July 12, 2005
Transcript
Dr. Conner Bailey, Chair: Good afternoon. Its three o’clock and I’d like to call this
July meeting of the University Senate to order, please. Before we get started, let me remind senators
to please sign in at the back just by making a mark. If you are a substitute, please so
indicate. I will continue the procedure
of allowing anyone from any represented group of the Senate who wishes to speak
or raise questions of anyone on the agenda to be able to do so. In the event that there are many speakers or
many people who wish to address questions, we’ll ask senators to be given first
priority to address the speakers.
The minutes
of the June 7th meeting of the University Senate have been posted on
the web and I would entertain a motion for approval at this time. Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes of
the June 7th meeting? Would
you identify yourself, please? Dennis
DeVries. Let me take a vote then,
please. All in favor of approving the
minutes of June 7th signify by saying aye. Opposed, nay.
These have now been accepted without opposition.
Dr.
Richardson is here to meet with us today and I’d like to invite Dr. Richardson
forward at this time.
Dr. Ed Richardson, Interim President:
Thank you, Dr.
Bailey. I’m sure you will be most
pleased to learn that I only have a few comments to make and it should be
relatively brief and then I’ll be glad to respond to any questions you might
have.
Number one,
obviously, I’ve placed on the table during the June meeting of the Board of
Trustees, those issues that I wish to be considered during the next academic
year. Those have been posted so I won’t
dwell on those, other than to say, we’ve had two meetings since then of Vice
Presidents, Provost, and Special Assistants to try to break down those tasks
into workable groups and make assignments both in terms of leadership as well
as timelines so that we would all be together in that regard. We’re not quite through, yet. We didn’t quite finish, but once we do, we
will also put that on the web, too so that you will know how those are broken
down and who is assuming a leadership role in that regard. Of course, obviously, these will be the
people who are responsible for interacting with faculty committees and starting
that dialogue. So that doesn’t mean that
anything has changed other than, I believe, we needed to break those down for
those specific assignments.
Secondly, I
would just offer as a reminder that this is the month that we start to prepare
our legislative agenda for the next year.
This next year will be more difficult from a financial point of view,
although the revenues are still coming in at an exceptionally high rate, which
is encouraging. I just have to believe
that by the end of the fiscal year, which for
The special
session starts next week. I don’t think
there will be too much of interest for us there since it’s primarily the
General Fund. There will be some talk
about the imminent domain legislation of the Supreme Court that came down and
now legislators are having a tendency to overreact. I hope that will not be the case, to
overreact in that regard and we maintain some balance, but that will probably
be the only thing we will track in that regard.
I would say
that, finally, because you may have some interest in that regard, I did
announce a presentation to the Board of Trustees to start its search. I anticipate, as they have announced, in case
you had not heard, they will be looking for a search firm. The Board member, Mr. Miller, has been
assigned to do that by Mr. McWhorter and I would anticipate that when we meet
back in September that there will be some discussion of that regard and then it
should start to move from there.
One other
thing I should say-there are only two issues that will come up in September, if
I remember correctly, that deals with the formation of an institute. That will be by title only, not what will go
into the institute and then the Auburn University System changes that were
previously identified. So I believe
we’re on target and be in position, I hope, to establish a level of institution
control sufficient to attract a very highly qualified president for the
future.
At that,
Dr. Bailey, I’ll just stop to see if there are any questions.
Dr. Bailey: Are there any questions for Dr.
Richardson? Judy, would you come to the
microphone, please?
Judy Sheppard, Communication &
Journalism: Dr.
Richardson, could you update us on the diversity issues, the status of that at
the University?
Dr. Richardson: The only thing-thank you, Dr.
Sheppard. The only reason I left that
out is I believe Dr. Heilman is going to cover that in his presentation and
he’ll do that a little bit later and that’s the reason I left it out.
Dr. Heilman: (inaudible)
Dr. Bailey: Why don’t you address the question
now if you would please?
Dr. Heilman: Thank you very much. When I got to the Provost’s office, it became
clear to me, at least in my judgment, that the first thing I had to do was to
proceed to make dean appointments and for the most part, that has now been
accomplished. Presentations for a term Dean of Agriculture and Director of the
Experiment Station will be held tomorrow and a week from tomorrow. With those matters I believe addressed, I
think it very important to move forward to fill the Diversity position. The status of that is that following meetings
of the Multicultural Diversity Affairs Commission and African-American
Administrators or Black Administrators Group and if I have the designation of
that wrong, I hope you’ll tell me-work was done on developing a position
description for an Associate Provost of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs at
I think
it’s time to move forward based on this position description to initiate a
process for filling the position. It’s
my intention to do that. I’d like to
point to a couple of provisions that are in this position description that I think
are particularly important. One
certainly is successful implementation of the University’s Diversity Strategic
Plan. Importance is attached also, and
this is something I would like to emphasize in this, strategies for recruiting
and retaining a diverse faculty. The
wording here is recruiting and retaining racial and ethnic minorities and women
on the faculty. Attention is also paid,
and I believe this is very important, to recruitment and retention programs for
racially and ethnically underrepresented students and then a third point is basically
programming-working with programming, both academic programming and also human
resources programming.
With that,
it is my intention to move forward with this.
To do that expeditiously, I would like to ask for some discussion and
I’ve talked with Conner and the Senate leadership a little bit about this,
about two aspects of this position or two issues to consider as we move forward
that really aren’t addressed directly in that description and one of those
relates to faculty experience. Basically
there’s not a lot of reference in the material that I’ve gotten in front of me,
which I think has been circulated on the Internet and commented on, on faculty
experience. If, in fact, this is a
position, this is a person who’s, someone whose primary responsibilities will
be to work in the areas of recruiting and retention of a diverse faculty and a
diverse student body. What level of
attention, for example, in the areas of desired qualifications, just as an
example, minimum qualifications should there be reference to faculty experience
and faculty appointment and at what level, and second, unaddressed in this
material-I’m not complaining, I’m simply describing an issue that I think is
worth having some discussion of and I’m asking for that discussion. It all doesn’t need to take place today or
right now, but very soon, in working with the Senate leadership, I’d be
interested in faculty input on this-do we want to proceed as expeditiously as
we can for this position with a national search? Clearly it’s got to be filled right away,
whether on a permanent or acting basis, or term basis. That’s not the key point; we have to move
forward with this basically now, but do we want to look to a national search
with this position. And you might say
‘Well, John, that’s very interesting because you’ve made a series of term
appointments; your own appointment’s term; why would you think a national
search would be appropriate in this case?’
And my thought, it’s not a firm conclusion, but the thought that has
occurred to me is that we know now that diversity is an essential priority of
the University. I do not believe that
priority is going to change. I do not
believe that the strategies that are developed as the reorganizational structure
is developed to address it are going to change dramatically when the new
administration comes in, a new president and a new provost, and so my thought
is that we might well benefit ourselves from having access in the fairly near
future to a national pool of persons who could alert us to a broader range of
ideas and opportunities and we may have them within the campus or within the
AUM system. So that is…I hope that was a
response to your question, Judy. Thank
you.
Dr. Bailey: Are there any other questions for
Dr. Richardson or perhaps for Dr. Heilman?
Ok…
Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology: Dr. Heilman, I think this question
is probably for you. Would you please
repeat again what you said about the interviews with the candidates for the
term Ag Dean Position?
Dr. Heilman: I think that information, Cindy,
either has been sent out or is being sent out.
It should reach you shortly.
Cindy Brunner: Did you say they start tomorrow?
Dr. Heilman: Yes.
Dr. Brunner: Ok.
I read the AU Daily pretty
carefully and I didn’t see anything about that at all.
Dr. Heilman: Did you…and I guess I’m….
Dr. Brunner: And you know I’m in an ancillary
area.
Dr. Heilman: That’s a very good point. I’d like to just add-you’re asking a terrific
question. Let me ask you this, did you
see on Friday the announcement that went out that there would be a presentation
on tomorrow? Since you’re in an
ancillary area that may not have reached you.
That is my fault, my responsibility.
I think that what we have is scheduled for tomorrow, scheduled in Hood
Auditorium, I believe for 2pm is Russ Muntifering-and the following Wednesday
time to be worked out. Presentations by
Joe Touchton and Richard Guthrie.
Dr. Brunner: Is my Dean in the room? He’s usually here.
Dr. Heilman: I think Richard is here.
Dr. Brunner: I just wonder is this is something
that might have come through the Dean’s office that the faculty could see that
is somewhere out there.
Dr. Heilman: As we got to the latter part of
Friday, I wanted to make sure that the information was sent out. I asked Margaret about working it and I
acknowledge right up from that through the College of Agriculture and so the
broader distribution probably was not there but I have a message sent out
indicating that there would be a presentation Wednesday from Dr. Muntifering
and that additional presentations would be scheduled the following week, with
the identity of presenters to be determined.
We now know that it will be both Richard Guthrie and Joe Touchton.
Dr. Brunner: Ok.
Thanks.
Dr. Heilman: Let me say that you did not get
that information in as timely a manner as I think you should have and that is
my responsibility and I apologize.
Richard Penaskovic, Chair-elect: Dr. Heilman, you asked a question,
if we want a national search for this position of Associate Provost for
Diversity, and my answer is emphatically yes and I also think that this person
should be hired at the Associate Professor level in order to have
credibility. I remember some years ago
we hired someone, I think, as an Assistant Provost or Associate Provost only at
the Assistant Professor level and the person didn’t have much credibility and
for these reasons, I would like to see this.
Dr. Heilman: Rich, thank you very much and
again, I think these are questions that probably ought to be talked through now as opposed to with hindsight, and
so I appreciate that comment. You
addressed me as Dr. Heilman; I can address you as Dr. Penaskovic and Dr.
Bailey. Whatever the designator, I’d
expect to be working, and in fact, I would ask the Senate leadership to develop
the sense of the faculty on these matters.
I don’t want that to delay moving forward but it would be very helpful
to me and I think it would be very helpful to the long-term probabilities of
success of this appointment that those conversations be held right now. Thank you.
Dr. Bailey: Are there any other questions for
either Dr. Richardson or Dr. Heilman?
Ok, thank you very much.
I’ve a few
comments from the Chair. As Dr.
Richardson noted and I’m sure you’re all aware, the Board of Trustees met in
mid-June and I shared with senators the outline from which Dr. Larkin briefly
spoke. Unfortunately, Dr. Larkin
couldn’t be here today. He had a
professional engagement out of town in the, I can’t remember if it’s in the
northern part of the state or in
The
faculty, more than any other group on campus, are evaluated on a very regular
basis, not only through the promotion and tenure process but through our annual
review with department chairs and heads and to the extent that these are not
uniformly experienced by all faculty, that is a management problem and not a
problem of the faculty. We’re also
evaluated every time we publish an article or every time we write a grant proposal,
successful or not. We’re evaluated by
students on a regular basis. We go
through evaluations very frequently. If
the issue is accountability, then that’s an important issue and which I can
acknowledge.
Dr.
Richardson made a point that accountability is an essential issue that he wants
to focus on in regards to academic program review and the post-tenure review,
and I think that if we’re talking about accountability, probably we’re talking
about more than just evaluation of faculty.
I would note that the Senate Administrator Evaluation Committee is
working hard at revising the procedure, policy and whole approach that we take
on evaluating administrators and this might be part of a larger effort that we
undertake at the University. But the
timing of this, as is our recommendation to the administration, is that the
timing is awkward, for two reasons. One
is that with Academic Program Review and Strategic Planning, we have a lot on
our plate, and we want to do a good job on everything we do. Taking on another large task has the risk of
deflecting our energies and slowing the progress on these other two
elements. These other two elements are
very important and I believe, are leading to a strengthening of shared
governance on this campus and introducing post-tenure review at this time is
probably counterproductive, at least that is our Senate leadership advice to
the administration.
Dr. Heilman
is going to talk later on today about this topic, so there will be opportunity
for us to talk about the merits of post-tenure review. Before we move on, however, I would invite
any comments that senators have about how in fact your Senate leadership has
approached this matter and that could be addressed separately after I conclude
my remarks.
In other
matters unrelated to the Board of Trustees directly, the Academic Program
Review Committee is very hard at work.
Art Chappelka is chairing that committee. Rich Penaskovic and myself have been
attending the meetings of that committee.
I believe we’re making very good progress and I expect we will hear more
about that early in the fall semester.
Similarly, with the Strategic Plan, it also is moving forward and we’ve
invited Bill Sauser to give us a very brief update and be available to answer
your questions a little bit later in this meeting.
I would
also like to report that we’ve made some progress on some initiatives that have
come out of the Senate in recent months/years.
One is the Ombudsman position or the Ombudsperson position. I understand that Dr. Heilman has sent
forward a recommendation to the President…
Dr. Heilman: May I just explain to you what I
did? I forwarded that to the President
and the attachment that had the draft didn’t come through. So I’ve got the attachment and I’m going to re-forward
it to him.
Dr. Bailey: In any event, we’re moving forward
with the Ombudsperson position and hopefully we’ll be in a position to initiate
a search for that soon.
The
Intimate Relations policy has been a very interesting story. The Staff Council and A&P Assembly have
commented on the draft that came through the Senate. The draft that came through the Senate
basically prohibited intimate relations between university employees, faculty
and others, and students. It also
prohibited intimate relations between employees when there is a supervisory
relationship involved. Some of our
colleagues in Staff Council and Administrative & Professional Assembly
indicated that extension of this prohibition to cover adults who are employees
at this university may not have been necessary, might have adequately covered
by existing harassment policy and/or existing nepotism policy as suitably
modified to include intimate relations and not only marital or other family
relationships. So expect to be coming
back with a policy basically removing one sentence that this Senate has
passed.
On
Electronic Privacy, the Senate leadership has been in lengthy discussions with
the Academic Computing Committee, with Dr. Heilman and Lee Armstrong. We’ve resolved most of the differences; we
still have one small matter that we need yet to work out and hopefully we’ll be
able to come back with what I think is a very important and timely policy for
final approval by the Senate.
Before I
move on to the first item on the agenda, let me ask if there are any questions
from the floor.
Dr. Heilman: Conner, since you spoke about
post-tenure review, would you like me to address that now… (inaudible)
Dr. Bailey: Unless there’s a reason, I’d rather
do the action items first, if that’s possible…let me then introduce Kathryn
Flynn and ask her to move forward on two action items. One is the approval of Senate
committees. The Senate Rules Committee
has been working very hard and then, Kathryn, you can go to the next item
directly on…
Kathryn Flynn, Secretary-elect: At first I’d like to start out by
acknowledging the work that the members of the Rules Committee have done over
the last two or three months. It’s
involved basically weekly meetings of at least two hours a piece for some time
now to come up with the volunteer list for Senate and then also University
committees, which are being looked at today.
The time has been spent in the committee meetings and also in the area
of recruiting membership when there weren’t enough volunteers to staff
committees. So it’s been a pretty significant
time commitment for the people involved and they’ve done an excellent job. The committee staffing recommendations being
made by the Rules Committee today have been posted on the web and senators were
notified of that posting and so on behalf of the Rules committee, I’m making a
motion that the Senate approve the nominations as submitted. Does anybody have any comments or
questions? Conner has disappeared. You went to call for….
Dr. Bailey: I’m sorry, I was….ok. My apologies.
This is a report from a university Senate committee and so does not
require a second. The motion is on the
floor. Any discussion? Now let me call for a vote. All of those in favor please signify by
saying Aye. Opposed, nay. The Ayes have it with no opposition. Thank you very much.
Dr. Flynn: The second action item deals with a
revision to the Faculty Handbook. This
revision pertains to the composition of the P&T Committee. I’ll give you a little bit of history and
then I’ll read the resolution for you.
It came to our attention; I think primarily through the works of
Patricia Duffy, that the P&T Committee could not be staffed as required by
the Faculty Handbook with respect to clinical faculty representation at the
current time. This is because right now
there is no clinical faculty operating at the rank of full professor. So we realize that could be a problematic
issue and have worked to come up with a resolution to address this. As I mentioned, this is a resolution that
will revise the Faculty Handbook. The wording
has been sent to both the Clinical and Research Faculty for review by
Conner. Conner sent that out, I think,
last week. So now I’ll read the
resolution:
Resolution to Ensure
the University Can Comply with Handbook with Respect to the Composition of the
Promotion and Tenure Committee
Whereas
under current policy the university is directed to have representatives on the
Promotion and Tenure Committee from the Research and Clinical Track,
And whereas
there may not be faculty members in these tracks with the rank of full
professor available to serve on the Promotion and Tenure Committee,
Therefore
be it resolved that the Faculty Handbook be modified to ensure that the University
is able to comply with the directives concerning the composition of this
committee by changing the language in the Handbook in the following way:
"Promotion
& Tenure (President): The Promotion and Tenure Committee shall consist of
the Provost as chair and nine to eleven faculty members, at least seven of
which will be tenured faculty. The faculty members will be from the
tenure-track faculty, the clinical faculty, or the research faculty. Non
tenure-track clinical faculty members and non tenure-track research faculty
members will not vote on tenure.
Any
academic year in which there is no clinical faculty member on the committee, a
clinical professor will MAY be
appointed as a standby member to be a member of the committee if there are any
clinical faculty promotion application. Any academic year in which there is no
research faculty member on the committee, a research professor will MAY be appointed as a standby member to
be a member of the committee if there are any research faculty promotion applications.
The three
new faculty members coming onto the committee each year shall be appointed by
the President of the University from a list of four nominees provided by the
Senate Rules Committee. Each standby faculty member shall MAY be appointed by the President of
the University from a list of two nominees provided by the Senate Rules
Committee. If no clinical-track Full professor is able and willing to serve as
a stand-by member, the Rules Committee WILL, AT THE REQUEST OF THE PRESIDENT,
send FORWARD the names of TWO tenureD PROFESSORS (NOT IN THE CLINICAL TRACK),
ONE OF WHOM MAY BE SELECTED BY THE PRESIDENT TO SERVE AS A RESOURCE for
CLINICAL CANDIDATES. THE CLINICAL-TRACK
RESOURCE FACULTY REPRESENTATiVE WOULD ONLY vote ON PROMOTIONS OF the clinical-TRACK
FACULTY. In cases in which
the President is unable to complete the staffing of the committee from the list
of nominees provided by the Rules Committee, the President may require the
Rules Committee to nominate additional faculty members. Faculty members cannot
serve in any regular administrative position including that of department
head/chair at the time of their service on the committee. Tenure-track faculty
members must be tenured and should hold the rank of professor; clinical faculty
members should hold the rank of clinical professor; and research faculty
members should hold the rank of research professor. The committee shall review
departmental and school or college recommendations on candidates for promotion
and tenure and make recommendations to the President. The Associate Provosts
and Vice Presidents for Research and University Outreach shall serve as
non-voting members."
Dr. Bailey: This is a resolution from the
Steering Committee so it needs no second.
Open the floor for discussion.
Dr. Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology: I as a member of the Rules
Committee am familiar with this draft resolution and I want to note that it’s
my understanding, with the addition of the bold face material with the capital
letters, it’s my understanding that the tenured faculty member who would be
serving in lieu of the clinical track faculty member would be serving in a
standby position and would not be among the nine to eleven regular members of
this committee. That person would be in
addition to the at least nine regular members.
Dr. Flynn: That is correct.
Sandra Clark-Lewis, Communication
Disorders: I’m not
a senator, but our senator has asked, because he has a class right now, has
asked me to be here because I represent the clinical faculty from the department
and our concern in reading the revision is in changing all of the “wills” to
“mays” that there would be an opportunity for us to have no representation on
the, if we were to go up for promotion, we would have no representation on the
committee, which is a concern for us.
Dr. Flynn: Other people that participated in
the discussion may want to comment on this as well. That was one, we discussed that, but one of
the things that we debated was that you may have someone who is a full
professor in the clinical faculty who is unwilling to serve…
Sandra Clark-Lewis: Right. And so if that is the case, then…
Dr. Flynn: So then you have to move to the
non-clinical full professor rank for someone with clinical experience.
Sandra Clark-Lewis: But then when you go on to say, it
continues to be they will find someone who is tenured and they may be appointed; it’s not they will be appointed. And we also feel that that person should have
specific knowledge of the unique responsibilities of a clinical faculty member
and that should be written into the handbook.
Dr. Flynn: Do you have some language you’d
like to…
Sandra Clark-Lewis: I’d propose….I would like in the
beginning: “The Promotion and Tenure Committee shall consist of the Provost as
chair and nine to-I have this written down-and nine to eleven faculty members,
at least seven of which will be tenured faculty, and two to four may be
clinical and/or research faculty.” May
be clinical and/or research faculty, and then strike the next line which says:
“The faculty members will be from the tenure-track, the clinical track, or the
research faculty.” And then, a few
paragraphs later: “The three new faculty members coming onto the committee each
year shall be appointed by the President of the University from a list of four
nominees provided by the Senate Rules Committee. Each standby faculty member will be appointed
by the President of the University from a list of two nominees provided by the
Senate Rules Committee. If no
clinical-track full professor is able and willing to serve as a standby member,
the Rules Committee will forward the names of two tenured professors not in the
clinical track.” And then strike “one of
whom may be selected by the President to serve as” and then you’re going to add
“who understands the unique nature of clinical faculty responsibilities and who
can assist the P&T Committee to appropriately evaluate clinical
dossiers.” And then add “The President
will appoint one of these individuals to serve as a resource” and then the rest
that’s on there.
Dr. Bailey: Sandra, could you wait there a
moment? You’ve made several
recommendations. You’re putting this
forward as an amendment, I’m assuming. Would
you like to do this as a whole or in parts?
Sandra Clark-Lewis: I would like to do this as a whole.
Dr. Bailey: Ok, then, we have a motion to amend
this handbook change. I need a
second. Ok, we have a second. Is that Missy? Discussion, please.
Patricia Duffy, Secretary: One of the reasons why we left it
somewhat vague as to who would serve as a resource person is that this version
would write into the handbook things which nobody could with definition ascern;
whether somebody has that experience or not.
So I drafted this resolution with the expectation that the Rules
Committee would in the future be trusted to be sure to do the best job they
could but that there could be no guarantee that someone who’s in the clinical
track could absolutely understand
that role, so we did not want to commit the University Handbook to absolutely
say that this was the case since there cannot be a way. I as a member of the Rules Committee could
vouch that this was the case.
Tony Moss, Biological Sciences: Just a brief comment. Clearly, this is meant to cover a current
circumstance, right, and should no longer be necessary after a number of years,
I would suspect as I’m not aware of any other proviso for other faculty. Is it the intent, then, that this will be a
short-term portion of the handbook and in the future be stricken, or that it
will stay there permanently and if so, is there something like that for other
faculty? There could be a time, although
I realize that it’s not very likely, there could be a time when there is no
one, for instance, to stand in for other categories of faculty. Does that make sense?
Dr. Flynn: It does. As far as I’m aware, clinical research and
regular faculty, if you want to call it that, are the only three categories…
Tony Moss: So I realize it’s not likely to
occur, but then is the idea that this will be extracted?
Dr. Flynn: As time goes by and people in the
clinical track progress through the ranks, that you would not need to do this
and we had written it hopefully in such a way that it would still be
operational, because you could still even as you build a rank of full
professors at the clinical track, they may have other things to do and may not
be willing to serve on P&T and you’ll have to, through retirement and that
kind of thing, you might still have to have this as a backup.
Dr. Cindy Brunner, Department of
Pathobiology: Is it
correct then, that this amendment would revert the “mays” back to “wills”-are
you following me-paragraph: “Any academic year in which there is no clinical
faculty member blah, blah, blah will
and it had been switched to may in
this resolution-are we switching that back to will?
Sandra Clark-Lewis: It would be my preference that it
be switched back to will.
Dr. Brunner: Are we switching both of them back
to will-research professor as well
as clinical track professor? Because
that brings us another problem.
Sandra Clark-Lewis: I can’t speak for the Research
faculty.
Dr. Brunner: Well, whether or not those are
changed, we have changed a shall to
a may and back to a will in the following paragraph, which
would accomplish the same thing. The
difficulty that we’ve created in doing that is now we’ve mandated that there be
research track faculty appointed to the Promotion and Tenure Committee and we
haven’t made an allowance for the absence of such a person. We haven’t added a statement saying that if
there is no such person able or willing to serve, then we will make these
accommodations for the research track.
We didn’t have anything in there initially because I think there was the
presumption that the regular members of the Promotion and Tenure Committee
could evaluate research capabilities, but we need to change something if we’re
going to say we will have standby
members representing research track.
Dr. Flynn: I think you’re right.
Dr. Brunner: Have we complicated this enough
that we need to take it back and look at it again rather than just do this as
an amendment?
Dr. Bailey: I’d like to hear any further
discussion we have.
Dr. Richard Penaskovic, Chair-elect: How’s about for the first paragraph
we go with will, for the second one
we go for may and for the third one
for will? That may solve Cindy’s concern.
Dr. Flynn: (muffled and
indiscernible discussion)
Do you have any comments?
Sandra Clark-Lewis: I would be happy to have this go
back to the committee and work on it further, to look at it carefully
again. And I appreciate the
opportunity. Thank you.
Dr. Bailey: Sandra, was I hearing you ask that
your motion to revise this resolution was withdrawn?
Sandra Clark-Lewis: Withdrawn and for the committee to
continue to work on this.
Dr. Bailey: Missy, will you withdraw your
second? Ok. Shall we withdraw this? Ok, very good. We will come back with this matter…pardon
me? Cindy?
Cindy Brunner, Department of
Pathobiology: I
move for a reconsideration of the resolution.
Dr. Bailey: Do I hear a second? Second, Tony Moss. Discussion?
Those in favor, signify by saying Aye.
Opposed, say Nay. The Ayes have
it.
Jim Groccia
was here at the last meeting presenting a report of the Ad Hoc Committee on
Junior Faculty Mentoring and we have a resolution here. Please go ahead…
Dr. Jim Groccia, Chair of the Ad Hoc
Committee on Junior Faculty Mentoring:
“The ad hoc Committee on
Mentoring Junior Faculty reported to the Auburn University Senate for
discussion at the June 7 and July 12, 2005 meetings. The University Senate
supports the recommendations contained in this report, and asks that the
Provost provide the direction and resources necessary for implementation of
these recommendations.”
That’s the resolution. I do have a copy of the recommendations if
we would like a review of those at this time or else I guess we will just
report, or vote on it. Would you like me
to just quickly review the recommendation?
No?
Dr.
Bailey: We don’t think it’s necessary.
This group has a long memory. As
a committee report, this does not require a second. I’ll open the floor for discussion.
Eleanor
Josephson, Anatomy, Physiology, and Pharmacology:
Are there any statistics on the average number of new faculty that comes in
each year and will 20 awards of $500 be sufficient?
Dr.
Groccia: I do not have those numbers in front of me. The $500 stipend is to provide for some
professional development. Support for 20
members of the new faculty group who participate in a new faculty scholarship
program. We suspect that number will
increase as participation in this program increases. So that’s a request-that $10,000 request-is
to support the first year or two of this program at that 20 faculty person
level.
Dr.
Conner Bailey: Questions?
Are you ready to move forward with a vote? All those in favor of the resolution before
you, signify by saying Aye. Opposed,
Nay. The Ayes have it. Thank you very much.
I’d like to invite Bill Sauser to come before the Senate at this
time to briefly speak, without the benefit of PowerPoint today, briefly speak
about the Strategic Plan Process. We’ve
gone through a second phase and Bill’s here to let us know where we stand and
to answer any questions that the Senate may have.
Dr.
Bill Sauser,
When last I met with you, I had told you that we had four forums
to that point. We also received
information through email with respect to some of the comments/questions that
had been generated. Let me ask at this
point and time: How many of you have participated in either a forum or a review
of some of the questions or looked at it on the web-how many of you have gotten
involved in this process, if you would?
Yes, that’s good, very good.
We’re going to see to it that everybody has that opportunity so if you
haven’t had it yet, you’re going to get the opportunity. We have had-we took the information from the
four forums and we put together a draft of about a dozen strategic
questions-lots and lots of sub questions, because there’s a lot of information
that has come in. That was reviewed by a
30-person committee-broadly representative of the university. Your senate officers were members of that
committee. Following that, we revised
the draft and sent it back out again for people to review and got some very
good comments back. Just today I have
received a final draft of 15 pretty darn effective strategic questions and John
Heilman and I are scheduled to present those to Ed Richardson in the morning. So we’re about finished with Phase I, which
is asking the questions.
Next comes Phase II, seeking answers and setting goals. We already have a number of forums scheduled
for AUM and this campus. They’re to be
held in late July and late August. Of
course, we’re going to have a break for summer.
The ones on this campus will be held in late August so that everybody
will have an opportunity to participate.
Again, we have an ambitious schedule, but I think we’re on target
it to meet it to have our six to eight overarching goals and objectives in the
hands of the President well in time for him to present those to the Trustees at
their November meeting. So that’s where
we stand. I’d be glad to answer
questions.
Dr.
Bailey: Does anybody have any questions for Dr. Sauser?
Tony
Moss, Biology: Hi.
Could you give us some idea of the nature of the questions to be
presented tomorrow? Thank you.
Dr.
Sauser: Yes I will. They’ll be posted on the web as soon as Dr.
Richardson has had a chance to review them.
I can certainly give you a feel for them, they’re pretty broad and
strategic, such questions as ‘How will
Dr.
Bailey: Other questions? This is
an ongoing process and so I’m sure we’ll have opportunity for Bill, for you to
come back and speak to us again. Bill, I
wanted to have this opportunity for people to ask questions. I guess everybody is satisfied with your
briefing. Thank you.
Let me now invite Dr. Heilman to come forward and to give us
a-lead a little discussion on the Rationale and Process related to Post-tenure
Review. Thank you, John.
Dr.
John Heilman: Conner, thank you very much. I’m just going to take this out of here.
I’ve been invited to talk a little bit about the rationale and
process, and I’m happy to do that. I
begin-I’ve got nine points here and I’ll just go through them. I begin by noting that many peer institutions
have such a system in place. I point out
Number 2, that the legislature are likely to pay a lot of attention to having
systems like this in place and I think that, for me, that leads to a 2a and a
2b. 2a is the general issue of
accountability that Conner has referred to.
For me, there is an additional consideration beyond establishing
accountability, which I believe is important to do but that also is positioning
ourselves proactively and politically so that we can shape what gets done in
the state and not have the state shape what we do. In precisely an issue area and understandably
so sensitive as this one is, I’d rather have us be setting the agenda than have
others tell us what the agenda is.
Three, I would hasten to agree with something that Conner referred
to and I think Bill Sauser referred to it also and it needs to be part
of-Post-tenure Review doesn’t stand alone, it stands in a context of
accountability that includes Academic Program Review but also the evaluation of
Administrators and I would, I’m comfortable asking and am pretty confident
that’s a matter that both the Senate and the faculty through the Senate
leadership but also the Provost’s office will work together on, because in
terms of the evaluations of administrators, faculty evaluation is a very
important part of it, but it’s not all of it.
Fourth, I think that the development of this, of Post-tenure
Review, can fit into the development of Academic Program Review, which is
underway right now with the Academic Program Review Committee. I take completely Conner’s recommendation
that this is a matter for the Steering Committee. I think that a system such as this has been
developed at other institutions. I
believe
Five and I guess that was my fifth point, that others-this is not
a wheel that we need to invent. Others,
a lot of others have done this and have just gone ahead and done this.
Item 6-I’m sorry, my thoughts on this. Perhaps this is the heart of the rationale
issue. It has been stated fairly and
accurately that there are many reviews that are under way. In fact, there is a lot of accountability
that is out there. I agree
completely. I think the different kinds
of accountability mechanisms that have been described; I guess the way I’d
describe them in relation to post-tenure review, which would be done on a
cyclical basis-5, 6, 7, whatever the number of years is as a basis for review
and this is a perspective that some of you will have heard me use before-I
think of the trees in the forest. The
individual evaluations or assessment processes relate to points and time. To shift the metaphor, they’re snapshots. I think that it is healthy in the life of an
organization and also in the life of a professional career to have periodic
revisiting; again, to combine the metaphors, to take a look at the forest and
to provide something of a motion picture.
Second-I don’t want to take up time by reading from newspapers,
but I’m going to for just a
In terms of bad timing, I’ve got a couple of thoughts about
that. There’s been discussion, in fact, discussion
that Ed Richardson has initiated about the degree at which this institution is
connected. The Senate leadership has
published a thoughtful statement saying in fact, that we’re more connected than
we might think. On the one hand, if we
believe, I’ll put it this way, if we really do believe we’re connected and I
think a lot of initiatives are under way to get us to where we need to be and
this is a discussion I’ve had with Deans as well as with faculty members, then
saying we’re not ready to do this, somehow to me just doesn’t add up. Let me put a slightly different light on
it. This is Point 7b: we want to go out
and recruit nationally the best President and the best Provost we possibly
can. I do not believe that perspective
candidates would be drawn to the University by the fact that mistrust or
whatever we want to describe it as between the faculty and the administration
prevented us from doing what so many of our peer institutions have already
done, peer institutions which incidentally will be recruiting those same
candidates.
Item 8-The AAUP also sees that this is coming. I just want to read briefly from the
handbook, not to affirm that, which I think is straightforward, but to talk
about some of the values that should inform this process and that I would
toward in working with the Steering Committee.
I’ll read briefly:
By the mid-1990s, new forms of Post-tenure Review were
appearing. A significant number of
legislators, governing boards and university administrators were making such reviews
mandatory, others were in various stages of consideration.
This is a decade ago, by the way, and incidentally this is on page
50 of the handbook. For this reason, it has become necessary
to not only reaffirm the principles of the 1983 statement which are reproduced
in the email message Judy Sheppard sent out, which also included the points
that Willie Larkin had made before the Board, not only to reaffirm the
principles of the 1983 statement but also to provide standards which can be
used to reassess the review process when it is being considered or being
implemented.
This report accordingly offers practical recommendations for
faculty and I assume, for administrators, too at institutions where post-tenure
review is being considered or has been put into effect. Principles include: post tenure review ought
to be aimed, not at accountability but at faculty development. I do think by now there is an accountability
component, too, and I’ve tried to speak to that. Post tenure review must be developed and
carried out by faculty, and I’ll get to that in Point 9; I couldn’t agree
more. Post tenure review must not be a
reevaluation of tenured nor may it be used to shift the burden of proof from an
institution’s administration to show cause for dismissal; for the individual
faculty member to show cause why he or she should be retained. Post tenure review must be accorded, I beg
your pardon, must be conducted according to standards to protect academic
freedom and protect education. In other
words, this is a matter of career development and at many institutions where it
has been, where systems such as these have been put into place, has been
defined in those terms and that’s how I would look to have it done here.
Finally, going to the specific point about faculty participation;
if this is going to happen, and sooner or later it will happen, Dr. Richardson
has indicated that it is going to be sooner, it should happen on the basis of
shared governance. It should come about
through shared governance and faculty input.
And my thought is, let’s work together.
We have an opportunity to do it.
Dr. Richardson will ask me for a recommendation and I will provide
one. And I would hope very much that it
will not only have the benefit of, but perhaps a process and criteria that
results from faculty input, through the Steering Committee. Thank you very much.
Dr. Bailey: Thank you, John. I’d invite comment from the floor.
Tony Moss, Biological Sciences: I hear everything
you’re saying, and in the context of our already having, well at least in
Biological Sciences anyway, a very well established procedure for faculty
evaluation, I’m wondering what this adds or is this meant to sort of, I guess,
create a more consistent evaluative process across the university, or is it
more than that? Thank you.
Dr. Heilman: I think consistency is
important also and I would acknowledge that one size never fits all, so I guess
the balancing concept for consistency is flexibility. A key point, at least in my way of thinking,
is that this should not add on another huge layer of process and
paperwork. It may be, I’ve tried to
speak to the point of distinction between snapshots and a motion picture, the
annual reviews, but then a longer term cyclical review, in which I personally believe
there is some merit, not only at the level of individual faculty but also
programs and entire units. I lost my
train of thought. Oh, if in fact there
are procedures in place that provide that, we need to know about them and I
would ask that information be passed along to the Steering Committee and in
terms of the details of how we work this out, I think you and I have not yet had
a thorough conversation but I expect we would very shortly. And so and what this should not do is stamp
on a system that is already working to this end and is very effective yet
another set of requirements that are just a lot of legwork. (Inaudible comment
from audience) It seems to me that’s a
very reasonable concern.
Dr. Bailey: Judy? No, that’s fine, there doesn’t seem to be a
stampede, so let’s go ahead.
Dr. Judy Sheppard, Communication & Journalism:
Ok, this works? One’s a comment…
Dr. Bailey: Identify yourself, please.
Dr. Sheppard: I’m sorry, Judy Sheppard, I’m not
a senator. One’s a comment, Dr. Heilman,
on the fact that I don’t think faculty should be told again that our objection
to something is going to harm our reputation, as you have suggested that if we
don’t get on board with this, a good Provost and a good President aren’t going
to come here. That’s just not true; I
think that if there’s a disconnect, that’s where it is; that we need to
recognize that what we’re doing is not exactly what’s harming our
reputation. The second thing I have, and
this is the question, is when you talk accountability, I think it would be
really good if we could know exactly what that means. Are we talking about a response to some
trustee’s comments that we work two hours a day and go home? What do you mean by accountability and will
this review be applied to everybody in Administration straight on up to the
President’s Office?
Dr. Heilman: On the first point, Judy,
reasonable people can disagree on this.
I am not trying and it certainly is not my intent to stand, and
understand it may heard differently, it is not my intent to bash faculty by
saying you have here something that is going to make the university look
bad. My belief is that when national
candidates look at Auburn, they will look at the whole picture, including a
picture of accountability, and I’ll get to what I think that is, at least take
a stab at it in just a moment, and they’re going to say: ‘Where is Auburn on
this?’ and on this point if where Auburn is there’s a level of mistrust that
prevents that from happening, then that’s going to say something about the
institution that they’re going to provide leadership for and I can’t, it is my
belief that the tendency of that would not be to make Auburn lots more
attractive to the folks we want to attract here. Can reasonable people disagree on this? Sure. The issue of accountability-this is not
done, in my way of thinking it is important to do this, not because a
particular trustee, and I’ll say right up front, I don’t recall the specific
comment, but for a trustee or for that matter, an angry parent who doesn’t like
paying the tuition that they’re paying, or a legislator, or a critic of higher
education generally, and there are such out there, I don’t think that the
notion of accountability that I have in mind is not to them. It is to ourselves and to this institution-this
may sound idealistic, but I believe it is to ourselves and to our institution
to provide a regular examination and accounting of how we’re doing and whether
we, in our own thinking, and this is the
issue of self-owned agenda, not having it controlled for us, whether we think we’re
addressing our responsibilities with reasonable levels of efficiency, productivity
and professional accomplishment and that’s, I’d rather have us address these
matters-which will be addressed-it’s gonna happen. I’d rather have us take that assignment on
ourselves than have someone come by, have someone stand here who will say ‘I’m
from the Government and I’m here to help you.’
(Inaudible question from audience) Oh yes, I think this gets in
part to the issue that was raised of is it consistent. Yes, I’m not sure that for those who were in
positions of long-term administrative positions, whatever that means anymore at
Auburn, but that it’s exactly the same set of questions that’s asked of
long-term tenured faculty, but I have no, not only do I have no objection to, I
support strongly the notion of evaluation throughout the institution, including
of administrators and in fact the Board, I guess has proceeded with Dr.
Richardson its evaluation of the President.
So that’s and again, reasonable people can differ on what constitutes
the most appropriate, the most informative and useful and productive kind of
evaluation but in answer to that part of your question, yes.
Bob Locy, Steering Committee: John, since I had the
opportunity to hear you state many of those things in a Steering Committee
meeting a week or so ago, I guess I’m prepared to say that I certainly trust
you and Dr. Richardson to the maximum extent that your activities as Provost
and his as President permit me to do so and the issue of trust is not so much
for me important, but in discussing this with a number of my faculty colleagues
since the Steering Committee meeting, it seems that this issue of ache, or the
State Legislature or of someone bringing forth a policy that we would be forced
to conform to or some such thing as that, has periodically through history
rematerialized and there is a great deal of lack of trust on the part of my
colleagues concerning exactly what would bring this up again. Can you or Dr. Richardson enlighten us concerning
what the things out there that are looming that make this such a fundamental
necessity to move on at this time are?
Are there new circumstances that haven’t exist that you’ve learned of
that are leading this to be proposed at this time?
Dr. Heilman: I can’t tell you that Person X
will put this on the agenda of a particular office. I know that this issue is getting attention
in state legislatures and governors’ offices nationwide. I don’t know what the timetable is, I believe
it’s going to come to us, and Dr. Richardson may want to speak…
Dr. Locy: But by the things that you’ve
read to us, that’s been going on for 10 years.
Why…
Dr. Bailey: Let me invite Dr. Richardson
to speak on this matter.
Dr. Ed Richardson, Interim President:
Thank you. Let me just speak to the
issue of possibilities. Number one, the
issue toward higher education is moving as a straight line as it did with K-12
twenty years ago. In that case, it dealt
with student test results and we kept coming up with positions that, you know,
you just can’t do that, it doesn’t measure, and all of that. And prior to an election cycle, governors-and
that’s coming up I would to point out-governors go to the National Governors’
Association, they give them legislation that’s pre-prepared, they come back and
introduce it and wham! You got it whether you like it or not. I’ve had three conversations with our
existing governor on this very topic. It
is my position that we would have a better chance of driving that discussion if
we had demonstrated that we could develop criteria and have an effective means
of what is now called Post-tenure Review.
I believe it provides additional protection for everyone. Let’s say that I get down on someone and
let’s say that I want to get you and the Post-tenure review has been completed
and this person has again demonstrated that he or she has been and continues to
do a great job. It is my assessment as I
have spent some time on organizations such as the Southern Regional Education
Board and organizations like that, you’re seeing this move inexorably toward
this and part of the change had been that most states have General Funds that
deal with education, not like Alabama where we have a separate fund and the
strain, whether its Medicaid or prisons or whatever, continue to reduce the
amount of money that’s available and so they start to use that to reduce
allocations. I believe by getting in
ahead of the time we can in a rational way develop a structure and that way if
it does come into state, we’ll be in a position to drive that discussion and
we’ll have something that will be balanced and not subject to some political
whim. What happens before, it pops into
the legislative session and you just try to do damage control and you just end
up getting something that’s not very attractive as they’re wrestling with that
in
Dr. Bailey: Thank you, Dr.
Richardson. Sadik?
Sadik Tuzun, Entomology & Plant Pathology:
Dr. Richardson, I’m Sadik Tuzun, a senator from Entomology and Plant Pathology,
also I am part of the Rules Committee. I
think you’ve answered some of my questions.
You are saying that this is an outside thing in summary; it’s going to
be an outside thing. What are we trying
to do with all these initiatives that we have like the Program Review and all
these things, I think we are regenerating
Dr.
Richardson: I would say Dr. Heilman had convinced me that that’s the way it
should be presented and in my comments I did not use Post-tenure review and I
used it in that way, in his very words.
The faculty rep and Board used Post-tenure review and that’s where it’s
come along, so I’m saying….
Dr.
Tuzun: Oh, thank you then…
Dr.
Richardson: Ok, I did not use that and I think Conner, you had met with and I
agreed to that. So the way you stated it
is the way I stated it in my presentation to the Board.
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you. Cindy?
Cindy
Brunner, Pathobiology: Dr. Heilman, I think you can
turn to Dr. Richardson to answer this question, a tit for tat here. Actually I have a follow-up to your comment
that you just made. Is it not true that
you have stated in the context of this post-tenure review discussion that
failure of a tenured faculty member to demonstrate appropriate productivity
would be grounds for dismissal?
Dr.
Richardson: As I said, ultimately you have some sanctions, otherwise it’s
worthless. The question is how many
years do you provide a person to take this evaluation and say ‘I need to
improve in these areas’? But if there
was clearly after a period of time that’s allocated, anywhere from one to three
years, nothing was done, then you would have to go through the faculty process
over again. So ultimately you could get
there. I would certainly hope that would
not have to be the case.
Dr.
Brunner: Ok, so my real question is actually this can of worms has been
cracked open and I’m going to open it a little bit further. In preparation for this meeting, I went back
and reviewed my notes from the Board meeting in June and reviewed your
initiatives as posted in the web, on your website, and I noticed that in the
context of this discussion about review of tenured faculty members, you also
mentioned the phrase “workload analysis” or “workload evaluation”. Some of us will have bells ringing in our
minds of that phrase, and you said something about evaluating the number of
hours that faculty members spend in a classroom, the number of hours that
faculty members spend in their laboratories, etc. Are you then proposing that a numerical
workload analysis might be a part of this process?
Dr.
Richardson: I am proposing to the Provost and the faculty committees that we
answer those questions. I think you
heard, I don’t know which Trustee said that ‘You teach two classes and go home’
type of thing, but it is my observation that there’s much more to a faculty day
than that. I think it is very poorly
publicized and understood and I think this process will clearly identify that
there’s other expectations, whether it’s graduate programs, office hours, the
research, any of the things that we have other than ‘I have taught a class this
semester’, so I believe it will serve to eliminate the idea that only teaching
counts.
Dr.
Bailey: Dr. Gerber.
Dr.
Larry Gerber, History: Non-senator from History. One observation that follows on what you’ve
just commented about needing to explain more fully what faculty actually
do. It seems to me, not just you, but
administration in general, has not done a very good job of explaining either to
the Board, to the public at large, the extent of evaluation that already takes
place. It’s been posed-why do we need
post-tenure review-to some members of the Senate leadership, but I propose it a
little bit differently, why do you not have as a response to outside pressure
how frequently we are evaluated, how it pertains to merit increases, how you
actually treat faculty differently from staff from saying that faculty are not
entitled to cost of living increases but only merit increases to salary. I think that another way of turning this around
is why can you not describe much more fully to a wider audience the extent of
evaluation that already takes place? And
I would say as a suggestion that Provost Heilman certainly correctly pointed
out that a number of our peer institutions have implemented, and I will call it
post-tenure review, but have you done a survey of whether in terms of
cost-benefit analysis of many of the institutions that have implemented systems
feel that the time, and there will be extra time, the extra time involved in
that has actually been worth it in terms of added value to the evaluation
process which already exists? So I think
that that’s a pretty important question to ask because it is going to be more
time and more paperwork and I think the question is, the system that we already
have in place, why is it not, what is failing with it? I’m not convinced by the arguments that Dr.
Heilman made that you can’t take an existing system without creating another
layer and accomplish the same objective.
So I think that certainly the AAUP position that Dr. Heilman quoted, the
premise of that report was that post-tenure review was actually not necessary
if it’s going to take place for whatever reason, there are certain standards
that AAUP should be made to adhere to, the premise is still that it’s not
actually necessary. But I think it does
come back to not doing a very good job of explaining to audiences what already
takes place.
Dr.
Richardson: There probably, I wouldn’t argue, that there could be a better
job. I would say two things: I didn’t
hear Dr. Heilman say that. I heard him
say in response over here that if there’s some things being done well, we could
capitalize on them. But the important
thing, I think, is this, to me-this is a process that we will decide on. And I
think we’ve cleared up once and for all, we have such a system, it’s clearly
indicated and it is consistently applied which is now not consistently applied,
based on the information I have and I just think the advantage of us being
able, the faculty and Provost, not so much me, being able to decide on the
process gives us the flexibility we need, you should have more confidence that
it’s going to be fair and I believe that we will shortstop any conversations
that occur outside of the university.
Now if you talk with anyone, business leaders, government leaders and
people outside of either the university or even on the K-12 side, the issue of
tenure is antiquated and unnecessary without exception and they see it as only
a way to protect incompetence. I’m
saying this process will confirm that we have people who perform at a very high
level and should drive some of the awards as well and I think it would help us,
then, to do just what you said we haven’t done a good job of, and that’s is
being able to say ‘Yes, we do it and yes, we’re evaluated and yes, I know Bill
Sauser is doing a good job and we have the criteria to demonstrate it.’ I believe it will help us thwart that and I
think it will help us to be an active participant at the point that this legislature
is proposed.
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you. Are there any
other questions for either Dr. Heilman or Dr. Richardson?
Richard
Penaskovic, Chair-elect: What happens in the case of a
faculty member, maybe you already answered this question Dr. Richardson, but
help me, be patient with me. What happens
in the case of a faculty member who, year after year, in his
evaluation/self-evaluation, he hasn’t done anything extraordinary. He just teaches his classes and that’s about
it, he doesn’t have any outreach, doesn’t do any research. Now with post-tenure review, to me, I would
think that the worst thing that could result from this inactivity on the part
of this tenured professor is that he could be hurt monetarily, that you don’t
give him raises since he isn’t showing himself to be productive. But if you deny him tenure, then what you’re
doing is subverting the whole tenure process, right?
Dr.
Richardson: You could say that if you have a person that is not performing
and loses tenure, I don’t believe it is subverting the process. To me, it would actually be strengthening the
process and yes, we can have tenure because we have a process of screening out
those people who do not perform at a satisfactory level. Now what the criteria will be and what the
weights will be, I will leave that to you.
I’m just saying let’s come up with a system that we can all agree upon
and sell and I believe we will do well.
It is not my intention to subvert it, no one has suggested that but to
say that this is a lifetime commitment no matter what type of job I do is
probably a stretch, to expect that.
Dr.
Bailey: Any other questions? Did
you have a comment?
Dr.
Heilman: I’d just add to that discussion that in fact, there are faculty
members at Auburn, extremely good faculty members, who by their interests and I
think in agreement with their department heads, concentrate very heavily or
almost even exclusively on instruction, do a wonderful job at it, are
recognized as leaders in that field and are promoted to full professor, so the
issue of just workload distribution, if I can use that phrasing, is only the
beginning of the discussion, not the end.
I’d comment also with respect to what Sadik Tuzun said. The notion of a faculty member whose career
takes on new directions, who we might say finds him or herself becoming engaged
in a scholarly area that actually is coming into existence, may not have
existed at the time he or she went through graduate school, finds a whole
disciplinary area growing up around him or her that he or she wants to take
part in, that’s something that I think would be encouraged and supported by
this process, and quite candidly, that’s a good description of my own career at
Auburn University.
Dr.
Bailey: Any further questions? Dr.
Richardson, I appreciate your being here and your comments on this matter and I
appreciate your staying for the meeting. John, likewise, thank you very
much. I’m sure you all can appreciate
that their coming to this group and being willing to come forward with a
rationale process on post-tenure review, that took a fair amount of courage so
I appreciate that. And I also appreciate
the tone of the discussion. Our
recommendation from the Senate leadership has been very clear. We’re consistent, we’re also not taking an
obstructionist point of view, if indeed, this is something that is going to go
forward, university Steering Committee, as Dr. Heilman said, is going to be the
group that’s going to fashion the faculty-based, faculty-driven process. Thank you very much.
I have one other very short item, which is to announce that the
new senators elected by departments, the roster for the coming year is
available on the web. There are some few
departments that have not yet elected representatives and I hope that the
senators from those departments would ensure that replacements are elected in
the very near future.
Is there any unfinished business?
Dr. Heilman.
Dr.
Heilman: I’d like to follow up for just a second on Chairperson Bailey’s
remarks just now. Whatever we call it,
whether it’s periodic review and I think that is the language I’d recommend to
the president instead of post-tenure review, it’s serious stuff and I believe I
can understand, I think I understand from my 19 years as a full-time faculty
member, why these questions are being asked.
They are meritorious questions and in my view, if the administration is
thinking of doing this, the administration should come here and be able to
respond to those things. Conner
expressed appreciation for the spirit of the questions, and I’d like to do
that, too. Thank you.
Unidentified
speaker: I have more of an item that is of interest to faculty…
Dr.
Bailey: Could you please identify yourself?
Sridhar
Krishnamurti, Communication Disorders: Yes, I’m sorry.
(Identified self) The question always comes up about the nine month versus
twelve month contracts for faculty and I know there’s been a lot of discussion
on campus and I was wondering if the Senate can look into the possibility of
going from a nine-month tenure track to twelve-month tenure track positions as
this has come up on and off and there has been a lot of discussion about
it. This is one of those items that I
think needs to be looked at, especially because a lot of faculty members don’t
get compensated for those three months and some of those would want to at least
spread out their salaries over the three-month period.
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you. I’ll be glad to
speak with you after the meeting and if this is something that needs to come
before the Steering Committee, we can do that.
Probably at the September meeting, David King, the past chair of the
Senate Welfare Committee, is going to make a presentation of his committee’s
report on uncompensated work accomplished by nine-month faculty during the
summer, which might address some of your issues. That will probably be this September. We were going to do it at this meeting, but
then somebody wisely made the point that many of the nine-month faculty who he
would be addressing would not be here.
Is there any other new business to come before the body? If not, then I would entertain a motion to
adjourn. Tony gave us the motion. All in favor, say Aye. Opposed, nay.
We’re adjourned.