank you, general. Any questions for General Ron Burgess?
So, if you don't have any questions and...
12:01
So, I know you all know us by now, but again, I think this is a tradition
and I'd like to introduce the office of the Senate and our administrative assistant and myself, chair of the Senate, Nedret Billor and Mike Baginski is the immediate past chair.
- [Mike] Here.
- [Nedret] Okay, Don Mulvaney is the chair elect. I don't know if you can see them if they have video on, but--
- [Don] Here.
- [Nedret] Okay, Adrienne Wilson is the secretary this year. She's still on medical leave but she is recovering, and Greg Schmidt is secretary-elect, and James Witte is our parliamentarian. Jim are you here? Jim Witte? Finally, our administrative assistant, Laura Kloberg.
Jim is here. Okay, Jim is here, right? Okay. - Yes, he is. I can see you. - Okay, okay. Thank you.
So, I would like to invite president Jay Gogue to make brief remarks. So, Jay, the microphone is yours.
Jay Gogue, President: Madam president, thank you. Can you guys hear me?
- [Nedret] Yes, we can hear you well.
Jay Gogue, President: Okay, thank you. Thank you.
I appreciate y'all allowing me to share just a few comments. You know, it's been really fascinating to me…Auburn's always had very high expectations of our faculty, but I have to say it's almost inspirational and we've exceeded anything that I ever imagined.
You've been magnificent, and I know it's not been easy, and I know there's still a lot of struggles ahead of us, but I just wanna say thank you to faculty for what you've been able to do.
Recognizing the problems, recognizing that we didn't do everything perfect, but I'm awfully proud of what you've been able to do. I wanna reiterate the three principles that drives us every day as we come to work and that is number one, the health and safety of our students and our employees, number two, we need to do everything we can to keep carrying out the mission of the university, and number three, as we make changes, I can commit to you that we use the shared governance processes. We meet, not every day, but a lot of days we meet with the student government president, we meet with Nedret, we meet with the staff council leadership, the A&P folks and we try to say, "Hey, this is an issue, let's talk about it, let's make sure we reach some agreement on." So, I thank all of those groups for their internal governance. It has helped us greatly.
I wanna mention finances, the money aspect. We went into this fiscal year in which the state had higher receipts than it's ever had. And to be very candid with you, we were looking at over a 7% budget increase from the state and we were also looking at a bond bill that would probably take care of our issues that we have in geology, our folks in Funchess and math and statistics. And Bill Hardgrave put together a tremendous plan and to be very candid with you, it was gonna get approved. And then the virus came about. So, we don't know where any of that is, nor does the state. They're not gonna meet again until, I wanna say in May, to begin to look at the state budget.
Second thing I'll mention is, last year we got nearly $100 million federally for food-directed appropriations.
And there's some really good news. Jim Weyhenmeyer, vice president for research mentioned this week, that last year our total was about 160 million at university and at least based on the first six months, the goal of 200 million this year is not out of the question. I know it's early, but proposals and activity and work is underway, and I would just say thank you to the faculty for what they're doing.
I know that, the provost will speak more to this, but I'm optimistic about what I see and hear on summer enrollment. That's an important part of our budget. And I think Bill will share with you that it's early but we're still optimistic.
We're seeing some increased enrollments for the summer term and Bill and team with Nedret and others that worked up with a financial plan that makes it a little bit more attractive to those incoming freshmen and certainly some freshmen, sophomores that we have with variety of courses in which it's a better deal for both instate and out-of-state students.
17:22
Big issue for us is to focus a bit on fall enrollment and we look at several factors. But one factor is how are we doing with our residence halls on campus? Kids paid the deposits, do they plan to come? And I think most of you know, out of 30,000 students, we only have about 4,600, 4,700 beds on campus. So, 25,000 of our kids live out in the community. And according to our vice president for students, this week we will have zero rooms available. The deposits will be paid for all of the residence halls we have on campus. We anticipate somewhere around 4,800 freshmen in the fall. From what I've last seen is in terms of deposits paid, we're at about 4,400 or so, which is very similar to what we did last year.
I don't have any idea if those numbers will hold up, but at least at this point, we're optimistic. The one thing that I'm would encourage all the faculty is be really cautious about what you read in The Chronicle of Higher Education or any of the material that you see. All the schools are a little bit different in the way they try to address issues. We have not had discussions on freezing up positions, we have not had discussions on releasing tenure track faculty, we have not had any of those discussions. In fact, we plan to pay the normal bonus when people get promoted from assistant to associate, associate to (?), the normal promotions. So be cautious about it.
Again, let me just emphasize how much I appreciate what y'all are doing. I realize the circumstances are difficult, but we'll get through this and I appreciate each one of you and what you do. Thank you, Nedret.
Nedret Billor, chair: Thank you Doctor Gogue. Thank you for your remarks.
Questions for President Jay Gogue? Questions?
Jay Gogue, President: That's even better. Thank you, Nedret.
Nedret Billor, chair: All right, thank you.
All right, next.The provost, Bill Hardgrave, you have some brief remarks for us?
Bill Hardgrave, Provost: Yes, good afternoon everyone? Thank you, and, I will provide a little bit more detail about some of the things that president Gouge talked about.
Let me start by talking about summer. I think, as you all know by now, the 10-week summer session and the first five-week mini-mester will be delivered remotely. We're holding out hope that we can get in to that second mini-mester that starts on June 29th. And so we'll make a decision around June 1st on that.
Consistent with the decision about how we're delivering education this summer, all summer programs through June 30th have been canceled for those that require decision now. If a decision can wait, then wait, and there may be a chance that we get back to normal operations and perhaps it's feasible to have something on campus before June 30th, but as of right now, everything through June 30th is canceled if the decision must be made.
President Gogue mentioned about summer enrollment. We're certainly looking at it. We've been very aggressive. We had asked the deans some time ago to be very aggressive in their summer offerings. We know that 600 plus faculty teach in the summer. It's an important time for our faculty, from a financial perspective, but it's also an important time for our students through the first week of enrollment. So that would be our seniors and juniors who have enrolled.
We are ahead of where we were through the first week, last year. So that's very encouraging that we are trending ahead. Sophomore started registering I think today or yesterday.
A couple of things about summer, about an hour ago, a note went out to all of our students that announced that, our summer student services fees would be suspended for the summer. This saves most students about $838 off their bill. And that's in recognition of things like recreation and transportation which will not be provided during this time. So, we've suspended those fees.
The other thing that president Gouge mentioned was this idea of helping out some of our students, especially these incoming freshmen. We have taken our Auburn-first program, which was our dual-enrollment program for high school seniors. Recognizing that in the state of Alabama and really across the country, high school seniors, their high school year has been disrupted. I have a high school senior at home and his last year has been disrupted and was actually given the option after the third 9 weeks that, "You're graduated, you don't have to continue." So, many high school seniors will have been without being in school for some time. So, we are extending our Auburn-first program, which allows for us core set of 21 classes that they can take that at a significantly reduced rate, get them back into the swing of things and get them a head start on the fall. And speaking to fall enrollment, certainly that is something that we're working very hard to ensure that we have a good enrollment. President Gogue mentioned housing is expected to be full this week. That's a good indicator. Probably the best indicator for us is Camp War Eagle registration.
Camp War Eagle registration should have happened a couple of weeks ago, but because of the pandemic, Camp War Eagle was reworked and is gonna be online, virtual, and then with some hope that if we can get back to campus in July, then there'll be some face-to-face sessions.
But the new Camp War Eagle planned registration is April 29th, and really, that will be a big indicator for us on what that fall enrollment looks like. So, we'll be watching April 29th with much interest.
That's all I've got, Nedret.
Nedret Billor, chair: All right, thank you, Bill. Questions for Bill?
Questions? No questions then. We can move on.
Bill Hardgrave,Provost: Fantastic. Thank you very much.
24:29
Nedret Billor, chair: Thank you, thank you again, Bill. Thanks a lot.
So, we can move on to other agenda items. And today actually in our agenda, we have three action items.
So, first action item is about voting for nominees for Rules Committee. And we actually had the nominees for Rules Committee on February 18th's senate meeting.
The nominees for Rules Committee are, Valentina Hartarska from department of agricultural economics and rural sociology and Brian Anderson from department of civil engineering and George Stachokas from library.
So, we have three nominees and the information about these nominees has been available on the Senate website.
25:18
Now, we need to vote, we will do the Zoom polling for the voting process. And Kyle, can we launch the second poll?
- [Kyle] Yes, ma'am. Just launch it.
Nedret Billor, chair: Thank you.
And if you approve the candidates for rules committee members, select yes. If you do not approve, select no. If you abstain, select abstain. Thank you.
Yes, so we have 78 yes's and then two (2) no's and three (3) abstain.
All right, action item passes. Thank you.
So, we have the second action item. Greg Schmidt, senate acting secretary will ask your vote for committee members of Senate.Greg, the floor is yours.
Greg? Hello, can you hear me?
Greg? Brendan?
Okay, Greg, it's your turn.
Hi, Greg, we cannot hear you.
Hi, Greg, we cannot hear you.
Greg Schmidt, secretary-elect: - Can anyone hear me?
- Yes, we can hear you now.
Greg Schmidt, secretary-elect: Okay, good. The mere act of unplugging it and plugging it back in worked. - Classic.
Well, thank you everyone. The Auburn University Senate has 20 committees upon which faculty can serve. These committees cover a great breadth of university activity and faculty participation is critical to their functioning. To this end, the Senate maintains an open call for volunteers on our web page. A sincere thanks to those of you who volunteered through this web interface. Each year on July 1st, members of committees rotate off of their three-year terms and selecting replacements to fill those vacancies rests upon the Senate rules committee. The rules committee has met several times over the past month, and we have filled most vacancies for new terms. The roster for new committee members has been posted to the Senate website, and with luck, I may be able to share my...Or, I may not be able to share it, but it has been posted on the website.
Let's see.
- [Kyle] You should be able to see it soon.
- [Laura] Want me to share it? Greg, do want me to share it?
- [Greg] Yes, please, Laura.
- [Nedret] It's coming. - You got it?
- No, that's not... That's the roster.
- [Laura] Okay.
- Laura Kloberg will share the recommendations for Senate committee assignments. As Laura is bringing that up, I'd like to thank my rules committee members; Nedret Billor, Donald Mulvaney, Michael Baginski, Adrienne Wilson, Jitendra Tugnait, Tracy Witte, Michelle Worosz, Mary Sandridge, Matthew Hoke and Tony Moss.
Has the screen appeared?
- [Laura] Not yet, hold on.
-[Greg] Let me try. That would not be it, nor would that.
- [Laura] Yes, it is. That's it.
-[Greg] You saw it?
- [Laura] I saw it. - Okay.
- [Nedret] Yes, we did see it.
- Well, I am getting something different. There we go. Is this it?
Do you see the recommendations?
- No, we don't see it.
Now we are about to see it. - There it is.
- [Robin] Yeah, I see it.
Greg Schmidt, secretary elect: Very good.
29:50
This is the recommendations list for replacements for committee assignments beginning July 2020.
This does not represent every vacant position as some require a vote from the college before proceeding to the Senate. However, this is a fairly complete list for Senate committees. University committee assignments are still underway and the volunteer form is still active at the Senate website.
I present to you the list of nominees. Do we have any discussion on this list? (keys tapping)
Hearing none, do I have a motion to accept this slate of nominees?
-[from a Senator] So moved.
- A second.
- [Laura] Hold on. Todd's Steury, I gotta allow him to talk.
- Oh, we have a Q&A? very good.
- [Nedret[ No, Q&A's different.
31:02
What we--
- Yes, we have in the comments.
- [Laura] Yes.
- [Todd] Oh, sorry. It looks like I accidentally clicked the raise hand button.
- [Laura] Okay.
- Okay.
- All right.
(chuckles)
All right.
- If we have a second...
Did I hear a second?
- [Robin] Second.
[Greg] We've heard a second.
I think we can proceed to the next poll which will be a poll to approve the recommendations for Senate committee assignments.
- [Brandon] Nedret, while everyone's voting, we do have a couple of Q&A questions.
- Yes, I saw that and...Yeah, so, can he scroll down? I think he wanted to look at the list.
- [Greg] The list is posted at the Senate website.
- [Nedret] No.
- [Laura] Attached to the agenda.
And I see Mark Bransby was asking about AMP nominees. No, this does not include A&P or staff or AUM. It's only the faculty appointments.
- That's right. And senate.
Nedret Billor, chair: Yeah, I think we have the results.
73, yes; and one no; and one abstain.
- [Greg] Thank you.
33:06
Nedret Billor, chair: So, we can move to the third action item.
So, Robin Jaffe, chair of calendar and schedules committee, first will present 2022 and 2023 academic calendar, after he presents and then we will vote. Robin?
33:33
Robin Jaffe, Chair of Calendar and Schedules Committeea: So do I have a video or are you gonna put it up?
- Yeah, I think Brendan... Can't we allow him to have the video on?
- [Brandon] It should be allowed at the bottom left, start video.
- [Kyle] You can't start your video because the host has stopped it.
- [Brandon] We'll look into that.
34:01
- [Robin] Okay.
- [Laura] You need me to open it?
- [Robin] That'd be fine.
- [Kyle] Do you want me to try to make him a co-host and see if he can start his video then?
- [Brandon] Yes, please.
34:15
- [Jim] This is Jim Weyhenmeyer I'm having the same issue.
- Yes, I mentioned that to Brandon and--
- [Jim] So, it says the host has blocked it or stopped-- - We see you Robin.
-[Robin] Okay, everybody can see me now?
- [Jim] We can see you. - Yes, we can see you Robin.
Robin Jaffe, Calendar and Schedules Committee chair: Oh, look, there I am. Yeah. (chuckles) All right, everybody.
34:39
Welcome quarantinees.
I'd like to share my calendar committee report with you as soon as I get it up. All right, share screen. There we go. Play from the start. Everybody see that? I hope.
This is the Senate calendar and schedules committee proposal for the 2022–2023 academic calendar year. The proposal that I'm presenting today has consensus from all our members of the committee. We had Zoom meetings on March 28th and April 3rd, 2020. These are our members. Everybody can see this, right?
Nedret Billor, chair: Yes.
Robin Jaffe:- Okay. The chair, Karen, the registrar who's an ex-officio, members, the rest of the members staff representation, undergraduate students and Lady Cox from the student affairs was an invited guest.
These are selected guidelines considered for the calendars. Each year, we have to consider a lot... It's about a five, six-page document that was approved by the Senate about 15 years ago, I know it's been a while, that the calendar for fall and spring semesters should have 70 to 73 days.
Calendars for full summer term should be 48 to 49 days. Seven to 10 days between semesters for the registrar to be able to get all the paperwork done. Graduation is on the preferred day of Saturday for the fall and the summer graduation on preferred days for the spring are Saturday, Sunday and now Monday.
Five days for finals in the fall and the spring, two days, reading days after classes end in the fall and spring, and at least one reading day for each mini term and fall term in the summer.
Fall break will be two days after the midterm for the fall semester. These are not all the guidelines, these are just elected ones that I've chosen to share.
This is approved calendar for 2021–22, just to have everyone remember what we did. Where the calendar starts on the 16th of August and goes through the third of December, with finals the following week in December and graduation on the 11th.
Spring semester would start on the 12th, Martin Luther King's birthday is on the 17th. Spring break is first full week in March with classes ending on the 29th of April.
Finals, the first week in May and then we have graduation on the seventh, eighth and ninth.
Both of those calendars for the academic year, they have 72 days in classes. Summer would start again on the 18th and go through the 21st of June, and then the second mini term would start on the 27th of June and go through the 29th of July with the finals the following week in August.
Is there questions I...This is the one that has been approved.
What we are proposing for 2022–23... This is our proposal for the calendar is that classes would start on the 16th of August. Now that is the earliest that we can start classes because of the nine-month contract. We would go through September, we would have Labor Day on the fifth, the sixth and seventh would be our fall break, Thanksgiving break, last week in November, and then we will only have 71 days in this semester because the way the calendar falls.
If we were to move the calendar one week forward to start on the 22nd to enable us to have 72 days, that would only leave three days for the registrar's office to do all the paperwork before break starts. So, the calendar committee has voted to start on the 16th and only have 71 days. This is the legal amount of days by the Senate.
Classes in the spring semester would start on the 11th, Martin Luther King's birthday would be on the following Monday, the 16th.
Spring break would happen through the sixth and the 10th of March and classes would end on the 28th of April with finals the first week in May and graduation the sixth through the eighth.
The summer would start on the 17th, go through the 20th of June, the first mid term then we'd have a reading day, finals, and those three days, there are no classes for the full summer term.
Classes for the second mini term would start the 26th of June. 4th of July is on the 4th of July and the 28th of July would end the semester with two reading days and three final days with graduation on the 26th.
This is the presentation for the Calendar Committee proposal and are there any questions?
I will stop sharing now. I have one check. we have an...
41:00
Okay, any questions?
All right, that's not my question for about football.
Okay, Mark?
- There is one attendees raising hands.
- Okay.
- [Tony] Tony Moss, biological sciences, senator: Hi, Robin? (clears throat) me. It's very clear. I just wondered, so you have to go short one day in the fall of the, was it '21–'22 years? No, '22–'23 year.
- That's correct.
- [Tony] And that's because of a time for the registrar to process, but what's their minimum amount of time that they need to process grades and make things available? Is it between from five to three days and I guess it was deemed that three days is really too short.
-[Robin] Yes, that is correct.
Well, actually didn't go from five, it went from eight to 10 days. We have to have between seven and 10 days for the registrar's office.
- [Tony] Oh, okay.
-[Robin] And mainly because graduation would happen on the 17th, if we moved everything forward a week. If we started on the 22nd of August, it's 72 days, the classes would end on the ninth of December and then we would have finals between the 12th through the 16th with graduation on the 17th, which would then give them four days or four or five days before we have usually our Christmas break.
42:33
- [Tony] I see, thank you.
-[Robin] The number of days we're allowed by the Senate, which was approved a long time ago was 70 to 73. So, we try to stick with 72 because we've known that faculty prefer 72 as opposed to 73 and they don't like 71 or 70 unless we would be scrambling around in the register's office.
They could do it, but they would probably be working 40 days, 48 hours, if not the four days straight without a break. So, we tried to help them out a little bit.
43:11
- [Don] Robin?
- [Robin] Yes, sir?
- [Don] There're a couple of questions on the Q&A.
- One minute.
43:20
- [Robin] Let me go to the Q&A. Can I do the Q&A?
Okay.
43:27
"Does spring break schedule match with the Auburn Public Schools."
The answer to that question is yes.
One of the jobs that we do with the calendar committee is we notify, once this has been approved by the Senate, Provost Office and the President, that they are notified immediately what the days are.
The Opelika schools, the Auburn schools, the Lee Scott schools and the other Lee County schools all are notified what we do and they usually follow what we do.
44:03
Mark, is that your question?
No.
"I know that Doctor Godwin had suggested about "how we could start earlier than August 16th. Were those ever pursued?"
The question, yes.
We have been looking into that. The main issue is the... It wasn't that we start earlier August 16th, is that we start summer earlier and we go into May and so that we would end the calendar in the end of July.
The problem, we're still looking into that. Next year we can do that. But as we looked into the following five or six years of calendars, it would tend to push the start of spring semester earlier and earlier, and like I think in 2027, we would be starting on new year's day, to enable us to finish before the end of July.
We're still looking at that and the calendar committee is still working on that.
Nedret Billor, chair: All right, thank you, Robin.
- [Robin] Sure thing.
Nedret Billor, chair: Don, thank you.
(chuckles)
More questions?
45:30
-[Robin Jaffe] Are there any more questions?
This is my rendering by the way, of the cover for the stadium. (members laughing) So we can have graduation in the stadium, there in the summer and eliminate the nine to 10 graduations we're heading towards.
45:52
(Jay laughs) (Robin laughs)
Nedret Billor, chair: So, if there's no question, then maybe someone can make a motion then.
Robin Jaffe: This is a (Senate) committee, so there's no need for a motion.
Nedret Billor, chair: Voting, again, we're gonna go to voting.
- [Don] Correct.
Nedret Billor, chair: So can we launch poll number four then, Kyle, please? To approve.
- [Kyle] Okay.
46:36
Nedret Billor, chair: Yeah, so we have the results. 69, yes and two no, and three abstain. Okay, this passes, Calendar passes. All right, thank you, Robin. Thank you again.
-[Robin] Thank you.
46:51
Nedret Billor, chair: So we have actually one pending action item. So, Claudine Jenda, agriculture librarian. and Jaena Alabi, English and psychology librarian, and they will present a proposal to change the librarian archivist ranks to professorial ranks. Jaena, Clausine, floor is yours.
Claudine Jenda, Librarian: Thank you, Nedret.
As introduced, my name is Claudine, I work as a librarian for the college of agriculture. And this presentation we'll co-present with Jaena Alabi. Jaena, in addition to being English and psychology librarian serves also as the promotion and tenure coordinator in the library.
She has been leading the discussions of this topic of ranks for librarians at Auburn as well as archivists. She'll give the presentation and I'll join in during the question and answer period. Jaena, you want to take it away?
Jaena Alabi, Librarian: Thank you, Claudine: I should have the PowerPoint slide up. As Claudine has mentioned, we've actually been talking about this in the library for about the past three years, and currently, you can see the ranks that we're using.
Claudine is a librarian IV, I'm a librarian III. What does that mean? So, according to our proposal, we would like to shift those librarian ranks or archivist ranks into their equivalent professorial ranks. So, a librarian I, we don't actually have anybody in this position right now, but if we did, they would become an instructor. Our librarian II's would be transferred to assistant professors, librarian III's to associate professors, our librarian IV's like Claudine, would become professors. And these are actually already equivalent. So, our faculty handbook has the librarian and archivist ranks as being equivalent to those that I've just mentioned.
With the exception of librarian I and archivist I, these are all tenure track positions. And so, as we were having conversations in the library, we have done some research which is what I'm gonna share with you.
In higher education, librarians can hold three different statuses So, they can be treated as professional staff, they can be treated as non-tenure track faculty or tenure-track faculty.
And that's what we have here at Auburn. We certainly don't wanna change that aspect of our status. Even within that ladder group though, there are three other divisions about what library faculty can be called.
So, in some institutions, they'll use professorial ranks. In others, they'll use parallel ranks. So that would be assistant librarian, associate librarian, full librarian, and then we have what are called librarian ranks. They're numbered, so it's librarian II, III, IV.
In the literature of library and information science, we really talk a little bit more about the status of librarians and the work that we do, a little bit less about what do we actually call ourselves. Fortunately, there is this article from 2008 where Bolin actually... Part of her analysis is breaking down what status librarians have and what they're called.
So, in her analysis in 2008, it was about 42% were using professorial ranks, just over 1/4 are using some other rank with tenure. So that would be like that parallel or library rank. And then about 30% have either some other rank without tenure or they're in a non-faculty status.
We also looked more recently at some of our peer institutions. So, you can see we've got several places where they're using professorial ranks. Urbana-Champaign, Ohio State, Texas A&M. There's a really small group that's using those parallel ranks, that assistant librarian, associate librarian, and then, there's another pretty good-sized group of folks that are using those numbered librarian ranks.
So Auburn, Georgia, Washington State. We have Kentucky and Rutgers. You can see they have asterisks because while they use numbered ranks, they go in the reverse order. So as if things were not already confusing, a librarian IV means something different here than it would at Kentucky or Rutgers.
We also looked at... Well, we were thinking about recruiting new faculty to the library. So, we took a little bit of time to look at the American Library Association’s job list and we looked at their academic library jobs that were posted in the spring of 2018 and it looked about 42% of those positions were actually using professorial titles for those positions. There's another big chunk about 40% where it just wasn't clear. But about 20% were using either that parallel or librarian status.
So, we think that, actually, if we were able to transition into those professorial titles, it would be clear what our expectations are from new librarians coming into the profession, coming into Auburn, and I think we would also attract additional library faculty.
So, just with the research that we've done, our conversations, we think that this change would help us to better align with some of our peers. Certainly, there's plenty of confusion about our status, we hope to really reduce that, and we hope it would also aid in our recruitment efforts. And so, in this past fall, our library faculty voted and there was overwhelming support for this proposal. So, 24 out of 25 library faculty members voted to approve this sort of shift, and our Dean is also very supportive of this as well.
We have presented this information to the provost council, to the other academic deans. It was well received there, and so now we are bringing this proposal to the Senate, hopefully to answer any questions you might have or address any other issues or concerns, maybe, the faculty across campus have.
Nedret Billor, chair: All right, thank you, Jaena.
- [Kyle] There's a Q&A question, yeah.
54:10
Nedret Billor, chair: Okay, yeah.
Jaena, there is one question. "Do you envision participation in a curriculum in library science, information science or something else?" This question is from Joseph Molnar.
Jaena Alabi, Librarian: So actually, that's a good question.
Most of the curriculum that's in library science and information science is strictly at a master's degree level. I think this could make it easier for us if we did want to Institute an undergrad information literacy curriculum. It would make it a little easier for us to get those credits in, in that way. But, we certainly are not planning to start a library school program or a library graduate program. So, I don't know if that answers your question or if there was...
Claudine Jenda: I can add. Currently our library faculty do teach some created courses at the nearby library schools, University of Alabama, for example. So, even with our current status, library faculty over time, I can think back to even 15 years, we have contributed to teaching towards library science curriculum degrees, and in most cases it's been collaboration with the University of Alabama. Occasionally, some online schools. I don't know if that adds to this question?
Nedret Billor, chair: Are you satisfied, Doctor Molnar, about the answer?
Yeah, we don't have any more comments and I think that it is good and... "That is fine, he said.
"Thank you."
More question for Jaena, Claudine, about the proposal?
Okay, thank you, Jaena. Thank you, Claudine. Thank you very much and--
- [Claudine] Thank you.
- [Jaena] Thank you.
56:32
Nedret Billor, chair: So, we can move to other information items. So, we have two information items and the first one will be presented by Kimberly Braxton Lloyd, Associate Dean for clinical affairs and outreach. And Kimberly will talk about Healthy Tigers and...so, Kimberly, the floor is yours, look forward to your presentation. (keys tapping)
We can't hear you, Kimberly.
- [Kimberly] Can you hear me now?
- [Nedret] Yes, we can hear you. Are you sharing your screen?
- [Kimberly] Can you see the screen now?
- [Nedret] Yes, it is on. Yeah, great. - Okay.
- [Kimberly] Thank you very much.
57:58
Kimberly Braxton Lloyd, Associate Dean for clinical affairs and outreach: We appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today and share information about the health and wellness initiatives on Auburn University's campus.
I am the Associate Dean of clinical affairs and outreach with the Harrison School of Pharmacy and I'm also the Auburn University pharmacy officer with Auburn University human resources. Also, joining me today is Ann shore, who's the executive director of payroll and employee benefits and records with the human resources.
Okay, so when we started the Healthy Tigers program in 2010, we did an analysis of the medical and pharmacy benefits on claims to the amount that we were spending on our health insurance plan, and we looked at disease states that were very common in the Southeast and in the state of Alabama. And we found that we had a lot of high-cost claims and a lot of medical expenses and disease states that are preventable with routine monitoring and management. And these included cardiovascular diseases that includes high blood pressure, uncontrolled high blood pressure which leads to complications such as strokes and heart attacks, chest pain, angina, high cholesterol levels, which leads to atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease, which often leads to open-heart surgeries and cardiac catheterizations and heart attack and stroke.
And we also had high claims in diabetes with and without complications. And with patients that had severe diabetes, they often progress to renal dialysis. And we had several patients that were on renal dialysis that was associated with diabetes. And all of these disease states were very expensive. And also when we looked at the expenditure for our medical and pharmacy claims, it was very consistent with what you see across the United States in medical and pharmacy claims when you look in medical benefits are offered especially in what we do with our self-insured employers and often you spend 80% of your total cost on only 20% of the insured population.
And so, when we were looking at our goals, our goal for the Healthy Tigers program and all of the interventions that we've implemented at Auburn University was to try to keep the 80%, that we weren't spending a lot on, keep those individuals healthy and address disease states, identify disease states early and treat those disease states so they wouldn't progress to more complications and more expensive care.
And so, in 2010, we started the Healthy Tigers program on campus. It was vetted and approved across the university and introduced in March 2010.
The first year when it was first introduced, we only screened our employees and we measured blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol. In 2011, we added on spouses of the adults on the plans, spouses and adult-sponsored dependents that were insured on the employee's health plan. We added those individuals to the Healthy Tigers program and we continued the blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol and we added BMI to look at weight and body mass index. But that was an optional reading and we would do, not only weight and body BMI, but also body composition analysis, so, looking at percent body fat.
In 2012, we made the BMI an alarm value where we would provide more information on the results of the BMI rating, but no medical referral has ever been required for a BMI of 35 or greater. So, we don't refer to a physician, but we do provide consultation with the patient and provide more feedback. And then in 2018, we carved out the adult-sponsored dependent spouse on our employees' plans. And instead of them being required to have both of the adults on the plan be screened with Healthy Tigers in order to get the incentive, each individual was eligible for their own incentive if they were screened. So, if you had you and your spouse on your plan and each of you could be screened and once all of the requirements for Healthy Tigers was completed, then each of you would receive an individual incentive. So, $300 per year per individual.
So, today I'm gonna be discussing the results of the Healthy Tigers program because that's what I was asked to focus on today. But overall, we have a comprehensive health and wellness program at Auburn University that includes several health and wellness initiatives. And this includes the Tigermeds program that we offer through the AU employee pharmacy that includes discounts on medications, generic medications, in tier one and tier two and on-campus delivery and other services. The Healthy Tigers we'll be discussing. We also have wellness events where we do recognition of Back to Work and Walk at Lunch and other wellness activities throughout the year. We have a lunch and learn series that is interprofessional and integrated and is offered at campus dining. And then we also offer newsletters, courses through HR, classes and other outreach efforts, that's very interprofessional, integrated throughout the year.
This is information on Healthy Tigers participation over the years. And, our participation rates have varied from anywhere from 57% to 76%. Our best participation rate was year one when we had less individuals that were eligible to participate 'cause we did employees only and we reached a 76% engagement that year. The number that's eligible has increased as we've increased the opportunity for spouses to be included in the screenings. And then with our change in rules over the years, we've had fluctuations. For instance, when we offered an independent incentive for the spouse and the employee, we saw a jump in the spouses that were being screened.
We have an average over the...We looked at a time period from 2014 to 2018, and our average number of Healthy Tiger participants per year during that time range was 4,716. Since we have a dynamic employee pool and our employees... We have new employees joining us, others retiring, others leaving us and changing their benefit options, we've had 8,808 unique individuals that participate over this five-year period. Over those time period, every year, it's very consistent on the demographics of individuals that participate. Usually it's 53, 54% female, 45, 46% male. Ethnicities are presented here, 83% white, 11% black and 5% Asian. For those that we know, their ethnicity was reported and this is representative of our employees. 54% percent female, and the youngest employee that we've ever screened was 19 years of age and the oldest employee was 86 and the mean age is 46.3 with a median of 47.
When we do the Healthy Tiger screenings, we measure the employee's and the patient's blood pressure and if the blood pressure's controlled at 140/90 or less, at 139 or less on the top number and 89 or less on the bottom number, then we classify that as being in the green zone. And then we look at, if it's slightly elevated, above normal and this top number's between 140 to 159 and the diastolic or bottom number's between 90 or 99 on one or both of those readings or in that range, then we categorize that as yellow zone. And if it's above 160 over a hundred, then that is the red zone.
And you can see over the years, there's been a gradual increase in the number of patients that are screened, that are in the green zone. So, we want to look to see, since we do have a dynamic population that is screened within Healthy Tigers, we wanna take a look at patients that were in the program over a five-year period.
And so, we looked at patients that were enrolled in 2014 that were still enrolled and screened in 2018 and we looked at the number of patients that were either in the yellow or red zones for blood pressure in 2014 and we looked at the value for their blood pressure reading in 2018. We had 545 of our patients that were in the yellow or red zone in 2014. And 368 of those patients or 68% improved at least one zone during the observation periods between 2014 and 2018. And what's really impressive about this is, of the patients that were in the red in 2014, 91% changed at least one classification. So, either to yellow or to green.
So, 91% of patients that were identified as having uncontrolled blood pressure at the red level had improvement to at least one zone. Similarly, we look at blood glucose and we do random blood glucose levels. And so, it can be measured throughout the day and it varies. We could get somebody that's fasting or somebody that's non-fasting.
So, for green, we look at the blood glucose that's random of 119 or lower as being in the green. If it's 120 to 199, then we say that's yellow. And if it's above 200, the 200 or above, then that's red zone. And a blood glucose of 200 or higher would indicate a diagnosis of diabetes clinically. And so that would indicate that the patient would need to be referred for further follow up.
So, we did the same analysis between 2014 and 2018 and 225 patients that were in the red or yellow zone or 67% that were in the red or yellow in 2014 had an improvement at least one zone. And again, 96% that were in the red zone had an improvement of at least one zone when we analyze their data in 2018.
Since we're doing random blood glucose levels, we also looked at another analysis where we offered hemoglobin A1C which is a measurement of a three-year period, a three-month period of the average blood glucose during that three-month period which is used to evaluate and assess blood glucose control and we offer that to patients and 740 patients accepted the opportunity to have hemoglobin A1C's measured.
We used the CDC's and the American Diabetes Association's instruments to identify patients that were at high risk of having pre-diabetes. 69 of the 740 patients that that were screened had hemoglobin A1C that was within the prediabetes range and 1% actually were in the diabetic range or the range that indicates diabetes. So, they had undiagnosed and untreated diabetes. And of those that did have prediabetes based on the A1C data this is the demographics. They tended to be older, nonwhite, obese, physically inactive, have higher random blood glucose readings and lower HDL or good cholesterol values and more likely to have high blood pressure. When we look at cholesterol, we do non-fasting cholesterol panels because we do the cholesterol readings throughout the day by appointment.
And so, if someone requests a fasting level, we'll do that first thing in the morning. So that way, the patient can be fasting when they come in, but the total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol is not impacted by food, and therefore, the American Heart Association recommends doing a non-fasting panel looking at total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol to evaluate the patient's risk of having dyslipidemia and the risk of developing atherosclerosis and heart disease.
And so, we look at the ratio of these two numbers and if the total cholesterol HDL is 4.9 or less, then that would be in the green zone. This five to 8.32, that would be in the yellow zone and this is looking at the total cholesterol in comparison to the HDL or good cholesterol and then if it's 8.33 or greater, then that would be in the red zone and so, this is how we're evaluating. If a patient has a red level, then we definitely do consultation and referral to their physician for further follow up and ongoing monitoring.
So, when we compare 2014 to 2018, we had 56% of patients that had either a yellow or red zone in 2014 showed improvement of at least one zone. And when you look at the patients that were in the red zone in 2014, 72% improved at least one zone. So, there was significant improvement in this value as well. The body mass index, we look at patients that... We classify a BMI of 29.9 kilograms per meter squared or less as the green zone, 30 to 34.9 is yellow, which is obesity class one and red zone is 35.0 or greater, which is obesity class two or greater.
And so, when we compare the 2014 and 2018 numbers, we had 16% of patients improve at least one zone and this is what we expected to see with BMI because BMI is very hard to change a risk category. But we did have 17% of patients that were in the red zone mean obesity class two or higher did have an improvement of at least one risk category and move one zone and we had 141 that improved overall from when red or yellow had improvement.
In order to look at this a little bit more closely, we looked at weight loss and of those patients that had the BMI in the red or yellow zone, then we showed that 45% of patients had weight loss. So, they lost some weight and 10% had at least a 10% weight loss from baseline. And the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health recommend a five to 10% weight loss, that if you decrease your weight from baseline by five to 10%, you can see health benefits with decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes with just a five to 10% weight loss. So, this is a very hard surrogate marker of health to really move, but we did see success with our employees and dependents on this marker as well with some significant weight loss.
So, the reason that we're doing all this screening is to try to identify and manage these disease states early and identify undiagnosed or untreated or not optimally treated to goal on blood pressure, cholesterol that could lead (mumbles [to dislopiting]) and heart disease and diabetes.
And so, we're doing that to try to control the expenses, the medical and pharmacy expenditures that we have within our health plan.
So, we looked at the claims data from 2014 compared to 2018 for cholesterol, blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes. And keep in mind, during this time period, we're seeing inflation in medical costs and higher costs across the board. And we had a decrease of $965,000 between these two observation periods. And the one area that we did see an increase in costs between 2014 and 2018 was in diabetes and this was with the one patient that had diabetes with complications that... So, it was kind of an anomaly. One patient had a very high cost that year. The goal for decreasing the health of pharmacy on cost is to maintain an affordable health plan for our employees and make it affordable for the university and our employees and dependents as well.
And so, we're trying to decrease the rate of the amount that we have to pay out of pocket for our employees, and you can see after this was implemented in 2009, it was implemented early in 2010, that we've been relatively successful in maintaining a lower increase and out-of-pocket cost for our employees when compared to previous years.
And then, we had our external consultant, Willis Towers Watson, conduct an analysis of our insurance program and look at total spending per covered employee per year. And this was unadjusted data and they looked at comparison. We have a PPO plan, and so we were able to compare to other PPO plans and also other government and public sector education plans. And we are much lower than the average on our costs per employee per year when compared to other plans that are comparators. And they also looked at this adjusted and adjusted these numbers for age and gender, family size, geography and plan value. And after they did these adjustments, Auburn University still was 20% more efficient than our comparable benchmarks that they use to compare our plan to others. So, the outcomes are very positive. It's not just from Healthy Tigers, but the holistic approach of all the health and wellness activities that we've implemented by Auburn University, that this is the financial implications of the interventions that we have implemented.
So just in summary, when you look at the longitudinal outcomes with patients that are screened in the Healthy Tigers program, we've seen improvement in blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol and BMI that are significant clinically. And when you look economically, there's a significant impact as well. We've been able to develop a very multifaceted health and wellness program that looks at several different interventions to improve the quality and affordability of our health plan.
We've seen reductions in related medical expenditures and when you compare that to industry benchmarks for doing very well and we've been able to control the cost of the out-of-pocket costs for our employees by all of these interventions being applied to our health plan.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here and share information. I hope this is helpful, and if you have any questions, you can email me at lloydkb@auburn.edu and I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Nedret Billor, chair: Thank you, Kimberly.
Thank you.
So, we have actually five Q&A over here. And let me read one or two, maybe all of them.
And the first question from anonymous attendee, "Why not a referral for BMI greater than 35? You cannot typically argue I'm a weightlifter for BMI that high."
- [Kimberly] Okay, that is the reason that we set the BMI of 35 or higher as being the red zone value because we wanted to make sure that we were targeting patients that had an increased risk of health related complications there and so, the referral that happens is a discussion with a clinician concerning interventions that would be helpful and what would be addressed over the next year.
We also do referrals to the TigerFit program for personal consultations and we have a dietician in the AUPCC who sees patients as well. And so, the referral is internal within Auburn University instead of external to a physician, which all the other disease States require consultation with a physician before the discount will be applied. If the patient goes in for a referral and it's only for BMI, they can see their physician. Often, this is not covered under their insurance plan. So, we do the internal consultations with resources on campus as an option for these patients.
Nedret Billor, chair: I hope this answers the question and...So, there is a one more question from anonymous attendee. "How many glucose levels went the wrong way?"
- [Kimberly] We did a year-by-year analysis and I can... If somebody would send me the question, I can send you those slides as well.
Every year, we do have new individuals that are screened and we have new alarm values that are identified and so I don't have those numbers available right now available with me so I can show them to you. But every year that we were looking at this data, if you look at subsequent years then, there is an improvement that you see between 2014 and 2018.
Every year, there is improvement on the similar level for patients that are newly diagnosed and identified as far as the red zone values having improvement anywhere from 72 to 96%.
Nedret Billor, chair: All right, I think, yeah. Thank you. I think if they would like to ask more questions then they can contact you about that. You can provide the numbers.
So there is one, actually, probably comment and a recommendation from Richard Sesek, our Senator, Industrial Engineering, and he says, "I think we should add some mental health wellbeing questions to Healthy Tigers, especially COVID-19. This could be anonymous but could be a good measure of where we are as a campus, at least in terms of positive and negative effect."
1:22:47
- [Kimberly] Very good suggestion, Richard.
Nedret Billor, chair: And also, Richard again asks this question, "How many of BMIs went to wrong direction?"
- [Kimberly] I don't have those numbers immediately available, but--
Nedret Billor, chair: He can contact you and you can provide these numbers to him. Would that be okay, Kimberly?
- [Kimberly] Yes, that would be fine.
Nedret Billor, chair: Thank you.
So, this is the last question from Tracy Witte and she says, "You seem to attribute the cost savings to Healthy Tigers, but aren't there are many other factors that have changed since 2010 that could account for those?”
Also, "How much does it cost to run the Healthy Tigers program and is that cost greater than the supposed savings?”
"And finally, if you'll look at your data across years, the overall proportion of red, yellow and green looks the same, is there statistical evidence of a downward trend over time?"
It's a long comment, it's in the Q&A box and maybe if you can answer this question or maybe she can contact you and you may answer that, but it's up to you.
- [Kimberly] Would be happy to talk to you, Tracy about these questions. Like I said, we have made many different changes in the benefit plan as far as to enhance the quality and access and the focus on health and wellness.
So, there's definitely several contributing factors as you say that could lend to these changes in cost. However, we did have the external consultation that compared costs in other plans compared to ours, not only overall for the per member, per-year expenditures, but looking at costs within certain disease states. And we are doing very well on our grades on those variables. And I can get back... I know that we're running out of time and I can e-mail or have an appointment.
1:25:08
Nedret Billor, chair: I think that one last question from Tony Moss and then I will end of this conversation.
Tony Moss, senator, biological sciences: "Are there any specific changes being proposed for the near term?"
- [Kimberly] Not at this time. We have recently conducted a survey looking at all benefits that was administered by Mercer. And so, we're analyzing the results and the feedback that we've received through that survey. But for the immediate future, I think that with the current situation, we're gonna have to analyze exactly what we need to do and the timeframe for implementing those changes, if there are any.
Nedret Billor, chair: All right. Thank you, Kimberly.
I mean, this is a hot topic and I'm sure this is a nice presentation and very equally good information it contains. So, I would recommend everybody to contact Kimberly if you have questions. This presentation, actually, is being posted on the senate website. It's there. Please email her for further questions. Thank you, Kimberly.
We're running out of time that's why I have to stop this.
All right, thank you. Kimberly, can you stop sharing your screen, please? Thank you.
So, sorry about taking this meeting long. But we haven't had senate meetings for some time.
So we have the last information item. James Weyhenmeyer, Vice President for Research will talk about plans for AU research funding. James and--
1:27:12
James Weyhenmeyer, Vice President for Research: So, Nedret, I can do this quickly or I can defer this to your next meeting, whatever is best for the group. I know that it is five o'clock, so I'm... You tell me what makes sense in terms of--
Nedret Billor, chair: I think it's a good idea to defer this to next Senate meeting and so—
James Weyhenmeyer, VP for Research: we'll make it happen.
Nedret Billor, chair: Yes.
All right, and thank you very much and sorry about this. I mean, we had some glitches and so hopefully, we'll have you next time for Senate.
James Weyhenmeyer: That's perfect.
Nedret Billor, chair: Okay, thank you, again. That concludes our formal agenda for today.
Is there any unfinished business? So, hearing none, is there any new business? Hearing none, I now adjourn the meeting.
Have a wonderful evening.
1:28:22