Minutes of the University
Senate
September 6, 2005
3 p.m.
Broun Hall Auditorium
Submitted by Patricia
Duffy
Present: Conner Bailey, Richard Penaskovic, Patricia Duffy, Kathryn Flynn, Willie Larkin, Debbie Shaw, Dan Bennett, Paul Bobrowski, Stewart Schneller, Dick Brinker, Michael Moriatry, John Heilman, John Tatum, Harriette Huggins, Jenny Swaim, Garenetta Lovett, Robert Locy, David Cicci, Diane Hite, Charles Mitchell, Werner Bergen, Barbara Kemppainen, Charlene LeBleu, Barry Fleming, Raymond Hamilton, Anthony Moss, Timothy McDonald, Anoop Sattineni, Robert Chambers, Rik Blumenthal, Larry Crowley, DebraWorthington, Sridhar Krishnamurti, Gary Martin, Randy Beard, Juidth Lechner, Charles Gross, Sadik Tuzun, Claire Crutchley, Michel Raby, Larry Teeter, Jim Saunders, Alice Buchanan, Ruth Crocker, Ken Titlt, Thomas A. Smith, Chris Arnold, AndrewWohrley, Roger Wolters, Hugh Guffey, Darrel Hankerson, Daniel Mackowski, John Rowe, Robin Fellers, Joe Sumners, Cindy Brunner, Salisa Westric, Bernie Olin, James Shelley, Franci Robicheaux, Anthony Gadzey, Virginia O'Leary, Carole Zugazaga, Howard Thomas, Scott Phillips, Saralyn Smith-Carre
Absent, sending a substitute: Zachary Bryant, Ronald Clark, Jon Bolton, Tom Williams
Absent, no substitute: David Wilson, June Henton, Bonnie MacEwan, Roger Garrison, Jack DeRuiter, Mario Lightfoote, Alvin Sek See Lim, Ann Beth Presley, Renee Middleton, Allen Davis, Sareed Maghsoodloo, Richard Good, Forrest Smith, Robert Norton, Vivian Larkin, Randy Tillery, William Shaw
Conner
Bailey called the meeting to order at 3:00 p.m. and reminded Senators to please
sign in at the back. He said that he
would continue the practice of allowing anyone present from a represented group
to ask questions or take part in discussions from the floor. He asked that
Senators have precedence if many people want to speak and reminded speakers to
go to the microphones and state their
name, whether or not they are a Senator, and what unit they represent.
Conner Bailey then called for approval of the minutes from July 12th. Howard Thomas moved that the minutes be approved. They were approved by voice vote without opposition.
Remarks from
President Richardson
Item
1: SACS Visit
President Richardson said that the SACS
visit is scheduled for September 18th.
Linda Glaze is the point person with SACS. He said the university would provide SACS
with a progress report on the search for a permanent president. He
said that he and others had attended a workshop by the Association of Governing
Board. Also, he said Mr. Miller will
select a search firm and that a report on progress would probably be provided
at the Sept 16th Board of Trustees meeting.
President Richardson said the second item
requested by SACS, the conflict of interest report for the Trustees, was completed
last fall semester but the university was not able to submit it to SACS in
December because it did not make the 15-day advance deadline. The
documents will be submitted for this visit.
President Richardson said that three reports were conducted and no
violations found.
He said that the university will also provide
a report on periodic evaluation of the president. He said an evaluation has been
conducted.
Question
and Answers on SACS Visit
Virginia O'Leary asked if there is a
timeframe for the presidential search that the Board will lay out at the
September 16th meeting.
President Richardson replied that he is not
involved in setting the timeline for the Board.
He said his own timeline is no later than the end of calendar year 2006
to have someone replace him. He said the
Board is making diligent effort to get a top, nationally noted search firm. Upon selection of search firm, he said, the
process will move faster.
Cindy Brunner asked about the report on
periodic review of the president's performance.
She asked if future reviews will take
the form of the most recent review, a sub-committee of three members of the
Board of Trustees, or if they would be more comprehensive.
President Richardson said he anticipated
the latter. He said that this time there
was a short timeline and the Board had no previous experience conducting such a
review. He said that he would recommend
that the evaluation be more comprehensive, but he cannot make this decision as
the form of the evaluation is the Board's decision.
Item
2: Upcoming Board Meeting
President Richardson said the Board of
Trustee's committee meetings will be held September 15. The meeting of the full Board will start
around 9 a.m. on Friday and will finish by 11 or 11:30. He said this time format will be in place for
upcoming Board meetings as well, with committee meetings on Thursday and the
regular Board meeting on Friday morning.
He said there were two workshops scheduled on
the 15th, one at around 1 and one at around 2:30. (Details on the room and time will be posted
in the appropriate place.) The first
workshop concerns cost management. At
this workshop, topics to be reviewed for cost management will be
identified. President Richardson said
they won't attempt to get answers on September 15th, but rather to find the
areas to exam. He said most areas will
be administrative matters, but inevitably cost management will relate to
academic program review in terms of staffing.
He said that some colleges are understaffed
and some are overstaffed. He said the other
workshop will be on the Strategic Plan with the purpose to have a review of the
panels held by Bill Sauser. He said there will also be samples from other
institutions that have completed Strategic Plans. He said the workshop is an effort to engage
the Board of Trustees in open discussion as to the direction of the
university. He said he does not
anticipate problems. He said he anticipates
that the basic structure of plan will be on the table for the November Board meeting
for approval at the February meeting. After
February, the university could start with operational plans -- what we intend
to do to address priorities. He said we
must move quickly because operational plans must at least be roughly worked out
to affect the budget for next year.
During the Board's June meeting, he and AUM's
chancellor would give annual reports, as a first step toward issuing annual
reports on the Strategic Plan. He
pointed out that the February Board meeting is on the
Questions
and Answers:
Rich Penaskovic
said there was a great deal of apprehension about post-tenure reviews. He asked for a rationale for setting up
post-tenure review at this time.
President Richardson said that post-tenure
review is another initiative along with academic program review. He said that at the November 18th Board meeting
criteria for conducting such reviews should be placed on the table, so that we
have the rest of the academic year to do a pilot. He said that the one major theme he is trying
to establish is institutional control, which was an issue for the SACS problems
last year. He said he wants to make sure
that the institution is driving the agenda and that several things came up with
the Trustees, including post-tenure review.
He said we need to put it (e.g. post-tenure review) on the table. He said if we identify the criteria for
post-tenure review, we drive the process.
He said he does not see it (e.g. post-tenure review) being in the Board
by-laws so we would have flexibility to make changes as we go along. Finally, he said that frequently there are
articles about accountability in higher education and that post-tenure review
is an attempt by the institution to make changes most people think need to be
made, with us having control of the process.
He said he believes it (e.g. post-tenure review) can be done
effectively, without threat. He also
said he believes we have remarkable people on the faculty and in the administration. He said he hopes to be able to reward and
recognize the people who do tremendous jobs.
Cindy Brunner asked whether the reports
about understaffing and overstaffing that President Richardson referred to are
available.
President Richardson said that he was
referring to information that is in the reports to SACS, which identified two
colleges as understaffed. He said another
report was done by one of our people and that there are debates about it.
Rik Blumenthal asked how the university would
be addressing issues of "excess faculty." He asked if it would involve a slow process,
such as retirement, or a mechanism for quick reduction.
President Richardson said there would be a
slow process for downsizing and a faster one for adding new faculty. Through attrition units could be downsized,
or possibly some people could fit into other units. He said that primarily cost management deals
with construction, indebtedness etc.
Rik Blumenthal asked what President Richardson
could say to legislators who think faculty members are overpaid. He asked if President Richardson should be
telling people that faculty are not paid as much as some of their graduate
students who go into industry. He said
that President Richardson ought to make public that we are not paid well
relative to industry employees and asked why he was not making such statements.
Ed Richardson called on John Heilman. John Heilman said one of the Board's objectives was to get
faculty salaries near regional averages for peer institutions. He said that progress has been made in recent
years to get our salaries up to levels comparable to regional averages by
discipline.
President Richardson said we have a
tendency to talk about the inner workings of a university as if everyone else
is listening, but they are not. He said
that if we had workload policies in which we identify what we do, he could respond
more effectively (to comments about faculty efforts). He
said that, like everything else in life, a handful that creates bad impressions
is what people react to. With a workload
policy, he said he would have evidence to use in response.
Gary Martin said that post-tenure review
was used at another institution where he had worked and that it was
supportive. He said it was important to
look at the goals of the process. He asked how President Richardson could get
faculty input by his target date of November 18th.
President Richards said he has identified
some issues that he knows will come up but is opening the door for us to
fashion the answer. He said he has delegated
this task to the Provost and others. He
said we will work as hard as we can, but we will not rush to meet an artificial
deadline. If we need a little more time,
he said that would be okay.
John Heilman said
there are developmental uses for a process such as this. His office and the Steering Committee are
looking at a range of options. He said he is working with Conner Bailey to ask the
Steering Committee to provide leadership in providing proposals.
(Secretary's Notes: Minutes from Steering are posted at https://auburn.edu/administration/governance/senate/Steering-Committee-Minutes.htm
)
Sadik Tuzun said he
thought the idea of going through periodic review is healthy. .
Other
Items:
President Richardson said Sid
McAnnally is with us at this point
full-time and that we will again share an agenda with the
He said that John Heilman
will cover relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina.
He commended us for our increased standings
in published reports and noted that a survey of
Announcements from Senate Chair Bailey
Conner Bailey noted that the Board of
Trustees will meet Sept 15th and 16th. He
said that the schedule is a little different than traditionally has been the
case, with committee meetings starting at 10 a.m. Thursday and running through the day. The meetings will be in Ballroom B of the
AUHDCC. Often the agenda is posted on
the Trustees' website. There are two
items of particular interest to faculty.
At approximately 2 p.m. there will be a workshop for Board members on
Strategic Planning. And the Board will
approve the 2005-2006 budget.
Conner Bailey said that at the beginning of
fall semester he sent all Senators a “welcome back” message, updating faculty
who were out of town on developments that took place over the summer. Among the topics addressed were post-tenure
review, development of a strategic plan, academic program review, and what has
been known as the “Ag Initiative.” He
said that each of these four topics will be addressed in Senate meetings during
October and November, as well as the University Faculty meeting on Oct 18th.
Regarding post-tenure review, he said the
Steering Committee has taken responsibility for considering what type of policy
might best fit
He said that the “Ag Initiative” has
entered a new phase and is likely to be renamed to reflect the focus on a
broader range of things than simply agriculture. He said that the first phase involved
external stakeholders and that Dr. Heilman will talk
about the second phase, involving the input of faculty and administrators,
later this afternoon.
He said that the Strategic Plan has just
passed through a second phase where many in this room provided input in the
form of answers to the questions posed in the first phase. He said that Bill Sauser
will lead a group in developing a draft document for discussion later this fall.
He said that the Academic Program Review
Committee has been meeting regularly and he expects a report will be coming
before the Senate in the near future.
He said he has written the chairs of most
Senate committees with regard to specific “charges” for the coming year. Among the issues to be addressed, which might
come before the Senate, is a revised charge for the Non-tenure Track
Instructors Committee. He said we need to
expand the charge to include all non-tenure track faculty. He said their ranks are growing.
He also mentioned that the SACS visit will
take place soon.
He called for questions from the floor. There were none.
Action Items
1) Approval of appointments
to Senate Committees
Kathryn Flynn moved approval of the remaining appointments to Senate Committees. The motion passed on voice vote without opposition.
2) Handbook revisions
concerning the Promotion and Tenure Committee (two items)
Kathryn Flynn read the resolution, from Steering,
concerning representation
for clinical and research faculty and moved its adoption. The
resolution would allow tenured faculty to serve as resource persons on the
Promotion and Tenure Committee for clinical and research faculty if no
professors in those tracks are available to take that role.
Following a question from Anthony Moss asking for clarification about which committee was involved and an answer from Kathryn Flynn that the resolution concerned the Promotion and Tenure Committee, the motion passed on voice vote without opposition.
Kathryn Flynn read the second resolution,
also from Steering, concerning membership
on the P&T committee. This
resolution stipulates that a minimum of nine members of the committee would be
tenured. She moved its adoption.
Virginia OLeary
said the Senate deliberated a long time before instituting the clinical
track. By expanding the number of
tenured faculty on Promotion and Tenure, she said we are further disadvantaging
those people who come up through the clinical track route to promotion at least
until such time that the criteria for their promotion becomes institutionalized
at Auburn. She said this resolution
makes it even more difficult.
Cindy Brunner said that the resolution is restoring
the number of tenured faculty. She said that when the Senate approved the
change to put clinical track and research track faculty on the committee, there
was no stipulation about the maximum number of non-tenured spots and thus it was
possible that the committee could have been composed largely of non-tenured
faculty. She said that a threshold was
set of at least 7. She has suggested
that we restore it to 9 tenured members, which is what it was before we had
clinical and research tracks.
Rik Blumenthal asked if the resource person, if
tenured, be able to vote on tenure cases.
Kathryn Flynn said that was not specified but
left up to the Provost as chair.
Conner Bailey said that in the past it has been
done both ways. Neither resolution
clarifies how this issue will be handled.
He said that the Senate leadership had discussed the issue with the
Provost.
John Heilman said
he encouraged those with views on this matter (e.g. whether tenured resource
faculty on P&T could vote on tenure cases) to contact Senate leaders.
The resolution passed by voice vote.
3)
Intimate Relations Policy
Kathryn Flynn
brought forward a resolution from the Executive Committee concerning Intimate
Relations. She noted that a previous
resolution had been approved March, 2004, and that the Staff Council and
A&P Assembly asked us to reconsider some of it, which has lead to the
current revision. She read the
resolution on the
Intimate Relations Policy. The
revised policy deals exclusively with relations between employees (faculty and
staff) and students. A sentence
concerning relations between employee supervisors and the faculty and staff
members they supervise was removed. She
moved adoption of the revised policy.
(Secretary's
Note: A lengthy and fast-moving discussion
followed. Some comments may not have
been captured. A full accounting of all
comments will be posted in the transcript from this meeting.)
Ruth Crocker noted that the revision is a result
of deliberations with Staff Council and the A&P Assembly. She said she respects their contribution, but
objects to cutting out the sentence (on supervisors). She moved that we return the sentence with
the wording "strongly discourages" instead of "prohibits."
Harriet Huggins asked about copies of
nepotism policies and affirmative action policies. She said that what is disturbing to staff and
A&P is the ability to police these relationships. She said they (staff and A&P) felt that
existing policies could be modified to cover these situations. She said revisions of the nepotism policy are
currently underway. She said that it is
not so much the relationship that is the problem; it is the results of the
relationship with regard to favoritism.
She said she prefers to revise the manual as a solution.
Sadik Tuzun said he
opposes the resolution. He said that
policy in the
Conner Bailey explained that it came back
to the Senate because two constituent groups requested we bring it back.
Virginia O'Leary said she is concerned
about the resolution. She said she speaks against it. She said she wants to make sure that the less
powerful are always afforded the best possible protection. Also she noted that we have never resolved
the issue of sexual orientation. She would
like it included as a protected category.
Matthew Phillips asked to what extent
Ruth Crocker reminded the Senate of her
motion to retain the stricken sentence and to have "strongly
discourages" instead of "prohibits" The motion was seconded.
James Shelly proposed a friendly amendment
to the amendment, that we move the stricken/modified sentence to the end of the
paragraph.
(Inaudible) said he would ask for a
committee of all 3 groups to look at this again.
Conner Bailey noted that we (a committee of
all 3 groups) have been working on this for some time.
Jenny Swain said that the three governments
have gotten together extensively to talk about this. A concern is that we are already covered by the
harassment policy. She said there is concern
about what a violation would be. She
said that the way their policies are written, it would protect them. She said it would be more beneficial to take
this (issue about supervisors) out of the picture. She said that A&P and Staff both want
this sentence removed.
Rik Blumenthal commented that it is unwise to
take an important policy and alter it with words spoken on the fly. He spoke against amendments to the resolution
because they constitute on-the-fly changes.
Robin Fellers noted that the first sentence
deals with students and the second sentence (the stricken sentence) deals with
employees. She said that there are
faculty members who supervise employees within the academic setting. She asked what we are trying to do. Address relationships with students
only? Address relationships for
employees? If both, we need two
different policies.
Gary Martin noted there is a large
difference between "prohibit" and "strongly discourage."
Anthony Moss said he speaks against the
amendment to the resolution.
Bob Locy said
that when we discussed this resolution in Steering, we asked whether we should
have someone from Human Resources to discuss what changes in nepotism policy
would accompany this policy. He asked
if we should table this resolution until a full package can be brought, but he
clarified that he did not actually make a motion for tabling the resolution.
Kathryn Flynn read the amended
version.
including graduate teaching assistants, from pursuing or engaging in
romantic or sexual relationships with students, both graduate and
undergraduate, whom they are currently supervising or teaching. Violations
should be promptly reported to the University's Affirmative Action Office.
Violations of this policy will be addressed through appropriate disciplinary
action.
The amendment was defeated on a voice vote.
A voice vote was taken on the resolution
(without amendment). Conner Bailey
called it in favor of the ayes.
Cindy Brunner called for division of the
house (Secretary's note: She apparently wanted
a show of hands.)
Conner Bailey called for a show of
hands. The resolution passed 33 to 19.
Gary Martin asked if there will be a
movement to modify the nepotism policy.
Conner Bailey said he will work with heads
of Staff and A&P to see that it is done.
Because of the hour, Conner Bailey asked
David King to postpone his report on uncompensated faculty work until October.
Remarks from Provost Heilman
John Heilman was
called to the podium. He said that the
Senate leadership and Provost are talking about the Agricultural Initiative on
a regular basis.
He provided information on the Hurricane
Katrina efforts. He said the university
wants to be able to help people in need.
The university has tried to help our students stay in school. Auburn students affected by the hurricane
have been asked to work with deans to address their needs. He noted that we start earlier in year than
other schools and that courses have moved along quite a bit. We are also over-enrolled this year. All of these things pose challenges for
accepting students displaced by disruptions at other universities. He said that the colleges are working with these
students on a case by case basis.
He noted that
He asked if we can we try to accommodate
faculty from other schools dislocated by Katrina. He said if we have resources, we want to
help. He encouraged faculty to
communicate with deans.
Sadik Tuzun asked how
many of our students are affected by Katrina.
John Heilman said
1590 students have zip codes in affected area, most from
Cindy Brunner made a motion to adjourn,
which was seconded. It passed on voice
vote without opposition. The meeting adjourned
at 4:50 p.m.