Auburn University Senate Meeting

February 8, 2005

 

 

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 College of Engineering (Joe Morgan); Alice Buchanan, Health & Human Performance (Mary Rudisill); Tin-Man Lau, Industrial Design (Clark Lundell); James Shelley, Philosophy (Richard Penaskovic).

 

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 January 18, 2005 minutes with any necessary corrections, if we find any.  All those persons in favor of approving these minutes please indicate by saying Aye.  Opposers, nay.  Thank you very much.  If we discover that there are any errors, we can correct those later on.

 

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 Auburn University and I want to bring that forward right now.  We’re going to ask the Faculty Handbook Review Committee, which is chaired by Dwayne Cox, to lead this initiative.  The assignment will go to that particular committee.  The committee’s duties as expressed in the handbook, simply says that the committee should receive and solicit suggestions for changes and updating of the Faculty Handbook and report to the University Senate such changes as it deems appropriate.  The rationale is that the consulting policy at Auburn University is inconsistently applied throughout the University or the campus, and therefore it needs to be revised and made fair and equitable to all.  The charge that I’m giving this group is to refer, first of all, to Chapter 7 of the Faculty Handbook and proceed to examine the consulting policy at Auburn University, make recommendations to the Senate on the fairness, and fairest application of the policy throughout the university.  The committee shall examine how the policy is administered at Southern Regional Education Boards, or our peer institutions, in 16 states.  The preliminary report shall be presented to the Senate at the March 8th meeting.  That is sort of an ambitious goal that may not occur or may have to be done under Connor’s leadership, but I want to take the initiative to get this group together and I’ve contacted Dwayne Cox and alerted him that this would be forthcoming and so you’ll hear more about that and if you have input you know who to direct that to.

 

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 Nashville and the meeting was on Faculty Leadership and Governance from around the SEC.  So as part of the discussion, as they went around the room, they started asking questions about what we did and the positions that we have on the Board of Trustees’ committees that don’t exist at other SEC schools.  The position that we have at the table-that I’ll be giving up and Willie will take-they don’t have at other SEC schools or institutions.  And those are opportunities-and when we first got them, because that was during the span of my time here-when we first got them, people questioned a little bit about them-are we really having an impact, etc.  We’ve really matured and a number of people on the Board of Trustees have changed.  And so talk to Steve Williams, who sits on the Properties and Facilities Committee and other people, who are being heard and their voices care.  I think we have a tremendous opportunity as a Senate and as a faculty to share in the governance of the university and I appreciate the opportunity that I’ve had to participate in it and encourage all of us to be aware, to be heard, to make sure that having the President of the university come to these meetings and answering questions-those such things are to me what governance is about and I think governance is healthy for the university.  Thank you very much.

 

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 Auburn and Alabama is trying to gobble everyone up.  So I feel good about that.  We’ve just started and I would anticipate that it’s much easier once you’re in the Governor’s budget than to try to get it in after the fact, so I believe that the capacity that we’ll bring together, we’ll have a good chance.  There will be a tremendous battle as to whether K-12 gets a 4% or a 7% salary increase and you will see, as you move into March and April, some intense discussions on that.  And that one is very critical to us, because if it goes all the way to 7%, then it puts a great strain to us holding on to what we’ve got.  So that’s a point that we’ll have to watch. 

 

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 Research Park and I’m really optimistic about that and would anticipate by April we’ll know more about that.  And the airport governance is an issue that involves the county and two cities, the state, and I hope those three will be handled.  So the others will come forward during the June 17th meeting in some form as I think, and have said before to you and would say again, when you get to the academic review, you’re obviously going to have great interest.  What I am hoping to establish at a minimum on the June 17th, and I would acknowledge that you can’t do all of that by June 17th, as I behave sometimes I can’t do that, I would say to you that what we hope to accomplish are two basic things.  Number one: I want to have an established pattern of review, and I repeat what I said, I think a couple of months ago, in that regard.  When the Role Commission was formed about seven years ago, it came as a result of about three years of stonewalling so that there was not a response to the large amount of non-viable programs that the AEC has identified for us.  That’s not the way we want to go and I think if we establish a criteria on which a review should be based, and a cycle, we have time to plan, everybody knows what’s coming, and the Board understands those are the basis for that, too and we don’t get into this ‘Well, we’ve got to do this.’  Periodically a program comes up that is controversial for one reason or another and I don’t want it pushed into a volatile time just for review.  I’d like for us to have an established schedule so I hope we can do that.  I anticipate that we’ll also look at the Core Curriculum.  That does not mean as much as content, that’s something that would be rather comprehensive and would be beyond us, so I would indicate and ask that we would review whether or not we would have one or two of the four subjects currently structured in regard to other colleges and schools.  For instance, if we had Engineering, we would have a core subject unique to all schools in Engineering, maybe not all of the university.  As I have interviewed 20 of the Deans’ candidates over this past year, and I talked with them, it’s a very common practice.  So I want to review that as a viable option and whether that has promise.  As to the content, what that would mean in my view, the content is not up for review at this point.  What that would mean to me, is that if we think that has some promise, I think each of the respective deans in our colleges would go through a process of identifying that common core course for that college, or perhaps two courses, and then would submit back through the faculty committees so that we don’t have just a disconnect altogether. So that would take at least a year, probably the fall of ’06 is the earliest you could expect that. 

 

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 Gulf Shores, Airport, AUM and the other initiatives?

 

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 Auburn’s early APR scores, we are doing well in terms of how our teams are faring.  When you read an APR score, or if you do, you need to know that they equate approximately to a 50% graduation rate.  Some of the press you may have read in the past few weeks about the NCAA saying that football teams without a 50% graduation rate would not participate in bowls, that’s because their APR cut score will be too low and will be one of the penalties that will occur later on.  The contemporaneous penalties will deal with scholarship penalties.  The historical penalties may include additional scholarship reduction, limitations, ineligibility for post-season play and then last, and most harsh, would be restricted membership in the NCAA.

 

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 Auburn students.  Basically the light colored bar there, may be a little hard to read in the back, is all students and in all Division I schools the graduation rate is 61% and for student athletes it’s 62%.  This past year at Auburn, the graduation rate for all students was 68% and the graduation rate for student athletes was 56%.  Last year Auburn’s graduation rates were higher for all students.  So we have suffered a drop this year.  The Academics Department has some very serious concerns, as you might imagine.  But it is fairly well documented that large coaching changes will cause those kinds of graduation rate shifts.  Again, the Federal Government does not count transfer students in and out.  And please keep in mind that we did have a major coaching change six years ago.  So this could be part of the rate; that is certainly not all of it.  There are some other things that are in play. 

 

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 FARs complaints about that.  Basketball, Football, 59%, which actually did drop quite a bit.  The Football Graduation Rate, because of the size of the team, very often shows which way your graduation rate will go.  Cross Country-100%.   However, notice the end there.  The government only reports ranges when it gets below 20%, I believe, so that could very well mean that Cross Country had only one graduate and these rates are very tiny.  Another male student would be all other sports, except the one listed there, which has a 78% graduation rate.  The women’s graduation rates are lower.  I would say overall, if I had to look at a trend, women student athletes, female student athletes, are graduating in fewer numbers.  I really don’t have an explanation for that, but that is a trend that I see certainly.  Female student athletes graduated overall at a rate of 53%.  Basketball-50%.  Cross Country 43% and all others 57%, this is quite a difference from all other male athletes.

 

On a good note, we had a number of student athletes qualify for SEC Honor Roll and what Auburn calls its Top Tigers.  These are student athletes with over a 3.0, so we had over 141 qualify for the SEC Honor Roll.  The difference between the two numbers is the semesters considered.  While Equestrian is an emerging sport not considered by the SEC although a championship sport, our Equestrian athletes were counted in our Top Tiger numbers.  This represents somewhere between 31% of the student athletes and 37% of the student athletes in these two categories, a population of 450 student athletes. 

 

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 Auburn’s athletic programs on a regular basis.  We had planning meetings as a group.  The FAR was included and the Athletics Department developed a new strategic plan, which I believe is mounted on the web for any of you to take a look at.  I suspect now with the new Athletics Director, there will be some changes to that strategic plan.  There is a self-study scheduled for the Athletics Department for the next academic year.  Many of you will probably be asked to serve on self-study committees, just as you were serving on SACS’ committees, so I hope you will respond affirmatively.  I think that this is an excellent education for anyone who is not familiar with intercollegiate athletics and it certainly is something that the Athletics Department is interested in having, that is, more knowledge about what they do and what their general operations are in the university population.  The Peer Review team will come the next year and will review and report in February 2007.

 

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 Arkansas, on the Steering Committee, yes that’s right.  There is SEC conference representation on this Coalition for Intercollegiate Athletics.  At the present time, eight of the twelve SEC schools have voted to join this coalition.  This is something that has been around for a little while, and actually, Willie, John Mouton and I attended the faculty conference that he spoke of earlier that was focused on intercollegiate athletics.  Quite honestly, that’s what the whole meeting revolved around, but discussions about broader shared governance occurred, but the focus of the meeting was intercollegiate athletics and this coalition.

 

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 Nashville was that a large number of faculties have a number of concerns about intercollegiate athletics but they are also not very well informed about intercollegiate athletics.  And that’s certainly not to say that just because you’re informed, you agree or approve, but you are at least working from a basis of knowledge.  So I would encourage following Senate leaders, who then become our representatives to this coalition perhaps, to avail themselves of the resources of the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics, anything that I or my successor as faculty representative, could provide so that when we are asked to do our bidding on these matters, we can do so in a very well-informed manner.  There are a lot of things being proposed in intercollegiate athletics.  We may see changes that might be very good in the end, but will cause a lot of discussion, a need for a lot of discussion, so that’s just what I would say to this body, that we charge the Senate to remain on top of these issues as this group then gets to participate in the coalition.  Thank you.

 

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 Auburn, Vanderbilt, and Alabama should consider and they become discussion points on campus between the faculty, the athletic department and the CIA.  So I personally view this as a positive opportunity for the Senate and Senate leaders in the future from Auburn to become involved in the discussion that are involving many campuses across the country and bringing  a faculty voice from this campus to the discussion.  I believe Marsha’s point that Senate leaders need to take this seriously is a very good one and one that I would certainly support and agree to, to the best of my ability.

 

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.  Resolution Authorizing Auburn University Senate to join the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics:

 

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, because when you all asked Alyson a lot of questions the last time, I have not gotten her to return any emails I’ve sent her.  Apparently, this is a challenge, so we’re going to ask Gary to come forward.

 

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, you’ve survived so far.  Now what I need is for you on behalf of your committee to recommend one of these proposals, so that we can get it on the floor and debate it to see whether we …..

 

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 Louisville a while back.  My department strongly supports Proposal #1, or something similar.  Pretty much what’s happening, the interbreak is pretty much collapsing, a full 75 days plus now extending the summer.  Gary put the good face on it of about 11 days from the last day of finals, but I guess the papers are going to grade themselves.  The way I figure it, it’s less than a week from graduation to the beginning of the next term.  In addition, in Curriculum and Teaching, we work with teachers, extending the summer time decreases the ability of our target audience to work on graduate degrees and so forth.  We would like to speak against Proposal #2 in favor of Proposal #1.

 

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 Vet School yesterday that is pretty scary.  Nobody was injured, actually somebody’s brand new hybrid type car was stolen.  A colleague of mine had put together his pennies and bought this car.  It was delivered two weeks ago and yesterday morning someone walked into our building, came up to the second floor, walked into his office, riffled though his coat pockets until they found his car keys, went out the front door, started the car and drove away.  He watched the guy drive away.  He happened to be in the stairwell, looked out and saw this guy get into his car and drive away.  He called the police and the police said ‘Well, it’s been more than 72 hours, so we’ll never get it back.’  So you all might want to think about moving where you put your car keys every day.

 

Dr. Larkin: Thank you very much.  Unfinished business? New business?  Meeting is adjourned.