Auburn University Senate Meeting
October
12, 2004
Members Absent: Don Large, VP for Business/Finance; David Wilson, Associate
Provost & VP for Outreach; Dan Bennett, Dean, College of Architecture; Wes Williams,
Associate Provost & VP for Student Affairs; Timothy Boosinger,
Dean, School of Veterinary Medicine; Bradford Boney, SGA President; Mike
Leslie, GSC President; Isabelle Thompson, Steering Committee; Leanne Lamke, Steering Committee; Mario Lightfoote,
ACES; Raymond Hamilton, Aviation Management & Logistics; Jeff Tickal, Building Sciences; Renee Middleton, Counseling
& Counseling Psychology; Darrel Hankerson,
Discrete & Statistical Science; Charles Gross, Electrical & Computer
Engineering; Ken Tilt, Horticulture; Saeed Maghsoodloo, Industrial Engineering; Richard Good, Music;
John Rowe, Nursing; Kem Kruger, Pharmacy Care
Systems; Charles Taylor, Pharmacy Practice; Marllin
Simon, Physics; Robert Norton, Poultry Science; Thomas White, ROTC Air Force;
Bill Shaw, ROTC Army; Paul Starr, Socio/Anthro/Soc
Work; Tracey Oleinick, Theatre.
Members Absent (Substitute): Sheri Downer, Acting Dean of Libraries (Harmon Straiton); Martha Taylor, A & P Assembly Chair (Harriet
Huggins); Ann Beth Presley, Consumer Affairs (Pam Ulrich); Kathryn Flynn,
Forestry & Wildlife Services (Art Chappelka);
Thomas Smith, Human Development & Family Studies (Jamie Andersen); James
Shelley, Philosophy (Rich Penaskovic).
Dr. Willie Larkin, Chair: May I have your attention please? This meeting will come to order. I want to first thank all of you for
attending the Senate meeting and would invite you to continue to do that. I also remind you that our meeting is being
videotaped today and the tape will be digitized and will be available for
streaming in a few days. This is going
to be an experiment to see if we can expand the involvement in the Senate to
those persons who cannot attend. This
does not absolve senators from attending.
We still expect you to attend on a regular basis; we just want to make
sure everyone knows what=s going on at the University as it relates to the faculty
and a lot of other things as well.
You should have had an opportunity to
read the minutes from September the 7th. They were posted on the Senate webpage. At this point, I will entertain a motion to
approve those minutes. Conner? Can I get a second? Alright, we=ve got a motion and a second that we approve the
President Richardson is out of town
today so he has asked Dr. John Heilman, Senior
Advisor to the President, to come and make some comments and then he will
introduce a couple of people who will
add to his comments as well. Then
I=ll come back and make some comments from the chair and then we=ll ask John Mouton to come after me and he=ll make some comments in reference to things that are taking
on the Board of Trustees that are relevant to the faculty and then we=ll proceed from there.
Dr. Heilman...
Dr. John Heilman, Senior Advisor to the President: Thank you very much, Dr. Larkin, and good afternoon. As Dr. Larkin said, President Richardson is
out of town. I=ll comment on what is taking him out of town. He is in the process of meeting and...is the
microphone working all right? He is in
the process of meeting with the editorial board that is across the state that
is for the purpose of briefing them on what he=s undertaking, what we=re undertaking at Auburn University and in part, to prepare
the groundwork for the legislative initiative that he, Dr. Richardson, wants to
undertake in the fall. He has, at the
recent board meeting, announced six initiatives and asked that you be briefed
on them. I think this will be fairly
brief, as some of you I know attended the board meeting and saw the
presentation. They have been reported
on, I think, today or very recently in the AU Report, but I will provide
a brief overview and ask some of the folks who were involved to comment to the
extent they would like to do that.
First, a
word or two on these six initiatives.
Why, what does Dr. Richardson hope to accomplish with them. I think there=s several points here.
One is to set the stage for a successful next presidency. Second is to better delineate Board and
Administrative responsibilities. It may
not be an objective, but something I think he feels is very important is to
involve faculty and to do that through, if possible, through standing
University and Senate committees.
Connor, you will be aware, I have not talked with you yet as to what
those committees are; I=ve taken a look at that and would expect to be talking with
you shortly about that. So I think that=s a next step down the road.
Also, I
think Dr. Richardson feels, among other things, that these initiatives will
help to establish in the public eye that there really is a connection between
the research programs of the University and the economic programs of the
state. Over the summer Dr. Richardson
commissioned some focus groups around the state, pretty representative
cross-sections of the public, to talk about their understanding of Auburn
University and in part, its research mission, and I think, he concluded from
those focus groups, that the public at present does not have a clear sense of
how Auburn=s research mission connects to economic development for the
state. I believe Dr. Richardson thinks
the probability of his being successful in legislative initiatives that he
wants to undertake will depend in part on our ability to help folks understand
research at Auburn is many things, but among those things is a driver for
economic development.
The first
of these initiatives is the Auburn University Research Park. It certainly does relate to economic
development. I believe on the agenda for
later this afternoon, Mike Moriarty, Associate Provost and Vice-President for
Research will be talking about this, so Mike, I will defer discussion of that
later on.
The
second item is the Gulf Shores Project that also relates to economic
development. Dr. Richardson has asked me
to work on that. In fact, we=ve set up at least the beginning task force, which met this
morning to work on that. The basic idea
in this is that the University serves- without cost to us, our money is not on
the table- as a state agency to develop a gulf-front hotel. There will be a convention center associated
with that. These facilities will bring
economic benefit to the area, especially in a post-Ivan environment. It was also key for Dr. Richardson, is the
educational and research opportunities that these facilities and the
surrounding parklands provide. On this
task force that began meeting this morning, one of the members who=s here this afternoon, June Henton,
and she will be exploring academic opportunities campus-wide. And June, I think you agree we had a
productive discussion and I think there are themes that emerged from what we
were talking about this morning, including sustain ability, eco-tourism that
Dr. Richardson I think finds appealing and we think could connect programming
opportunities in many colleges across the campus. On this project John Wagoner will help deal
with legal issues and John Russell, who is with the Hotel and
The third
of these projects is in the College of Agriculture and I don=t know whether John Jensen is here. Dr. Richardson has asked John to work on this
and I know he will be working very closely with Dean Michael Weiss and also
with Gaines Smith and I don=t know whether Dean Weiss or Gaines or both of you would
like to comment briefly on this, you=re welcome to do it.
What I can say very briefly is that the issue here is the organizational
structure in Agriculture that relates to natural resources and the environment
in such a way that programs can effect change in the 21st century
and be nationally recognized for it.
The fourth
project is one that Dr. Richardson has asked Dr. Large to take the lead
on. It is the Auburn Airport, also the
Auburn Airport Authority. The goal of
this briefly is to improve airport appearance and functioning in significant
parts so that it can more effectively serve as an instrument of regional
economic development. In these
discussions the possibility of regional authority, which would include the City
of Auburn and the City of Opelika, Auburn University and Lee County, certainly
will be under discussion. I think that=s a quick overview of what this is. Don Large, you=re here, if you=d like to comment any
further on it, I....
The fifth
initiative has to do with Auburn University and Auburn University at Montgomery
and Dr. Richardson has asked me to work on this also. In a phrase, I think his hope is to clarify
the relationship between these two institutions and to do so in a way that is
of benefit, is seen as being, on both campuses, as being of benefit to
all. At the board meeting he talked
about four options, and two were at the extreme-one is total fusion, second is
total separation. The third, I think, is
perhaps somewhat like what exists right now, that is Auburn University at
Montgomery operates under the umbrella of Auburn University, but operates with
very substantial independence from the main campus. The fourth option is one of closer
integration of academic and administrative functions, while retaining UM=s focus on non-traditional students and on the needs of the
Montgomery community. I=ve set up a working group and that will begin meeting
tomorrow. I=ve had a very good preliminary discussion with Chancellor Winn
Nance and one particular point that I think is important to mention here, is
that we have talked specifically about the importance of involving faculty,
providing for faculty voice in this discussion, and we will be getting started
forthwith.
The sixth
area is one that Provost Tom Hanley is providing leadership for and it is the
Academic Program Review. Tom is here
and, Tom, would you like to talk a little bit about this?
That=s pretty much the overview I wanted to provide of these six
initiatives before taking questions. I
wanted to point to a couple of other issues with respect to which I know there
have been expressions of interest. In
fact, two of them go back to Tom Hanley as Provost. One is the SACS exit interview, and Tom, if
you care to comment on that...Tom was there, I was not....
Dr.
Thomas Hanley, Provost: Sure, sure. Thank you, John. The SACS exit interview was not a complete
report. They were not at the end of
their deliberations when they gave us this report. So several times during the report they
mentioned that this is what we may do or we may not do and so I can=t give you an accurate statement of what the committee is
going to do. What I can tell you is that
they will give us a report; we will have until November 16th to file
a response to that report. In the
discussions, I would generally characterize the report as being positive. There were a lot of comments like, “commitment to accreditation” was very
positive. The methods and attempts we
have made to address the issues of SACS probation were viewed as positive by
the committee. What I anticipate as
coming from this committee is a report in the typical SACS terminology. There will be perhaps recommendations. For those of you not familiar, when SACS
committees make a recommendation we are required to respond. There may also be some suggestions and the
suggestions are just that, suggestions.
We may or may not respond to suggestions. We have to have this response from this
report in by November 16th.
The SACS committee, I think, meets on December 3rd or 4th
in Atlanta. Before the SACS meeting, at
which time we will find out what the recommendation is with respect to
probation. My feelings now are very
positive. I think that we have a very
good chance of getting past the probation with this meeting, but then again, we
haven=t seen the report and I don=t think we should say anything plus or minus in that until
the report is in our hands. But I=d be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Dr.
Larkin: If you do have questions, if you
would please go to the microphones on the side please. If you anticipate asking a question, please
step to the microphone.
Rik
Blumenthal, Chemistry/Biochemistry: My
question is about the SACS interview.
Going into that interview, and the last time the president spoke to us,
he said he was very certain that we had done everything necessary to achieve
accreditation. He said to us, he said
that to the newspapers before he went into the exit interview. Upon leaving the exit interview, President
Richardson said: >It looks like there=s still more we=re going to have to do to achieve our accreditation.= That=s not a quote, that=s a paraphrasing of what I recall reading in the paper,
several different newspapers. Can you
give us any idea of what they thought was not enough and in what areas we may
not have done enough and we may need to do more?
Dr.
Hanley: Again, I can=t answer that before getting the report. I think once we get the report, we can make
that answer more appropriately. I do
think that perhaps, I have never ever gotten an accreditation report that said >everything is fine, we=re leaving.= And so I would
anticipate that the committee would find things that maybe needed a little
additional work or something of that nature and I think that when we get the
final report, that=s about where we=ll be. As far as
addressing the issues that put us on probation, I agree with the president that
those issues have been addressed and what we may be talking about is a small
tweak on the issues as we have addressed them.
Judy
Sheppard, Communication & Journalism: I=m not a senator, may I speak?
Dr.
Larkin: Yes, you may.
Judy
Sheppard: Thank you. When will the report that SACS-when will it
arrive, do you suppose? This report from
SACS-how soon will we get a chance to look at it? We=ve had quite a delay in other reports.
Dr.
Hanley: I would anticipate that the SACS
report would be here within the next week or two because they have to give us
some time to respond to it, even though we have some preliminary indications of
what might be on the report, we do not have a final report in. They do have to give us some time to
respond. Hopefully they will give us a
month. So I=m anticipating it this week.
They will get it to us when they get it to us and I don=t think they have a definite time table on that, but
hopefully this week. When will it be
released? I think that again that will
be up to the President, but in this process, I think the response that goes
back to SACS, I think the President will be willing to talk about that after it
has been prepared. So again, I can=t tell you at what time that will be available, but by
December 4th, it will be a done deal one way or the other. We will know something one way or the other
within the next 45 days.
Judy
Sheppard: We may not see the report?
Dr.
Hanley: I don=t know what Dr. Richardson will do and how he will
disseminate it at this time. I haven=t discussed that with him.
My feeling is that he will be quite open with it, but I have not, I don=t want to put words into the President=s mouth, I have not discussed it with him.
Dr. Heilman: I did
speak with Dr. Richardson about this a bit this morning and I think, his
thought is, when the report comes in, his disposition is to share that report,
so you know what the issues are. And I
believe in terms of how long we have to respond, I think November 16th
is the date that is out there in terms of when the University has to have its
response in.
Judy
Sheppard: And we=ll see that response as well....
Dr. Heilman: As Tom
said, I think Dr. Richardson is disposed to make that available so that you can
see what we=re saying.
Judy
Sheppard: Thank you.
Dr.
Larkin: If you expect to ask a question,
rather than just remaining at your seat, go to the microphone so that we can
keep it going, if you don=t mind please. Thank
you.
Richard Penaskovic, Philosophy: I=m a bit surprised that nothing appeared on the homepage of
AU about the SACS team and what they said to you folks. I believe you had an hour-long meeting with
them, is that correct?
Dr. Hanley: It was more like an hour and a half.
Richard Penaskovic: Ok, an
hour and a half, yet nothing appeared on the homepage. Yet there was an article about it in Mobile
Register. One thing that Richardson,
Dr. Richardson, is quoted as saying in the Mobile Register is that SACS
thought we were not serious about accreditation. And I hear you saying that we were, so I=m a bit confused.
Dr.
Hanley: I don=t think Dr. Richardson said that, and if he did, he may have
been misquoted, I think. Everything I
got from the meeting, and I was there, is that the committee thought we were
taking accreditation seriously and they actually, there were some commendations
passed about that. The reason that you
don=t see anything from that meeting in public is because we
have to wait on the report. Nothing that
we talked about is final until we get the report from the committee, and they
in fact, change something between the time they talked to us and the time the
final report is issued, or the interim report is issued.
Richard Penaskovic: Ok,
thank you.
Dr.
Larkin: Any other questions?
Dr. Heilman: I know
that there are a lot of other issues that have come up and I=d like to ask Provost Hanley to talk a bit about the
reaction of the Diversity Plan. I know
that question has been raised in some of the emails.
Dr.
Hanley: I think most of you know now, the DOC
report is posted on the web. If you,
although our webpage isn=t the most navigable I=ve ever seen, you can find it if you look for it. It=s under Special Reports.
Sometimes the buttons aren=t where I would think they would be, but this is under
Special Reports so if you go to Special Reports on the main page and click on
there, you will find the reports are there.
We have the report now, I think the next step is to get this report
assessed.
What I
would like to do and I=ve discussed this with Dr. Richardson, I=ve discussed it with several people, we do have a standing
committee on campus, the Multi cultural Affairs Committee, Commission. Committee or Commission? Commission. I would like that group to be part of the
review. I would also, am going to ask
the deans through the Administrative and Plans Policy Council, if I can have
also to review what is in the report as well as, a matter of fact, if anyone
who cares to review the report, and make recommendations. I think we need to go through the report,
which if you=ve looked at it, it is lengthy. There are a number of recommendations on the
report and we need to pick out the things that we want to attack first and
formulate a plan that we can put into place.
I hope to have that plan in place within the next 30-60 days. And that is: What in the DOC report can we
implement, how quickly can we implement it? If it costs, if it takes resources,
what are those resources, and what do we hope to get out of it? I think it=s important that we take the DOC report and incorporate it
into the standing committees that we have on campus. We have a Multi cultural Affairs Commission,
we have the Administrative side on the deans; I think those groups are aware
that plans are going to be implemented.
I think it=s imperative that we have them be a part of the discussion
on what we=re going to do first.
Quite frankly, a lot of the things that are recommended in that report
happen at the department level, at the college level, not necessarily at the
University level and if we don=t have all aspects of the University in line and together on
this, any amount of recommendations that we may come forward with may not
successful in getting implemented at the level they need to be
implemented. So, I hope to get that done
over the next 30-60 days. There are some
other people that I would like to have look at it as well. I=m in the process of formulating that. But I think right now what we really need to
do is to take the effort, this two-year effort from this committee and make it,
as much of it as possible, into an operating plan for the university. I am happy
to answer any questions about that and, as a matter of fact, take any
suggestions.
Do you
want to talk about Academic Affairs now? (Comment to Dr. Heilman)
Dr. Heilman: I=ll just make a comment on one other subject that I know, in
fact, that has come out of the Senate, the proposal for an Ombudsman. Just a brief update: Lynn Hammond is working
on that project and is including and using material that has been provided by
some faculty members, which has been very helpful. Dr. Larkin, I think you and the Senate are preparing
some input also on what the function of this might be and how it might be set
up. I know also that Kevin Robinson, the
Director of Internal Auditing, is working on setting up a hotline, with the
notion of that being something that people who are whistle blowers can use
anonymously. I think meshing these
initiatives is something that is going to take some care and work. And I guess, depending on any comments, Tom,
that you=d like to make about Academic Affairs, I=d be happy to take questions.
Dr.
Hanley: I would like to take the opportunity
to talk a little bit about Academic Affairs.
I did, I have come to you in the past and laid out the assessment
procedure that we were following and just to give you an update: that
assessment procedure is a primary part of this Academic Affairs analysis that
we=re doing. We=re just now completing the Minimum Teaching Requirement
analysis. We have gone through it the
first time and now have met with, I think, all of the deans or most of the
deans, and tried to go over the differences that we had in understanding
it. I think we=re pretty clear now with respect to our translation of what
the analysis does and how the various units are going to respond to it. That part is pretty much done.
The
second step is to do the Performance Assessment, and we will start that
probably within the next two weeks. It
will probably take about a month to two months to do the preliminary figures
there and we will go through the same process again, going back to the deans
and in cases where necessary, to the individual departments to make sure that
people understand how the performance is being done and how we proceed. I=m not sure how you all feel about this, I think the last
time that we had a study like this, we were focusing in many cases on a few numbers:
the number of graduates we had in a program, sometimes used as a marker as to
whether a program is viable or not. I
think these two analyses tend to look at the whole picture, tend to look at the
collective health of an academic program rather than just a few of the things
that we might consider as important. I
think it=s a much safer analysis for us, I would hope that if you get
a chance to take a look at these, and again both the Minimum Teaching
Requirement and the Departmental Performance Assessment, are public. We don=t hide those from anybody; you can look at yours, you can
look at everybody else=s. Again, they=re designed, number one, to find out where we are and to
determine if we have the resources to do what we=re asked to do, and number two, based on the resources that
we have, find out how well they=re being utilized and how we can go about improving the
utilization of those resources. I think,
I=m happy with the MTR, I=m happy with the response I=ve gotten so far from the units. I think we=re going to get the same thing on the Performance
Assessments.
The only
other thing that I think we will try to implement during the year, I would like
to see each academic degree program develop a yearly review process by the
faculty that operate that program. For
those of you who are familiar with the AVEC requirements on that, each year the
accredited program has to go through a review process where the department in
charge sets goals, objectives, and metrics-measures how well they=re going against those goals, objectives, and metrics, and
then meets in a culminating year-end meeting to decide what they=re going to do to change, if they change anything at
all. It is a degree-faculty driven
program, and I would like to see that implemented for all of our degree
programs so that we can say that we are, as the faculty, looking at each degree
program each year and making a conscientious effort to improve them where we
feel improvement is necessary and possible.
And that=s the nice thing about this, that sometimes the improvement
is relatively easy to do. Sometimes
improvement takes a lot of resources that we may or may not have available at
the time, but it does, in my opinion, involve the right people in determining
the health of our academic programs on campus and this I think is the third
step in this.
We have
two management reviews on how well we are doing, now we have a faculty driven
review of what we can do and where we think we are and what we can do to
improve it. That, as far as I=m concerned, will be the three legs of this academic
assessment that we=re doing. We may, of
course, have to face other issues-the Alabama Commission on Higher Education
may come up with a different list of things they want us to look at, hopefully
we have all of those things included in the analysis that we=re doing and that they=ll view the analysis as a whole as positively as they would
view the analysis on single item assessments that they come up with. We will do this on a yearly basis. After we do this the first time, the roll
over to do it the next year is relatively simple, people are familiar with it,
it=s just a matter of changing and seeing what differences
happened in the program. Universities
are, in some ways, relatively easy in this because we typically don=t see a tremendous amount of change from year to year in the
way we do business and so if we can get the program done the first time, now go
through and monitor the changes, I think you=ll see this become a pretty effective tool. Does it make a difference to me? Yeah, the deans, when I evaluate the deans,
I=m looking at their Performance Assessment. That=s how I will perform half of my evaluation for them, or at
least half of their evaluation, on how well they perform based on these
Performance Assessments and based on the goals that they set during the year.
The other
issue that comes into play here, I think, if you haven=t seen them yet, the Priorities and Planning Commission has
prepared, and we=re just about done with a scorecard, in moving those
particular goals forward, they deal with enrollment, they deal with our
research and our ability to generate enterprise capital from our research and
they also deal with image. And one of
the things that we=re going to concentrate on, while I=m not going to cow-tow to the U.S. News and World Report,
I=m certainly not going to ignore an opportunity to make us
look better in it. And so we=re looking at things in the U.S. News and World Report
where we can make a difference, where we can make some improvement in order to
raise our standing nationally. It=s not going to hurt us to be ranked a little higher, and I
think if we can find ways to do that, and that is what the Priorities and
Planning Commission is looking at very hard is how not only do we make Auburn a
better university, but how the perception of Auburn being a better university
is being distributed in the academic community.
Any questions that I can answer?
Dr.
Larkin: Ok, thank you all very much.
Dr. Heilman: If there
are any other questions on any matters, we can entertain them.
Dr.
Larkin: Ok, I think that=s it. Thank you very
much. If you have a cell phone and it=s going off, if you would cut that off, I would appreciate
it.
Let me
make several comments from the Chair. On
yesterday, I was 55 years old. Now that
I=ve got you in a happy mood, I want to approach a subject that=s not so happy and that is a week or so ago, I sent an email
out to all of the faculty and Senate Leadership, Steering Committee, Rules
Committee and I indicated that I was not present at the SACS exit
interview. It was not my intention to
miss that meeting. I got an email from
Beth with an invitation from the President.
I thought I recorded the time and date properly, but I put it on Friday
instead of Thursday and so I missed that meeting. It was my fault and I accept responsibility
for that. I don=t suppose that anyone would like to make a statement or ask
me any questions about that? I=m sorry. Yes
Virginia?
Virginia
O=Leary, Psychology: I want
to thank you for your personal integrity and graciousness in publicly telling
us what occurred and apologizing. I
commend you for that and I think that Auburn University would be a much more
pleasant place to work if more people accepted responsibility for their very
human errors. Thank you!
Dr.
Larkin: Thank you, I appreciate it very
much.
I want to
make a couple of more statements in reference to SACS. The Senate Executive Committee met with the group
for about an hour and fifteen minutes.
Myself, Connor Bailey, Debra Cobia, Patricia Duffy and John Mouton were
present at that particular segment. Two
other groups, AAUP was represented by Christa Slaton, Gary Mullen, I think
Paula Backschneider was there, and Chris Rodger. And there was a group representing Diversity
with Keenan Grenell, Virginia O=Leary, Mary Koontz, Donna Solley
and Johnny Green. So in terms of this
committee getting an opportunity to visit with a broad representation of faculty
members and other constituent groups at the University, that was certainly
done. And I think the report, at least I=m hoping that the report that we get back will reflect those
comments that were made by everyone.
During
the November 9th Senate meeting, I will announce an Ad Hoc Committee
to establish a Junior Faculty Mentor Program.
I sent out an email and got lots of responses back, I appreciate
that. We=re probably going to have 8-10 people on that group. I=ve asked Dr. Jim Grozier to serve as
Chair and at that November 9th meeting; I will name the other
committee members. I would also like to
take this opportunity to thank Dr. Bill Gale, who has served very diligently on
the Steering Committee. He has a
humongous project that he=s going to be providing leadership with and will take most
of his time to fulfill that responsibility, so he has graciously resigned from
the Steering Committee and we will announce his replacement at the November 9th
meeting or it could come out via some other announcement. At this time, I=m going to ask John Mouton, Immediate Past-Chair and our
Faculty Advisor to the Board of Trustees to come and share some comments about
things that he=s been working on.
John
Mouton, Immediate Past-Chair: Good
afternoon. What I=m actually going to do is give you a report on two meetings,
some of the key points and impacts. One
of them was the October 7th Board Meeting, that included meetings
with most of the committees. The other
one was an August 12th meeting, that only was a committee meeting
and both have been reported pretty widely in the media, but I=m going to revisit a couple of points.
On last
Thursday, the Budget Committee approved the >05 budget, based on the guidelines that were provided in
June. I think that two relevant issues
on this was one, there was a discussion regarding a ceiling on tuition
increases and some establishment thereof.
I=m going to comment on that in a few minutes. The second one was that an earlier review
process on the budget, we have a budgeting process that basically we have the
budget from the previous years plus some adjustment to some of those
numbers. In regard to the ceiling on the
tuition increase, I=d like to acknowledge and appreciate Dr. Large. After those comments were made, he turned to
the microphone and made some comments in regard to sustaining and enhancing
quality in the University and given the increasing insurance, retirement, and
facility operation costs. He also
referenced our relative position, financial position, in regard to our peer
institution and I think made a pretty good cause for looking at tuition in a
larger context, not as an isolated item.
I hope that remains alive, as I think from my perspective, the quality
of this institution should be the key driver.
As an
aside on that, or maybe an editorial, I=ve had a discussion with Dr. Large since then, and I think
that one of the things that I perceive and what a lot of the faculty here
perceived, there=s been some recent, not so recent comments in regard to the
economic efficiency or cost effectiveness of the academic units on this
campus. And I think we have several new
board members and a new president and maybe those of us that were here when, at
least back to the point when Fob James started reducing budgets and we started
reallocating and having give-backs, all of these issues that have financially
impacted academic programs are simply not known and it=s important to figure out a way to communicate them and I=m hoping Dr. Large will help us with some of that because I
really think this question is being asked, I think the statement is we shouldn=t raise tuition until we know we=re being cost effective in what we=re doing and that=s a very sound statement.
I just believe that we are being cost effective.
The
Properties and Facilities Committee had several items. The first one was the Research Park. Dr. Moriarty is going to speak on that. I just want to make an observation that at
the time that resolution was coming into the Cabinet toward the Board, there
was an issue about a presentation in front of this group that would take
place. There had been some focus groups
that have had it, but there had not been a presentation to the Senate. The issue was raised actually by Willie and
Connor, and with very little effort, the committee, the Board Committee,
included language in the report that there would be a review by faculty and a
presentation to the faculty, this board and otherwise. I think there was some cooperation in avoiding
that oversight.
The
Academic Affairs Committee, there was a Faculty Handbook change that has been
approved by this body, so I=m not going to review this.
In regard
to the six initiatives, I think the one that we all look at is the review of
the academic programs. It’s stated in regard to the strength of the public programs, I
think that our programs are by and large exceptionally strong, particularly in
light of our budget circumstance. I
actually spoke to two deans who said they look forward to it. They think that people don=t know how strong our programs are and this is an
opportunity to demonstrate the things that maybe has been somewhat closed
language through us.
On August
12th there was an Audit Committee meeting, actually there was a
Properties and Facilities meeting and maybe one another meeting. It=s been reported in the media. Key thing that I want to address is that the
Audit Committee met and this process whereby each of the trustees filed a
disclosure; and the primary issue on the disclosure were relationships with
other trustees and then not doing business with the University. And the interesting thing to me in seeing the
form is that right above the signature blank, it addressed the Alabama Code in
regard to perjury and made a specific statement that they were signing under
that regard. I think the conclusion of
it was that there=s not a majority of the board members that are connected to
each other. And then one of the things
that transpired, there was a long discussion about how does banking
relationships fit in. I think part of
that was Mr. McCrary talked about being on the board of another bank and it was
interesting that he has in his disclosure that as the CEO of Alabama Power, he
had no idea how many of the trustees bought power from him. But he also made a list of all of the
foundations upon which he serves, which was a pretty extensive and impressive
list. And one of the things that he said
was that he thought some of those foundations probably did business with this
University but that wasn=t his role on there to make that decision. Anyway, I thought that it was pretty open and
forthright.
I=ll be glad to entertain any questions if anybody has any
regarding those or other matters. Thank
you very much.
Dr.
Larkin: Thanks, John. We have under action items, and we=re going to have to wait until the discussion unfolds before
we decide whether we=re going to take action on this today, this electronic
privacy policy. Dr. Straiton,
if you will come forward, and kind of help us understand this just a little bit
and afterwards, we=ll entertain any questions for him that you may have.
Harmon Straiton: Good
afternoon. Prior to this meeting, you
should have had access to three documents.
The last one that I will mention is the one we=re really here to discuss.
The first document was prepared by James Truman in the English
Department and it is actually a summary of electronic privacy policies at
selected peer institutions in the Southeast.
Among those institutions were the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech,
University of North Carolina, and University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Another document that you should have had
access to via the website was a proposed form that would be used to implement
the actual electronic privacy policy.
And it is that policy that we wish to discuss today. I=m here representing the Academic Computing Committee and we
are receptive to your concerns, your suggestions, and we will attempt to
incorporate those into the final document.
The
privacy policy is actually composed of three P=s, that is a section called the Purpose of the electronic
privacy policy, a Policy statement, and then a Procedures statement, which
allow us to implement the policy. We=re here to reflect the law of the land and the court
decisions based on that and I think, the policy that=s being proposed is somewhere in the middle of the other
policies of the other institutions in the Southeast.
I will be
more than happy to entertain questions.
I will attempt to respond to those.
I will not read the policy unless you wish it read. In addition to myself, there is representation
from the division of Information Technology.
Rich Burnett, the Executive Director of that division, should be here
and Dr. Nick Backscheider, who is the Associate
Executive Director, is also here.
The
document is an amalgamation of a basic policy that began within the division of
Information Technology and which sought input from various other constituencies,
including the ACC. In addition, I
believe input was sought from the Staff Advisory Council, who also has a
representative of this body and also the Administrative and Professional
Assembly, which again has a representative in this body. With that said, if you will simply go to a
microphone and ask a question, the three of us will attempt to respond
appropriately.
Virginia
O=Leary, Psychology: First,
let me say that I think it is a good idea for us to have an electronic privacy
policy on this campus, that everyone has both reviewed and had input into,
because I think it=s best when everything is public, including the monitoring
of our emails, which I understand if we are using the University server, it is
considered property of the institution.
But the monitoring, etc., needs to be regulated in some systematic way
and I have, I guess one of my concerns with this policy, this draft policy is
that nowhere is clearly explicated the criteria that would be used to define
legitimate. It=s clear that there needs to be legitimate cause, etc., but I
think we need an open discussion of what constitutes legitimate cause. Illustratively or perhaps I would even feel
more comfortable if it were somehow categorical in terms of the kinds of things
that would be included in the determination of legitimacy because one of the
issues naturally is some kind of retribution or dissatisfaction with someone=s political stance and in the current climate of not
inconsiderable fear on this campus, I think that it=s especially germane to have an open discussion and my other
concern is the supervisory levels that can initiate monitoring and review,
because I think that under some circumstances, the relationship between
department heads or chairs and their immediate faculty may involve more than a,
and I feel free to say this as a former department chair, maybe suspect, on one
or both sides and sometimes there may be faculty who are Atroublesome@. So the question
would be again, what are the criteria that would trigger a review and then
approval of monitoring and it would seem to me that it would have to be more
than just Airritating@, for example.
Harmon Straiton: I would
agree with that and the committee did consider identifying specific cases, but
in an effort not to tie the hands of those that are going to enforce this, we
chose to wait until we got input from the University Senate and the other two
groups as well. So I think that=s a good starting point and maybe we need to discuss what
would be the individual cases that we need to identify, which circumstances can
we invoke this policy.
Patricia
Duffy, Secretary-Elect: I have a little bit different
perspective also, because I have served as chair of the Student Grievance
Committee and now on the Faculty Grievance Committee, and what I have learned
on these committees is that the more concrete a policy is, the more spelled out
it is, the less problem people would have over grievances or adjudicating a
grievance if one came to a committee. So
I am going to echo Dr. O=Leary=s remarks and ask that we get more specific reasons why on
procedure #2 in particular, what sort of grounds would there be. You may not be able to spell out every
circumstance, but you=d certainly be able to give guidelines. And then again on #6, which is also a little
vague. If we could pinpoint that down a
little, I think that would cause fewer grievances to be filed and make them
easier to decide if they are filed.
Thanks.
Dr.
Larkin: Other questions or input? Are there other questions or input? Let me ask you-given what was said by these
two persons-do you think it would be wise for you to go back and visit with the
committee to insert those? And if there
are other kinds of suggestions and recommendations or input, you can, I assume,
email it and would you be prepared to come back at the November 9th
meeting?
Dr. Straiton:
Sure. I think so.
Dr.
Larkin: Then perhaps at that point, we would
be able to present that for maybe a little further...yes?
Dr. Nick Backscheider: First, I
want to thank you all for the comments.
I do encourage you to send your comments to Harmon. I would also appreciate it if you would take
the, if you would also put either Rich=s or my email address on that because we are at the same
time collecting comments from a number of other places and organizations in the
University, who also have legitimate reason to look at these and have their
reflections upon this. It might save us
from moving this from now until November and then into December and then into
January. This is something we would like
to have some action on reasonably soon because it is an important item to make
sure that it=s available.
Dr.
Harmon Straiton:
And I think the committee as well as the Division of Information Technology have
viewed this as an organic document, one that=s going to evolve, so your input is essential and I would
certainly encourage you to, if you have thoughts, to email simply at Harmon Straiton and if you don=t copy Dr. Backscheider and Rich
Burnett, I=d be more than happy to forward copies to them as well.
Dr.
Larkin: Dr. Bailey and then Dr. Blumenthal.
Connor
Bailey, Chair-Elect: I=m not sure that having a department chair or head is the
appropriate place to start this process.
I might like it to be a little bit more senior than that and ask the
committee to consider. It also appears
that a department head or chair would go directly to the Provost; I think there
should be some intermediate steps there, something where we might actually
start with a dean or director and if a department chair or head has a concern,
let that individual go to the dean and director and if the dean and director
agrees, then initiate a process. But as
Dr. O=Leary said, sometimes at the local level there might be such
tensions as to subvert the intent of this process.
Rik
Blumenthal, Chemistry/Biochemistry: My only concern is a general one. I would like to see in that original policy
statement, that to the greatest extent possible, although Auburn will attempt to
maintain privacy, as we see in several of the other examples, the one fear I
have is that all of a sudden this form comes down and everyone that wants to
use the University computers is asked to sign this form and we=re all being monitored and in our attempts to make a policy
that will give us some privacy, we may put ourselves in a position where it=s ruled the general answer is everyone submit to the policy
and everybody will be monitored. So I
think in the policy some statement about it being the extreme circumstance, the
unusual circumstance, something like that, would be helpful in that initial
policy statement.
Harmon Straiton: Thank
you.
Missy Josephson, Anatomy, Physiology, Pharmacology: Just to help me understand why this is happening better, how
does using email differ from using University resources of campus mail or
telecommunications? Why do we need a
policy to look into people=s communications by email or are there policies to look into
people=s communications by mail and by voice?
Dr. Harmon
Straiton: I=m not privy to those policies, if they exist. But the reason that we are considering this
particular one is the Homeland Security Act, The United States Patriot Act,
various court decisions based upon that.
In actuality, under the Homeland Security Act, someone can issue a court
order and the individual can be monitored without being informed that he or she
is even being monitored. We have a
similar problem with the United States Patriot Act, that depending upon whether
it=s a warrant or a summons, in actuality, in particularly in
the library field where I am, we=re often concerned that the FBI or the CIA may be interested
in materials that an individual has actually read and under the law, they can
actually come and confiscate our servers, if we=re not willing to provide them the information. They can take the servers away and to their
own analysis of the data. And the courts
have ruled that is legal activity. So
what we=re trying to do is initiate some kind of policy that at
least makes people aware of the possibility of being monitored.
Missy Josephson: It
sounds like monitoring right now, if it going to happen, is going to happen at
a legal level. Why do we need to address
intra-university, intramural monitoring?
Dr. Straiton: Rich,
you want to see if you can address that better than I?
Rich
Burnett, Director of OIT: What we
are trying to do in this policy, the policy has two main statements in it if
you read the policy section. The first
one says that we don=t prohibit incidental personal use and that, to the greatest
extent possible, we will respect the privacy of individuals. That statement is already in there. The second thing is that we want to make sure
that you understand that you should not have an expectation of absolute
privacy, so that we know that going in.
The issue about monitoring in statement #2, I know you find a bit
troublesome, all of the other universities that have this feel that it=s ok to monitor and some of them don=t tell people. What we=ve tried to construct here and I=m certainly willing to take all of this feedback, we=ve tried to construct a situation where if someone is going to
monitor your email, that you will be notified before that happens. No one else takes that step. If you look at all the other policies we=ve found, they say for the good of the university or you, if
we outline some reasons why and we can come up with some; what we=re trying to do is make sure that for the most part we don=t want monitoring.
And I think that the idea was that if someone has to go to the step of
saying: >We=re going to tell you before=-verified notification-I don=t think it will ever happen.
But if it does, you would know up-front.
That was the intent of what we were trying to do. And so, this policy is not about giving us
permission to monitor, it=s mostly about telling you the expectation of privacy that
you have, and you should be aware that on any digital media, you=re not going to have absolute privacy. It=s never going to be there and that=s what we=re trying to lay out up-front.
Cindy
Brunner, Pathobiology: People can take mail out of my mailbox, too, so I know
there is not a 100% expectation of privacy, despite what the US Postal Service
would try to assure us. I=m concerned about the slippery slope here. I=m hearing that the purpose of the form would be so that we
would acknowledge our awareness that our email might be monitored or is being
monitored. Obviously, there are those of
us who have concerns about justification for that monitoring. I=d like to propose that if the monitoring is really
necessary, that the form include both a start date and a finish date on the
monitoring, that it say >Monitoring will commence no sooner than a particular date
and will continue no later than a particular date= and if monitoring is necessary after that point, the
individual has to renew the permission.
It=s not a permission, it=s a notification, but that notification needs to be
specifically renewed. That makes it an
active process, not a passive process and it would probably take us out, or at
least divorce us a little bit from the possibility that every new hire at
Auburn University receives a form like this that says >Acknowledge that we might be reading your email=.
Ruth
Crocker, History: On page 2, at number 6, could
a member of the committee explain what might trigger this type of action and a
legitimate need must be demonstrated.
Who judges what is legitimate and what is the measure of judging that
legitimacy? Could you give us an example
of what activity might trigger this?
Also, it=s kind of unfortunate that the university lawyer stepped out
at a quarter to three, four, I=m sorry and that we are being taped, actually
videoed-interesting coincidence of things going on here, not that I=m paranoid.
Dr. Straiton: There is
an attempt to include some examples, that I=m not sure that don=t already occur and that is when someone passes away
suddenly, it is incumbent upon OIT probably to look at whatever email exists in
a box to determine if it=s university related.
I=m not sure that they would be reading it just to see what
the information says. But if it=s university related, business related, then they need to be
aware of that. Same example would be
someone who is terminated by the university.
It may be that they were in mid-process-remember, this not only applies
to email but to databases and to other electronic resources-and it may be that
they actually had something that they were working on that the university has
to be privy to, has to include in its examination. Can the other two of you offer any other
suggestions?
Ruth
Crocker: These are very benign examples. If there were other examples, I think we
would be interested to know what they are.
Dr. Straiton: Well,
that=s also some input that we=re seeking from you, based upon an earlier statement, give
us some concrete examples of how far this particular policy can be enforced and
I think that we would want to try and include all of those examples.
Ruth Crocker: Thank you.
Dr.
Larkin: Thank you, Ruth.
Dr. Straiton: I don=t think it will be used-there is not an overt attempt for ABig Brother@ to be here. That is
not the rationale. Certainly not of the
committee.
Dr.
Larkin: Dr. Locy? And then we=ll go ahead.
Robert Locy, Steering Committee:
Like the last speaker, I don=t wish this to sound unduly paranoid perhaps, have you given
any thought to the idea of maybe at the end of the document there ought to be
something appended to it to make sure that any activities that are illegal
under the new policy must cease and desist at the time that this policy is
adopted and that they must then pass through the policy so that if someone were
being monitored prior to the doctrine of notification having to occur, they
would have to then be notified of any subsequent monitoring that would have to
take place. I repeat, I don=t necessarily think that=s really important, but who knows? It might turn out to be very important in
some instance and I think worth considering.
Dr. Straiton: And I
think that can be incorporated.
Robert Locy: That something can=t be retroactively fitted in there that says >Well we started monitoring this person before the policy
came up and so we=ve been monitoring for the next ten years, then they finally
says something that offends us and we=re going to deal with it.=
Dr.
Larkin: Yes?
Howard
Thomas, Textile Engineering: I=d like to say that we should also demand that the policy be
reflexive, that the university protect us as well as we being protected as
subjected to the university=s rules. By that I
mean, we all have probably inadvertently broken state laws just by opening our
mailbox, because some of the stuff that comes in there is illegal, at least on
a state level. I=ve actually had to run my own email account from the
university through a private company because their spam and smut filters are
effective and the university=s aren=t. So I=d like to see that added.
Dr.
Larkin: Could you identify yourself, please?
Howard
Thomas: I=m sorry, Howard Thomas, Textile Engineering.
Dr.
Larkin: Ok, thank you. Dr. Martin?
Gary
Martin, Curriculum and Teaching: I think
that there=s some very small issues to me with tone of making this
sound a little bit more positive up-front.
There is a statement in there that the intent is to maintain privacy to
the fullest extent possible, but it=s kind of buried down in there a little bit. I see this as a really positive step forward
in many ways, and I was looking in particular at the background information
from Georgia Tech, under 5-5, number 2.
They say that they can do undisclosed monitoring if it quote >appears necessary to do so to protect the integrity,
security, or functionality of the institute=. So that=s pretty broad and I think there is an attempt to provide
more of an overt disclose process for doing this. I think adding some of the conditions would
be positive. In some of the other
policies, they mention, for example, legal issues or if it=s thought that someone may be breaking university policy,
that those would, from an investigative point of view, to find out what=s really going on.
So, I=m speaking in general support of this. I think it needs some tweaking, but I really
see it as a positive step.
Dr.
Larkin: Ok, I think we have one other person
that=s going to speak and then we will move forward.
Judy
Sheppard: Thank you. I=m not a senator, is that ok?
Dr. Straiton: Sure.
Judy
Sheppard: I have a lot of problems with this in
terms of, I remember back in the early 90's and somebody who=s been around in the Senate for that long might remember, I
believe it was under Yvonne Kozlowski, a similar kind of resolution or policy
came up before the Senate, and the Senate rejected it totally and said no, this
isn=t ok for your department head to look at your email and that
kind of stuff. I understand that for
whatever you may think about it, it is the law, the Patriot Act, all of
that. I don=t understand why it would apply to us unless there=s a national security reason and if it has to be in place to
do this, I would think that the university would not be the ones discovering
the national security reason, but we need something that will protect peoples= freedom of speech, so that the administration or whoever
can=t come in or your dean or whoever who doesn=t like what you say at Senate meetings and want to monitor
that email or doesn=t like an opinion you express, so that freedom of speech is
protected and can=t be used against you and suddenly that=s their motivation.
You know, you=re not working for the betterment of the Auburn family or
something like that. There really needs
to be a strong sense that this drastic, some kind of real threat in some way to
the university before this can ever be invoked and it would have to be proven
in some way. I don=t consider it pre, I=m not a lawyer obviously, but you could get the university,
or someone could get into trouble I think, by essentially pointing out someone
is a subversive that we=ve got to monitor their email.
The effect of this is really pretty troubling and it=s like going in to get the records of the library, what you
check out in the library or looking at your paper mail versus your email. Why would we be more willing to allow people
to do that than our email, even though we might know it=s not by any means really secure? I don=t think we ought to sanction that and go >Ok, we understand it=. So I would suggest,
I=m not sure I would suggest going for this at all but to look
at the fact that there need to be the death of a person, in which case I would
hope my survivor would be able to look at my email before OIT. Some of these things are just really
troublesome. Thank you.
Dr.
Larkin: OK.
Sometimes last doesn=t mean last. We=ll go to this person here.
Rich
Burnett: I=d like to address that quickly. The Patriot Act and all those, the university
doesn=t get to decide, it=s the FBI and people like that who decide. My intent here was to alert the campus
community that those kinds of invasions of privacy are there and we can=t do anything about it, except to let you know
beforehand. So the university is not
trying to monitor based on Homeland Security or anything like that. Our goal was to make sure that our users know
that there are people who can monitor things without us knowing about it. I can=t tell you if they come and ask me to do that because I=d be in contempt of court if I did that. But the other thing someone spoke about,
monitoring that might be in place, let me say this: in all of the centrally
administered systems that OIT runs, we are not monitoring anyone=s email and we have not monitored anyone=s email, ever. Now I
can tell you that the item 5 that is there about the technology specialists,
there are people who see things not intended for them and we take it very
serious that they not disclose that. But
if I was told by the administration to monitor someone, without a policy like
this, I would have to do that. The
reason we need this policy is so you all understand what the rules are. I don=t want to ever monitor anyone=s email, but if I got an order from the President to do
that, I either do it or I find another job.
And so what I want to do is put together a policy that everybody can
understand and say these are the conditions upon which that might happen and if
it=s left up to me, it would never happen. But it might not be.
Dr.
Larkin: Thank you.
Missy Josephson, Anatomy, Physiology, Pharmacology: So, in other words, to get back to my original question, in
trying to understand, there are times at this university when department heads
or deans or someone else in administration needs to monitor our speech and this
gives us an opportunity, at least in the email form, to be told about it
beforehand, because unless that=s true, I can=t see any reason why we should suddenly allow this to
happen. It=s like saying >You may tape my phone calls=, and if that=s a legitimate need for the university, then I understand
why we need to do this.
Dr.
Larkin: Thank you very much. What I think we=re going to do is you=re going to go back and take all of this input, and if you
have further input you=ll contact Harmon, and then you=ll come back on November 9th and present it. We may have to discuss it just a little bit,
but we=re going to take action on it at that particular
meeting. Thank you, I appreciate it.
Dr. Straiton: Thank
you very much.
Dr.
Larkin: For a long time, I have been trying
to get Dr. Mike Moriarty to come and speak to us. I did not know that his schedule was so
busy. He has done a tremendous job of
working on this Research Park. I have
seen him make several presentations.
They have always been fascinating and I think there is a lot of
expectations for the research park and we finally got him to come today and I
appreciate that very much. So Dr.
Moriarty is going to come and talk about the research park and hopefully
entertain any questions you may have about how the faculty will fit into this
whole proposal. Thank you.
Dr.
Michael Moriarty, VP of Research: Thank
you. What I=d like to do, as Willie indicated, is talk to you a little
bit today about some of the presentations we=ve made to a variety of groups, discussions we=ve had around campus.
This is the first formal presentation to the Senate. I was invited to the Senate, as Willie
referenced, in July after our June Board of Trustees presentation, and I had a
commitment-at the moment I can=t remember what it was-and I believe you don=t meet in August. I
was invited to the September meeting and that Tuesday afternoon that the Senate
was meeting, we had our annual New Faculty Orientation, and that takes the
afternoon, so I had a conflict, so I opted to remain with the new faculty, so
this is the first opportunity and I appreciate the opportunity.
When you=re talking about a research park, you have to lay the
groundwork to have enough research activity that warrants consideration of the
next step in the progression to have a research park. And this slide gives you the progression that
Auburn University has had over the past 7 or 8 years. Someone referenced Fob James in an earlier
comment. This was coming out of the Fob
James Era and we suffered a great deal of damage. As you recall, that one of the strategies to
take care of a half million dollar budget cut was that we offered a retirement
incentive. For those people who were
already eligible for retirement, they had an opportunity to generate some
revenue to make them take that offer.
What that did obviously, was eliminate a lot of our senior faculty, some
of those who are the most productive in research, contract and grant
acquisitions, and replacing those with junior faculty, who at the front end of
their career, so we lost a head of steam.
But we came out of that and you can see this is the growth and the
sponsored research that we have had at the university over this time. We=ve been growing at about a 17% annual increase in revenue, and
that=s due to people like you and the other hundreds, perhaps
thousands, faculty out there on campus generating that.
I=ve told the board to think of this as the fuel that drives the
engine of the research operation. It=s the revenue that comes in that supports the technicians
and buys the supplies and equipment and travel and all the other associated
costs needed to carry on an active research program. The back end of that research activity is
resulting from the discoveries that are made in the laboratories as a result of
this research. And that gives you an
idea of the revenue coming into Auburn over this same time frame. This reflects all of the revenue that comes
in and due to our technology transferral office, some
of that is option fees, some of that is license fees. It would be equity if we liquidated-we have
not liquidated any equity yet-and it also involves a sizable amount of time and
contract dollars that comes in when companies want to put money back into that
laboratory of the inventor to help follow up on discoveries and improvements
and so forth.
All of
the revenue that comes in as a result of that technology transfer is shown in
this curve. These are annual figures in
the solid blue. In the year >03, we started a serious reorganization and strategic
planning as to how we do tech transfer.
It=s not the purpose of this discussion here, that=s talk for another day, but as a result of that, this is not
an annual figure in this cross hatch.
That=s the first six months of this current fiscal year. I don=t know where it=s going to end out, it=s closed as you know, on September 30th and we
don=t have all the numbers in, but it=s going to be somewhere north of this 7+ million. So it=s a sizable change in the revenue based on a significant
change in how we=re conducting technology transfer.
One of
the ones you=ve heard about is AETOS.
AETOS is a company we=ve spun off. The
license was in October of >03. AETOS has a suite
of a group of high value technologies coming out of primarily Dr. Vitaly Vodyanoy=s lab and the College of Veterinary Medicine. The deal that we negotiated with AETOS is a
very lucrative deal with the university.
The company was receptive to it because the technology has such a high
value. And importantly, there was a
bundle of technologies, some ready for the market very soon that would generate
cash flow coming back, others that needed the additional development work
before they were ready for the market.
Auburn holds a 45% equity share in AETOS, importantly, an equity share
that is nondilutable.
So as their future investment rounds and more shares are issued, we stay
whole at 45% of the total shares that are outstanding. And importantly, because of the deal we
negotiated has revenue coming back to the university off of different points in
the operating statement, we=re able to get up to 60% of the company=s earnings even though we have a minority position. So it, we hope, that AETOS becomes a
significant revenue generator for this university.
And
there are some others in the pipeline. Howard
Thomas, are you still here, Howard?
Howard Thomas knows full well about Plainsman Armor because it=s technology that came out of his laboratory. And Intramicron,
that came out of Bruce Tatarchuk’s
lab in Chemical Engineering, Food Source between Fisheries and Human Sciences,
and on and on and on. A lot of
technologies that have spun off into companies recently and then again, the
caveat, there always tomorrow=s technologies that we can=t even anticipate right now.
So there=s more than AETOS in our arsenal.
The
question we posed to the board was: >Where do we want to locate the companies that come out of
our technology, to realize the maximum benefit to the university?= Those companies can
go anywhere-they can go to Peoria, to Los Angeles and with information
technology as it is now, absent the electronic privacy issues, they can
interface well with the faculty inventor.
But there is a distinct advantage for companies to remain geographically
close so that they can interact on a daily basis in person with the inventors
that spawn the technology. And to the
answer to the question was an Auburn University Research Park.
Now we
started this process some time ago and it was a long-standing effort. The first thing we did, not surprisingly, was
bring in a group of consultants. The
firm, Hamersiler George, is out of the Washington,
D.C. area and the map is to remind me, all of these little dots are university
research parks that they have consulted in over the years. Some to help establish, others to help
improve. But they are considered, if you
will, the gold standard of consultants in this area, so we hired them to guide
our process. The process started with
them coming to town on many occasions and meeting with the staff and research
office, looking at how we do research administration, how we do
commercialization of research, what=s the infrastructure that exists here to support the
research, what=s the culture. They
talked to faculty in a host of areas from Agriculture to Forestry &
Wildlife Sciences to COSAM, etc., etc.
They didn=t talk to them all, I won=t make any pretense a bit, but they talked to representative
faculty in these areas. Since that time,
we have talked to a number of other units around campus, including ultimately,
the Board of Trustees, to get input into the process.
The point
is, we=re not blazing a new trail here. If you look at this map of the Southeast, and
you look at these universities, every one of them has a research park
associated with it. And they=re the universities that we consider to be a lot like
us. There are in addition a lot of
universities that are not on this map that also have research parks, but it
would be too cluttered to add them.
This one
I put up here in a different color to remind me, Virginia Tech has a very
exciting research park, about 14 years old, and I=ll reference it in a couple of other slides that I=ll show in a moment, but I make the point of Virginia Tech
because they are a lot like us. They=re a land grant institution.
They=re in a rural setting, although we have much more access to
the interstate and to the major metropolitan area of Atlanta than they do in
Blacksburg. They don=t have Human Medicine, neither do we. They don=t have Law, but everything else, whether it be Forestry,
whether it be Veterinary Medicine, Agriculture, Engineering, etc., the profile
of the campuses are a lot alike. And as
I say, I=ll mention this as I go on in the discussion. Let me go back.
If you
look at Alabama, this is an interesting slide.
Many of you are familiar with the Cummings Research Park in Huntsville,
I believe, the second largest park in the country geographically. It=s a very, very exciting research park. There is a lot of major entities up there,
Boeing, Ratheon, and a lot of the major defense
contractors. It is really misleading to
say that they are there because of the presence of the University of Alabama at
Huntsville. A fine institution, I=m not deprecating them at all. What these defense contractors are there
because of Redstone Arsenal, the Army Space and Missile Defense Command, NASA.
$25 billion in research dollars go through that area every year. A lot of it goes back to Seattle and Southern
California, but a lot of it stays in that vicinity.
UAB has a
very nice research park. It has a
challenge, that it=s located in Knoxville, a core area somewhat distant from
the main campus. And again, it=s focus, as you would expect, is primarily Health Sciences.
South
Alabama started a research park and opened it in November of 2003. They had a 70,000 square foot building that
is now fully leased. They are now
building Building #2 as we speak.
We are
conspicuous by our absence, the largest most comprehensive university in the
state.
This is
an interesting story. Georgia Tech is
establishing a beachhead down in the Columbus area. They=re starting an incubator with presumably plans to grow that
further into a more fully developed park.
And we had some communication with the individual who=s running this effort for Georgia Tech, and we were told
that Georgia Tech has always been interested in this southwest part of Georgia
because they know there=s a lot of technology coming out of this entity over here
and they=d love to bring those jobs over and help the state of
Georgia. And altruism is not their
motivation, I can assure you.
So the
reasons for having a research park, which I=ll get to in a moment, are being recognized by a lot of
different institutions outside of Alabama and inside Alabama. And this is a busy slide and unless you=ve got binoculars in the back, you may not be able to see
it. The important thing is, these are
just some of the benefits of existing research parks. And examples I=ll use are the Virginia Tech models, which I mentioned.
Just to
highlight this: expand and strengthen research base of Auburn University. Last year at Virginia Tech they generated
more than $2 million in industrial research from the companies within their park
back to the faculty and staff, in addition to the industrial contracts they
have with people not in their park.
Enable
knowledge based and high-tech economic development. This is the theme that Governor Riley has
been playing during his campaign and since that the future of Alabama=s economy is not going to be based on low wage and low
technology jobs, it=s knowledge-based high technology jobs, and he expects the
universities to be the engines that drive that train. Virginia Tech fourteen years later, they have
a 109 tenants in their park, they=ve got 1700 employees in their park, good paying jobs, $50,000
average salary and at any point and time, 150 students have employment in the
park. They also find it=s very helpful in the academic units when they are doing
faculty recruiting. As you all know, it=s typically now you=re not recruiting one individual, you=re recruiting the spouse as well because the spouse has a
career that he or she wishes to continue, and employment in the park is a
benefit they can have for that so-called trailing spouse.
Provide
additional revenue source for the university.
Last year the Virginia Tech park drew $7 million dollars in extra
revenue that went back into the university, and on and on and on. There are a number of legitimate bases for
doing this.
Who would
we see populating the park? Four
different categories: the first is that the companies like AETOS and the other
companies that I just talked about earlier that come out of our technologies. There is a benefit, as I suggested, to
staying close. Staying close to that
inventor that spawned the technologies, having the access for improvements and
following up on discoveries and nourishing that relationship. AETOS is now putting contract money back into
Auburn to help sponsor research and to develop some of the technologies they=re interested in.
Secondly,
companies that we already have research contracts with-and a number of you here
have them-we looked at the numbers over the past several years and we=ve had contracts with more than 250 different companies, many
multiple contracts, but 250 different companies, some in Alabama, some outside
of Alabama. Those are entities that say
in effect: >We already see value for working with Auburn; we=re giving you money, you=re giving us results and benefits back in return=. Those are the
companies we would begin the marketing effort for, to begin to look at their
desirability to come down and have a presence closer to campus. We=ve already talked to a number of them and got a very favorable
response.
And
finally, companies that we=re not dealing with now but are, if you will, are targets of
opportunity that may come along in the future.
We had an opportunity not too long ago, unsuccessful as it turned out,
we were one of three entities that an automotive R&D center was
considering. And the joint
city-university deal was that we would put up a $35 million dollar building for
this automotive R&D entity in return for a long-term lease that they would
then retire the debt that we incurred.
Turned out that they stayed in Michigan.
Those are the things you can=t always anticipate, but have the opportunity to come along
and the research park would provide a perfect venue for things like that.
And
finally, it=s our dirt. So the
university would have the opportunity to put university programs down there
should they choose. So that=s the concept of what a research park is about. Next question is: >Where do you put it?= We had Sasoki and Associates come in and do that study for us and
for those of you who may have just come recently, Sasoki
and Associates is the group that did the campus master plan. The Board approved the campus master plan a
year to a year and a half ago. So we weren=t going to turn that plan on its ear and ask the Board to
approve something different from what they had already approved. So we had the same firm come in, knowing the
results of what they had decided and where best to place it. One comment that they made to us was that if
this was to be effective, and they looked at research parks around the country,
it has to be seen as something integral to the campus. It can=t be seen as an appendage, that=s perhaps an E. B. Smith location, halfway between here and
Montgomery. It has to be something that=s tied into the fabric and the culture of the
university. And we identified a number
of criteria that we would have to have met to look at potential sites. The first, as I mentioned, is consistent with
the master plan. The second, if we=re going to have for profit entities, and in some cases want
to be for profits, it=s going to be important that they have easy access to the
interstate and to Atlanta or Montgomery for national or international air
travel. When we talked to successful
research parks around the country, we visited them, we met them at meetings,
this issue becomes a mantra. If you=re going to have a successful, and give yourself the best chance
at success, keep it close to the faculty.
Keep it ideally within five minutes within the core of campus. And equally importantly, put it on the campus
transit system and have parking there so people can get out there and access it
and so the university and the industries out there have the opportunity to get
close and interface with the faculty.
Keep it close-over and over and over we heard that.
Sufficient
size and room to expand is an obvious one.
That is the goal that we have that opportunity to expand. And finally, it was important to us and it
became very important when President Richardson took office, he made this very
clear, that he wanted this to look good.
He wanted this to look very positive and create a very favorable image
to Auburn University when the people saw that.
That was our desire as well so we were on the same page there.
Looking
at it from the side, it=s really washed out, but I hope you can see it better from
the back. Let me orient you. This is South College and this is Shug Jordan Parkway, and this is Donahue. Currently, there is the Forest Research Lab
and the Forest Products Lab here, two research entities that are nestled in a
grove of trees off of Donahue. This road
ends here and we would propose arching that road through and bridging it over
to an entrance out here on South College, and cutting it through what is now
Camp Auburn Road down to another exit at Shug Jordan
with different access paths up into these different parcels. There is 156 total acres here, about 69 that
is build able, we=ve got lakes, wetlands, roads, and so forth that are not going
to accommodate buildings. The proposal
from the consultants is to build out the east part first. And then as you grow, move over here to the
west part and then build in. The intent
is to build this facility first. Our
goal right now, that is going to be a 50,000 square foot combination, it=s going to be an incubator so we can help some of these
companies coming out of our technology have the best success and at the same
time, make it a direct link with our fundamental mission of education and
research. And my proposal is that we
have our College of Business use this as a teaching laboratory, for our
business students, particularly our MBAs, who can come down and help these
fledgling companies develop business plans, strategic plans, financial
planning. I=m anticipating getting pro bono work from some of the legal
firms in town because as these companies succeed, they=re going to need legal firms and be able to pay for it. So it would benefit our students by real
world training and it would benefit the companies.
The other
portion of this building would be a multi-tenant building, companies that don=t need incubation so to speak, but they=re not ready for their own free-standing building. So there will be multi-tenant space with wet
labs, etc. And as we grow, these things
will be built out with tenants that we have recruited or come seeking us. I was told recently that the University of
New Orleans has established a research park a little while ago and within days
after announcing it, they had 500 inquiries.
We=ve announced, but we haven=t had 500 inquiries yet.
But there is going to be an active marketing campaign. How are we going to do it? We have filed with the Secretary of State an
entity called the Auburn Research and Technology Foundation. This is now a viable Alabama non-profit
foundation. It does not yet have a
mission, it does not have bylaws, but it exists on the books. The articles have been filed. And the reason for that is that we=re learning from others.
Recently we did a study and we found that 83% of the university-based
research parks have such a foundation that interfaces between the university
and the park. And the reasons for having
that is insulating the university from liability. The foundation is not controlled by the
university, therefore it is a separate legal entity, it is not one and the same
functioning with the university. It
provides us with some insulation, but equally importantly, it provides us the
flexibility to build the park on the time frame that the board and the
President all want it to be done, and that=s yesterday. If we
have the, do this within the university, with the bureaucracy, and I=m not saying that as a bad word, but constraints that we=re facing with the rules and regulations imposed upon us
from the state and others, this is going to take considerably longer to
do. And importantly, the debt=s going to be on our books and that=s another issue we didn=t want.
The way
this is going to work is the university will issue a long-term land lease or
negotiate it, they=re not going to issue it, negotiate a long-term land lease
with this foundation that I just spoke of in return for some nominal
consideration. The foundation then
sublease to a developer selected after a rigorous review process, because we=ve had a number of respondents wanting to be this developer,
and in return, based on what we negotiate, there will be revenue flowing back to
the foundation based on the percent of the fair market value of the land that=s currently under lease to that developer and a share of the
tenant revenues that the developer is recovering from those people who are
occupying the buildings. That revenue flows
back into this foundation and then back into the university.
Now, the
relationship between the university and the foundation. We=re never going to sell the land. I would never even conceive of going in front
of our Board of Trustees and asking them to sell land. It=s just a non-starter.
It=s our dirt and it=s always going to stay our dirt. There will be a long-term lease. The university will establish what I=m calling here the covenants of land use. What type of activity is allowed there-we=re not going to have smoke-stack industries, for
example. What the appearance of the
buildings have to look like, what the setback-all of the rules that you would
want to incorporate to make sure that this thing is a positive reflection of
Auburn University. The university will
determine that and that will flow down to the developer and the lease. We will negotiate the lease with the
foundation and the relationship between the university and the foundation will
be bound by, in addition to the lease, there will be an operating agreement
between those two entities, to ensure that the foundation operates to the
benefit of the university and there are some checks and balances there to
ensure that happens.
Excess
revenue will flow to Auburn University.
That=s in reference to the fact that we don=t want to incur the problems that another institution in
this state incurred when the foundation is seen as hoarding the money and not
flowing it back to the university. That=s just not acceptable.
This foundation is set up to benefit the university and we will be
negotiating some revenue, has to say in the foundation, because they need to
operate. But anything over that
threshold, to be determined, will flow back into the university for the
university to use as scholarships or operating funds or whatever they choose to
do.
And
finally, the relationship between the foundation and the developer, who will
sublease the property as I said, the sublease will specify the terms and
conditions that will be negotiated-financial and otherwise. We will look to the developer to finance the
park, the debt is on the developer=s books, not on the university=s books. They will
build out the park, they will co-market the park with the university and they
may manage the park. We want a
full-service firm, we may decide to do this cafeteria style, we may decide to
manage it ourselves, but I don=t think so. What this
does is give us the inherent strength of these developers and their national
contacts, and in some cases, international contacts, to help populate the park
with entities that are going to benefit the university. What I didn=t mention here and I should have, the university will have
in these covenants I suggested, will have the right of veto regarding who goes
in there. For example, we mentioned
these 250 companies we=ve had research contracts with. Not all of them were as equally enjoyable to
work with and if we=ve had a problem with a particular company in the past, we don=t really want to replicate that by having them sit on our
front porch. Also we will retain a final
veto.
Finally,
the agreement between the foundation and the developer will build in performance
standards, both for the appearance and the build out of the park, but we don=t want to get into a position like an institution in the
Midwest who decided to build a research park, hired the developers we=re proposing and when the developer put the first building
up, he was having problems marketing it.
And so the university came in and leased half of the space and the
developer said >Well, this is just great, because you=re paying my debt service, so I=m not going to be too interested to put up another building.= And the contract
between them didn=t allow them to put them in breach and recover that
situation. So again, it=s a benefit from not being first, you can learn from the
mistakes of others who have gone before us.
That
gives you a sort of one over the world as to what we=re proposing here in terms of the research park. We are going to have, there=s maybe 60 people sitting here, there=s another thousand out here who weren=t able to be here today for whatever reason, we=re going to hold an open forum and perhaps more than one,
where we=re going to invite all the faculty, particularly those
faculty who are heavily involved in research and the commercialization of
research and working with industry partners, because we want their ideas. We know have approval from the board to go
ahead with this concept and now we have to develop an implementation strategy
and we want the ideas from wherever we can get them. And with that, I will pause and entertain any
questions. Werner?
Werner
Bergen, Animal Sciences: Two things, in that area you
have the old poultry facilities and you have the experiment stations. Where are they going and where is the money
coming from to replace those?
Dr.
Moriarty: There are relocation issues that we=re going to have to deal with. Art Chappell, are you still here? Art is up in the back row and has an acid
rain experiment sitting here and has been for 5 or 6 years, Art? 15 or 20 years. Alright, and here in this area, and this is
probably the prime real estate overlooking the lakes, that these are, you can
see the outlines of the poultry barns that are up here. There=s also some other facilities. Down here there=s also an old wastewater treatment plant, over here the
research operations has their storage of equipment down here. We=re building this in phases, the east phase will be
first. We will be relocating Art=s area, and we=ve had discussions with Art and he=s looking for a possible location, I think you had several
potential ones. The funds to do this are
funds that we=re going to have to come up with. The intent is not to injure the activities of
the university, to put this research park up.
We=ve had many conversations with the Poultry Department, with
Don Connor, with Mike Weiss, and we went down and briefed the Board of
Directors and the Poultry-Ag Association at their annual meeting back in
September, I believe, and they are looking at a site out in the north Auburn
area, out in the Fisheries area, out there off of North College. Part of the problem is here-they=re land-locked. They=ve got 14 acres and they know, and I think we all appreciate,
that this whole area is prime real estate and to imagine that the poultry barns
would stay there in perpetuity is naive.
In the north Auburn area there is additional room where they can expand
their operations and have more modern facilities than they have now. What I didn=t show you is where the revenue is coming so far.
Second
part of Werner=s question-as you probably read, we have received $10 million
dollars in a bond issue that Governor Riley has approved and I would tell you
all, if you haven=t heard it before, the primary reason we got that was Mike
Hubbard. He was just so aggressive,
frankly, the Governor was tired of hearing him beating on him. This was his top priority for his district as
he sees this as an economic development opportunity. That $10 million dollars will be coming
within the next month. We have $5
million dollars that the City of Auburn has contributed. They will put in all the infrastructure and
they will put in all the roads, the sewers, sanitary sewers, storm sewers,
etc. They have put $2.5 million dollars
initially in this year=s operating budget, $2.5 million dollars in next year=s operating budget and told us we can spend that any way we
want. Again, I couldn=t be more happy with the relationship we=ve had with the City of Auburn in this whole venture. We have talked to the City of Opelika and
briefed their council. We=ve had some long discussions with Mayor Patton-there is a
mayoral change issue now-we had a meeting with Mayor Fuller last Friday, and I=m reasonably optimistic that the City of Opelika will be
contributing to this research park, because they see some benefits there. Similarly, we=ve had discussions with the Lee County Commissioners. So that=s where the pool of revenue is coming right now. Out of that we=re going to have to relocate these.
One other
point, maybe more information than you want to know Werner, we don=t know how much it=s going to cost, quite frankly, to relocate those poultry
barns. We know how much it cost to build
them. But how much does it cost-what are
their true needs? So we=ve contracted with a firm in Atlanta, Sizemore, who did some
programming for the Olympics and some programming for the University of Georgia
Poultry Facility, and asked them to come in and work with the Poultry Science
people, find out what the needs are, and then go back and benchmark that
against cost so we know what we=re talking about dollar wise in order to relocate. We won=t have that information until November. Other questions? Thank you so much.
Dr.
Larkin: I appreciate your presentation. Is there any unfinished business? Any new business? Ok, Rich.
Richard Penascovic, Philosophy: I=d like to make a motion that Dr. Richardson release the
written report from SACS as soon as possible.
Dr.
Larkin: Is there a second? We have a motion and a second that Dr.
Richardson be requested to release the...
Richard Penascovic: Release
the written report from SACS as soon as possible. The last time I know they got the report from
SACS in February, we didn=t receive it until September. That was a 7 month lag. If accreditation is such an important issue,
I think we should be informed of what=s going on as we have a large stake in this.
Dr.
Larkin: Alright. Any further discussion? All of those persons in favor of requesting
Dr. Richardson be advised to release the report from SACS immediately upon its
arrival, please indicate by saying Aye.
Opposed, nay. The motion is
carried. I will follow through on
that. The meeting is adjourned.