February
14, 2006
3:00
p.m.
Dr.
Conner Bailey: Let me call this meeting to order and let me remind
senators to please sign in at the back at the place indicated. We’ll continue our normal practice of
allowing anyone who is part of a group represented by this body-faculty,
students, staff, A&P-to have the privilege of the floor to ask questions at
the appropriate time. In the event that
there are many people interested in speaking on an issue before this body,
please, we may allow senators to go forward.
Looking at the crowd, I think that we will not have a problem with
that. When you speak please go to one of
the microphones, identify yourself and say whether or not you are a senator and
what department or unit you represent.
The minutes of the January 17th meeting of the
Senate have been posted and distributed.
I’d entertain a motion for approval of said minutes. Rik Blumenthal-motion second? Second, Howard Thomas. Discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying
aye. Opposed nay. The minutes are approved.
Dr. Richardson is with us today and if I may introduce,
invite him to come forward. Dr.
Richardson, thank you.
Dr.
Ed Richardson, Interim President: Thank you very much, Dr.
Bailey. I wanted to attend this meeting
since it is the first one after our Board of Trustee meeting and I thought
there may be some general issues concerning process by which the Fisher Report
would be addressed in order to talk about that and also I’ve added three other items
that I would like to discuss.
Number One is the Legislative session-I wanted to just
briefly describe what’s going on, not in all the details but basically to make
it, what I think, relevant to
I also wanted to talk about the legislative session in one
other aspect. We are attempting to
position, and this is what
Finally, on a cautionary note, as I mentioned last year
was a good year; this year should be better.
Next year should be adequate, that would be after the one we’re talking
about now. The one after that would be
very problematic, based on our analysis and we’ve called in three of the
experts dealing with finances. So what
we’re trying to do and what I’m encouraging Dr. Large to do, even though we
have a good budget year, is to make sure that we understand that some of this
money will be one time money and also for Fiscal Year ’09, which we’re dealing
now with Fiscal Year ’07 in this legislative session, the funds are going to be
very tight, so I think we have to keep that in mind. So I wanted to give you that report on the
legislative session that’s going a little ahead of schedule. The budget does reflect the previous
agreements and I anticipate having success in that regard with those cautionary
remarks.
Second, and before I get into the Fisher Report, which is
number three, I wanted to just remind everyone, and I’m sure you’re more aware
of that than I, that what we’re trying to set up as we get ready for this
discussion is to establish an environment in which the new president will have,
or the next president, will have an excellent chance of success and that to me
can be measured in two ways: one-the president is in a position to execute
presidential authority and two-can expect to be president of Auburn for an
extended period of time. Now extended,
you might say in comparison to what it has been for Auburn might not be quite
sufficient, but I would say extended in my view would at least be somewhere in
the five to ten year range that I think it would take to fully establish the
environment necessary to make sure that the president is successful. So I think that as we go forward, I just
wanted you to know that is basically what I will be trying to accomplish and
that is to make sure that this next person has a high probability of
success. Just on a personal note that is
my sole criterion for success and that is that the next person is successful
and so that’s what we’ll be focusing on and that is not going to be easy. I would just remind you that when I came, I
thought this would be a three-step proposition-the first year with SACS, which
it was; the second year which was to establish institutional control, which is
the position of the president to run the university and the third would be for
a search. So the second one is clearly
the most difficult and it requires attitudinal changes and I believe we are
making some progress. I am very pleased
that Mr. McWhorter, the chairman of the Board, is committed to that and I think
you’re going to see that committee, which you all know has been appointed, will
move, I think, in a very straight way, a very clear way, a very transparent way
to address that and I think we should keep that in mind.
Before I get into the Fisher Report, I wasn’t sure who
would be here, but I do see Bob McGinnis here-Dr. McGinnis of course had his
moving from the Silent Phase to the Public Phase of the Capital Campaign and as
you know, the amount, the goal, the target was increased to $500 million
dollars and he announced during Friday a week ago that $332+ million dollars had
already been pledged or committed, which is a tremendous commitment to the
university and reflects very positively on you and others. But just as a person has been around a long
time attending a lot of meetings, I just wanted to confirm for you that I thought
that the Event & Practice Facility for the football team, of which I had
serious doubts about what would be accomplished in that facility, but it was
appointed well, it was clearly choreographed in a way to develop emotions that
I think were very compatible with accomplishing this goal and I’m very
optimistic that with his fine leadership and that of his team and what I’ve
seen as far as a chairperson, which is Sam Gannon and Buddy Weaver, that that
$500 million dollar goal is realized, so Bob I would like to commend you for an
excellent show on Friday and the great work that you’ve done to position this
university, Bob McGinnis.
Now the third thing that I wanted to mention was the
Fisher Report. I am not here to talk
specifics with you and in fact, I want to say that I understand that Dr. Bailey
was going to lead you in a discussion and I think a discussion is clearly
appropriate. I would simply caution you
about moving to form opinions as to specific aspects of that report too
quickly. Now, and I’m going to talk
timelines here in just a minute which might help in that regard. First, I think to form opinions before the
committees met and adopted some of its own opinions and directions could
polarize the discussion before we get started.
Second, I would say to you it is probable that some of those
recommendations, in fact, several, will be delayed until the new president or
next president is selected and on board and won’t even be discussed until
then. Thirdly, I would say to you that
you as representatives of the faculty will have opportunity to participate in
those discussions at the appropriate time and the first discussion I think that
will be held will be during the Board meeting on April 13th, which
will be on this campus, and then further discussions will be during the June
meeting, which I think the committee meeting will be on June 29th,
which will also be here. So I think it’s
entirely appropriate and I think it would be wise to have the discussions; I
would simply advise, which you do with it what you like, rather than say ‘This
is what we think should happen’ before the committee starts its discussions, I
would ask that we would at least consider that.
The Fisher Report then, is a template.
There will be obviously several choices.
I have broken it down for the committee in terms of the three levels of
recommendations in terms of this is clearly a Board of Trustees issue;
secondly, this is the interim president-he did leave a few things for the
interim president to do; and then these are the issues that will be left for
the next president. So I anticipate that
the committee will meet within the next week or so; Mr. McWhorter is still
recovering from surgery and I would anticipate then that they will keep that
very apparent in terms of when they meet; it will be known, people will be able
to attend and you will be able to see which issues are going to come up and
then I would ask that you would pinpoint your discussions on the issues that in
force, then of course we’ll all be on the same page. I think that’s probably clear. I anticipate that substantially the Board
will complete its work; again, I’m there but I will not be as directly involved
in some of those discussions as the president ordinarily would be and I’m not
complaining about that, for some of it is clearly Board of Trustee issues; is
that I think by the June 30 meeting we would anticipate that this report will
be substantially addressed.
I do not think that it will impact negatively in terms of
the timeline; I still remain optimistic that the timeline that I offered the
Board by the end of this calendar year can still be met when the person comes
on board remains to be seen, so I think we’re on target both for the search as
well as for addressing the Fisher Report, which again, is specifically designed
to establish what I call institutional control or that the president is in a
position to be a real president.
The fourth and final item that I have deals with student
assessment. I wanted to talk just a
minute or two about that. Dr.
Blumenthal, I appreciate your email and your
questions-very appropriate. I would say
I wanted to just offer my two cents’ worth on where the Board is going in that
regard. It may sound like, and upon
reflection I could clearly see where you may think at least a few of the Board
members are being critical of what’s going on at
So with that I’ll stop and customarily to see if there are
any questions and I’ll do the best I can with that.
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you, Dr. Richardson. Are there any questions for Dr.
Richardson? If so, please go to the side
mic and identify yourself and the unit please.
Ruth
Crocker, History & Women’s Studies: Dr. Richardson
last year you told this body that diversity was not a priority for you as
president. In view of what the Fisher
Report has to say about the need for more diversity at
Dr.
Richardson: There are many times that I have been before many
audiences that I would say that either I misspoke or I was wrong. If I said it as you describe it that
certainly was not my intention. It may
have been a timing issue; that may have been the issue and not diversity
itself. I think we have moved in a
definitive way in that regard. The
Fisher Report obviously addressed it in a major way and I think you’re going to
see us address the diversity in the fullest extent of that term in a very
forthright way over this next year as we deal with the Fisher Report. I think it is time and certainly I think it
is an issue that affects-I think Lee Armstrong is here-in terms of the Knight
case and others; it just has many implications for us in a very positive
way. We got a good report and just
recently and rather than give you too extended an answer, I would simply say
that the time is right, we will look very carefully at those Fisher
recommendations, and I think you’ll see it be a major part of the discussion as
we go forward.
Dr.
Crocker: Thank you, Dr. Richardson.
Dr.
Richardson: Thank you.
Dr.
Bailey: Dr. Locy.
Dr.
Bob Locy, Biological Sciences/Steering Committee:
Dr. Richardson, if I misstate your comments here in asking you a question,
please correct me; I’m trying to get them as right as
I possibly can, I even took notes this time.
You asked us to exercise some caution in forming opinions quickly about
the Fisher Report and then proceeded to go on and outline the fact that you’re
going to take to the committee-I assume that committee is the committee of the
Board that’s going to be deliberating about the Fisher Report-and that you were
going to divide out those things that were kind of Board responsibilities
versus the responsibilities of the new president. It seems to me that one of the reasons why we
might be pressed to form opinions too quickly would be that it isn’t clear-at
least it isn’t clear to me-what the faculty role is going to be in the future
in terms of self governance and in terms of instituting the outcomes derived
from the Fisher Report and I guess I’d just like to ask you to comment on where
you see those roles being and maybe that will help us to be cautious about
forming opinions too quickly.
Dr.
Richardson: That’s a fair point, Dr. Locy and in response to the
previous question, to make sure, maybe I wasn’t clear enough; the committee
consists of four people of which Earlon McWhorter is
the chair of that, he would be co-chair with Sam Ginn as I understand, Sara
Newton and Charles McCrary make up the four.
They have not met yet; as I said Earlon is still recovering and I would
anticipate that they will have an organizational meeting to decide on which
issues are appropriate. As I was simply
doing, in other words, that was my advice to the committee. They may choose to take that advice or
not. There were a number of issues for
each of the three groups: the new president, the interim president, and the
Board-and then I would say they will decide within those that are clear to the
Board. I would think, for instance, the
bylaws issues which took up a lot of the report, will be something that they
will deal with fairly soon I’m guessing because that’s their recall. Now in terms of the faculty involvement,
which is the basis of your question, I can’t answer that yet but I do know that
Mr. McWhorter formed this as a committee which has the open meeting
requirements to go with it and I know that he recognizes that faculty
involvement in those discussions will be critical for its success. I cannot answer your questions specifically
because that is clearly up, at this point, to that committee to recommend to
the Board. But I assure you that the
Board has no intentions of running out here and forming its opinion and then
coming and telling us all about it. I
don’t think you have to be concerned about that. That’s not as precise an answer as you would
like; it’s just the best I can do at this point.
Dr.
Bailey: Yes?
Dr.
Richard Penaskovic, Chair-elect: Dr. Richardson, maybe I’m the only
one who feels this way, but I’m getting a bit antsy about the commencing of a
search for a permanent president and I was wondering if you had any ideas about
any kind of timeline the Board might use to begin a presidential search? It seems like its getting late in the
year. At the April 14th
meeting they’re going to discuss the Fisher Report; they may not even finish at
that meeting because they have other business to carry on at that meeting-why
can’t the Board now start getting together a committee for deciding how they’re
going to select people to serve on the committee for a permanent
president? Maybe you can’t answer that
and I realize that the decision to hire a president, to begin a search, is that
of the Board but I have to hear your thinking on this.
Dr.
Richardson: That’s a fair question and I would just simply offer my
opinion because obviously I will not be involved in that. I believe Mr. McWhorter was quoted as saying
that he would form the committee sometime this spring. I think he will form the committee and
start. I think Dr. Kuhnle has indicated
that his efforts have been ongoing and therefore once this committee is formed,
it won’t be as if we’re starting from scratch.
A lot of background work will have been done. As I said in my introductory remarks, I still
am optimistic based on whatever conversations I’ve had either with the
consultants or with the Board, is that it’s still on target to be very close to
making such a decision by the end of this calendar year, that is what I would
say. So I would see the committee being
formed; I’m not sure what type of work would go on; based on Dr. Kuhnle I think
that when he comes back in the fall, I think you’ll see in that three month
period a lot of work being done because a lot of the background work has
already been done, as far as I know, and so I would say that when the person
starts, that was one thing, if the person selected then there’s some period of
time usually when the person can arrive on the scene. So that’s the best I can do. I think you’ll see by the end of this
calendar year the Board being very close.
Why not start earlier? I think it
would be a mistake. I think to deal with
the Fisher Report and some of the issues-the Fisher Report was designed to
improve the environment for such a search.
Do that before you address some of those issues-I think it will cause
many people to be concerned about whether I need to apply; I’m not sure how this
is going to turn out. So I would say they’re
going to move very quickly, I think, in April and June to deal with as much of
the Fisher Report as they can. A search
committee will be appointed during that same time frame and I believe that
we’ll come back in the fall we’ll see a very intense process started and if all
goes well, then by the end of the calendar year, which is what my timetable, my
recommendation to them was, we should be in that position. That’s about the best I can do.
My concern again, I don’t know how to say this other than
if you’ve ever applied for a job at which you served at the pleasure of another
body, like an appointed or elected board, just as a digression, if you’ll
permit, of the one as I’ve talked, we’ve had some congressmen down here a week
or so ago, one was a medical doctor who’s in Congress for the state of
Michigan.
Dr.
Rik Blumenthal, Chemistry/Biochemistry: First, I usually
forget to complement you on what you do and have done well with the legislative
program and I particularly like the idea of linking with the University of
Alabama and calling ourselves research universities to distinguish ourselves
from the others-it’s an excellent idea, excellent work on your part.
Dr.
Richardson: Thank you.
Dr.
Blumenthal: And as far as the assessment goes, is the Board, and are
you aware that we just went through a SACS assessment that assessed all of our
academic programs? SACS’ assessment-the
primary thing they wanted to know is were we measuring the quality of the
students we produce and how that changes over time and continuously working to
improve the quality of the students? I
know in my department we instituted some of this testing that you’re already
looking for and you’re saying we’re missing.
I believe it’s part of our responses in each of our units to SACS-we
probably already answered this and probably already doing this and there’s no
need for any new outside programs to be instituted until maybe people up top
found out what the heck we were doing down there to make sure we were doing our
jobs well, something that we care about and we are doing everything we can to
do our jobs well.
Dr.
Richardson: I think, Rik, that I hope that
is the case. Drew Clark has confirmed,
John Heilman has confirmed that work has been done in that regard. But there’s two
sides to communicating and you know somebody’s got to hear the message and I
would say that if there’s a shortcoming on our part, we have not presented the
data in some type of systematic or longitudinal way to confirm that that’s
being done. And I think that’s where
this discussion-where would we naturally go first? If we’ve already started, if there’s an
accrediting requirement-we’re going to look at that first and I believe you
will see the Board strongly consider it.
We do not have to have something that ETS develops for
Dr.
Blumenthal: From my department, ours is on record with both the
American Chemical Society and with SACS, so it should be in the SACS report.
Dr.
Richardson: Good. Well, Dr.
Heilman has confirmed that and Dr. Clark has, and I think we’ll be able to
demonstrate what has been done and hopefully that will be sufficient. That would be the easiest solution to this
problem.
Think that gets it?
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you. If
there are no further questions for Dr. Richardson…thank you, sir.
Dr.
Richardson: Thank you.
Dr.
Bailey: I have a few comments from the Chair. I want to move through them fairly
quickly. In the Fisher Report, which we
will be discussing shortly, there are certain items that the Fisher Committee
recommended that the university not move forward rapidly on. One of these is post tenure review. Just wait to hear my comments, sir, thank you. We don’t
yet know how the university will respond to these particular
recommendations. I raise this because
this body has been quite concerned with-we’ve discussed at great length-post
tenure review, the strategic plan, the Initiative for
At the last meeting of the Senate, I believe, I indicated
that we might bring the question of post tenure review forward for discussion
and vote at the university faculty meeting.
If in fact, we’re not going to be moving forward so quickly, if in fact
we’re going to be looking at the-I don’t mean this as putting pressure on you
sir, I’m just letting you know what the thinking was-if we’re going to move
forward on the annual performance evaluations and bringing those up to speed,
that’s the basis of any post tenure review, we may not in fact have a vote on
this matter at the March meeting. We
will be discussing this with Dr. Richardson and Dr. Heilman in the near
future. Thank you.
I’ll defer further comment on the Fisher Report until we
have the discussion later in this meeting.
I want to note that the Nominations Committee, as was previously
announced, chaired by Professor Howard Thomas, has come forward with a very
strong slate of candidates for Chair-elect and Secretary-elect. Candidates for Chair-elect are Dr. Cindy
Brunner and Dr. David Cicci and the candidates for Secretary-elect are Ann Beth
Presley and David Sutton and I appreciate the willingness of these individuals
to put their names forward in service to this body and this university.
We also sent forward a call for volunteers to serve on
Senate and University committees.
There’s one thing that impressed me as Chair-elect and even more in
these past 11 months as Chair is that the committees, both University and
Senate committees play a very central role in governance of this issue, of this
university. This university could not
function without these committees.
Please consider for yourself the opportunity for service. Please encourage your colleagues to also
volunteer for these committees. This is
important.
Also important, and I’m glad Bob McGinnis is still here, I
just want to echo what Dr. Richardson said about the importance of the capital
campaign we just kicked off. $500 million-big dollars-monies that we can use to attract students
with scholarships. High quality students and to retain the high quality faculty with
endowed chairs. This is going to
be-the reality is the state of
The Senate leadership continues to engage in discussion
with the administration on the Ombudsperson and Electronic Privacy Policy. I’m sure you are all as tired of hearing me
say that as I am of reporting that I have yet not anything finally to report to
you but I am assured that we’re very close.
The mills of the academia grind very slowly but I hope very fine.
That concludes my remarks from the Chair. Are there any questions at this time?
Seeing none let me move forward to the action item. Dr. Kathryn Flynn had a family emergency
which took her away at the last moment and is not here to handle the
nominations for the Rules Committee. For
those of you not familiar with Rules Committee, it is one of the three
essential committees that help run this university. It is the committee on committees. It is the committee that handles all the
volunteers that want to serve on university and senate committees. It is the body which-I’ve underlined relevant
sections here-it is the body that oversees the functioning of this Senate and
if there are matters that need to be addressed, as perhaps are identified in
the Fisher Report, this is the body-the Rules Committee-that would make
recommendations to the Senate for any change.
The Handbook calls for nominations during the February meeting of the
Senate with elections to take place during the March meeting of the
Senate. The terms are two years to begin
this coming August. So the people we
elect in the March meeting will take their position on Rules Committee in
August for two year terms staggered. I’d
like to open the floor for nominations at this time, please.
Please identify yourself.
Charlene
LeBleu,
Dr.
Bailey: Have you received confirmation that she’s willing to
serve?
Charlene
LeBleu: Yes.
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you. Yes?
Larry
Teeter, Forestry & Wildlife Sciences: I’d like to
nominate Andrew Wohrley from the Library.
Dr.
Bailey: And have you had confirmation that he’s willing to serve?
Larry
Teeter: Yes.
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you.
Diane
Hite, Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology:
I’d like to nominate Bernie Olin from the
Dr.
Bailey: Bernie Olin? Yes?
Diane
Hite: Yes, and he has accepted.
Thank you.
Dr.
Bailey: Are there any nominations? Other nominations? Thank you very much. I’ll take it at this time that the
nominations are closed. In past years,
there have been, in fact last year I believe, there were additional nominations
that did come to this body in the month of March at the March meetings. If you know of other individuals who are
willing to serve on this very important and hardworking committee, then their
names can come forward at that time. We
will have, for the three individuals who have been nominated, developed brief
bio-sketches so you’ll see who these people are if you’re not otherwise
familiar with them.
The next item on the agenda is a handbook change. I’ll invite Dr. Rich Penaskovic to come
forward.
Dr.
Richard Penaskovic, Chair-elect: I’ve been asked to present this
handbook change and resolution for change for the constituency of the
Administrator Evaluation Committee.
First I’ll begin by reading the resolution and then I’ll read the Senate
Constitution.
Resolution for Change in
Constituency of the Administrator Evaluation Committee
Whereas results
of administrator evaluations are reported to the Provost, and
Whereas the
Provost is the chief academic officer of the university, responsible for
ensuring appropriate evaluation of deans and other academic administrators of
the university,
Therefore, the
Steering Committee recommends that the composition of the Senate Administrator
Evaluation Committee be expanded to include a representative designated by the
Provost, who holds faculty rank and tenure. Such an expansion in membership
will require that the current description of the committee in the University
Senate Constitution and the Faculty
Handbook be revised accordingly.
If this resolution
passes, here’s how it’ll read in the Faculty
Handbook:
Article
4, Section 9 of the Senate Constitution.
Section
9. Administrator
Evaluation Committee: The Administrator Evaluation Committee shall consist of
five faculty members nominated by the Rules
Committee; a representative
designated by the Provost, holding faculty rank and tenure; one
administrative/professional member nominated by the Administrative and
Professional Assembly; and one staff member nominated by the Staff Council. The chair of the committee will be selected
from the five faculty members nominated by the Rules Committee. The committee shall oversee and/or conduct a
periodic evaluation of University administrators involved in the University's
teaching, research, and extension programs and provide a report of aggregate
data to the Senate.
Mr. Chair, I move adoption of this
resolution. Since it came from the
Steering Committee, I believe it doesn’t need a second.
Dr.
Bailey: That’s
correct. Any
discussion?
Rik
Blumenthal, Chemistry/Biochemistry:
Rich, what’s the motivation for this? I
would think that on the Administrator Evaluation Committee originally it was
set up to have no administrators or direct representatives of administrators
because you wouldn’t necessarily want them to have privilege to see the raw
materials of that committee which might indicate who among us may have said
something negative about an administrator in our past. And I want to know, is this something that
the Provost has asked for and for what purpose would this extra member
appointed by the Provost be sitting on the committee for?
Dr.
Penaskovic: Well, I think the person ultimately
responsible for evaluating the Deans is the Provost and I think our committee
felt that he should at least have a representative sitting on this committee to
express his views, to stand in for the Provost.
And in terms of the number of faculty on the committee, there is more faculty and only one representative from the Provost so the
representative could be outvoted, but I think it’s good to give people a voice.
Dr.
Bailey: Maybe I could
answer another aspect of that question, which is that the request did not come
from the Provost’s office, it came out of the Steering Committee and the
concern was, and I think it’s a very important thing, we want the Provost’s
office, which is ultimately responsible for administrator evaluations of an
academic administrator, to feel confident in the process and in fact much of
the data, the lists of faculty come out of the Provost’s office so a high
degree of coordination and cooperation can be achieved through this. We had it this year I must say and
compliments to Drew Clark in that regard.
As for the identify of those individual faculty
making comments about administrators, they’re never going to be available to
the committee in any form anyway, so I don’t see that as an issue. Are there any further questions? Is this body ready to vote then? If so, all those in favor signify by saying
Aye. All of those opposed, nay. Thank you.
Motion carries, thank you Dr. Penaskovic.
At this time let me invite Don Large to
come forward to speak about the Tobacco Users’ Surcharge Program.
Dr.
Don Large, Executive Vice President:
Thank you Conner, I appreciate this opportunity to talk to you for just a few
minutes on this new surcharge in our health plan and maybe explain some areas
and maybe clarify some others. What I’ve
done, Conner, if I can take maybe five-I don’t think it’ll take ten minutes-and
just go over some information and then respond to questions. Is that ok?
I’ve drafted this up to maybe, I guess I
would categorize it into four areas-I’ll give you some background information,
describe a little bit the process for decision-making on this particular issue,
provide you some clarification of the policy and its intent, and then talk
about what we’re going to do going forward, that I hope will ease at least most
of the concerns that have been shared with me.
First of all, background-I think most of
you know, but sometimes I’m surprised that people do not, but we have a
self-insured health insurance plan.
There is nobody out there insuring us, we do it ourselves, you
contribute monies, the university contributes monies, it goes into a pool and
designated specifically and only for healthcare costs that we incur. Blue Cross is the plan administrator, subject
to all kinds of HIPPA requirements and privacy requirements and we collect
those funds, we pay and each year, as you know, there tends to be a need to
increase that pool of funds for healthcare costs and that’s simply because we
continue to use more and more services, we continue to buy more and more
pharmaceuticals, and then there is the rapid inflationary pricing of
healthcare. So those are some of the
drivers and background as to what, how the health plan works as far as bringing
money in and sending money out. Some of
you pay 20%, some 30% and some of you 40%, depending on your income
levels. When you total that all up and
look at it in the aggregate, the employees are paying a little under 35% and
the university a little over 65% of the healthcare costs that go into that
pool.
Now, relative to that, each year the
16-person Insurance and Benefits Committee, the University Insurance and
Benefits Committee, with representation from all employee groups, studies the
health plan, looks at what others are doing and ultimately brings for a
recommendation to the administration of how much we should increase our
premiums to meet what are expected to be our costs for the next year. And in doing that, in recent years, probably
I would say since we move retirees to PEEHIP seven or eight years ago as a cost
containment measure, and because every other university was already doing that,
we have tried to reasonably mirror the PEEHIP plan of the state and once again,
this year as has been the case in recent years, the Insurance and Benefits
Committee has done that. They looked at
cost cutting attempts of PEEHIP that instituted a tobacco surcharge a year ago
and thought that would be an appropriate action on our part as well and I
remind you, all of us that will retire here will go to PEEHIP so mirroring
PEEHIP has reasonable merit I believe and by most peoples’ accounts, PEEHIP is
a very good plan and we’ve tried to keep ours very similar.
The process for decision-making is that
second category in-I meant to break them in and describe them as I was
going. That was the first focus on
decision-making and recommending something different to us for this next year. They have been concerned with double digit
cost increases of premiums, this was one action that they thought was
reasonable, they noted that smoking is the leading preventable cause of disease
and death in the United States, causing 440,000 deaths annually and that their
move, their recommendation was intended to be moved in some direction of cost
containment but to also be consistent with various wellness programs around the
country. And they were also guided by
the fact that PEEHIP, with their 25,000 subscribers had gone to this plan, this
surcharge, as had the state employees’ plan with 52,000 subscribers. That’s the background, that’s the process for
their decision-making. They bring
forward the recommendation to the President, the president asked me and in my
role as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer of the
university, to give input and to advise, I studied it, I am responsible for
ultimately recommending this surcharge to go into effect and I think, when
looking at all those factors, I thought it was a reasonable thing to do.
Now, I will tell you, upon receiving it,
I focused more on why do we target tobacco when there’s so many habits out
there that impact healthcare costs and I still have those concerns, but the
committee in their rationale and it being the leading preventable cause, swayed
me-the fact that PEEHIP, the same things that swayed them I ultimately bought
into; I still probably share some of your reservations that to target one area,
what’s next and nevertheless, we did not pioneer this. This is the plan we’ll ultimately go to upon
retirement and I don’t see it as an unreasonable approach.
Now, clarification because some of you
have expressed that and the most concern I’ve had expressed is that of the form
that was sent and what our intent there was.
I will apologize to you and tell you that once receiving that, I told
our administrative group to follow the PEEHIP plan, use the forms they did, it
must be safe. There’s a 100 and some
thousand people on it; let’s don’t reinvent the wheel. In hindsight, I wish I had studied that form
a little more because the language of the form and our intent are not
consistent and I say very publicly-I’ve emailed to Conner and others-and we
will communicate it in other appropriate forms that we have no intent or desire
to do any kind of random testing for tobacco usage or any kind of access to
your files. This is a system based on an
honor system and only for, in the most unusual case and for cause would we ever
imagine this every rising to the level of having to talk to a participant and
maybe asking for access to some more support to support their
representation. So we do not intend to;
the forms do not convey that and I apologize to you.
Now, let me now move into-that was the
clarification or the intent to do so.
Let me talk about where we go from here.
We intend to ask the Insurance and Benefits Committee to review the form
that was sent out for recommendations for better and more consistent wording
with our intent for the next year’s implementation. We’re still going to implement. We have already collected over 2,000 forms
that were already sent out. It’s simply
not practical to reinvent the form right now and I’m convinced that will cause
more problems than any that we’re solving.
Go forward with the forms-you have our representation and word that
there will be no other testing other than the extreme case of fore cause; we’ll
have a form to review and bring forward in the next few months-if this body
would like to see it before it goes out-that would do a better job of linking
our intent with what the form says and then you would have another chance this
time next year to sign off and then we would go forward from there.
So those hopefully are the key points I
wanted to stress and I’ll be happy to answer any questions.
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you. If you have any questions for Dr. Large, this
would be an appropriate time. While
people are going to the mic, let me express my appreciation, Don, for you being
here, your willingness to say “Oops” and to make this clarification. I greatly appreciate that.
Rik
Blumenthal, Chemistry/Biochemistry:
All I wanted to ask is that when I got my form, I filled it out and I watched
one of my colleagues, one that didn’t smoke, open it up, glance at it and
tossed it in the garbage can and I told him quickly ‘Grab that back out, it
will cost you $20 a month if you don’t.’
I fear many of colleagues looked at it and may have said ‘Oh, another
program I don’t want to join’ and tossed it in the trashcan. Is there somewhere online that I can print
out or they can print out a copy of the form so that they can send it in,
because I emailed them today when I remembered to say ‘Do send this in if you
don’t smoke’ and I was just wondering if there’s somewhere we can post one on
the web for us because I really fear a number of my colleagues may have thrown
the form out and not thought twice about it and will be charged even though
they would like to file the form.
Dr.
Large: That’s a great
point and I don’t know the answer to that, but we will solve that and we will
also stress it more than once in our future communications for the next couple
of months to remind people to get your forms in, it’s important, and be assured
there’s no intent for testing-I’ll try and cover both of those. Thank you.
Sir?
Anthony
Gadzey, Political Science:
Looking at the policy, it seems to me that it should be not that very difficult
to find out those who are cheating, those smokers who do not tell the
university the truth. If that is your
objective, then the policy amount does not seem to aim at doing that. If you are interested in finding out those of
us who might be cheating, who might tell the university one thing and their
doctors another thing, you should have a policy that smokes out those who would
cheat. I don’t mean literally, but here
is a suggestion for example: if you have a policy that does not penalize all of
us by taking premium dollars away from some of us, that is big money for some
of us every month, what about instead of that instituting a policy which says
that if you are found cheating, you not only retroactively pay everything 100%,
you lose your coverage because you are into this program on trust. If somebody in spite of that heavy penalty
still goes ahead to cheat, then the whole insurance plan will not bear an
inordinate amount of cost. The cost will
be tailored directly to the perpetrator of that crime. Then all of us who do not smoke-from my
childhood I never smoke; you cannot smoke in my father’s house; it’s a no-no-so
why must I pay $20 a month for doing what my father taught me from the
beginning never to smoke? I don’t think
the policies were directed at penalizing the culprits. It’s just my thought, but I feel I being
victimized for something, thank God, I have been able to avoid all these
years. What do you think?
Dr.
Large: The policy at
this point, it’s the first year of implementation and we’re looking at what
PEEHIP has done as well, even though their form says one thing their intent at
this point is to rely on the honesty of the people filling out the forms and if
you tell us you’re a smoker, you will be charged $20 more if your spouse is a
smoker. I need to clarify that, I was
asked that, too. That does not mean $20
and $20 that means $20 only once. If you
tell us you’re not a smoker, we’re going to assume you’re telling us the truth
and we’re really not out there to try and disprove you or to check behind you
and only in a case where someone reports, and we will not take anonymous
reporting, there has to be a name attached; at that point we would approach you
and what are the consequences-then you could be ultimately subject to paying
back premiums or-we haven’t gone to the loss of benefits yet. Where we go next, I’d almost like to ask the
Insurance and Benefits Committee to advise-we don’t have to solve it all today,
we don’t have to solve it the first year.
I look at this as a process; let’s see how this goes. Let’s ask the committee to advise us, to
advise this group. I’ll bring it back
for your thoughts and what you say may be the right answer. It may be we’re not testing but please know
that the penalty for misrepresentation can be very great and be careful if
you’re tempted to tell us anything but the truth. I hear what you’re saying and we will…
Dr.
Gadzey: Besides, it’s
not very difficult to find out if somebody smokes.
Dr.
Large: Right, right.
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you. Yes?
Dr.
Cindy Brunner, Department of Pathobiology: I have one very quick question and then one that’s very
complicated. The first question deals with
the date of implementation and I’ve…
Dr.
Large: It’s July 1, not
March…
Dr.
Brunner: It is July 1
contrary to what the form says. I don’t
know if that’s been announced publicly yet but I had asked the Benefits office
if they would mind sending out a note letting people be aware that they’re not
going to have $20 deducted as of March 1st and I was told that Ron
was out of town so that needed to wait until he got back.
Dr.
Large: We’re cleaning
all that up. What happened there,
because I asked that same question a couple of days ago, the form was ready and
when we thought we were implementing the new HR system, the faculty pay and
those kinds of issues that we discussed earlier on January 1, that was set to
go and now since we’re not doing it until July 1, we’ve deferred all this
until-we don’t want to have to load it twice into two different systems.
Dr.
Brunner: The second
question is a little more technical and you may not be able to answer this but
I’ve had some folks ask what kind of testing will be done? And their motive is not to try to get around
the testing, but I gather that despite the fact that this is an honor system,
they’re concerned that they might at some point need to demonstrate that they
do not smoke but tests on their blood or their urine or whatever might be
tested could come up positive because intense inhalation of coworkers’ smoke or
people who actually work with nicotine in their research or field studies.
Dr.
Large: I don’t have a
good answer for that. I’ve asked Dr.
Fred Kam in our medical center to advise on that-is
there really any test that would prove something conclusively and/or
substantially and he has yet to advise me.
I haven’t been too worried about it because we haven’t implemented this,
not really expecting much requirement to be testing-we will attempt to resolve
that to the extent we can. But I’m not
sure there is and you all would know that better than I do, I mean, if there
really is a test or not…
Dr.
Brunner: That’s why
we’re worried.
Dr.
Large: Yeah, well, I don’t
think, I mean, again, I may be being cautious of where we’re headed, but we’re
going to try and do this right and Lee…
Lee
Armstrong, General Counsel:
(inaudible comments made away from microphone)
Dr.
Large: We will work to
develop that over this next year, get implemented and hopefully do not have
these kinds of issues pop up early on, if at all. I’m hoping we have none, but PEEHIP has had
very, very little interestingly enough.
The one change they made after the first year they decided to quit pursing
any anonymous kinds of complaints and I think that’s very wise. We’ll learn as we go on this one.
Dr.
Bailey: Yes?
Daniel
Szechi, History:
Speaking with permission of our departmental senator. I am still very deeply troubled by the notion
that we are going to start investigating people’s private lives and though I
can see that there are plenty of deaths from smoking related cancer, I think
there are a great many deaths related to other causes, which could equally well
be surcharged by some imaginative young administrator who wants to make that
bonus…
Dr.
Large: I think you
should exercise every day and eat right and if you don’t…
Dr.
Szechi: Right, and stop
eating Big Macs and etc. There are many,
many things and I really don’t think we should be going there. I understand your point about PEEHIP…
Dr.
Large: And I don’t
necessarily disagree that that’s a reasonable thought, because that was my
initial one…
Dr.
Szechi: But for me it
destroys the whole point of insurance, which should cover those who have
genetic defects, women who are of childbearing age and so on and not just
cherry-pick those who have an ascetic, healthy, chaste lifestyle. So that being the case, I want to put that on
one side. I took in your statements and
I’m glad to hear that the whole process is going to be revised, but what should
we do in the interim? I do not feel at
all comfortable about signing something that says you can randomly test me and
you can get into my medical records, even if I have your personal assurance and
you I do trust, but even if I have your personal assurance that this will never
be done. So should I return the form,
with that heavily scored through and a little note saying ‘I do not agree to
this’? And will I then be surcharged or
what?
Dr.
Large: I don’t have a
real problem if you do because-what I don’t want to do is resend everything out
to the 2,000 who have already sent everything in because we’re already loading
and processing. If there’s something in
there that bothers you that still remains consistent with what we’ve discussed
today, if it makes you feel better to mark it out, it doesn’t bother me; we
will still process it accordingly. We
will have all this straightened out in a year and I don’t know any more than to
say very publicly, to put it in writing in the AU Report and other things, that there was that disconnect, the
assumption that their form would fit us, which was my bad assumption, and if
that doesn’t suffice, then we’ll take it your way, that’s fine.
Dr.
Szechi: So you would
accept that and I would not be surcharged for striking it out?
Dr.
Large: Sure.
Dr.
Szechi: Ok. One final point I just want to make. Could I ask you to look again into the PEEHIP
form? Because I was told, that was only
verbal assurance by somebody who is in the PEEHIP scheme, that it was entirely
on an honor system, that there was no provision for testing in the PEEHIP
scheme.
Lee
Armstrong: (inaudible)
Larry
Crowley, Civil Engineering:
Don, you being a numbers guy, I’m sure you can punch the numbers. I wonder if you would share with us the
additional revenue generated from this program.
Dr.
Large: They think it
impacts costs about $400,000 a year. Had
we not done this, it would have probably increased your premiums, I don’t know,
what did we go up, 7% this year I think?
It would have probably increased it on up probably to 8%.
Dr.
Crowley: As a follow up,
I guess a second thought is that I’m not a smoker but the guy who has the
office next to me is a smoker-I used to be a smoker. But one of the fears that he has and I wanted
to be sure and voice those is that he thinks that this is more agenda-driven
than it is really about the economics and so he feels a little bit picked upon.
Dr.
Large: What does that
mean, that it’s agenda-driven?
Dr.
Crowley: Well, there are
people out there in the community that don’t like smokers and feel like that is
a particularly vile sin and they’re wanting to purge
the community of that. So as a kind of
follow up to that, I would suggest that maybe another way of raising revenue would
be for those who are overweight-and I probably fall into that category
myself-we can line everybody up and put them on scales and that would be to
raise revenue and you couldn’t hide that unless you exercise…
Dr.
Large: I’ll pass that
along to the Insurance & Benefits Committee…seriously, the sixteen person
committee has five faculty members, A&P and staff and all. They do as good a job at looking at all the
issues. They get fussed at as I do when
they raise the rates and we get fussed at if we take cost containment measures,
so I don’t have a good solution. The
rates are going to continue to go up because we apparently are going to
continue to use more of the services that become available and is this the right move, a good move? I don’t know but they felt it was and that’s
kind of how we work and govern here, is have committees that share with the
administration and that’s what we incorporated and that’s what we’re doing
today, is talking about it…
Dr.
Bailey: I think in years
past the Insurance & Benefits Committee is often come and reported to this
body and I think what you suggested earlier, that maybe we revisit and do this
again is a very good idea.
Carole
Zugazaga, Sociology: I
just wanted to ask-you mentioned in your comments that you’re well aware that
there are other bad habits that people may have-obesity being one of them and
all the related problems like high blood pressure and diabetes that may
increase the cost of medical care and I just kind of-you said that this was
discussed in the committee and I just wanted to know if there’s any reassurance
that this will not be next or what other thing might be next, I think, once we
open this door to add these surcharges and I wonder if you would discuss some
of the dialogue that went on at that committee with regard to that.
Dr.
Large: Sure. I don’t know the kind of dialogue that went
on with the committee. When I received
the recommendation, I discussed it with the Chair of the committee, my concerns
of why are we targeting one area when there’s so many other bad habits that
are, in my opinion, preventable. But
they came to the conclusion for the reasons that I described. I don’t know that I can commit to you where
we’re going. I would commit to you this,
at least while I have the ability to influence the decision, I’m certainly not
going to pioneer a charge into areas that others haven’t been, but because you
have to spend way too much time working through those processes, but as others
go there, if PEEHIP moves to another cost containment measure in the future,
I’m going to guess we’re going to look hard at that and say ‘Is that an area we
want to go?’ but I think you do have to be careful if you start targeting too
many factors of insurance, then all of a sudden there’s only a small group who
can afford it and so I don’t see it going there anywhere but I think where the
society goes, we’ll probably follow. I
just don’t want to be the first one there.
Dr.
Zugazaga: So I’m hearing
that PEEHIP is going to be the gold standard, is that right?
Dr.
Large: I don’t know if
it’s the gold standard but I think it’s a major influence in that it insures so
many of our state employees and it’s where we all go ultimately so I don’t know
that us being way out of line with them is where we want to be, but again,
that’s a discussion for a broad-based committee to look, discuss, bring in
people and bring forward to us recommendations.
It’s not for me to sit here and decide that kind of action.
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you. Yes?
Gary
Martin, Curriculum & Teaching:
And I very much appreciate the tone that this discussion is being conducted
with. I think a lot of us have felt,
even who are nonsmokers, have felt a little ill at ease with this whole process
and I think one of my colleagues put it well.
She said that, in essence, to not be charged the surcharge, she has to
waive her rights. And so it’s like you
have to give something away to maintain the status quo and I think that kind of
put it into focus for me. So in essence,
the smoker feels kind of persecuted; to a degree, so do the nonsmoker who have to in essence waive rights in order to not be
penalized. So it is a tradeoff and I
think there are some nonsmokers who will refuse to sign the form because they
would prefer not to have that sort of intrusion into their personal life, so
they are also being penalized.
Dr.
Large: I agree with what
your initial, hopefully not now, initial perception may have been because when
I first saw the form ultimately I said the same exact thing, that we’re really
penalizing the nonsmokers if we really intended to do that kind of testing, but
we do not and we will not.
Dr.
Martin: Nonetheless, the
door is open.
Dr.
Large: Pardon?
Dr.
Martin: Nonetheless, the
door is open. So if someone is willing
to give their name and make an accusation, you will test me.
Dr.
Large: It will be a last
resort. I think if somebody reported
you, I think our process-and we don’t have this ironed out yet-would be, if it
was one with a name and enough detail that we would have to follow up on that,
we would talk with you, describe to you what has been presented, get your input
and if there was a lapse or misrepresentation-hopefully there would be honesty
there-if not, I don’t know if we would go to the testing, we might have to do
that. I don’t know; everything would be
so situational at that point, but it is not intended and we will not invade
your rights on a general and random kind of basis and when we get that
specific; I don’t know where it goes yet but we’ll work on those processes but
it is not about doing anything that invades your privacy or subjects anybody to
concerns that we’re not operating within HIPPA requirements. It’s just simply a process that there is a
cost of smoking. The insurance plan
would like to encourage you not to, but if you’re going to, we’d like for you
to pay more and we’d like for you to be honest about it and that’s where it is,
so…
Dr.
Martin: I don’t think
it’s unreasonable; I’m just sharing some concerns and I think if the procedures
are established and made public that will help people to feel more comfortable…
Dr.
Large: We will get that out shortly and next year’s
form will be much better.
Dr.
Bailey: Yes? Thank you.
Teresa
Hawkins, Facilities: Are
you accepting questions from non-senators yet?
Dr.
Bailey: Sure.
Teresa
Hawkins: I have two
questions. First of all, how did you
come up with the 12-month rule?
Dr.
Large: What is the
12-month rule?
Teresa
Hawkins: Where you have
to be smoke-free for 12 months?
Dr.
Large: Again, I’m sure-I
didn’t come up with it-but I’m sure it was a track of PEEHIP’s policy.
Teresa
Hawkins: Is it possible
to change that for those who are willing to give up cigarettes?
Dr.
Large: Well, I don’t
know. I think anything is certainly
possible. I would suggest again that we
send that one to the committee as well because what you’re suggesting is that
if we’re going to use it as a behavior tool, that somebody that says ‘I’ve been
quit for one month, two months, or three’ could do-we’ll look at that. That’s a good recommendation.
Teresa
Hawkins: The other
question is the second-hand smoke issue and the studies that have been done on
that recently that it’s more harmful to you than smoking. Has that been taken into consideration?
Dr.
Large: As to what, as
to…
Teresa
Hawkins: The harm it
causes those who are walking past the door where people are smoking.
Dr.
Large: I don’t…
Teresa
Hawkins: I mean, most of our facilities for smoking are right outside
doors.
Dr.
Large: Right. I don’t know how-I understand, I saw the
study-I’m not sure in what way you want it taken into consideration in the
study. What did you have in mind?
Teresa
Hawkins: Well if smoking
is the concern and the reason for raising insurance premiums and second-hand
smoke is being attributed to being more harmful than smoking, then I don’t
understand-like one of the persons previously said, is there an agenda? Is the next step going to be to prohibit
smoking in public at all?
Dr.
Large: I don’t know, that wouldn’t be our call.
Again that’s going to move toward a societal issue, I think, of where
we’re going as a society and we do seem to be moving in that direction.
Teresa
Hawkins: Ok, thank you.
Sadik
Tuzun, Entomology & Plant Pathology: Don, I will bring another point to this discussion. If you look at Europe where they have socialized
medicine, preemptive care is the more thing, so basically everybody has their
personal physician, they call it the home physician, and they first have to see
that person and they go through certain checkup, certain tests and as everybody
knows, as soon as you find out there’s a problem, it is much cheaper to cure
that problem and much less expensive.
Now I’m very happy that we have personal choice because before 40 you
can have one and after 50 you can two yearly checkups but many people don’t
even know about the personal choice issues.
Why don’t we make personal choice more like well-known as well as-if
people subscribe personal choice and if the cost is much less than regular
insurance, for example, maybe if you don’t pay the co-pays, then you go to
regular routine checkups, then more people will subscribe to personal choice
and this will definitely reduce the cost associated with insurance.
Dr.
Large: Well, we’ll look
into that.
Dr.
Bailey: Yes?
Robin
Fellers, Nutrition & Food Science:
I’m disappointed to hear you say you are not willing to revise the form for
this year, especially given the fact that it has an incorrect date on it and
the way it’s worded, it sounds terribly, terribly legal and I surely hate to
put my signature on a form like this that has an error in it. Could it not be put up on the web, a
corrected version put up on the web?
This came out through campus mail, it’s two
pages of something run off on a copier.
It’s not like it cost the university a whole lot of money to put these
out in the first place and I just feel as though-I am not a smoker, at least I
haven’t been a smoker since I was a graduate student some 40-something years
ago so I truly consider myself a non-smoker, I’ve been tobacco free for a very
long time and I don’t live with a smoker-but I am very uncomfortable personally
and some of my colleagues also about signing this form. It says on it, in Ron Herring’s explanation,
that the signature authorizes any licensed physician, et cetera, et cetera, then it goes on to say government agency or other
organization or person and I mean that’s almost the whole world. I truly don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry
going rummaging around in my medical records to see if I’ve been a smoker. I just wish I could go to my physician and
say ‘Please certify that I have not been a smoker for the last…’ whatever it
could be and then hand you that certification.
But my fundamental problem with this is that the form itself has an
error on it as far as implementation is concerned.
Dr.
Large: I will discuss
that with our Payroll and Employee Benefits area and see what the consequences of that action is. My biggest concern is undoing 2,000 that have
already been received. Are we really-are
we doing the best thing for the university with that turnaround time with all
the other systems’ implementation and things people have going or not? So these are the things that I’ll weigh, but
I will look farther at that.
Dr.
Bailey: Yes?
Scott
Phillips, Theater: I’m
one of the 2,000 people who already sent in my form and maybe the answer to
this question was on it and if so, I apologize, but if an employee has a spouse
that smokes but that spouse is covered on another insurance plan, does the $20
surcharge still apply because you’re ostensibly hit with the secondhand smoke?
Dr.
Large: No, the intent
was that they would be covered on our plan.
Scott
Phillips: Ok, it is if
they’re on your plan. Ok, thank you.
Tony
Moss, Biological Sciences:
Just a quick note on any comments I’ve gotten from faculty on this have been
very supportive in general-I’ve got about four or five people that responded
that are very supportive. I think
they’ve acted quickly and in an area that might impact specific groups of
people, mainly those who are performing maintenance on equipment and that sort
of thing, particularly people who as their jobs involve something like
welding. As a welder for many, many
years ago I can tell you that no welder is going to put on a gas mask when he
gets in front of that electric arc or that gas arc in order to be able to
handle his equipment because it would be way too dangerous and as a result he
or she, whoever is doing this, is going to be exposed and it’s part of their
work. That’s just one example, there
must be many others. I realize that
there must be, you have some sort of test in mind and I have no idea what it
would be but it would have to be something specific to tobacco or there would
have to be some sort of arrangement for those people to be cleared so that it
would be understood that they are not tobacco smokers, they weren’t abusing
themselves, but that it’s part of their job, they would have a certain
exposure. Seems to me you’d have to have
that kind of provision in there otherwise you’re kind of singling them
out. Do you understand what I’m saying?
Dr.
Large: I understand what
you’re saying; I’m still trying to figure out how they would ever come to our
attention…
Tony
Moss: Well, their
manager would know all about it.
Dr.
Large: I mean, somebody would have to again…
Tony
Moss: A supervisor.
Dr.
Large: …reporting them
as misrepresenting to the university, so…
Tony
Moss: Yeah, let’s say
that, well, if for some reason someone wants to make trouble for somebody else
and now it gets to the point to where they’re brought forth for testing and
that person would almost certainly test positive.
Dr.
Large: I understand your
point; I see the opportunity to get there as so rare…
Tony
Moss: Well I agree but
you have to take these things into consideration.
Lee
Armstrong, General Counsel:
(inaudible comments from the audience)
Dr.
Large: I would just bet
that if these things ever got reported they would very, very rarely go to the
testing part. I have a feeling that it
would be resolved in the discussion part but maybe I’m wrong. Well, thank you all.
Dr.
Bailey: If there are no
further questions, Don, thank you very much; Lee, thank you very much for being
here. I very much appreciate, as our
previous speaker said, the openness and the willingness to rethink this whole
process. Thank you very much.
Dr.
Large: And I thank you
all. There were some very, very good
comments and we will follow up on them all and we will be communicating and we
will even look at that one option of rethinking the forms, but I certainly
don’t want to promise that. I understand
the reasons and I would like to do that as well, but some of the consequences
administratively of doing it are a challenge, too, so I will make the best
decision I can on that. Thank you all.
Dr.
Bailey: The cost of the
occasional fine cigar has just gone up.
Dr.
Large: So what you do
there and I just figured this out, (humorous gesture) because I will have to
register as a smoker because I do smoke one or two cigars a month or sometimes
less than that, but this policy has encouraged me, if I want to reduce my unit
cost, I need to buy more and smoke more so that the cost of each cigar will be
less.
Dr.
Bailey: Ladies and
gentlemen, we have one other small item on the agenda and before we proceed, I
will note and I’m willing to stay as long as it takes, it’s 4:40-what is the
pleasure of this body? Should we proceed
until 5 o’clock with some discussion of the Fisher Report? I’m hearing and seeing nods yes; I’m seeing
some no. As there are some yes, I am
going to proceed, making some brief comments open to the floor. I’ll take it to the Steering Committee. I’m thinking we may want to have some
additional opportunity for discussion.
As you know, the Board commissioned the
Report on Institutional Assessment by a team led by Larry Fisher. The Fisher Report has been accepted but not
discussed yet by the Board. The
administration also has not discussed this publicly. It’s the Senate, this body, that’s the first
time there will be some public discussion in the time we have. There are a large number of recommendations,
142. Some of them, a small number
actually, are directed exclusively at the Board of Trustees. Most of them relate to the trustees, the
faculty, the administration-some combination of one, two or three of
these. Without limiting discussion, I
wanted to draw attention to a small set of issues. It comes as no surprise that the central
focus was finding a new president, a strong president, laying out some
qualities of what they thought the new president should be and indicating that
such an individual need not come from the ranks of academia. The report contains a number of very positive
features-diversity was mentioned by Dr. Crocker earlier. The report in a number of points emphasizes
the importance of diversity. It also recommends
that we limit growth of undergraduate enrollment and become more selective in
our undergraduate admissions while expanding our research in graduate
education.
It makes a number of interesting
curricular comments, including those related to diversity training and foreign
language requirements. They also made
several comments, other comments related to academic and curricular matters and
as someone else, I believe it was Rik, mentioned earlier, I look forward to
comparisons of their recommendations with what SACS Self Study and the SACS
team had done. We may find that we’re in
better shape than maybe the Fisher Report had thought.
There are several items, as I noted
earlier, where the Fisher Report suggests that Dr. Richardson and the current
administration move more slowly with regard to the Strategic Plan,
restructuring for Agriculture and related programs and Post Tenure Review. In each case the Fisher Report recommended
that no decisions be reached until the new president in on hand and has had an
opportunity to review them. Do not tie
the hands of the new president is the phrase I believe was used.
I want to commend the Board for inviting
Dr. Kuhnle and then Dr. Fisher to advise them.
I want to also commend the Board, both as individuals and collectively
for not acting defensively in the face of the strong criticisms that came their
way within the Fisher Report. Similarly
I think it’s important for those of us in the Senate to refrain from acting
defensively when there were, as there were, comments critical of the Senate and
its leaders. The Senate Rules Committee
has recommended we conduct a short survey of faculty to assess the extent to
which the Senate and its leadership represent the faculty views. I’d like to thank Rik Blumenthal for making
the suggestion, which I took to Rules Committee. So that will be, I can’t when that’s going to
happen, but it will happen in a fashion timely enough for the Board’s
consideration.
Another suggestion that came my way today
was that this body, perhaps at its next March meeting, would adopt a resolution
of support for the Fisher Report as a whole, not necessarily every piece, but
acknowledging that the report contains many recommendations that require
further discussion, but generally supports the nature of the report.
Let me stop here and open the floor
please for discussions. My primary role
from here is going to be as moderator; I can’t speak for the authors of the
Fisher Report nor can I speak for the administrators or the Board, which
commissioned the report.
Gary
Martin, Curriculum & Teaching:
I very much like your idea of having the Senate support, have some sort of a
voice support for the report for the overall tone and approach that was
taken. I think that would be a very
positive step in the right direction to do so.
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you. Dr. Brunner.
Cindy
Brunner, Department of Pathobiology:
Conner, my questions deal more with process than the specifics of the report,
although I’d like to refer to two specific recommendations in my comment and
question. Those two specific
recommendations are that this body be renamed the Faculty Senate rather than
the University Senate with, I imagine, appropriate changes in its composition
and the second is the recommendation that Auburn undertake a requirement for
foreign language in its undergraduate curriculum. My question then is, if, according to the
Fisher Report, decisions of academic interests are to be made for the most part
by the faculty, then at what point does the faculty become engaged in the
discussion about those sorts of recommendations? I really didn’t hear that from Dr. Richardson
this afternoon.
Dr.
Bailey: I can’t answer
that question at this time. As I said,
the Executive Committee is going to be meeting with Dr. Richardson in the near
future. We’re also going to be meeting
with Dr. Heilman as we do regularly and I don’t believe there are any answers
to that question. Dr. Heilman.
Dr.
Brunner: Then I have a
second question, if you’ll allow, after Dr. Heilman answers.
Dr.
John Heilman, Provost: Dr.
Brunner, I think the question/comment just made is a very good one and some of
you, I think, have become aware-I’ve asked through deans and department heads
for departmental input on the Fisher Report.
This is analogous to the request that I made for discussion at the
departmental level of input that was provided on the Ag Initiative and the
reason that I did it in this case was that I got about 25 departmental comments
on the Ag Initiative material or Initiative for Alabama-I would say extremely
helpful and thoughtful and I would think that there’s every potential for that
to be so in this case as well. What I
would like to do, to offer a second line of discussion, Conner, that the
faculty might consider and that is to make use of the relevant standing
committees. I think they exist as a
vehicle for shared governance which I
believe is the rubric you’re addressing and I’d like to reiterate explicitly
with emphasis what Conner was saying earlier, which is service on these
committees is extremely important. I
became aware of that in the President’s Office when I had the assignment of
trying to regularize the standing University Committee system, which needed a
good deal of work on it. They’re
tremendously important. This is a mechanism
for shared governance and I think one could consider employing it in this case.
Dr.
Brunner: Ok, you’ve
preempted the first half of my second question, which was I was aware that
deans were gathering information from their faculty; they got a fairly short
timeline on that, if I’m not mistaken, and then my second question is, how do
you plan to integrate the information that you’re gathering from the deans and
departments and also then from the Senate leadership, the faculty governance
structure with the Board Committee that’s been specifically assigned to look at
the Fisher Report and advise the Board on its implementation? How will those dovetail?
Dr.
Bailey: To be determined
was the response that Dr. Heilman gave.
I think it’s probably fair to say we’re in uncharted territory
here. There’s a very, very important
report with a lot of recommendations.
Many of them are specific to the faculty or the domain of faculty
administration in relations and the committee structure, as Dr. Heilman said,
we all heard Dr. Richardson say we want to make sure we don’t get out ahead of
the Board here. I don’t think we’re
going to be rushing to making changes immediately, but this is something that,
and this is the first opportunity to discuss these matters on campus, and not
the last. I’m sure there’s going to be
opportunity for faculty, A&P, staff, student involvement in the process of
working through and deciding which of the recommendations we’re going to pick. Dr. Locy, I believe you were next. Thank you.
Dr.
Bob Locy, Steering Committee:
Thank you. I guess when I read the
Fisher Report, I was struck by it being a rather
incredible document in terms of its breadth.
It seemed to cover practically all issues. However, my view was that at least in some of
the areas with which I was most familiar, I found it kind of lacking in terms
of depth in those areas and it seems to me that this is the sort of approach we
could be taking at this point and time, which would be to aid and albeit those
recommendations in the Fisher Report in terms of trying to inform both the
Board and the administration or whoever is appropriate in terms of where there
really needs to be more information in terms of the depth to which the report
goes to reach its conclusions and maybe some of the conclusions come off
needing revised when you look at some of these subject matters in more depth
and certainly the idea of using more university committees to do that is
probably a beginning approach. But I
think by Dr. Heilman’s own admission as well in respect to remarks he just made
in response to Dr. Brunner’s question, the processes that were used in the
Initiative for Alabama in soliciting faculty input in that would seem to be
another possible mechanism where substantially more depth could be brought to
the Fisher Report in terms of outlining where the real problem areas are and
ways in which it could be resolved and I guess my question is, to get to one
finally, is there any possible way that we could begin to take steps to start
to put a little bit more depth to the Fisher Report in some of these areas
where more depth is needed beyond just having existing faculty committees
survey some of these issues. Can we
propose a mechanism to bring those back to light where we might solicit broader
faculty input using something like the open forum approach that was used in the
Initiative for
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you. I’m assuming you don’t want me to give you a
specific answer at this moment.
Saralyn
Smith-Carr, Clinical Sciences:
I was asked by one of my faculty members and I don’t think that everyone has
actually looked at all of the portions of the Fisher Report, but it has been
brought to our attention and I do believe that we should as a
body make some recommendations about it.
There’s a strong feeling that this is a really good report, I feel so
that way about the report, particularly that it is helping us to address the
diversity issues that are present and I’m happy to hear that the president is
really looking at doing some of those things and I just want to ask, is there
going to be another forum where I could maybe bring more representation from
the rest of my faculty about this report to this body, like in March or such
that we could? You know, because I’m
bringing my opinion and the opinion of maybe another person that we strongly
feel that we should look at this report and endorse it.
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you. The Steering Committee of the Senate which
sets the agenda meets this Thursday. I
will recommend that we continue the discussion and not hearing any opposition
to the concept, bring forward some resolution that gives a broad support and
thanks for the Fisher Report and certainly in the context of that, there will
be opportunity for discussion. Hopefully
we will keep the agenda slimmed down enough that we’ll be able to get to it
earlier than today. The Smoker Surcharge
Policy was an issue that we all know came up very late. It seemed appropriate to bring it to this
body today, which leaves us at this hour.
Hopefully we’ll not have anything like that at the March 7th
meeting.
Saralyn
Smith-Carr: I was just
feeling that perhaps there are a lot of people that have left and I would like
to hear what…
Dr.
Bailey: As would I. Thank you.
Tom
Smith, Human Development & Family Studies: This previous discussion really gets to
what I wanted to talk about and that basically, I’m not sure procedurally
whether I’m really asking to table this discussion to the next meeting or to
continue it, however that would be appropriate, but given the exodus from the
meeting and the short time, I don’t think it really honors the spirit of what
we want to do with this as the Senate.
The other thought is that Dr. Heilman’s request that’s gone out through
the deans and departments-and I know my department is having a faculty meeting
on Thursday-I feel I will be much more prepared as my department senator in
March to bring much more meaningful discussion to bear for the Senate to have a
serious consideration of the report, et cetera and would hope, it sounds like it
is in fact, your intent to bring that to the Steering Committee as an idea so I
guess I’m saying I think we ought to adjourn pretty soon and get all over that.
Dr.
Bailey: If it’s
acceptable to you, as there are people standing at the mic, I would certainly
like to hear what they have to say. Yes, Virginia?
Virginia
O’Leary, Psychology:
Rich was next. I guess I want to speak in that capacity but also in my current
capacity as the president of the
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you.
Richard
Penaskovic, Chair-elect:
I find that my students are insolent in their attitudes and parochial in their
concerns. I’d like them to become world
citizens so I like the emphasis in the Fisher Report on the foreign
languages. And if we can raise $500
million dollars with this campaign and we already have an endowment of $330
million, that will give us about $40 billion dollars a year to play with, so I
like to see us build an overseas campus in maybe China, India or Japan to send
our students and make them world citizens.
That’s my hope.
Dr.
Bailey: Thank you.
Seeing no one else at the microphones, let me point out this is about what the
report looks like, but it’s not that hard of a read. It’s not like a referee journal article in
some of our fields, so I encourage you please to read it. Do I hear a motion to adjourn. Done.