Legislators receive awards from AU
Part of Miller Hall closed for fungus removal
Search to begin for new Agriculture dean
Staff leaders cite improvements in benefits
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Legislative Tiger Awards
Interim AU President William Walker presented Legislative Tiger Awards on Oct. 20 to two state senators and a representative who led the fight on behalf of Auburn University in the Alabama Legislature this year.
The awards, which are presented annually to recognize exceptional support for Auburn University in the Alabama Legislature, went to Sen. Lowell Barron of Fyffe, Sen. Ted Little of Auburn and Rep. Mike Hubbard of Auburn. Walker presented the awards at a meeting of the Alabama Legislative Action Committee at the Dixon Conference Center during homecoming weekend.
Barron, a member of the AU Board of Trustees and majority leader of the Alabama Senate, received an award for his efforts on behalf of AU and all of higher education during a special session of the Legislature.
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Walker said Barron showed political courage in opposing efforts by Gov. Don Siegelman to place a disproportionate share of the burden of proration on higher education. Barron and other senators defeated that attempt. Similarly, the Alabama Supreme Court later ruled that the state cannot selectively apply funding cuts when the governor declares proration of the education budget.
Barron said he sides with Siegelman when he thinks the governor is right but he believed strongly that the governor was wrong to try to divide higher education and K-12 on the proration issue. Education needs to be united in the search for a financial solution, he said.
Walker said Little won the award for his efforts on behalf of better funding for Auburn during the regular session, when the Legislature passed the education budget for 2001-02. Little also won the award last year.
Little said his goal during funding debates in the Legislature is to convince his colleagues that Auburn needs additional funding to secure its place as a flagship institution and a leading research university. He noted that Auburn research is essential to economic development in Alabama.
Walker cited Hubbard for championing Auburn's interests in the House of Representatives, especially during a special session when he sponsored a measure to secure $20 million in funding for AU's Transportation Technology Center. This was the third consecutive year in which Hubbard has won the award.
Hubbard said he and other Auburn supporters are trying to change a mindset in the state that does not recognize the importance of adequate funding for education in general and Auburn University in particular. Like Little and Barron, he urged the crowd of 300 Auburn supporters to encourage the legislators in their home districts to support more state funding for education.
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Legislative support
Part of Miller Hall closed for cleanup
AU authorities closed the first floor and basement of Miller Hall, a classroom building for the schools of Nursing and Pharmacy, on Friday to remove a fungus that is commonly associated with "Sick Building Syndrome."
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Interim AU Provost John Pritchett said those parts of the building will be closed to public access for up to three weeks as a precautionary measure. Cleanup was to begin immediately to remove concentrations of the fungus Stachybotrys that were found in insulation around overhead air conditioner pipes and fan coils in some air conditioner units.
The second floor of the building has been inspected and declared free of the mold.
During the cleanup, nursing classes and faculty offices on the first floor relocated to the second floor of Miller Hall. The School of Pharmacy, which shares a portion of the building, moved its classes and a departmental office into Walker Hall, that schoolıs main building.
Stachybotrys, a black mold, has been associated with "Sick Building Syndrome." Persons in affected buildings experience eye, nose and throat irritation and headaches and may be more susceptible to respiratory infections after exposure to high concentrations of the fungus.
Charles Ray, director of the AU Office of Safety and Environmental Health, said the cleanup covers all areas in which the fungus is present. "We will replace insulation and clean intensively all fan coil units and seal all evidence of mold we cannot clean," he said.
"We will wipe down all surfaces and do clearance sampling before allowing students, faculty and staff to reoccupy the space," Ray added. "We will then clean the upstairs fan coil units."
The work was to be done by specially trained and outfitted employees of the Facilities Division.
The fungus is common in many areas of the United States and small amounts can be found in many buildings where water pipes or leaks contribute to lingering dampness, said Debra Sharpe, associate director of Safety and Environmental Health at Auburn. Although the link between Stachybotrys and health problems in humans remains unclear, Sharpe said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommend removal when concentrations are found.
Miller Hall was built in 1952 to house the School of Pharmacy and was converted and renovated in the 1970s to house the School of Nursing. The 25,000-square-foot building underwent further renovation in the early 1990s.
The Department of Pharmacy Care Systems is also housed in Miller Hall. The building is named for Emerson R. Miller, who in 1895 became Auburn's first professor of pharmacy.
Staff leaders cite breakthrough on health insurance
Staff Council leaders say new benefits adopted in October by the university for AU employees marked a breakthrough that was years in the making.
Chief among those benefits, which go into effect Jan. 1, is a break on insurance premiums for employees making below $30,000 a year and an even bigger reduction for those making below $20,000. Many of those employees are support staff, who are represented by the Staff Council.
Other new benefits translate into the opportunity for employees to receive more AU assistance for supplemental retirement accounts and, for the first time, a 50 percent reduction in tuition for dependents of faculty and staff. Staff employees will join faculty, administrators and professional employees in receiving those benefits, but the insurance differential could have an immediate and widespread impact on lower-paid employees, said Staff Council Chair Harold Cummings.
In the absence of pay increases this year and with health insurance rates projected to rise 10 percent in January, many lower-paid employees were in danger of being unable to afford family health insurance, Cummings said.
Staff Council leaders had for several years expressed concern about health insurance premiums taking a higher percentage of the paychecks for lower-paid employees than for others, but with limited growth in insurance premiums during the late 1990s, other issues had higher priority in budgeting.
Cummings credited his predecessor, 2000-01 Staff Council Chair Debra Carey, with raising awareness of the problem among other employee groups, university committees, administrators and trustees. Cummings, Carey, Chair-Elect Candace Bourne and other Staff Council members worked closely with individuals and groups this year to fashion a solution.
In addressing the problem, the university agreed to pick up 80 percent of the cost of health insurance for employees making below $20,000 per year and 70 percent for those making from $20,000-$30,000. For all others, the match will remain 60-40.
Through Dec. 31, individual health insurance coverage costs participating employees $91 a month, and family coverage costs $191. The university's Insurance and Benefits Committee has recommended a 10 percent premium increase for AU's self-insured health insurance plan. The Board of Trustees will consider this request at its Nov. 16 meeting.
For employees making $30,000 and above, a 10 percent increase in premiums would equal $19 more per month for family coverage.
Assuming that the projected increase will hold, the Staff Council is telling its members that employees making less than $20,000 per year will see an increase in their paychecks, after taxes, of $65 a month, and those making $20,000-$30,000 will gain $20 a month. "That will make a big difference for people whose take-home pay is already low to begin with," said Cummings. "Some people have been having to decide between paying for food and paying for health insurance for their families."
Carey said the Staff Council is encouraging employees to use the savings to sign up for a supplemental retirement plan through the Office of Payroll and Employee Benefits. The university will match on a dollar for dollar basis employee contributions to eligible plans up to $1,200 per year. That amount is up from $1,050 this year.
The tax-deferred annuities are widely used by higher-paid employees but not by those in low pay grades, yet those are the ones who need it most, Carey said. "Many people at that (lower) pay scale donıt feel they can afford to put money aside for retirement, but they are the ones who will get the smallest retirement checks," she added. "This gives them the opportunity to put aside some extra money and have the university double it for them."
The Staff Council officers thanked the Board of Trustees for adopting these benefit improvements and the University Senate and the Administrative and Professional Assembly for supporting the requests. "The support of the faculty senate and the AP Assembly is deeply appreciated because they were willing to forego their own benefit to help others simply because they thought it was the right thing to do," said Cummings.
Carey said strong support also came from the Office of Human Resources, the Office of Payroll and Employee Benefits, the university's Insurance and Benefits Committee, the AU Budget Committee, Executive Vice President Don Large, interim President William Walker and Trustees Paul Spina and Golda McDaniel.
The success of the drive for affordable health insurance for low-paid employees is a positive sign for the future, said Cummings. "I hope people will take more interest now in the Staff Council. I think our success here shows that we can get things done when we work together within the system."
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Search to begin for dean of College of Agriculture
Luther Waters, dean oaf the AU College of Agriculture since Jan. 1, 1999, has submitted his resignation, interim Provost John Pritchett announced Friday.
Pritchett said Waters will move to a tenured, full professorship in the Department of Horticulture.
"I want to thank Dr. Waters for his service as dean during an especially difficult time financially for Auburn and all of higher education," said Pritchett. "We appreciate the many contributions he made in helping to advance the college and the agricultural industry in Alabama."
Pritchett said an interim dean will be appointed in the near future. "It is our intention to move expeditiously into a transitional leadership to move us ahead so that we can continuously serve the students, faculty and the stakeholders of the College of Agriculture and Auburn University," he said.
Waters came to Auburn from his position as department head and professor of horticulture and crop science at Ohio State University, where he had been since 1990. Prior to that, he served in various teaching and administrative positions at the University of Minnesota for 12 years and eight years as a horticulturist and research manager for Del Monte Corp.
Waters holds bachelor's and master's degrees in horticulture from Clemson University and a Ph.D. from Oregon State.
Mailroom steps up scrutiny of incoming letters
AU mailroom employees have stepped up their visual inspections of mail and adopted new handling practices as the university's first line of defense against biologically contaminated letters and packages.
While Auburn is presumed to be at little risk of receiving letters or packages contaminated by anthrax or other biological agents, the risk cannot be entirely ruled out, says Houston Melton, supervisor of the AU mailroom. Safe handling practices and common sense are necessary for everyone handling letters and packages, not just mailroom personnel, he said.
Mailroom employees went through a U.S. Postal Service training class after the first anthrax-laced letters appeared in Washington and New York in September. The workers are now wearing latex gloves and inspecting letters and packages more closely during sorting as they look for anything that could present a health hazard. They also have masks and goggles available if the risk increases.
Mailroom personnel are strongly encouraged to wear the HEPA-treated masks when picking up the mail from the city post office each morning and during sorting, said Facilities Executive Director Cathy Love. Inspection during two rounds of sorting provides the university's first line of defense against biologically contaminated mail, she said.
The mailroom averages 35,000 pieces of mail and 750 packages per week. The workers follow new guidelines established by the Postal Service to identify suspicious letters and packages, which are then subjected to closer inspection or turned over to postal authorities for review. As of last Wednesday, none had reached that level of suspicion.
Individuals still have to pay attention when receiving mail, said Melton. "If you don't know who the letter is from and it looks suspicious in any way, you need to be more careful with it."
Campus units also need to check their outgoing mail or risk having it rejected at the city post office, Love noted. Postal authorities have instructed post offices not to accept outgoing letters that lack a clearly identifiable and accurate return address.
Circumstances that could raise suspicion include letters with no return address or those which have return addresses and postmarks from different areas. The AU web site contains a link to a Centers for Disease Control web site that describes additional circumstances under which letters should be viewed with suspicion.
AU, UA rivalry prompts donations to food banks
Although the football game between archrivals Auburn and Alabama is more than two weeks away, the eighth annual Food Fight between the two schools has already begun.
Each year, the state's two major universities compete in the food drive to see who can raise the most canned and nonperishable food. This year's competition began Oct. 22 and will continue through Nov. 15.
"Auburn won the Food Fight last year," said Martha Faupel, executive director of the East Alabama Food Bank. "Tuscaloosa was confident because they weighed in 34,000 pounds of food. The director of the West Alabama Food Bank called me and I was pleased to tell him Auburn got 37,000. It never hurts to beat Alabama in any form or fashion."
Contributions to the Food Fight may be made at drop-off points located at Foy Student Union, East Alabama Food Bank and the two Winn-Dixie grocery stores in Auburn, Faupel said.
"We have a lot of fun with the competition," Faupel said. "But at the same time we're helping the needy throughout the community. Over the past seven years, the equivalent of 13 tractor-trailer loads of food has been donated to the needy."
For more information about drop-off points or other programs, contact Faupel at the East Alabama Food Bank at 821-2006.
Library staff finishes move of nearly 2.6 million volumes
Draughon Library staff finished moving and rearranging nearly all the 2.6 million books in the library's collection during October. The goal of the reorganization was to simplify the location of materials in the collection.
Phase I, which was completed last summer, focused on centralizing reference service on the second floor.
Phase II, which began last June, involved reorganizing the books and bound periodicals into a standard A-Z alphabetical call-number order, beginning with the A's on the second floor, and ending with the Z's on the fourth floor.
Current humanities and social science periodicals were consolidated on the second floor and science and technology periodicals relocated on the fourth floor, making the periodical collection more visible and accessible.
The juvenile collection, previously on the third floor, was moved to the second floor. Additional shelving -- totaling seven miles -- was installed, providing space for future acquisitions.
Library staff have developed maps of the reconfiguration, which are available at the reference desk on the second floor.
College of Business to host visiting executives in November
The founder of a leading business-to-business Internet company and the architects behind the rejuvenation of Harley-Davidson Inc. will speak to AU College of Business classes in November as part of the Robert and Charlotte Lowder Visiting Executive-In-Residence Program.
Ken Eldred, the founder of leading business-to-business Internet company Ariba Technologies, will meet with classes in the college on Nov. 13-14. Rich Teerlink and Lee Ozley, who jointly helped resuscitate a struggling Harley-Davidson Inc., will meet with classes on Nov. 13-16. All three will also meet with faculty and administrators to discuss changes in the business environment and business education.
Eldred has founded many successful internet companies. In addition to Ariba, he also helped to found Inmac, Mysoftware Co. and ClickAction. He is now chairman of Parakletos @ Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on investing in telecommunication infrastructure and business-to-business services in the U.S. and Asia and also founder and CEO of Living Stones Foundation, a public Christian support organization.
Teerlink was CEO of Wisconsin-based Harley-Davidson in the 1980s and, in association with Ozley, an Auburn graduate who served as a consultant to Teerlink, helped rebuild Harley-Davidson -- the last remaining major U.S. motorcycle maker -- into a company capable of competing with Japanese manufacturers.
Public Relations Council honors new AU web site
The new Auburn University web site captured top honors in the Public Relations Council of Alabama's 2001 Medallion Awards competition. AU won a Medallion Award in the Interactive Media Web site category at the organization's conference October 18-19 in Mobile.
The new top page was launched Aug. 8 through a partnership between the Office of University Relations and the Office of Information Technology. It was the first major redesign of the page in six years.
More than a year of planning and development went into the creation of the new site. A core team of designers enlisted the services of a web steering committee, a group consisting of a dozen faculty, students and system administrators. The design team implemented suggestions presented by the steering committee to come up with the look and feel of the page.
Since going on-line in August, the Auburn top page has averaged more than 68,000 hits per day.
PRCA is a 45-year-old statewide organization with six local chapters throughout the state of Alabama that promote professional development and higher education in public relations. PRCA's Medallion Awards Competition gives more than 500 members an opportunity to have their work evaluated and recognized for excellence each year by a judging panel of public relations professionals who reside outside the state.
Foundation names Dillard as faculty intern
Carol Dillard, a faculty member in AU's College of Human Sciences, has been chosen as one of three faculty interns to The Club Foundation.
Dillard, an instructor at AU who has 28 years of experience as a teacher and dietitian, is faculty advisor to the student chapter of the Club Managers Association of America.
The Club Foundation was created by CMAA in 1988 to financially support professional development of club managers through education, training and research initiatives.
Dillard has worked with area clubs to establish internships for students interested in the private club field and is teaching a club management course this fall.
The Club Foundation Faculty Internship Program was launched in 1995 to increase club management expertise among faculty members in established college and university hospitality programs. Since 1995, a total of 19 faculty internships have been awarded.
As interns, faculty members receive an in-depth look at the private club industry through a three-day orientation, followed by extensive hands-on experience in private clubs. The program helps them develop an understanding of the research needs associated with the club industry.
Teleconference to explore crisis response, recovery
A national teleconference on "Crisis on Campus: Trauma and Recovery" will be shown in the Foy Student Union Exhibit Lounge from 12:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m. Nov. 12.
The free program, developed by the University of Vermont's Office of Continuing Education, is open to the public. Drinks will be provided for those bringing their lunch.
The program will explore ways for campuses to prepare for a variety of psychological responses in dealing with crisis situations, ranging from a single incident with a high-risk student to those involving trauma for large groups.
Panelists include Gail Pakalns, director of Counseling for Seton Hall University, Anna Satterfield, manager of Employee Assistance at Texas A&M University and Eddie Knowles, vice president of Student Life at Renselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Auburn's downlink of the teleconference is sponsored by the University Committee for Persons with Disabilities, the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs and the Foy Student Union and Student Activities.
Garrett to speak on emerging biological threats
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Laurie Garrett will present a public lecture on emerging biological threats at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 6, at the Dixon Conference Center as part of the Littleton-Franklin Lecture Series.
Garret was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for her reporting on an Ebola virus outbreak in Zaire. She has twice won the George Polk award in journalism, most recently in 2000 for her latest book, Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health.
She also won the Peabody Award for broadcasting and was given a Special Citation for Outstanding Journalism by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Garrett studied bacteriology and immunology at the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University before pursuing journalism. She took a leave of absence and got involved in reporting health issues from southern Europe and sub-Sahara Africa. She then returned to the United States, first as a science correspondent with NPR, then with Newsday.
In 1992, Garrett served as a visiting fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, where she did research for her second book, The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World out of Balance. The book was selected one of the best books of 1994 by both The New York Times Book Review and the Library Journal.
Speaker to discuss American Indian education
Cherokee Chief Chad "Corntassel" Smith will speak about native Americans' representation in higher education on Monday, Nov. 5, at 6 p.m. as AU celebrates Native American Heritage Month in November.
The 6 p.m. program in Foy 202 is part of the university's efforts to promote and recognize diversity, said John Bello-Ogunu, AU's assistant provost for Multicultural Affairs. "I think the community is interested in knowing what the future holds for native Americans," said Bello-Ogunu.
Smith, a descendant of the leaders of the Keetoowah society, has fought for tribal sovereignty and supported Indian rights for the past 15 years. Smith's great-grandfather was Redbird Smith, a senator of the Cherokee Nation in 1896. Redbird was a famous Cherokee traditionalist who fought the government allotment policy under which the United States took over 7,000,000 acres of land from the Cherokees.
Smith holds an M.B.A. in public administration, a bachelor' degree in education and a law degree. He has taught college-level courses in Indian law and history around the country, including Indian law as a visiting professor at Dartmouth. He has written college curricula for tribal operations and authored a book on Cherokee legal history.
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AU Report
Editor: Roy Summerford. Contributing editors: Bob Lowry, Janet McCoy, David Granger and Roy Roberson. The AU Report is the faculty/staff newsletter of Auburn University and is published by the Office of University Relations at Auburn University. Direct correspondence to AU Report, 23 Samford Hall, Auburn University, Ala. 36849-5109. Telephone 334/844-9999. Electronic mail: summero@auburn.edu |