Members Absent: Patricia Duffy, Secretary-elect; Dan Bennett, Dean, College of
Architecture; Michael Moriarty, Associate Provost & VP for Research; Thomas
Hanley, Provost; Bradford Boney, SGA President; Garnetta Lovett, Steering
Committee; Robert Locy, Steering Committee; Mario Lightfoote, ACES; Eleanor
Josephson, Anatomy, Physiology & Pharmacology; John J. Pittari, Jr.,
Architecture; Raymond Hamilton, Aviation Management & Logistics; James
Guin, Chemical Engineering; Sridhar Krishnamurti, Communication Disorders;
Darrel Hankerson, Discrete & Statistical Science; Sadik Tuzun, Entomology
& Plant Pathology; Christoph Hinklemann, Finance; Dennis DeVries, Fisheries
& Allied Aquaculture; Ruth Crocker, History; Ken Tilt, Horticulture;
Marllin Simon, Physics; Anthony Gadzey, Political Science; Robert Norton,
Poultry Science; Vivian Larkin, Rehabilitation & Special Education; Thomas
W. White, ROTC Air Force.
Members absent (Substitute): Larry Benefield, Dean, Samuel Ginn
Dr. Willie Larkin, Chair: May I have your attention please? We’re about to get started. This meeting will please come to order. Before I call for the approval of the
minutes, I’d like to remind you that if you have a cell phone, please turn it
off or to silent. I’d like to remind you
that there are microphones on both sides of the room, if you wish to speak, go
to the microphone, and identify yourself and which entity you represent. I know that the minutes were posted late, we
apologize for that. Hopefully you had a
chance to read those. Are there any questions
or issues concerning the minutes that anyone would like to express at this
time? With your permission, I ask that
you approve the
I need all senators to
please sign in. It is important that we
have a quorum. There’s a couple of action
items that we have today and if we do not have that, we will not be able to
address those particular items. I have a
number of things that I would like to cover under the Chair’s Statement and
Remarks. First of all, I appointed Cindy
Brunner to chair the nominating committee.
That committee has completed its work and I’m going to ask Cindy to come
forward and share with you comments about the process and make the announcement
about those persons that will be on the ballot and then I’ll come back with
some additional comments.
Cindy Brunner: What I’d like to do this afternoon is first, give you a couple
comments about the timeline of our procedure and then give you the names of the
candidates.
First of all, the
committee was constituted officially in January, the first day back after the
break and we were notified of our membership on that committee. Subsequent to that, the Senate had a meeting
and at that meeting, I announced-I solicited-suggestions from senators the
names of persons who might be qualified as officers of the University
faculty. We then met as a committee and
with the names that we received from the faculty as well as names that we
generated on our own, we started surveying those names, divided up the
responsibilities, came to a consensus on the philosophies. We then adjourned and proceeded to contact
those possible candidates. One issue
that arose in that process was the package of fringe benefits available to
senate officers, and we learned that there was some confusion about that
package, lack of consensus among immediate and past officers as to what it was
they qualified for upon departure from office.
We learned that some of that information is not even documented. Some documentation was part of the package
and some was not. We spent some time
trying to firm that information up and in the process trying to get the
Provost’s affirmation that the packet would continue and we ran into some other
problems, which you’re aware of from reading the newspaper. Suffice to say, we have been led to believe
that the benefits package will stand as it is right now and if you have
questions about that, I can address those.
We then met a second time in early February and came up with our final
slate of candidates, or at least our finalists, and just this morning, I
received confirmation that the fourth of those finalists had agreed to
serve. So with that, I will show you the
names of our two candidates for Chair-elect and candidates for Secretary-elect.
Ok, now as you know, the
election, the official Spring Term University Faculty Meeting is Tuesday, March
15, and the constitution of the faculty stipulates that these names be
announced 21 calendar days in advance of that meeting. So by my account, we’re two weeks ahead of
schedule. I assume that in the intervening weeks, we will be looking for policy
statements, position statements by these candidates and to be honest with you,
Willie, that is not among the stated responsibilities of the nominating
committee to put that information together.
So I’ll need your advice on how to proceed.
Dr. Willie Larkin: Does anybody have any questions for Cindy?
Paula Sullenger: I know that at least, the two previous chairs, the nominating
committee was charged to find, at least nominees for the chair positions,
different viewpoints in order to give the faculty choice between different
philosophies of governance and I was wondering if the current committee was
given that charge and how they felt.
Cindy Brunner: We were charged by Dr. Larkin to do our best to find candidates that
have different points of view. We did
also hear, at one point, advice that was even more specific than that and I’d
rather not go into that, but the system that was implied was one that we chose
not to observe. I need to tell you that
there are three, really three and a half limitations on this process of finding
candidates. The first is the size of our
initial pool of names and that size is limited by how aggressively we pursue
the pool of names and how helpful the faculty are in providing us with
names. Our second limitation is then,
among those people, how many of them are actually willing to serve and that is
by far the most stringent limitation.
And anybody who’s involved in this process realizes that. The third limitation really was not a
limiting factor this time because of the second, was our own committee’s
philosophy about diversity, however you might want to interpret that. And what we decided would be, I guess, an
overriding factor, would be that we wanted people who were experienced in
university governance. We decided that
we would prefer people who had served on the Senate. Personally, I’m a little bit suspicious of
someone who has never served on the Senate, but jumps at the chance to chair
this body. I’m really personally not
sure that is the best person for the job, but others might disagree and we’ll
vote on that as a consensus in the committee.
There are certainly other ways of participating in university governance
and we generated our list by looking at chairs of committees over the past
several years, people who had served on university and senate committees and
who had played, we agreed as a group, who had an active role on those
committees and then we solicited advice from previous, members of previous
nominating committees, because they always have names of people who said ‘No,
not this year’. And we hoped that there were people who declined in previous
years who might be willing to serve this year.
And that generated our initial list of names. So to answer to your question, yes we did
consider that advice and we used it as best we could. Follow up question? Ok…
Dr. Willie Larkin: Ok, thank you very much. You need your paperwork. I appreciate this committee’s work. I want to make a couple of comments. First of all, I apologize to this committee
because the rules suggest the nominating committee is supposed to receive their
assignment during the first six weeks of the beginning of the fall
semester. They got this assignment late
but I’m not sure that the list of names would have changed. However, I do want to apologize to those
persons. I want to read several
things. The names of these persons that
were just presented will be sent out to the general faculty 21 days before the
Spring Meeting. There can be no
nominations from the floor on the day of the election, which is the 15th
of March, so keep that in mind. However,
the petitions of 10 or more persons presenting a name to the Secretary 14 days
prior to this meeting on the 15th.
If you want to learn more about that procedure, go to Article III under
the Faculty Handbook, Chapter 2 dealing with governance. But anyway, we welcome those candidates and
wish them all good luck.
I’d like to announce that
the Rules Committee, or rather, Senate leadership, is planning on proposing a
handbook change regarding the Rules Committee to begin ending their terms in
August instead of March, as it has been in the past. If approved, this would mean that these
members elected in 2005 would complete their terms in August of 2007 rather
than that March. So the Senate
leadership will be discussing that and we will bring that back to you in terms
of a handbook proposal change.
I had indicated earlier
that I would be putting together a committee that would look at the consulting
policy at
I want to make a comment
about the legislative agenda, but I won’t get into it because I’m sure Dr.
Richardson will promote his own agenda, but what I’d like to do is encourage,
based on a lot of things that I’ve heard and people I’ve visited with, that it
would be important for the entire faculty to support the legislative agenda
that is being put forth by the Central Administration because it will benefit
all of us.
The fifth thing I want to
mention is recognition of Professor John Mouton. In order to be a Senate leader, you have to
devote at least three years to this position.
You come in as Chair-elect, then Chair and then eventually Immediate
Past Chair, which means that you serve on the Board of Trustees. John has contributed a great deal to how the
Senate is structured right now- a lot of the contributions-and I think he did a
really great job this past year representing us on the Board of Trustees and I
indicated to John that I wanted to recognize him and ask him to come forward
and he can make whatever comment he would like, either in regards to the Board
or some of the other things that he saw in regard to shared governance and some
of the other things that he saw take place.
So, John, if you would come forward…
John Mouton, Immediate Past Chair: This is
the second time in four days that I get the chance to do this because at the
Trustees’ meeting, they asked me to get up and make some comments and the
comments I’m going to make are similar to the comments I made there. I’m not going to make a reflection over the
last three years, as we’ve all had our own experiences over the last three
years. Mine may have been a little
closer to the heat of the moment than others, but I think we’re all pretty much
aware of it. I think the most important
thing is to look at where we are and how we move forward. Key thoughts to me and I think I probably
know more now about how dynamic of an organization, or institution, the
university is and daily, weekly, monthly, things come to the surface that require
attention. Universities are very
decision-intensive places that require decisions to be made and if you get very
far from the administration you probably can’t see the frequency and depth of
the decisions that have to be made.
Shared governance is a
very real concept to us and a pretty foreign concept to people that are not in
the university. People out in society do
really see shared governance and I think that one of the things with, three
years ago I started asking questions and I talked to various people about
shared governance at the university and I think what happened was that it was
all gray, not black and white. People
couldn’t give you a set of rules, this was this responsibility, that was that responsibility
and what happened was that you had to feel your way through it and that with a
dynamic university; it isn’t the same each day or each week. But here is my point, or perspective is: Shared governance is communication
primarily. Shared governance is looking
for the opportunity to have your input and to give your input and to sound your
input. Shared governance is that we
don’t always agree-our input is considered but not accepted, that’s the
important thing. A couple of years ago
we went to a meeting in
Dr. Willie Larkin: I was thinking what I could give John as a
going-away or get out of the way present.
But I remember that when I took this post as chair of the faculty
Senate, he was Chair and he was going out, he didn’t give me anything. He took the gavel that Barb Strumpler gave to
him and didn’t pass it on to me or anything, so I’m not giving John anything.
I want to make a comment
about the status of the position of Ombudsman, or Ombudsperson. The process is in the Human Resources office
right now. Lynn Hammond is working
diligently to pull together a position description based on the resolution that
we moved forward out of this body. Once
that resolution has been put together and completed, the position description
will be reviewed and related to such offices as Affirmative Action/EEO and that
there is no duplication. Also, we just
recently put in and implemented a hotline process, so we’re looking at how it
fits in. But that position announcement
and job description is well on the way and you will hear much more about that
in very short order. We’re trying to get
that done rather quickly.
I want to make a comment
about the Provost and it won’t be long, and the only reason I’m making a
comment is that I got a lot of emails from different people asking me what’s
going on and my response is: I didn’t know anything then and I don’t know
anything now. I do expect to know
something in the near future. I’m
meeting with Dr. Richardson later in the week and I’m meeting with a number of
other administrators, not only me, but Conner as well, and we’re going to be
talking about a lot of things and I suppose some of these discussions will come
up. I can say one thing, and I’m going
out on a limb saying this, I believe that somehow the faculty and the senate
will be involved in some discussions to how this process will unfold and I’ll
let you know information as soon as I find out things.
I want to make a comment,
finally, about the Presidential Search piece that we adopted from Larry
Gerber’s committee. We were trying to
get that on the Board’s agenda this past Friday, but it was communicated that
the Board was not ready to deal with a Presidential Search, so it would be futile
for us to push that to them at this point.
We have been given assurance that this report will be used as the
process goes forward. I met with Mr.
McWhorter and he assured me that the Board, at the appropriate time, would not
be opposed to receiving these recommendations as they put forth the process
that would be used for the presidential search.
There are some other things that reportedly they’re working on right now
and I have no reason to believe not, but I’m going to, as my last official duty
as Chair, I’m going to formally invite the President to either get it on the
April, and I don’t know whether that’s possible, certainly the June agenda so
that the Board can at least say: ‘We have received your report. Thank you for your recommendation.’ And then
move forward in whichever manner they see fit.
Debra asked me to make
sure I asked if there were any questions, because in previous reports from my
position, I’ve never asked for questions and she said ‘You need to ask for
questions.’ Are there any questions? Well, this is wonderful. Thank you, we’re getting along just
nicely. When you’re a Chair and you can
get along with people, that’s good, isn’t it?
Yes, it makes your job much easier.
At this time, I’m going to ask Dr. Richardson to come and give us a
report from the President’s Office.
Dr. Ed Richardson, Interim President: Just a couple of comments before I get
started. You may be able to tell that my
voice is a little lower than usual; I’m struggling with this head cold that
seems to be going around. Occasionally
some coughing ensues, so if I get choked up during this meeting, I wanted you
to understand. I’ll drink some water as
I go along. Just a couple of
observations and then we’ll go with questions.
John, I know you’re
leaving the Board as a faculty representative, but I think everyone here should
know that John Mouton has accomplished more during a short period of time in
regard to Facilities and the organization.
The cost of that to the university, which will affect the faculty in a
very tangible way than I would have imagined, and he’s just done a super job
and I hope that you will continue to do that because I was so optimistic in our
meeting just today that you would be in a position to make some recommendations
that I believe, will better connect this university in its planning, which I
think Dr. Larkin will effect. John, I’m
most appreciative and look forward to more good work in the future and I hope
you do, too.
Let me just talk about
two or three things and then get into the issue at hand. First, legislation. I wanted to mention to you, we had Sid
McInery here last time and he acknowledged the process, I won’t repeat all
that, but to let you know that this process has been going on for the last six
months and for those of you who have some familiarity with that process, you
know that you must be in a position to make decisions on the spot and to be
prepared to change directions almost in that same span of time. The people that we have working, including
those with the University of Alabama, that are working very closely with us,
have been very successful, and I think I can safely say, and Don, Dr. Large,
would confirm, that’s a pretty good-looking budget, if we can hold onto
it. I would say to you, we have a couple
of things that I would just acknowledge, and I appreciate Dr. Large, you’re
mentioning that if you can support-sometimes it’s just a comment to your local
legislator or it might be a comment to people who understand what’s going
on. The first thing I would say is that
we presented this budget, which will fully fund retirement benefits and so
forth, and we did not get that this year that we’re in, which cost us between
$2 and $3 million dollars, which means for students either a 2% increase in
tuition or a pull of $2-$3 million dollars from some other fund. But in this case, we should have that fully
funded and the policy would be a way forward so we wouldn’t have to face up to
that. The one thing, I think, is that in
the past, there has never been a time when higher education has a commitment to
salary increases. That just came out of
the lump sum allocation. This time it
includes, for the first time, a 4% salary increase allocation to higher
education. The policy that is applied
here will stay the same. It doesn’t mean
that everybody will get 4%, like K-12 does, but the amount of money that will
help us in a very tangible way in terms of both holding tuition growth at a
reasonable rate but also in terms of setting a precedent for the future. Next year will be an election year and you
will find those, particularly in the K-12 arena, back pushing for a salary
increase of sort and therefore if it comes up again next year, which it is
likely to do, the smaller percentage, then we will also be in that loop and get
additional funding. So I feel good about
that. There will be some intense
struggle on that and I won’t go into all of the details but I will simply
acknowledge that all of the institutions of higher education, and the community
colleges, met on this agenda. They all
voted without an exception to support it.
What we’re doing is not taking from other aspects of higher
education. It will be out of the growth
money and I believe that all institutions can support it without it appearing
that
I would also say, as you
know, the committee dealing with the Board of Trustees has met and Sam Ginn has
been nominated. We’re going to push that
as quickly as we can and say that during this month Mr. Ginn will be
confirmed. We’ve worked that side of the
street. The Governor will nominate and
the Senate Confirmation Chair is prepared to bring that forward and get it out
of the committee and usually we can get it through the Senate without too much
difficulty. We want to get it out early,
not so much for the advantage to us-although the next meeting is not until
April-but we want to get it out early because there are some other trustee
nominations from other universities that are extremely controversial and if we
get balled up with them, then it would delay confirmation. So we want you to know why we’re pushing that
and so I feel optimistic about that.
Second point that I would
make, I guess, is that as we go forward in these next few months, there’s going
to be a lot of discussions and I hope that you will be an active participant in
them. The discussions again, I’ve said
this every time and I just repeat it and I know you’ve heard it the first three
times I’ve said it, but I would say it again-that what I’m trying to do for
this second year is to establish this pattern of behavior so that the policies
that were passed last year are enforced and become common practice, so that the
person that comes behind me will inherit a situation that has some
stability. It’s not, we’re not quite
sure what this means this year, so there’s going to be some major commendations
made in that regard as I go forward this year, so that is my primary
objective. If I don’t get everything I
ask for, it’s not that important. The
key is that we get some of the recommendations that I make and that it
establishes that pattern of behavior.
It’s critical, I believe, to provide the stability for the future.
The third item I wanted-and
I guess I’ll just go ahead and address up front-is the issue coming up dealing
with the Provost’s office. I just want
to acknowledge that as I have completed my first year a couple of weeks ago,
that I have evaluated all senior members of my staff. John Heilman and I, in fact, had our
conversation yesterday. And I would say
to you that this is just the way I operate and I believe we should know what
problems, if any, exist. There have been
no decisions made on the Provost; we are still in discussions. But I do anticipate that a final decision
will be made this week. So I’ll let you
know at that point. In any event that
there is a negative decision in that regard, as you indicated, I will be
meeting with you on Thursday, Dr. Bailey.
We’ll talk about that decision and we’ll go from there. Again, no decision has been made and I worked
on that up until the time that I walked over here. We’ll see how it goes. It’s a very critical decision and I would say
to you quite candidly, it’s the type of decision, and particularly the timing,
that just makes it very difficult. But
I’ve got to be able to complete the projects and establish a pattern of
behavior and that’s really the motivation behind those decisions.
I would say, just
finally, it may be of interest to you or it may not, I anticipate that at our
meeting in April we’ll have three of the six initiatives on the table for
confirmation. Those I feel are
straightforward and probably not of concern to you. As late as yesterday, we spent a good part of
the morning with the Governor, going over the Gulf Shores project, and I hope
we’ll have that finalized by the April meeting, which is what we set as an
objective yesterday and I hope we can live up to that. I’d like to decide if we’re going to do it or
not. This was offered to me a year ago
and I agreed to it a year ago and I’m still talking, so obviously I’m not doing
something correct. The second one deals
with the
I want to say one other
thing, and John- I won’t reveal everything John and I talk about, although it’s
no secret-I would say that as John was explaining some issues to me-John
Mouton-explaining some issues to me concerning Facilities, Planning and so
forth, I asked John, I said: “John, are we as disconnected as it appears?” And
your answer was “Yes”. And I would say
to you that is one observation I’ve made in this first year, that we’re not an
integrated system to the extent that we need to be and I think that makes it
very difficult to effect change in a very logical way, a reasonable way and
we’ve got to find some way to bring this connection together. Now for those of you who oppose change,
that’s a good environment because you can affect it very easily that way-nobody
knows what the other is doing. But I
want you to know that has cost us money, it has cost us unnecessary delays, it
has cost us criticism, rightfully so, and we’ve got to find a way to get a
handle on it so if you’ve got thoughts on that, I certainly would welcome that,
but this is one of the sort of summary observations that I’ve made and I don’t
have to tell you that it’s been reported to the Board that we are disconnected
in too many ways to be an effective institution. I would like to start that process so that my
predecessor wouldn’t have to deal with it.
I said that was the last
thing, but there’s one thing I happened to think of was that the Board is in
the process now of developing the evaluation for the President. I anticipate that during our April session,
that will be done and that will set the tone for one of the SACS’ requirements,
of course. So I would also anticipate
that the search process will start this discussion sometime after the
legislative session is over. This again
is critical for this university. You
don’t work in an environment as a lame duck too well. So I would say to you that I anticipate the
timing. I would point out in case there
is some misunderstanding as to my motives.
For whatever combination of reason, just today before I left, I received
a copy of the report by Dr. Gerber. I
looked through all the emails, Beth looked through all the emails, even the
trashed ones and we could not find it. I
would say to you I will, and I have it now, and we will send it to the Trustees
to make sure that they have it for the meeting in April. I had not put it in the folders as I had
indicated in February as I had not received it.
So I have it now and I will follow through on that and there is plenty
of time as I said. It will be sometime
before that we will start so no harm has been done. I just wanted you to know in case you
reminded me that last time I said I would do that. That’s pretty much it, Dr. Larkin, and if
there are any questions, I would be glad to respond.
Dr. Larkin: Yes?
Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology: Dr. Richardson, I’m out on thin ice here but this
has been bothering me for some months now.
I think I need you to explain in dumb-down terms…
Dr. Richardson: That’s easy for me.
Cindy Brunner: …What you mean by ‘pattern of behavior’? You have referred to that several times and
you said the main purpose of your six initiatives is to establish a pattern of
behavior. I can understand exactly what
that means in reference to annual or regular reviews of performance or reviews
of academic program effectiveness. But
how does that apply to
Dr. Richardson: Sure. The primary problem
with SACS was a concern about institutional control and in my level of
operation-that is the President in charge of the day-to-day operation of the
institution, that is to say, the President, and all the other deans and faculty
involved in the whole thing, not just one individual-and there was a question
that has occurred. I think if you looked
at the discussion over the last 10-15 years, that’s been raised a thousand
times. So the pattern of behavior to me
comes from my experience from dealing with large public organizations that have
some political dimensions to them. It’s
this: last year we passed a number of policies that I think are very positive. My experience has been, unless you establish
this pattern of behavior, it’s very easy to ignore them. The initiatives-nothing great about these
initiatives other than like Gulf Shores and the Research Park, they were just
on the table and we took them with us-but I wanted to make sure that the Board
understood that the President, as represented by the groups that I identified,
is going to decide on the agenda and push the agenda and not be told what to
do. That’s it in a nutshell.
Dr. Larkin: Are there other questions?
We’ve got two…Richard?
Richard Penaskovic, Philosophy: Dr. Richardson, you said we’re not an integrated
system here?
Dr. Richardson: Yes.
Richard Penaskovic: Do you mean just in terms of Facilities…
Dr. Richardson: No.
Richard Penaskovic: …or do you mean philosophically? I wasn’t sure what you meant by that.
Dr. Richardson: I don’t wish to overstate it because I’m not in a position to say
I’ve assessed each area. I’ve yet to
find an aspect of this university that is integrated in such a way that others
that would be involved in the decision or others that would be impacted by the
decision are involved to the extent that they should. It seems to be a term
I’ve heard used is a silo-we have individuals operating, or a collection of
individuals, and I think that creates the inefficiencies that I mentioned. So it is certainly beyond Facilities, it’s
just that it’s easier to measure in a facility.
I think there’s been some disconnect as far as Administration and
Faculty. Yes sir, it is broader that
Facilities and it is creating great inefficiencies for this university and I
think some problems.
Kathryn Flynn, Forestry & Wildlife Services: Yes sir, Dr. Richardson….
Dr. Richardson: Yes, I think you asked me six questions yesterday…
Kathryn Flynn: Yes, sir, I did. I’m the
question person. You met with us
yesterday and we appreciated that and the question I have relates to your
schedule for initiatives and this is probably an oversight, but you had
mentioned that the Ag reorganization would be presented the recommendations at
the June 17th Board of Trustees meeting. Is that still on?
Dr. Richardson: Yes, the three Ag/AUM academic reviews are in June, I just didn’t
specify that they’re not in April. I
want to get them out of the way. Those
are fairly comprehensive, and so what we’ll do and I’d like to ask the leaders
of those groups to do is to identify those tasks that we think we can identify
and effect by starting next fall; to identify those that will take longer and
give us an estimated timeline so that we know.
I don’t want someone to come up and say ‘Why didn’t you consider
this?’ I want us to identify that and
that it will take more time than just a couple of months to get it done. It is scheduled for June 17th.
Dr. Larkin: Other questions, please? Ok,
thank you very much.
Dr. Richardson: Ok, see you later.
Dr. Larkin: On the agenda Kelly Alley, Chair of the Multicultural Diversity
Committee, was scheduled to come. There
has been a meeting of her committee recently and they’re not ready to report
and I neglected to pull her from the committee so she will report at the March
meeting. At this time I would like to
ask Mrs. Marsha Boosinger of the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee or the
Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics, to come forward and give her annual-is
this an annual or just a report?-her annual report.
Marsha Boosinger: Unlike Dr. Richardson, I don’t function well
without a PowerPoint, so I will subject you to a few slides. I’m here as the Chair of the Intercollegiate
Athletics, or as it is known familiarly-CIA-and I’m coming to you as the
Chair-that’s what we call it-I’m coming to you as the chair of that committee
and also as the faculty representative for the university. It is custom here to have the chair of this
committee serve as the faculty representative to this committee, which is
something that does not exist everywhere, but it does provide me with a
perspective that maybe can give you more information about your student athlete
population and answer questions that you may have about student athletes in
general. So I’m just going to run
through what the committee does, how the committee interacts with various
constituents on campus, and various aspects of the Athletics Department
operation and then end with my conclusions on the Coalition of Intercollegiate
Athletics, which is an organization senators will be asked to discuss and
possibly approve a motion to join that organization as I finish. So let me go forward with that. If you all can hear me, I’m going to have to
step away from the microphone…I think I was in a meeting where you said you
wouldn’t share this…you might not have to…ok, let’s see how we do. This may be more trouble than it’s worth.
For those of you who
don’t know, I thought it may be constructive to know what the composition of
the committee is. It is a large
committee made up of many members from around campus, so it has a large
membership that represents Faculty, A&P Assembly, Staff Council,
Administrators, and the Student Government Association. Please notice that there are now six faculty
members on the committee. I asked the
President for permission to add two and he agreed and we also took those terms
to three year terms instead of four. The
terms of the members on this committee, the faculty members on this committee,
are in line with other committee memberships on campus. And I think that the six members also
accomplish the work of the committee. It
also allows more people to rotate through the committee and therefore be more
informed about aspects of intercollegiate athletics. In addition, there are five ex-officio
non-voting members: the President, the Provost, the Athletics Director, and
members of the Athletics Department staff that primarily deal with compliance
and they are critical to many of the monitoring activities that the committee
undertakes.
The charge of the
committee is threefold: to recommend operating policies, which we do and have
done in the last year with regards to the drug education and testing policy,
the sports camp auditing policy, a policy related to how to request permission
for in-class for an athletic event, we also monitor for compliance. For those of you who are familiar with the
number of SEC and NCAA regulations, you also know there’s a lot of compliance
involved in operating the Athletics Department and the function of several of
the sub-committees of the CIA is to monitor many of the aspects of
compliance. We also assist the President
and Athletics Director as requested and one of the duties recently performed
was to participate in interviews for the Athletics Director, with all four
candidates for that position.
The committee functions
based on the sub-committees-there are nine sub-committees. I’m not going to name those as I will be
mentioning them as we go along, but Academic Standards is one that is a very
important committee to us, which will really forms the meat of my report about
how our athletes academically, but you can see four others there and then, in
addition, Equity Sportsmanship has a lot to do with student athlete welfare and
then Priority and Seating might be one some of you have been familiar with over
the last year, in relation to football tickets, championship tickets and bowl
tickets. And so this is the sub-committee
structure that we use to accomplish the work of the committee. Each sub-committee is chaired by a faculty
member, with the exception of one committee that is chaired by the Compliance
Officer.
Basically I wanted to
talk about Intercollegiate Athletics and its interaction with Academics. I just listed here the three main
sub-committees that deal mostly with academics and its issues. Obviously the Academic Standards
sub-committee is dealing this year with things like a class attendance policy,
with monitoring any Athletics personnel who for some reason teach academic
classes, it’s also dealing with discussion over student athletes receiving
academic credit for participation in their varsity sport. So those are the things the Academic
Standards Committee will be dealing with, as well as looking at graduation rates
and the new NCAA means of measuring academic performance, called the Academic
Progress Rate, which I will talk about in a minute. The Champs Life Skills Committee deals with
broader aspects of student life, things like career, development, personal
development and, of course, academic development, and other aspects outside of
the classroom, and again, as I mentioned, the Equity Welfare and Sportsmanship
Committee deals a lot with student welfare as a student athlete and as a
student. Also we receive reports from
the Associate Athletic Director for Student Support, Virgil Starks. He is a very active member of the Academic
Affairs Committee on campus and he is probably the primary liaison between
Athletics and Academics.
I wanted to discuss a
little bit about the NCAA’s admissions standards and some of the things you’re
going to be hearing about in the paper by the end of this week. Just so that you know, academic reform within
the NCAA has been a huge initiative in the last few years. Two years ago they established new
Satisfactory Progress standards and it is now incumbent upon a student athlete
to achieve 40% of their requirements at the completion of their Sophomore year,
60% at the end of their Junior year, and 80% by the end of their Senior year,
which is up from 25%, 50% and 75%. So we
have already implemented that. They are
required to come out of high school with fourteen core courses; it will go up
to 16 in 2008. The Academic Progress
Rate has been instituted, now as we speak, we reported data in the fall and have
the results of that. There will be
penalties for failing to meet the academic progress rate, starting next year
and then historical penalties starting the next year.
Because this is going to
be in the paper in the next few days, I just wanted to mention it to you so
that you would be informed. The Academic
Progress Rate is the academic measurement developed by the NCAA that is different
than the Federal Graduation Rate because it allows schools to count their
transfer students in and out. The
Federal Graduation Rate does not account for transfer students for regular
population or student athlete population, and you can see the difficulties that
might cause in getting an accurate picture of your student population. So this will now be calculated: all Division
I teams; it takes into account retention and eligibility, and the numbers for
the teams will be released this week, so you may see some of this in the newspaper.
Contemporaneous penalties
that will occur, if your team does not meet the cut score of the APR, will
begin next year. And basically, what
will occur is that teams will lose scholarships if they are below the APR cut
score and a student leaves who is not academically eligible. So there’s quite a bit now of monitoring and
standards, a lot of concern on the part of Academics and Athletics, as you can
imagine. Having seen
Let me talk a bit about
graduation rates, because we still do turn those in, we still have those. The graduation rate comprised, and this is a
federal rate, it’s reported to the Department of Education and it’s comprised
of first-time college freshmen, all college freshmen, and first-time college
freshmen scholarship athletes who enter in the summer or the fall. Therefore a student athlete who enters in the
spring does not count into this rate.
It’s a six-year graduation rate and the current data for this year is
based on students who entered in 1997-1998 and that rate was figured on 3140
students and 77 student athletes.
This is the only graph
I’ll subject you to, but it’s a visual to show how all the Division I-A schools
fare next to
Here are the rates for
the individual teams that the NCAA does calculate. They don’t calculate individual rates for every
athletic team. The numbers of graduating
students in those teams are too small. Notice
all male athletic students graduate at rate of 59%. Baseball has a very low graduation rate, very
typical of all baseball teams because of their access to Pro opportunities,
quite honestly. I’ve heard many
On a good note, we had a
number of student athletes qualify for SEC Honor Roll and what
Just to let you know what
academic services they are availing themselves of as student athletes-they are
using their tutoring services to a great extent-these are just figures for the
last two weeks: there are 91 tutors logging 388 hours, if you can read
that. They are using those services in
great numbers and I think that the new academic progress standards are causing
any of them who might formerly had more time to remain eligible, more time to
think about what they’re doing academically, to get involved a little more
quickly in taking advantage of this kind of service. The proof is in the pudding, and graduation rates
and APR scores will tell, but that does seem to be a pretty good use of what is
offered to them. All student athletes
attend Camp War Eagle and the other services that they are taking advantage of
in great number are listed there. I just
wanted you to know that those are things that are provided to all students that
athletic students are also taking advantage of.
Now to talk just a bit
about how the CIA interacts with the student athlete. All of the CIA sub-committees have a student
athlete member. Those sub-committees
hear from student athletes regarding things that affect them most. The Champs Life Skills Committee has two
student athletes on it and also as I mentioned, it and the Equity Welfare and
Sportsmanship sub-committee are primary sub-committees that deal with student
athletes’ welfare. I have involvement as
the chair of the CIA with the Student Athletes Advisory Committee, which is
comprised of student athletes who work on community events, work on issues of
student athlete welfare that they bring forward to the Athletics
Department. How the CIA interacts with
coaches-it does not interact with coaches as much as I would personally like
and as I think would be beneficial to the members of the CIA, the coaches and
the campus faculty. However, one of my
initiatives last year, which has unfortunately has fallen to the wayside, was a
guest coach program which would involve faculty chosen by student athletes to
participate in their games, not as competitors obviously, but to observe close
up what they do to get ready to compete, what their time management skills have
to be, exactly what their life is like as a student athlete. That is something, with two new committee
members, that I hope to begin again in the next academic year. I have a lot of interaction with the coaches
as the FAR. Several of the committee
members, Gary Waters being one, serve on committees with coaches and have been
working with initiatives dealing with problems in the Athletics Department that
involve input and interaction with coaches.
And one of the things we hope to do as a committee is have them attend
our meetings, however, since they are most free in the morning and we are most
free in the afternoon, we have yet to have arranged that. So that is another thing that we’re working
on.
This is very small print
but this is actually one of the major things that the CIA does and that is
interact with the Athletics Department in a compliance role. As I told you, two members of the Athletics
Department’s compliance staff attend all of the CIA meetings. We receive a report on secondary violations
from that, those two persons, at every meeting.
We monitor things like, drug policies, professional sports agents’
interaction with our student athletes, sports camps and clinics-all of those
things are monitored through this sub-committee and several other
sub-committees. As chair of the CIA, I sign
off on all secondary violation reports to the Conference and to the NCAA and we
receive reports from a number of other Athletic Department’s units regarding
compliance related issues. So compliance
and monitoring are a very large function of the committee’s work.
Just to let you know, just
as the university is accredited, every 10 years the NCAA certifies
Now, to the business at
hand for you as the Senate. I was asked
to speak just a bit about this other organization-The Coalition on
Intercollegiate Athletics. And I hope
that some of you had a chance to look at the website related to this particular
organization. I put just a couple of
bullets from their webpage up here to explain just exactly what they are. This is an alliance of faculty senates from
Division I schools. Please notice, it’s
not individual faculty members, its faculty senates who join this coalition in
an effort to have a voice in decision-making regarding intercollegiate
athletics on a national level. It
functions through a Steering Committee.
In the case of this organization, it’s developed around its athletics
conference. The SEC has two members on
the Coalition’s Steering Committee and Connor and Willie can correct me, but I
believe we have a representative for Vanderbilt and one from
Basically, they are
attempting to promote some serious discussions on their campuses of the
importance of monitoring and reform, essentially, of intercollegiate
athletics. I do like to put emphasis on
the last point, to preserve and enhance contributions athletics makes by
addressing long-standing problems. If
you’ve worked with any of the student athletes, if you worked with any of the
academic staff in Athletics, then you do know that the operation itself is a
behemoth that is very commercial now and has developed in directions that many
of us would not have liked.
The contribution to the
individual student athlete sometimes is immeasurable, so I like the idea that
the organization sees that there are strengths to intercollegiate athletics as
a function on campuses, but it would be very difficult to deny that there are
not problems with how it currently functions.
Willie, John and Conner came to one of the meetings of the Committee on
Intercollegiate Athletics in December, I believe, to discuss the committee’s
view of this coalition. The committee
has looked at things on the web from the coalition, and I was asked to
communicate to this group the CIA’s view of the COIA. The Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics
feels that if the Auburn University Faculty Senate would like to join the COIA,
we would ask only one or two things, that is, in joining, leaders then who will
probably be our representatives over time, remember that it’s incumbent upon them
to stay very well informed about the realities of intercollegiate athletics and
consult with the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics and others on campus
who are working in that arena on a daily basis.
My overwhelming impression of the meeting that I attended in
Dr. Larkin:
Well, Marsha, you’ve done
a super fantastic job. Will it benefit
you all to have this posted on the Senate webpage as a reference? Several people are nodding their heads, so if
you will send us a copy, we’ll make sure we get that posted.
At this time, I’m going
to ask Connor to come up. Oh, that makes
sense. Do you have any questions? Yes sir….
Herb Rotfeld, Marketing: I have a question on base statistics, which were
glossed over. Last time I remember being
at a report from a person in your position, might have been you, the statements
on the graduation rate of the student athletes was a graduation rate of people
that entered as athletes, not people who remained athletes for four years going
through. In other words, when you say
the graduation rate, and I guess we can also ask if it applies to the APR, are
these people that are staying athletes, and the basis for my asking is I
repeatedly have students in my class for which I’m getting requests from the
Athletics Association on grades and what they’re doing, and I talk to the
student and they say ‘I quit the team’ or ‘I’m off the team’ or whatever. So the question becomes, on various
calculations here on these graduation rates, you mentioned transferring out of
the university, but not leaving the team.
Marsha Boosinger: As I
understand it, student athletes included in the graduation cohort, entered as
scholarship student athletes as freshmen.
I know how to answer that on the APR group. They are calculated in the cohort for the APR
if at any time during the academic year they received athletic aid. Therefore, in the APR, students do fall out
of the cohort if they are no longer on the team. I’m hesitating over the fact…is that what you
meant?
Herb Rotfeld: (inaudible)…a student that wasn’t on the team receiving aid.
Marsha Boosinger: That’s possible because you can receive aid as a
fifth-year student, even though you’ve exhausted your athletic eligibility;
you’re still eligible for athletic scholarship.
That could be why. I beg your
pardon?
Herb Rotfeld: (inaudible-standing away from the microphone)
Marsha Boosinger: You’re counting them if they receive any kind of
athletic scholarship in the APR. In the
Federal Graduation Rate, you know that is something I’m afraid I’ll have to
think about for a minute. It counts the
students who entered and counts them based on where they, I mean, who they were
and what they were when they entered as a freshman. And I believe, and perhaps the Director of
Institutional Research knows, they carry on through that full cohort. So there would be a difference then between
that cohort as freshmen…I don’t know.
I’m going to have to answer that for you at a different time and say
with certainty that the APR cohort changes based on who it is receiving
athletic aid for that year because that cohort is figured every single
year. I’m sorry I’m not more definite
there. And I will get you the answer and
yes, I do recall that you had posed that question at another time. Anybody else?
I would be remiss if I didn’t put this up for your perusal. Institutional Assessment and Research provided
me with this information and I was too slow to put it into my PowerPoint, but I
thought you might be interested to see the GPAs and how as freshmen and
sophomores, there’s very little difference, but you will notice the average GPA
of the student athlete does drop by the time they are seniors. In fact, the overall GPA of student athletes
is about a 2.6, a 2.5 something and a 2.6 for the overall student body in
general. I’m not making that very clear,
I realize, but this is figures I asked for and received but it’s my fault they
were not incorporated into the presentation, but I thought that might give you
an idea of how they’re faring by class and by grade point average. And I’m more than happy to discuss this with
anybody at another time and find more figures.
Another figure that they are retrieving for me is the percentage of
students in the general student population and the student athlete population
that are academic warning or suspension.
So when I receive that information, if I’m posting this on the web, I
can include that as well. I will include
the answer to Dr. Rotfeld’s question.
Dr. Larkin: Other questions, please.
Thank you, Marsha, I appreciate it.
If Conner will come up and introduce the resolution. And for all of those that are leaving, we’re
going to do some tricky stuff with this calendar in a minute.
Conner Bailey, Chair-elect: Thank you, Dr. Larkin, and thank you,
Marsha. Marsha covered some of the
ground that I was going to cover, so I’ll be brief. Dr. Larkin and I did attend a meeting at
Vanderbilt in January. Dr. Larkin
mentioned that at the last Senate meeting. We do have as, Marsha said, 45
universities, Division I-A universities, that are members, 8 in the SEC and 8
in the Big Ten who have joined, so we wouldn’t be acting absolutely alone. We’re in pretty good company. The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics
is, as Marsha said, the premise is that the faculty should have a voice on
intercollegiate athletics. Not a
negative voice, but a critical in a constructive sense. The issues that have been identified by the
COIA are academic integrity, issues of governance, and I think we do a pretty
good job at this campus with that, athlete welfare and the impact of extended
seasons and seasons that go across several semesters, questions of finance, and
the issues, related issues of commercialization and timing of collegiate
sports. What the COIA is involved in
doing is developing a package of best management practices, in some cases,
recommendations for adoption by the NCAA.
But for the most part, most of the recommendations coming through- obviously
if the NCAA adopts recommendations, they are something all universities must
adhere to-but the best management practices are not that. The best management practices are from a
faculty senate driven body and are recommendations and things that universities
like
I would like to move
forward now by introducing this resolution.
It’s been on the web in time for you to see. In the interest of time, I would prefer, Dr.
Larkin, if you would agree, not to read this resolution. I don’t believe we need it for the minutes,
we can append that and I would simply like to….
Dr. Larkin: Why don’t you go ahead and read it?
Conner Bailey: You prefer I read it? Very
good.
WHEREBY as the Coalition
of Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) is an organization representing university
or faculty senates at 45 universities participating in Division IA of the
National Collegiate Athletic Association, including 8 of 12 Southeastern
Conference Schools, and
WHEREAS, the COIA seeks
to become a faculty voice in national debate over the future of college sports
and to this end has developed a “framework for athletic reform”, and
WHEREAS, the COIA is
developing a series of policy papers dealing with athletics governance,
admissions, and scholarship issues and the protection of academic integrity in
college sports programs, and
WHEREAS, the COIA has
established a close working relationship with the NCAA, the Association of
Governing Boards, and with the American Association of University Professors, and
is committed to developing responsible and workable approaches to preserving and
enhancing the contributions athletics can make to academic life, and
WHEREAS, membership in
the COIA provides opportunity for our senate leadership to participate in
ongoing discussions with senate leadership from other universities on matters
of faculty concern regarding intercollegiate sports, and
WHEREAS, the position
policy papers and documents developed through open debate within the COIA do
not represent any obligations on the part of Auburn University but simply
represent the wisdom of senate leaders across the country regarding best
practices for the governance of intercollegiate athletics, and
WHEREAS, member
universities of the COIA are represented at meetings and votes by the chairs of
their university or faculty senates,
THEREFORE, by passage of
this resolution, the Auburn University Senate expresses its intent to join the
COIA and to take part in continuing discussions regarding the future of
intercollegiate athletics.
Dr. Larkin: Are there any questions or input?
Conner Bailey: Yes. Before I suggested, or
said, that I didn’t want to read it, but let me know again put this resolution
to the floor. As a representative of the
Steering Committee, I’d like to move to the adoption of this resolution.
Dr. Larkin: Since the moving of this is by the representative of a committee, it
does not need a second. Is there anybody
else with a question, please go to the microphone.
Rik Blumenthal, Chemistry: Although I support all the ideas and I’ve read
quite a bit on their webpage, I have significant reservations about the timing
of our joining this organization. This
organization does openly seek more faculty than administration of the athletic
department. We are out of time within
the last year our trustees, who would like to be micromanaging athletics, are
forced to pull their hands back and not do that. I think it would be unwise of the faculty, at
this point, to appear to try and fill what they could perceive as a power void
created by their absence. Animosities
between the faculty and trustees are significant and frequent enough that I
think this would be a point we probably should not touch at this time. I would prefer we set this aside and maybe
consider this in another year. I don’t
think anything is going to happen in the next year that we’re going to miss out
on that will be so important. But I do
think that this is very bad timing for the faculty to ask for more control over
athletics.
Dr. Larkin: Yes?
John Mouton, Past Chair: I am actually neutral on this and have studied it
quite a bit and all I want to say is that with passage Marsha’s point is well
taken, some understand it and some don’t.
The reason I’m neutral about it is that I’m very much in favor of what
this organization chooses to do. But if
you study carefully on their webpage, it says lots of things to get proposed
that the COIA never advances up to the NCAA, yet they remain down and
fluttering about as suggestions to bring to the athletic department and
candidly, some of those ideas are extremist, or not in the best interests of
the overall university. And so, my sense
is that I’m very much in favor of participating in the organization. If they decide to support, I think that we
should support. I think that the other
stuff that falls out of that as to why it’s not moving forward does not
necessarily generate what is truly best practices in the matter of
intercollegiate athletics. Thank you.
Dr. Larkin: I would just respond to John’s question first. The group is going to make
recommendations. The group is going to
make recommendations on best practices, sometimes they just discuss philosophies. The decisions on athletics are going to be
made anyway. If Auburn is not a part of
this and is not sitting around the table, then we have no vehicle for making input,
for making recommendations or for being in a discussion to debate certain
issues that we don’t agree with and another piece is, I’m not sure that the
Board of Trustees is, if they looked at this organization, I’m not sure that
they would be in favor. When you look at
all the things they are proposing as a body, I’m not sure the Board of Trustees
would endorse that. That’s just the
comment I’ll make. I know that they are
getting ready to make a vote in April, they’re getting ready to vote on some
pieces that they’re referring up to the NCAA, so if Auburn is not a member of
the organization, we cannot vote on those nor can we enter into the discussion,
we can send emails but they won’t pay them any attention. So one of the reasons that they held off on
taking some votes is-we got an email today asking if we’ve made a decision and
we indicated that we would be bringing it before you. So it’s the pleasure of this body as to what
we do. Anybody else have some comments
or questions?
Conner Bailey: While Cindy is moving to the
microphone, there is, as Dr. Larkin said, integrity in intercollegiate
athletics with those rules and best practices.
That is the document that is being currently developed by the COIA that
we worked on at the meeting up at Vanderbilt and that’s the, if we join them, we
have a vote on this and a say, and if we don’t join, obviously we’re interested
but do not have a voice.
Cindy Brunner, Pathobiology: I’m wondering, just what is the relationship
between this organization and the NCAA?
Are these folks advisors, are they granted any status by the NCAA?
Dr. Larkin: I don’t think in a true capacity.
The only thing is they send lots of ideas and recommendations to the
NCAA and they do look at those things and over a period of years, they try to
implement some of those things and try to make them policy. But from what I understand, there’s no
official relationship, but Martha is in a better position to answer that.
Marsha Boosinger: What the COIA has discovered is that many of the
things that they would like implemented are best implemented if they come as
pieces of legislation from the NCAA. So
they are working through things like the Academics Cabinet, through the
Championships Cabinet, through the NCAA governance structure in order to push
their legislative issues. Several of
those pieces of legislation came forward this year-I didn’t track each and
every one of them-some of them were passed on for legislative approval, some of
them were turned down. I think what
they’ve discovered is they can stand as an organization in the wilderness and
shout a long time, but until they’re recognized by the body that governs
intercollegiate athletics, many of these things that they’re interested in are
not going to go forward. I would just
say that I do think their idea of formulating best practices is not a bad way
to go about making known to faculties and the world at large the best way
intercollegiate athletics functions.
Their first one on governance passed with hardly any objections because
it was really very reasonable. This one
on academic integrity has a few things in it that are very different from the
way most universities operate and those are the pieces they are attempting to
make into NCAA legislation so that it can come before a vote and then are
mandated, which is a logical way to proceed.
So I would say that is their relationship.
Dr. Larkin: I will add that we have run this information by the Athletic
Department, particularly Virgil Starks.
He read through it and does not have any objections. He does suggest that Senate leadership
communicate with the Athletic Department on a regular basis as Marsha has
suggested in her committee about issues that are coming forth before this group
so that they can have some input. Other
comments or questions? I’m assuming that
you are ready to vote. There is a motion
on the floor that we as a body approve membership in the Committee on…Coalition
on Intercollegiate Athletics. Is there
any discussion? All those persons in
favor of giving approval for this body to join this organization, indicate by
saying Aye. Opposers, nay. We have a few opposers, not enough to defeat
this motion. The motion carries, thank
you very much.
We have one more action
item, if you’ll bear with me. I will ask
Gary Waters to come forward. He is the
Chair of the Calendar Committee and if you’ll remember, Alyson Whyte was the
Chair last year and we did get most of the work done, however, we left the
Summer Calendar for 2006. So we need to
get to that piece. Be gentle to
Gary Waters, Calendar Committee Chair: Well, as Dr. Larkin said, I think Dr. Whyte
presented a proposal that included the 2005-2006 academic year, the summer
terms of 2006, the 2006-2007 academic year, and the summer terms of 2007. And the faculty senate approved a 75-day
calendar for each semester in the 2005-2006 academic years and likewise for the
2006-2007 academic years. The proposed
calendars for the 2006 and 2007 were not approved and I was not at the meeting,
but based upon the information that was relayed to me, faculty senate strongly
encouraged the committee to prepare a proposed calendar that would include
additional specified exam days for the courses that are taught in the two
five-week terms and also for the courses that are taught in the single six-week
term. And I think the rationale for that
was very similar to the rationale for the insistence on a 75-day academic term
and that rationale was related to academic integrity and maintaining the
contact hours for course coverage during that five or six week term and then
having separate identified days set aside for final exams. So what you have in front of you is proposed
calendars for the summer terms of 2006 and 2007. The first proposal is very, very similar to
the first proposal, proposal #1 for 2006 is very, very similar to the one that
Alyson presented just last spring, or last summer and you will know that, I
will just quickly summarize, the summer semester for a full 10 weeks, classes
would begin in this proposal, on May 19th, that is 11 days after the
last day of final exams, which would be May 8th. Classes would, or graduation for the summer
term would be on August 7th, the fall semester for 2006 is scheduled
to, the first day of classes is scheduled for August 16th, so that
would be 9 days between graduation and the first term. Now in going through and looking at it, the
five week term, there is no final exam day set aside. Note that classes end on the 23rd
and the final exam is scheduled for that same day. In the six week term, we have classes ending
on June 30th and final exams would be scheduled on that same day,
and finally, the second five week term classes would end on August 1st
and final exams would be held on that same day.
Now the second proposal
for the summer terms of 2006 is the proposal I think reflects some of the
comments heard at the meeting last year.
In this proposal, we have set aside additional days at the end of each
five week term and six week term for final exams. If you look at the summer semester 10 week
term, classes under this proposal would start on Thursday, May 18th,
that is 10 days after the last day of finals.
Graduation would still be scheduled for August 7th that is 9
days after, or before, fall classes start.
If you look at the summer mini-semester five week term, this is under
the summer term for 2006, note that classes in this proposal would begin on May
18th, Thursday, they would end on Thursday, June 22nd. We would have a two-day final exam period,
Friday and Saturday, June 23rd and 24th. One thing that I’ll point out to you in our
proposal, we are proposing that six week classes and ten week classes do not
meet on that Friday, June 23rd and that the only activity going on
campus as far as academic classes, that Friday, June 23rd would be
the final exams for the five week courses.
And then if you’ll notice the summer mini-semester 2, we’ve got a final
exam scheduled on Friday, July 1st.
Classes end on June 30th.
Just to give you an idea of how many six week classes we typically have,
in the summer of 2004, there were a total of 12 courses offered on a six week
basis. Six of those were undergraduate
courses, six were graduate courses.
There was one class, and I think it was Concepts of Science, that had
four sections. There was one class that
also had two sections, and I think if you go back and look at what’s happened
in prior years, there are a lot of independent study classes that are scheduled
during that six week term.
And then our summer
mini-semester 3, second five week term, note that we have put forth a proposal
that classes would end on August 1st and final exams would be
scheduled for the following two days, August 2nd and 3rd. And we’ve got a similar proposal attached for
the summer of 2007. Proposal #1 does not
include those final exam days, Proposal #2 does have those additional final
exam days.
Dr. Larkin: Alright,
Gary Waters: We’ve had support within the committee for both proposals, but the
proposal based on the feedback that we got back last year is the one that I
would propose-Proposal #2 for the summer term of 2006 and Proposal #2 for the
summer term of 2007-be adopted by the faculty senate.
Dr. Larkin: You’ve got your committee to agree?
Gary Waters: Well, the committee has given me, we decided to put both proposals
up for discussion and we’re basically looking at, the first one. One very similar proposal, Proposal #1 has
already been rejected by the senate last year and that’s why we’re proposing
the second one.
Dr. Larkin: Any discussion or debate on this proposal or recommendation from
this committee? If you plan to speak, go
to the microphone and identify yourself and department or unit.
Gary Martin, Curriculum and Teaching: When I sent this out to my department, I got more
reaction on anything, a certain trip to
Gary Waters: Just to clarify, if you look at Proposal #2, summer terms of 2006,
graduation for the spring semester of 2006 is scheduled for May 11th,
classes are scheduled to begin one week later, May 18th. May 17th is pre-term preparation,
classes actually begin May 18th.
Dr. Larkin: Yes sir?
Herb Rotfeld, Marketing: I can’t
let pass a terminological inexactitude on your part. It was not a proposal from the Senate that
said that we wanted final exams in the summer.
It was a motion that passed, as far as I recall, without dissent, that
said we didn’t want an asterisk by summer school courses, saying that these
were cheaper than the rest of the year, and it was not just the full 75 day
equivalent that was requested for the summer, it was the full two and half hour
final exam scheduled, the same as with other classes. As far as Curriculum and Teaching with some
other classes, there are guidelines within university polices on handling
graduate students, which some of your teachers are, so it’s a little bit
different setup for them, but it was a direct motion from the Senate wanting
you to come in with Proposal #2.
Dr. Larkin: Thank you.
Gary Waters: As I said, I wasn’t at the meeting and I appreciate the
clarification.
Dr. Larkin: Other comments? Alright,
hearing no comments, I assuming you’re ready to vote on Proposal #2. All of those persons in favor of voting on
Proposal #2, indicate by saying aye.
Opposers, nay. It sounded like we
need to have a show of hands. So once
again, all of those persons in favor of proposal #2, indicate by show of hand
and if you will keep them raised until we can get an official count. You can lower your hands. Ok, those opposed, raise your hands. You can put your hands down. See how they count and then got to the back
to consult on the total instead of….(laughter)
I love life. Motion carries-22
for, 15 against. Ladies and gentlemen,
you’ve been a great audience. Oh, hold
on, this is important. Nomination for Rules…explain to me how we’re going to do
this, Debra, because….Alright, we need to take care of this. Are there nominations from the floor for
members from Senators only, for Rules Committee members? Yes?
Charlie Gross, Electrical Engineering: I’d like to nominate Howard Thomas from Textile
Engineering for the Rules committee.
Dr. Larkin: Thank you, sir. Yes?
Diane Hite, Agricultural Economics and Rural
Sociology: I would like to
nominate Charles Mitchell.
Dr. Larkin: Charles Mitchell. Others?
Jim Gravois, Library: I would like to nominate Judy Lechner.
Dr. Larkin: Thank you very much.
Others? I guess, should they have
already contacted these persons to see if they wanted their names
submitted? I assume you already
did. They have. We have three persons: Thomas, Mitchell, and Lechner. We will
vote on those at the March meeting. Thank you very much. Yes?
Alright, one announcement.
Cindy Brunner: This is not official Senate business, but I wanted to let you all
know about a crime that occurred at the
Dr. Larkin: Thank you very much.
Unfinished business? New business?
Meeting is adjourned.