Conner Bailey, Chair: Let me call the meeting to order. It is 3:00. I would like to welcome you all back from Spring Break. Unfortunately the minutes for the March 8 meeting are not yet available. Our administrative assistant, LaKeeta White, is still on maternity leave, so we have not been able to post those minutes. We do have notes from the March 8 meeting that are available on the Senate Home Page. We do have minutes of the February 8 meeting of the Senate, and I would like to ask for someone to move that they be approved. Jim. Do I here a second? Rik is seconding, okay. Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes? Hearing none, I am going to rule the minutes approved as posted. Dr. Richardson is out of town today, I understand, and is unable to join us, so we have invited Dr. John Heilman to come represent the President’s Office. John.

Dr. John Heilman: Conner, thank you very much. I do not have prepared remarks. I will be glad to try to respond to questions as best I can or make note of them and come back with responses later. Conner and I have talked a little bit about the D ean search and the status thereof. He and I have received a communication from Dean Schneller who is chairing the Liberal Arts search indicating that when a Provost is identified, some names will be sent forward to that office for consideration for invita tion to campus. I believe we are fairly close to having some closure on the Library Dean search. I would expect we could provide some information and we will know where we are on that fairly soon. Other than that, I would welcome your questions.

Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology: Dr. Heilman, you may have already eluded to this, but could you give us an update on the search for an interim Provost? I know that might be uncomfortable for you to do that.

Dr. John Heilman: This will sound as though I am joking, but I am not. From what I read in the papers, Dr. Richardson hopes to have that naming approved by the board of trustees at the April 22 meeting. I gather he is going to make some statemen t. He may make some statement prior to that about how he wishes to proceed. But that literally is what I know.

Cindy Brunner: I had understood from his previous comments to the Senate that he would actually be selecting someone as early as three weeks before that meeting and that person would serve in a provisional status until the board meeting. Do you know if he has changed his mind on that?

Dr. John Heilman: I am going to answer this carefully. I have no knowledge if he has changed his mind on that. He and I have not talked about it, to tell the truth.

Conner Bailey: Thank you, John. I do have a few remarks I want to make, sort of announcements from the Chair. You will notice as the year goes on that we have done some restructuring and will be doing this, this term, restructuring of the Senate and University faculty minutes. In years past, the minutes have taken the form of a transcript which is time consuming to produce and also makes it difficult for those, like myself, upon occasion who want to go back and try to figure out what the Senate actually did and when they did it. So what we are going to be producing are more summarized minutes which reflect the actions taken and very briefly summarize the questions or points made. These will be accompanied by full transcripts, I should quickly no te, so that the discussions, the questions that you all raise, and the answers that are given from the podium are recorded including for posterity because all of these materials go to the University archives. We hope by taking this different approach, pro ducing more summarized minutes of Senate and university faculty meetings that we will be able to get the information out more quickly. We won’t have the kinds of delays we have had in the last couple of months. It will also be easier for people to track w hat the university Senate actually has done. I would like to thank Bill Sauser for his service to the Senate Leadership as Parliamentarian, and I would like to introduce someone who most of you have known for a long time as the new Parliamentarian, Herb R otfeld, who I have asked to serve as Parliamentarian. So, thank you, Herb.

I would like to continue, as Chair, I would like to continue the practice that we have had of inviting anyone who is represented in the University Senate, senators and guests alike, to have an opportunity to address the body and ask questions by using the microphones at the side as Cindy did just now. Also, please introduce yourself, your name and what unit you represent. That is important for the minutes and for the transcripts. On those occasions, and there may be some this year, when there are many people who wish to speak on a matter, I hope we will allow the Senators to go first, these are the elected representatives of the faculty and other constituent groups here. But, I want to make sure we have an opportunity for others to speak and ask questi ons as well. The call for volunteers for University and Senate Committees has gone out. Patricia Duffy sent a reminder out very recently. I believe the call for nominations and self-nominations ends on Thursday. If you have not taken the opportunity yours elves, please do so. Please senators go back to your departments, ask your faculty to look at the available committees and make themselves available, and nominate themselves for this committee, for the various committees. The Rules Committee, which is the committee on committees, is planning on meeting a week from yesterday, in the afternoon when we will start the lengthy process of putting people onto the different committees.

I would like to also report on a number of activities that the senate officers have been involved in, in the last month or so. We all know that Tom Hanley stepped down as Provost at a time that is probably somewhat awkward in a number of different rega rds in the middle of three Dean Searches, and John Heilman mentioned the status of those searches. The P&T appeals process was underway. Dr. Hanley had responsibility for Academic Program Review and it remains to be seen where that process will go. As a result of Tom Hanley stepping down as our Provost, Dr. Willie Larkin and I, Willie then as Chair and myself as then Chair-elect, had a series of meetings with John Heilman and Steve McFarland representing respectively the President’s office and the Pro vost’s office, and much time was spent discussing how do we make sure the Dean searches can move forward. We met with the Chairs of the two Dean searches for liberal arts and education. We discussed matters on how we should fill the position of Provost an d the selection process for that, how we should deal with the ongoing P&T appeal process, how do we maintain the momentum of the Dean searches and the like?

The process for selecting the Provost, we saw unfold in the adjoining room a couple of weeks ago when the three candidates which Dr. Richardson selected from the pool of ten applicants presented their statements and offered answers to questions from th e floor two weeks ago. I am hoping that Dr. Richardson will move forward soon to announce who will be the next Provost. I am hoping he will not do that before next Thursday because the senate officers have asked to meet with Dr. Richardson and were told t hat he would not be making the appointment before that time. The senate officers will be speaking with Dr. Richardson about the Provost position and the feedback that we as senate officers have received. Many of you have given us feedback, not all. We are still open to feedback from our faculty, colleagues, and we are going to be meeting tomorrow with the Senate Steering Committee to discuss what recommendation we might be giving to Dr. Richardson.

The Senate chairs chairs the Steering Committee, many of you know about this committee; it sets the agenda for Senate meetings. We meet twice a month. The Executive Committee and other members who are on there; four other faculty members plus the Provo st, we meet tomorrow, typically the day after the Senate meets, then two weeks after that. That is when we set the agenda. Those of you who are interested in introducing subjects to come before the Senate, you need to be aware of that calendar, that timel ine. Roughly two weeks before the Senate meets is when we would need to know if you have something that you wish to bring before the University Senate. The Steering Committee recently considered the statement on Academic Integrity in athletics and voted t o support this particular statement. The Steering Committee has minutes and agendas, which we will have posted on our committee web site. There is a waiting for LaKeeta White to get back so we can get some of this material posted. The Senate Steering Comm ittee, as the group that represents the Senate when the Senate is not in session is a key body and I urge you to keep track of what we are doing; look over our shoulders, pay attention to what we are doing and give us feedback please. The other committees also should be able to post – we have on a new Senate web page, places where senate committees can post their agendas, minutes, and reports. I will be working with committee chairs to make sure that this happens as well.

As Senate Chair, any person who served in this role will know that there are many opportunities to attend meetings. I have thought of actually maintaining a log, but that would be pretty boring, so I just decided quickly not to do that. I do want to ma ke note of a few meetings that I have been involved in and Rich Penaskovic has accompanied me and Patricia Duffy and others and other officers sometimes have as well. Rich and I attended, for example, the administrative and professional assembly meeting l ast month. We intend to continue meeting with this group as well as with the Staff Council. Rich attended a function that the Staff Council put on last Friday. We want to work closely with these two related groups, the Administrative and Professional Asse mbly and Staff Council. Further to that end, we had a lunch working meeting to talk about common interests and one of these is on the agenda today. I think that it is important that we form closer relationships with these groups as well as with the studen ts who are represented by the University Senate as well. John Tatum is the newly elected representative for the Student Government Association and Mike Leslie is the President of the Graduate Student Council. Senate Chairs and Chair-elects as well are – t he Senate Chairs are members of the Budget Advisory Committee…money matters – budget matters. Universities are known by where they put their money, all rhetoric and verbiage aside…where people put money is a matter of great, great importance to us. I also met with Wayne Brewer who is Chair of our Faculty Salaries Committee.

The Chair of the Faculty Salaries Advisory Committee is also on the Budget Advisory Committee. There is an issue here which I raise just for your information and to know that we are going to try to address this, is a longstanding Senate from 1998, I be lieve, resolution that states as the Senate’s position that when salary increases are available, half of that money should go on an across-the-board basis and half the money should be on the merit basis. My understanding is that the university deans have a position that all of the money for the faculty raises, as distinct from A&P and staff, should be granted on the basis of merit and merit alone. This is a matter I think that deserves some discussion, so I have been encouraging the deans that I have spoken with to meet with the Senate leadership and possibly with the Faculty Salaries Committee to talk about this particular issue. Maybe this is a topic that needs to be readdressed by the University Senate. In any event, we have a policy statement from the Senate that has not been followed for a number of years and I think we need to address this question.

The Senate recently has addressed an electronic privacy policy. We have passed this recommendation up to the Administration. It has been reviewed. The General Council for the university has a few suggestions for changes. They are significant enough tha t I have asked the Academic Computing Committee to examine these and come forward to the Senate leadership for their recommendation. This is a topic that we may address again, as a Senate as a whole. Similarly, we may be once again addressing the question of the Intimate Relations Policy that this Senate passed some time ago. It was reviewed by Staff Council and by Administrative and Professional Assembly. They had some recommendations for changes. Rather than having three policies representing three diff erent units on campus, maybe it makes sense for us to have a single policy. The changes that are being recommended on both of these Electronic Privacy and Intimate Relations Policy are significant but they are not so dramatic that they represent an overtu rn of what we were trying to accomplish, but I think they are sufficiently significant that this Body needs to look at them again.

One final point I would make is that Dr. Larkin and I initially had recommended or requested that the Faculty Handbook Committee examine questions relating to Consulting Policy. The initial intent of this was not to open up the whole Consulting Policy to reevaluation as seemed to be the impression that was given, but rather to look at whether or not the existing Consulting Policy was in fact available to all faculties. There was some indication that people who hold positions in Outreach and Extension, for example, and maybe in other parts of campus, have not had the same access to consulting opportunities as faculty in my College of Agriculture or in Business or in Engineering. I have asked Rik Blumenthal who heads the Faculty Welfare Committee to look at this. Dr. Larkin and I talked and we concluded with Dwayne Cox who Chairs Handbook that the Handbook Committee probably was not the right place for this question to be addressed. We are going to address this. I have asked Rik Blumenthal and his commit tee to address the question of Consulting Policy. We have on the agenda three action items, but before we move on to those, let me ask if there are any questions at this time.

Cindy Brunner: Conner, I probably should have addressed this question to Dr. Heilman, but I will ask you since you are at the podium. In response to the universities SACS self-study document, the University Administration created a Planning and Priorities Committee or something akin to that. Provost Hanley Chaired that committee and many of the recommendations contained in the university self-study document were referred to that Planning and Priorities Committee for review and in many cases impl ementation. I am assuming that the review, the sight visit that SACS conducted here in February of last year, the favorable comments that we received were based in part on our institutional response to our own self-study recommendations. What I am wonderi ng is what has happened to that Planning and Priorities Committee now that Dr. Hanley is presumably no longer Chair of that group and what has happened to all of those various recommendations and changes in progress? Do you have any idea?

Conner Bailey: I do not, but I should also say one of the things that the Senate Leadership customarily does is meets with the Provost, whoever is in the office of the Provost, twice a month. That is certainly one item that we will bring up when ever we have a Provost selected, but I do not know the answer to that. Dr. Heilman, do you know the answer to that? (Inaudible) Please, just so we can make sure that we can capture every gem.

Dr. Heilman: You are too kind. My understanding of that Priorities and Planning process, and I accept your interpretation of how it came to be. That is new information to me, but I am not questioning it. I believe that group produced a set of re commendations or goals, but I think that the status of those now is, I would say, is an advance. I am sure that document will be available to the Strategic Planning Process that Dr. Richardson seeks is establishing for the university. The work on which I believe is planned to take place during the remainder of this calendar year with hopefully some conclusion before the end of the year. Maybe a short answer is that I believe that where that work will show up is in the context of the Strategic Planning Pro cess.

Cindy Brunner: I assume that we will be hearing more about the Strategic Planning Process as time goes by.

Dr. Heilman: Yes, absolutely.

Jim Gravois, Library: Dr. Heilman, I just have to say I am sorry, I should have asked this before, but I can’t go back to the Library without saying what does fairly soon mean, as far as closing the Dean search? This is the second search in the last couple of years by the way.

Dr. Heilman: I understand that and I appreciate both your question and the point that you just made. I would think that we will be in a position to provide specific information to the Library and to the General Faculty either by the end of this week or early next week.

Rik Blumenthal, Chemistry and Biochemistry: Just basically a statement. We are having a meeting of the Faculty Welfare Committee to discuss the issue of the availability of professional consulting to members of Extension, and I just wanted to sa y if anybody has any relevant or irrelevant comments or would like to contribute or would like to attend that meeting, that meeting will be next Tuesday at 3:30 - I believe we have 386A Spidle reserved, but E-mail me, and I will be sure about which room w e are in. We welcome anybody to show up who is interested and wants to contribute to the beginning of the discussion of this issue.

Conner Bailey: Thank you Rik. It is clear from email traffic that I received, Willie received, and Dr. Larkin received, and Dwayne Cox received that there is actually a great deal of interest in the question of Consulting Policy. Rich…

Richard Penaskovic, Chair-elect and also representing the Philosophy Department: Can you or Dr. Heilman give us an update on the Presidential Search? I know Dr. Richardson has six priorities and in regard to these six priorities, he has a certai n definite timelines for beginning and ending them, but the Presidential Search seems to be waffling or not even getting started. Could you give us any information about this?

Conner Bailey: I do not have any information other than this: The Senate Executive Committee is meeting with Dr. Richardson to talk about the Provost but possibly during that meeting, the question will come up. I have asked about ten days ago or so, I asked Grant Davis, Secretary to the Board of Trustees to set up an appointment for you Rich, and myself to meet with Mr. McWhorter, President Pro Tem of the Board, to talk about matters of mutual interest. This would be one of those matters. I have not yet heard back from Mr. McWhorter or Mr. Davis. Are there other questions?

Anthony Moss, Biological Sciences: I guess another question directed to Dr. Heilman. Is he here? Oh…in the back. Just wondering what the, I guess, the status is and the current thinking is behind the reorganization plans for Agricultural Collage and the possibility of pulling Biological Sciences into it, or is that too specific of a question for this venue?

Dr. Heilman: It is not too specific. I can give you an answer, which is straight forward and which will not be satisfactory. I don’t know. I’m involved mostly in certain of the initiatives, but in that one, I have had absolutely no involvement. I simply don’t know.

Anthony Moss: Thank you.

Dr. Heilman: Yes sir.

Conner Bailey: If there are no other questions, I am going to invite Kathryn Flynn, our Secretary-elect, to come forward. When we, in our wisdom, elected Kathryn as our Secretary-elect, we created a small burden for us. She was serving on the Se nate Rules Committee, which means that at this meeting, we need to replace her. So, Kathryn is going to run the nominations from the floor please.

Kathryn Flynn, Secretary-elect: Thank you, Conner. Okay, as Conner mentioned, this position would be on the Rules Committee. It is a replacement or a filling of an unexpired term, so it would be for one year starting mid-March and running throug h until next year. So it is a one-year term. So, I am opening the floor to nominations.

Kathrynn Flynn: Could you go to the…that was Sadik Tuzun volunteering if there are no other nominations. Anybody else interested in throwing their name in the hat? It is a committee that takes some time, but it is very rewarding, and it is a good w ay to meet a lot of people on campus.

Conner Bailey: I would entertain a motion to close nominations. [Inaudible] Do I hear a second?

Anthony Moss: Second.

Kathrynn Flynn: Well, okay. With that, I guess there is really not any need for the little ballots. Okay then Sadik Tuzun, welcome to the Rules Committee. Thank you very much. The next item on the agenda is a resolution to change the wording in the Faculty Handbook related to the Rules Committee. It deals with resolution language. I will go ahead and read this.

Whereas, the current term of Rules Committee members begins in mid-March, a time based on the old quarter system calendar, and

(my bifocals do not like this, I will have to move this over)

Whereas, there is a need for greater continuity of Rules Committee membership during spring semester, when appointments to Senate committees and nominations for University committees are made,

Therefore, be it resolved that Article 4, Section 5, of the University Senate Constitution be revised to change the starting date for newly elected members of the Rules Committee from immediately following the March election until August.

The relevant handbook section follows, with changes in boldface.

Would you like me to read that as well? No – good. This basically is a continuation, I think, of some changes that needed to be made in the Handbook to catch up with the quarter to semester transition. This came from the Steering Committee.

Conner Bailey: So it does not require a second. Is there any discussion?

Cindy Brunner: I’m really sorry. Next time I will either sit close to the microphone or shut up. I think I have two questions about this motion or this resolution. One is that, this is trivial, I don’t really think this proposed change is something necessitated by the switch to the semester calendar. If it was then we probably would have been appointing or electing Rules Committee members whose terms would start is September rather than in August – if what we are trying to do is have the term date begin and end at the beginning of the fall calendar year. In the past, I think, were they not appointed and took office immediately as soon as their appointments, as soon as their election was confirmed? So, Rules Committee members actually bega n their terms immediately upon election in March or April.

Kathryn Flynn: Yes, that is correct.

Cindy Brunner: Right. Okay, just so we are really changing something more than just adjusting the semester calendar. The other concern that I have is, and again this might not be critical, but it has been tradition that we consider eligible for election to Rules Committee membership, anybody who is a senator at the time of their election. What we are doing now is creating a possibility that we would be electing someone who upon beginning their term on the Rules Committee would no longer be a sen ator. Is that our intent? We would be electing people at the current date, they would take office in August, but that is when our senators leave and start office. So, theoretically we could have people starting their term on the Rules Committee just as th ey leave the Senate. Is that our intent?

Kathryn Flynn: I am going to have to defer to Conner because I was not at the Senate Meeting the day after the election so I do not know what the discussion involved.

Cindy Brunner: I think the wording says that you must be a senator when you are elected.

Conner Bailey: I think that is correct. And, I think your observation is correct also. I would note that someone who is elected in March, if they started service in March, continues on for a period of time which may well and often does in fact c ontinue beyond a period of time when the elected person is actually a senator.

Cindy Brunner: Certainly, but at least one major period of service, that first period of service, would be while they were still on the Senate. That initial year of service when our time is so busy in April, May, and June, they would still be on the Senate.

Conner Bailey: But they serve for multiple years.

Cindy Brunner: Certainly, right.

Conner Bailey: I think the, your point is well taken. I don’t know that it is necessarily a problem. The reason I believe that we are having a requirement that the person be a Senator is that we want someone who does in fact have familiarity wit h this Body. And if someone has finished a term, a three-year term, or is finishing a three-year term and wishes still to serve this Body, personally I do not have a problem with that.

Bob Locy, Steering Committee: I guess as someone who has served on the Rules Committee in the past, I think that the proposed changes would dramatically make the process of the Rules Committee work a lot smoother in spite of or whether this issu e of whether you are a sitting senator during your first period of significant activity is the case or not. The reason I am saying that is that there is very little work that the Rules Committee does after August until the following spring when the new no minations come in. I think based on my personal experience on the Rules Committee, one of the things that happened to me, for example, was like the Muse firing took place within days of when I started on the Rules Committee and, there was just a huge furo r of activity…the day I started, which was the day after I was elected, there were forty emails that morning about that, and I had no chance to sort of get up to speed and understand what was going on and how to participate in that fury of emails. So, by moving the starting date to the fall, it gives the people that are elected a chance to get up to speed and to accept their responsibilities before they start. I think it would be an extremely valuable thing to do. If there is other wording changes that ne ed made to address this issue of whether they are currently a sitting senator when they serve the following spring during their major activity, I guess that may need to be looked at. But I think the whole idea of having a period between election and betwe en assuming duties is a really critical thing to take place. I think this is a welcome and important change to the Faculty Handbook to make it accommodate this. I would argue contrary to what Dr. Brunner said, that this problem arose during the process of semester transition, because being elected in March meant that you were being elected sort of in the middle of spring quarter and it gave you an opportunity before that spring quarter was over to get into your activities before the big burden of activity hits you; whereas once we went to the quarter system, I think that scheduling got completely readjusted. And the time frame got moved up for when nominations were and commitments from the faculty were taking place, which dramatically altered the processe s of the Rules Committee. So I think it is really semester related too.

Conner Bailey: Are there any other comments or questions? Are we ready to move to a vote then? All those in favor of the proposed resolution please signify by saying Aye – Aye; opposed by like sign. Resolution passes.

I would like now to invite Harriet Huggins who is Chair of the Administrative and Professional Assembly to come forward with another action item.

Harriet Huggins, Chair of the Administrative and Professional Assembly: I will read the resolution:

Whereas both faculty and staff are represented on the Senate Administrator Evaluation Committee and

Whereas there are a number of administrative and professional employees who report directly to administrators.

Therefore be it resolved that the membership of the Administrator Evaluation Committee be expanded to include a representative from the Administrative and Professional Employee group.

I move adoption.

Conner Bailey: This came from Steering Committee as well. Is there any discussion, please? Are there any questions on this resolution? Are you ready to move forward on a vote? All those in favor of this resolution please signify by saying Aye – Aye; opposed by like sign. Hearing none, this resolution passes, thank you.

Herb Rotfeld, Parliamentarian: It is now my pleasure to invite Mr. Virgil Starks who is Senior Associate Athletic Director for the athletic department in charge of Student Services to come to the Senate and address us on question of athletics an d academics at Auburn University. Mr. Starks.

Virgil Starks: Good afternoon. First of all, I would say thank you for the opportunity to come speak with this Body. I think there is always an understanding that the mission of Auburn University is to educate students. I just so happen to work with a population that is specific, identifiable, and very visible and that is the student athletes. I also understand that the idea of academics and athletics together sometimes seems to be at odds. But if everyone understands the fact that athletics is an extension of the classroom and not a replacement of, that is where I hope that you and I can talk and start our presentation.

What I am going to present to you today is the Student Athlete Support Services, which is the arm of the Athletic Department which is supposed to support student athletes in their academic endeavors. Our mission statement is pretty straight forward. Th e purpose of SASS is to empower student athletes to become effective learners, to assist in the developments and skills that will enhance their academic success, their social development, and their cultural appreciation. At Auburn University, I think that I need to give a little historical perspective, mainly because I am going to let you know that things that happened before 1998, Virgil Starks was not very much a privy to. I can’t apologize for what happened in 1998, but I can take accountability and re sponsibility for everything that we did since that time. The reason why I say that is because I think there was a change in philosophy by the Central Administration at this institution about how we go about supporting our student athletes. When I came thr ough the interview process, I don’t know if I was the person that they wanted, but this is the person that they got. I say that for two reasons. I say that because all my ability as administrator has been on the academic side of the institution. I have ne ver worked directly for an athletic department. So, the change in philosophy at the time including Dr. Muse and David Houser [inaudible] academic understanding and tried to integrate our athletic endeavors into that academic mission. I had three goals, an d I was given three goals by the Central Administration at that time.

The first goal was very simple. It was to improve the relationship with the standing academic students, up the hill, so to speak. Take athletics and integrate them as much as possible into the academic venture.

The second goal was a little bit more detailed and a little bit harder to achieve. It was to increase the academic performance of said student athletes.

Then the last is very simple and probably the easiest thing for Virgil Starks and my staff to do, which is to care for and respect the student athlete. I want to say to care for means two things. First of all is to hold them accountable and make them g ood Auburn students. That is the care that we talk about. The other side of that is to respect why they are here. We have watched some athletes come to Auburn University with the goal of graduation and we welcome and embrace them. But we do have a populat ion of student athletes who come here who say "Mr. Starks, in three and a half years, I won’t be at Auburn. I hope to be in the NFL." What I say then is this, we will get you so close to graduation that when you leave to go to the NFL, it will be very eas y for you to come back and graduate. To sit here and tell you that 100% of my student athletes want to graduate from Auburn would not be truthful. But 99.9% of them understand education and respect it. And that is the appearance of how our athlete support goes. I feel very good about that fact and I also feel very good about the fact that we have those three goals that are very identifiable and we have been achieving them.

I think it is very appropriate that everyone knows that Virgil Starks does not do anything by himself, that I believe in collaboration, I believe in [inaudible], and I believe in hiring professionals who have the three Cs. The first "C" is competency, and many of our staff members come to us with a wide variety of backgrounds. This is Ms. Cathy Ogletree, who is our Administrative Assistant who has background here on our campus of working with international students as well as with athletics. We have Mr . Stephen Byrd who works with these appropriate classes but also liaisons with student affairs and our career developments piece. Stephen is also a Master of Psychology, who just got his degree a couple of years ago. But he also interned in the College of Human Science. Ms. Cathie Helmbold who will restart her PhD program. She took a year off and went to Georgia Tech. and came back. Believe it or not Georgia Tech. does not do some things as good as we do. So we are very glad of the fact that she came back . But more importantly, she is also an example of the type of professional that we want to have involved with our student athletes.

Over the last four years, as we have transformed our staff, we have changed the philosophy of those types of professionals. In our previous role, we had lots of individuals who did not have academic backgrounds or counseling backgrounds working with ou r student athletes. Currently on our staff, we have four individuals who are certified counselors, who came and graduates from the CCP programs and programs of the like. We also have two people with social work backgrounds and we have another individual, who is kind of unique, who came to us from Political Science, and that is myself. I think the politics side of it is what I enjoyed working with the athletes because it is a political battle. If you understand the mentality that they have to come from hig h school where they were the star and come to Auburn University in an environment where we have numerous stars, and they are not all athletic stars. They have to make that adjustment. So, politically, we have to work with the coaches and the student athle tes to get that point across. But what I really want to illustrate with Cathie Helmbold, is to really talk about the type of professionals who we have working with our student athletes. Ms. Donna Kennedy is another example. Ms. Kennedy has taught in the S ociology Department here. She also worked in the College of Liberal Arts for three and a half years before we hired her in the Athletic Department.

The one thing that you have to understand is that we are going to find competent, caring, and committed people – any time that we can take someone who has an understanding of Auburn University, with collegiate experience and to the college experience; we are going to make sure that we have that type of expertise in our staff. Ms. Janice Robinson has been on our staff for ten years. Previously she worked in the Provost office at Tuskegee University. So, once again we can see the transformation of not br inging professionals who work in athletics, but actually bringing administrative people steeped in the collegiate experience. She also is the coordinator of our CHAMPS/Life Skills Program. And this year, we were named a program of excellence, which means that the Division One Athletic Directors, viewed our program, reviewed our program, is similar to any accreditation reviewed at your department would go through. We went through that accreditation. We had a number of faculties on that accrediting and that evaluation team and submitted our evaluation to the [inaudible] Athletic Directors and we were chosen a Program of Excellence. The significance of that program is this: There are only 36 universities in the country who received the Program of Excellence Award and we are one of those 36 schools. I am very proud of the fact that people outside [inaudible] by outside agencies have found that Auburn University is very aggressive and very efficient and effective in our programming for our student athletes. De nnis Robinson has had a huge part in that. Mr. Troy Smith is our lead counselor for football but also our coordinator and liaison for Community Service, which is also another part of our CHAMPS/Life Skills Program. I feel very confident of the fact that o nce you start reading about out student athletes as of late, you can see that we are very involved in the community; to whom much have given much have required. Those who are in the spotlight must respond in many different ways. Troy has really been able to integrate our services, and not only to the school but also the community and surrounding areas of the state. Mr. Brett Wohlers is our newest employee who came to us from Nebraska. He looks like a big Nebraska guy, doesn’t he? He did play football but he comes to us from an Admissions background. He worked for three and a half years in admissions. Part of the Admission Statement is trying to find qualified students to come to Auburn University who have the predictability of success. Brett and I have be en working very hard in trying to find those key elements and those three characteristics that can make students successful here. I look forward to working more with Brett in that area. Mr. Rick Enkeboll is our Tutor Coordinator. He recruits, trains, and assigns our tutors to the student athletes.

One of the biggest fears that we have in athletics is academic dishonesty. I say that because if you read any of the research that has been going on for the past two to four years about the college going population who are strictly coming out of high s chool. We are using a little bit of our moral compass in the class room. Do you ever see kids E-texting people to get answers to the tests with telephones or writing it on pencils and doing all sorts of things now, and that is a big fear of ours. One of t he things that we did is that we embraced that fear. About three years ago, we went on a very aggressive campaign to hire better qualified people to train our tutors better and to monitor our tutors, with a much sharper, finer focus. Rick has been able to help us do that. What has really helped us do that is that we have really changed the way we train our tutors and recruit our tutors. For instance, in 1998 when I came here, we had 80 tutors on staff. Sixty-two of them were undergraduates.

Now it is very easy to say that you have very qualified students that could be good [inaudible], but it is very hard tutor Carnell Williams when you are enamored to Carnell Williams. It is very hard to tutor a 300 pounds of somewhat intimidating presen ce when you are a sophomore biology major. I say that not because biology majors are not tough and hard and focused. I say that because that is a reality and we knew that was a reality. So what we did was we got aggressive. We started recruiting graduate students. And currently we have 97 tutors on staff; 68% of them are graduate students – the reason why I say that is because you understand the commitment now of the Athletic Department to pay for graduate students as tutors as opposed to undergraduate st udents. But more importantly, you see that we know that professional students have a love of discipline and understand the learning process. To have someone with that maturity and that respect for the discipline interacting with our students is much more effective and efficient. We also don’t have to worry about some of the other things that you are used to. We have great concern about the transportation to and after; because that leads to the next step, which is compromising to academic environment. We w ork very hard to make sure that we get a wide variety of tutors with a love for discipline and also an understanding of what it takes to be successful.

These two ladies here, some of you might know them historically, I call them the backbone of what we do. John Fletcher could attest to this. This is a combination of over 60 years of experience at Auburn. These ladies work with us. They come to us from the registrar’s office. But they really are in charge of working with John Fletcher, Enrollment Management Staff, along with the managing staff in monitoring eligibility and progress towards degrees, and a lot of other liaison responsibilities to the NCA A. These ladies have a great understanding of what we do, but they have an awesome understanding of how Auburn works. Once again, this is an example of where we were able to find professionals who have skills and understanding in integrating them into our mission and making sure that we are doing things that are very standardized across campus. Ms. Kirsten Perkins is our Learning Specialist. This position was added two years ago with regards to some of the liberalization of regulations by the NCAA. The id eals included started in the early 90s has coming full fruition. We now have students who can graduate with, what we would consider, not college preparatory courses because some of those courses are developmental in nature; they are remedial in nature and they are for kids with learning disabilities. Our idea is that once the ECA says that they are eligible, we have to work with what ECA brings to our table. We work very closely with our program for Students with Disabilities Office to create a person in a condition that can answer those needs in a way that integrates that mission, not only in the Athletic Department but in PSE office, due to academic needs. Kirsten comes to us from high school ranks, she taught there for four years before she assumed a r ole here on our campus. I think that as you find out how we work with our student athletes particularly those with disabilities that we do it in a way now that is being totally successful.

Over the last three years, we have had at least three student athletes, a minimum of three student athletes who had a learning disability who graduated from Auburn. The good thing about that is this: They have found a support mechanism that is legitima te, who have dedicated themselves to the academic rigors that have overcome the weakest [inaudible]. Some one would say that that type of student should not be at Auburn. I would say that Auburn has done right for that type of student and that is the posi tive side. Kirsten person will continue to develop these programs will continue to be better for them.

I think it would be remiss of me if I did not talk a little about our academic performance, and I would like to use the most recent because that gives us a better look at where we are going. The fall semester information that I want to share with you t alks a little bit about our statistical analogy for fall semester of 2004. The average team GPA is 2.855. That was just for the semester. Fall, for us, is usually a little bit higher than spring, mainly because we do not have as many [inaudible] in the fa ll as we do in the spring. The average accumulative GPA is just a little bit below that, and the individual student GPA is 2.72, which is down a little bit from last spring and last fall, and I can talk with you a little bit about that in a minute. The av erage individual student athlete; the reason why it fluctuates is that when we use one calculation we take the weight out of it; we weigh the calculation – so that is why those numbers don’t match up. Some of the other highlights: 193 athletes had a 3.0 o r higher for the semester GPA last fall, roughly 40% of our student athletes. The team with the highest GPA was volleyball for the semester in accumulative and percentage of students with 3.0 or better. Now the reason why I chose volleyball and not swimmi ng or not football, and I’m going to talk about football here in a minute. To talk about this is because this also demonstrates that I believe in what the Athletic Department is all about. Over the last month, six months, four months, I don’t know how lon g the controversy has been, but there has been a lot of talk about diversity. The reason why I chose this team is that I think this represents the Auburn of future. On this team we have African-American students, we have students from international areas, we have students from the state of Alabama and you have students from California and Oregon, and the state of Alaska. You also know that this is a female sport, and we will continue to see the rise in the number of female participants because of title 9 and hopefully the way that we go about recruiting those students. This is also a situation where we have a new coach and the transition of that coach from a school like [inaudible] to Auburn University represents a buy into what we do. The good thing abou t this is that you have to realize last year they won two matches…they won two matches. Nine of the young ladies who returned that year had a 3.0 or higher GPA. So this year they won more than two matches. Because you do not win championships with freshma n and sophomores – you win them with juniors and seniors. If you don’t transition a program without having a commitment to the student athlete and this coach had a particular commitment to these young ladies, and these young ladies had a commitment to Aub urn and to that coach and they stayed around. I only mentioned this because I want to make a prediction. Three years from now we will talk about SEC championships with this particular coach. The reason why I say that is the young ladies involved in the pr ogram have a sense of urgency not only in athletics but in the classroom. They have a sense of commitment not only to the bettering of themselves but to the bettering of our program, which is also a representative of our university. And they have a coach who is steeped in the academic mission. What I mean by that is she holds her team accountable. She holds herself accountable. Most of all, she holds Virgil Starks accountable for providing the [inaudible] and that is a good thing. We have a number of coac hes and a number of programs that will continue to do this. Soccer for instance, is another up and rising program, and I say that because this year’s sign-ee class, out of the 12 young ladies that they have on the sign-ee list, every one of them have a 3. 3 or higher and their ACT scores are much closer to the Auburn average. It also means that they also have brought a higher level athlete, which means that these young ladies who not only proved the preliminary athletically, they will be around as juniors and seniors because they will have the academic ability. That is a lot of what we are doing and a lot of what the coaches are buying into.

I always like to talk about football; continuing with the highest number of [inaudible] is football, 20% of their population. I say that also because this year we had, actually the last two years we have had tremendous success. I want to say something; I am not a Tommy Tuberville fan so to speak. I do not get out and wave the banner of Tommy Tuberville, so to speak, but I think I should tell this group this…of all the coaches I have worked with, the football program gives us the most access to their st udent athletes. What has happened over the last six years is that we have transitioned from a philosophy of eligibility to a philosophy of graduation. Last year we had eight individuals who have graduated before they started the season. Last year we had n ine. This year we are going to have at least three individuals who will graduate from Auburn University in three years. See the philosophy has changed from eligibility to graduation. I think a lot of that, a lot of credit comes to this group because you h eld our feet to the fire.

Athletics would not change without the pressure of academic leaders allowing us to find our paths, so to speak. And I want to commend those individuals who are very supportive of athletics but also those critics of athletics that allowed us to improve and find ways to be more successful. Now one of the goals was to improve the relationship up the hill. When I came here in September of 1998, I would say that it was very hard to get an audience with some individuals. I mean a true audience where we could sit down as colleagues and talk. I have talked to a lot of individuals who found that was so – like I said before, before Virgil Starks got here, I don’t know. They said athletics used to walk around here with a big stick…well people, we have no sticks. What we have here now is an understanding that student athletes are here to be a part of our campus, to be part of the fabric of what we call Auburn University. One way to do that is to really create collaborations with units across campus. We have much c ollaboration with Student Affairs; Dr. Wes Williams was here earlier and Dr. John Fletcher is here now and they can attest that we have really worked with a number of agencies. For instance, we had an extended Camp War Eagle. Before we did not have a huge participation in Camp War Eagle, but we have put out a goal of 100% participation and we have come close to that. We have always been in the 96, 98, 97 area. We have a lot of international kids who can’t get here right before school and that causes some problems. We also bought into the idea of America’s promise. Dr. McDaniel came in and said, hey, we want athletics to be a part of this. We started a program, and some of you know about the NYSP program, which is an extension of our athletic department’s into those unrepresented areas of opportunity. We do many of our collaborations with Safe Harbor through our CHAMPS/Life Skills Program, programs for students with disabilities. We work very closely with Dr. Kelly Haines and her operation to make sure we have collaboration and support. The office of International Education; we sponsor an international student’s reception that is open to all international students at the beginning of every term. The reason why we do that is because we understand that this is a global experience and many of our student athletes come from outside the U.S. When I say many, you have got to realize that we have folks, from 10 to 12%, who are student athletes and are international. It is really important that we understand that their culture needs to be embraced at some level on this campus. We can’t recreate them, but there are many agencies on campus that can. That is why we do collaboration with entities like Office of International [inaudible]. Some of the units that we work with academically, the College of Liberal Arts; I see Dr. (inaudible), former Associate Dean [inaudible], excuse me, I just gave you a promotion…but we work very closely with the Dean’s Office and in particular academic units. The English Writing Center, Dr. Isabelle Thompson is here. One of the very first collaborations that we had was through Dr. Dennis Regal and has been supportive since that time.

In the College of Business, we have developed several courses and working in collaboration with the Dean’s Office in the College of Business. In the College of Education, we are a site, a practicing site for counseling and counseling psychology interns . We also worked with the Foundation of Leadership and Technology of the practicum site. We have a number of career courses that come out of the counseling and counseling psychology area. We are one of the first university units to buy into the service le arning. As a matter of fact, we have developed a course called "Athletes In Society" that has taught through the College of Eduction, and our student athletes are now integrated to their educational experience into the [inaudible] component at a number of agencies. We now support the Biggio Center for teaching and learning, for our supplemental instruction of training, evaluation, and training of our GTAs. We also have been invited this year to be a part of the GTA training that is going to be put on by t he Biggio to talk about student athlete populations. I look forward to that. I think that it would help us truly, for those graduate students who might be working with this type of population for the first time, and let them know about some of the charact eristics and activities and behaviors of our population. We have worked very closely with Jim Groccia to make that happen. We are also very involved with some of the committees, the (inaudible) caucus. We also had a representative n Academic Affairs and s ome assistant Associate Deans Committee. We also worked with minority recruitment directly because a large number of our student athletes are people of color. And then we also are one of the founding units of the World Hunger Committee of 19. Ms. Janice R obertson and one of our student athletes sit on that committee as well. We also have supplemental structure in these areas, history, biology, accounting, economics, physical geology, historical geology, math, business, sociology, and English. The reason w hy we say - I talk about supplemental instruction is because it is probably one of the backbones of the things that I hope we continue to do and to do better. Supplemental instruction is a fantastic concept because once again you put the academic mission first and you let the professionals involved with educating individuals do the academic support. There is one thing that I know, I do not know every discipline very well, but what I do know is how to help students learn. The best way to help students lear n is to put them in the proximity with professionals who have the knowledge and the understanding of that discipline. That is what we try to do with supplemental instruction.

We are going to talk a little bit about the financial cost of some of this here in a second. In the 2004 and 2005 budget year, we transferred roughly 15 thousand dollars for the English Center tutors. Supplemental instruction is 85 thousand dollars wor th of graduate assistanceships that we give to the Biggio Center; who then gives those asistanceships to academic units. We have counselor assistants all of which of the counselor assistants nine are graduate students. We pay them in an essence of 53 thou sand dollars. We pay our tutor coordinator, who is also on assistanceship from the College of Education roughly 17 thousand dollars. Plus we also have internships, Life Skills interns. The program that we had was developmental studies is probably going to be back on track this summer through some initiative that we have. You might have heard that the NCA now allows for us to pay for the summer for our student athletes who are at risk. Part of that will necessitate having individual to meet those students where they are. We will be reintroducing this program through Dr. Andy Weaver who has been working with Dr. (inaudible) to identify individuals to help with specific areas of reading and writing to overcome some of the lack of success we have had in Engli sh. We are going to work towards that.

I would now like to open the floor to questions.

Richard Penaskovic: Virgil, I found your presentation very enlightening. I have an observation to make and maybe you can comment on it. I teach about 200 students a year. About 20 to 25 of these students are student athletes, and I notice more a nd more of my students, both student athletes and students in general, have learning disabilities. Do you notice the same thing? I am also wondering about other people who teach student athletes, do they have . . . there seems to be high percentage of lea rning disabilities. Is it because we identify them more easily today or what is the story on this?

Virgil Starks: First is, there has been a level of involvement by parents early in the process to try to find ways why their students aren’t being successful. They take them to an instructor or a physician the physicians will say…you know what? He might have attention deficit. [Inaudible] a learning disability. So yes, it has been increased, based on the number of [inaudible] in that area. The second part of this includes [inaudible] and I talk about it [inaudible] who took courses through an IE P or [inaudible] could not qualify to be eligible [inaudible]. Well, in 1998, through a series of court cases, mainly challenging the ACT scores and other things. They won that court case [inaudible]. Now those courses are available for certification. We now have more students [inaudible] disability, [inaudible]. I also think the last thing is this: Most of us will encourage every student to participate, and they are willing to come to an institution like Auburn because of the depth of professionalism tha t we have involved with working with that population. Our Culture Center [inaudible] and look at some of the support [inaudible], they see that we can take a large environment [inaudible] and really make it small and work with a [inaudible]. She controls that process, [inaudible] Yes, you’ll probably see a few more of those and I think you’ll also probably see some students with a little more severe problems, because they are identifying this early using coping skills and mechanisms and they’re using thos e coping skills to get the grades necessary to come to college. [Inaudible] some of it is positive; a lot of it I think is just an awareness and [inaudible].

Herb Rotfeld, Parliamentarian: Thank you, Virgil.

Robert Locy, Biological Sciences: As you well know from having worked with at least me personally for several years now on the SI Program, I’m a real staunch supporter of what you’ve accomplished with that. I think it’s been both a really good t hing for your student athletes, but I think it’s also been a good thing for the rest of the Auburn students that are in the same sections of our biology classes that student athletes are in. It’s permitted us to have the resources to test some ideas and t o learn what we could do to make the learning experience better for all of the students in biology. I guess it sort of suggests to me that you’ve found a way to provide for student athletes services that maybe we need to provide for all Auburn students. I ’m wondering what you think the Faculty Senate might be able to do or what you think some other institution on campus could do to help us find these programs where, because of what you’re trying to do to make life for student athletes better and the learn ing experience better for student athletes, that maybe we could actually learn some things that we could make a lot of other student’s lives a little better. Do you have any ideas about how we could help you get the Administration to see this, which would make your job for student athletes easier and might better the life of all Auburn students a little bit more?

Virgil Starks: First of all, let me say this, Dr. Locy: It starts with us – those individuals who care about learning and care about the students. We must be a unified voice, and that voice must say, there are situations here that are not allowi ng students to be as successful as they can. Some of those issues are [Inaudible] problems; very few of them [Inaudible] problems. I honestly believe that. I believe that Auburn attracts some of the best and brightest high school students, but we did have to find out where the weaknesses are in their profile and fix them. I know that Dr. Fletcher and I talked a little bit about this time and time again. We have this stigma about remediation. The reality is people; you’ve got to understand that high school education is not the high school education that you can [Inaudible]. There are some weaknesses in schools. There are some weaknesses in the State Education system. There are some weaknesses that we have to be aware of. What I’ve been able to do, Dr. Locy …and you’re right, is to spend the money and [Inaudible]. But I think it also goes back to simple [Inaudible] that we must respect other people’s professional purpose. (i.e. I respect the professionals that tried to make a plan and [Inaudible]. What I mig ht then have to do is find someone to address that [Inaudible] to be successful. I think that there are a number of things that we can do. First of all is to continue funding and look at situations like [Inaudible]. I think that at one time Andy Weaver an d his people [Inaudible]. I think that the idea of placement testing that the Collage of Science and Math, including the mathematics area might need to be extended to maybe courses like physics and chemistry with that mathematic component. Sometimes it’s not looked at very early [Inaudible]. I could go on and on with areas that I think, but I think where we’re at, Dr. Locy, is that the conversation [Inaudible]; and the funding sources. One thing that I’m very interested in and I’ve been talking with anoth er [Inaudible] university, those people who do my job, is to write some joint grants. We find that writing joint grants across campus is very difficult to do. But across discipline and across unit, it is very easy to do. So I think that as we develop more of our demographics and more information and more specific data about our [Inaudible], we can then have a unified voice. [Inaudible].

Isabelle Thompson, Steering Committee: Bob Locy stole my question. I think it’s a question that almost anyone who has had the opportunity to collaborate with Virgil and Athletics would ask: How can we offer the opportunities that student athlete s have to other students on campus? But I also wanted to add to the presentation a piece of information that you left out and that Bob eluded to. That is for the English Center at least…we were opened from 9 until 5 and serving about a thousand students a year. By using Mr. Starks’s money, we’re now opened from 9 in the morning until 9 at night and we serve about 3,000 students a year. The majority of those of course are not student athletes, but with the money that we got from Mr. Starks, we were able to help a whole lot of other students as well, and I really appreciate that.

Virgil Starks: Thank you, Dr. Thompson. Let me say also about the SI Program and [Inaudible], I think I need to tell you a little bit more about Virgil Starks. I said before I didn’t work directly in Athletics, I always worked on the athletes’ s ide. But I also worked in paraprofessional and para academic area called Student Affairs, and Dr. Fletcher can attest to this. Most of what we talk about in Student Affairs is how to make a student’s collegiate experience inviting, welcoming, and rewardin g. No one had a welcoming and rewarding experience in [Inaudible]. As a matter of fact, when you talk to our student athletes on their exit interview, the happiest students are the ones who graduate. The ones who are most critical, even those who go on to the Pros, are the ones that don’t graduate. That tells me two things: First of all, they know the value of an education because they’re mad because they didn’t get it. The second thing is that once we find what turns that student athlete on and have them buy into [Inaudible] they’re very successful at it. And they feel rewarded and empowered in that process. Virgil Starks doesn’t do that for them. It is the people in the classroom that do this. I have no ability to [Inaudible]. I have no ability to teach in certain disciplines – but I have the ability of creating a skill set for every student athlete to go into that environment and be successful. I think that’s what Dr. Locy and Dr. Thompson are looking for. Some of our student athletes skill sets are no t where they need to be. And we need to work on that.

Herb Rotfeld, Parliamentarian: Are there any other questions? If not, thank you very much, Sir. Is there any unfinished business to come before this body? Is there any new business? I would entertain a motion then to adjourn.

Unknown speaker #2: So moved.

Herb Rotfeld, Parliamentarian: So moved? Seconded by Jim. All in favor….Aye.

Meeting adjourned.