Minutes
of the University Senate
June 7, 2005
3 p.m.
Broun Hall Auditorium
Submitted by Patricia
Duffy
Present: Conner Bailey (Chair), Patricia Duffy (Secretary), Kathryn Flynn (Secretary Elect), June Henton, Michael Moriarty, John Heilman, Sheri Downer, Zachary Bryant, Harriette Huggins, Leanne Lamke, Robert Locy, Diane Hite, Werner Bergen, Eleanor Josephson, John Pitarri, Jr., Barry Fleming, Raymond Hamilton, Rik Blumenthal, Alvin Sek See Lim, Randy Beard, Charles Gross, Jon Bolton, Sadik Tuzun, Dennis DeVries, Robert Weigel, Larry Teeter, Jim Saunders, Alice Buchanan, Saeed Maghsoodloo, Jim Gravois, Roger Walters, Daniel Mackowski, Robin Fellers, Cindy Brunner, Kem Krueger, Robert Norton, Vivian Larkin, Paul Starr, Sarlyn Smith-Carr
Absent, sending a substitute: Dan Bennett, Larry Benefield, Jefferson Jones, Charles Mitchell, Anthony Moss, Ted Tyson, James Guin, Debra Worthington, Judith Lechner, Darrel Hankerson, Ruth Crocker, Tin-Man Lau, Joe Sumners, Marlin Simon, Tom Williams, Tracey Oleinick
Absent, no substitute: Richard Penaskovic (Chair-Elect), Willile D. Larkin, Don Large, Bob McGinnis, David Wilson, Wes Williams, Timothy Boosinger, John Tatum, John Varner, Isabelle Thompson, Garnetta Lovett, David Cicci, Mario Lightfoote, Jeff Tickal, Larry Crowley, Sridhar Kirshnamurti, Ann Beth Presley, Renee Middleton, Gary Martin, Christoph Hinkelmann, Ken Tilt, Thomas A. Smith, Hugh Guffey, Richard Good, John Rowe, Forrest Smith, Bernie Olin, James Shelley, Anthony Gadzey, Roger Blashfield, Thomas White, Bill Shaw, Howard Thomas
Conner Bailey called the meeting to order at 3:00 p.m.
Conner Bailey called for approval of the March 8th minutes. Jim Gravois moved that the minutes be approved. They were approved by voice vote without opposition. Conner Bailey called for approval of the minutes of the May 3rd meeting of the University Senate. Jim Gravois moved that the minutes be approved. They were approved by voice vote without opposition.
Remarks from
President Richardson
President Richardson discussed the Board meeting next week. He said it would be the second year for conflict of interest statements from the Trustees. All statements should be turned in by the deadline (the Board meeting) and will be released as soon as practical.
He indicated that he believed the first step in the evaluation of the university president will start and be presented to the Board of Trustees next week (June 16 and 17). All Board of Trustee committee meetings will be scheduled on Thursday, June 16th, starting around 12:30 and concluding around 5:00. The schedule should be available by Monday of that week. The regular Board meeting will start at 9 on Friday morning and conclude by lunchtime.
President Richardson said he will make a number of recommendations to the Board of Trustees. He said they will be issues he will place on the table for consideration. Many recommendations will be considered through Dr. Heilman's leadership and through the established faculty committees. He said there will be no recommendations made during the report to the Board that will go into effect immediately. There will be some organization issues in regard to the Auburn University system that he hopes will be in place by the fall. He mentioned the strategic plan and the criteria for academic program review he hoped to have ready in November.
He reiterated that at the Board meeting he will be placing recommendations on the table, and that the recommendations will be forwarded to the appropriate committees and to appropriate administrative personnel.
He said some items on the agenda involve the issue of institutional control, brought up by SACS. Also, he wants to ensure that the president who follows him into office will be successful.
Questions and Answers:
Cindy Brunner asked about some surveys or polling he had mentioned conducting, for the purpose of finding out what others thought about Auburn. She noted that we have never seen the questions or the results and that she believed it would be helpful to release the information.
President Richardson said that the poll and the focus groups were conducted because it was clear that Auburn University had not fared well in the legislative process. The survey was not specific to Auburn, he said, but was addressed toward higher education in general. He said that he thought economic development and job creation would be themes to make a case for higher education, but it became clear that neither was meaningful to the participants. Also, he said he learned that the people surveyed did not distinguish among institutions. The survey was paid for by Auburn University and the University of Alabama. He said it cost about $30,000 total, or $15.000 for each university.
Rik Blumenthal said that SACS recommended we begin the Presidential search in July of this year. He asked what the time scale would be and when the Board of Trustees would take action.
President Richardson said that this issue would be addressed in a report to SACS presented in July, before the SACS visit in September. This report e would describe the process for the selection of the president. The process should be discussed next week (at the Board of Trustees meeting). He said that it would probably be the fall before something substantive starts.
Herb Rotfeld commented about terminological inexactitude in President Richardson's previous remarks. (President Richardson had used the term "randomly selected" with regard to the people in the focus group, while responding to Cindy Brunner's question.) Dr. Rotfeld noted that focus groups, by nature, are not random.
President Richardson accepted the correction in terminology. He said that however the groups are described, the results came out this way. He said there is no intention to conduct a similar survey this year.
Kathryn Flynn asked for clarification about what President Richardson meant by "AU system" in a previous remark and whether Agriculture reorganization falls in this category.
President Richardson said that the AU-system deals with AU-AUM.
Kathryn Flynn followed up by asking about Agricultural reorganization.
President Richardson said there are two parts. The first part deals with the organization, such as an institute, which would be decided in the fall. Any programs/department issues would be decided by April, 2006.
Werner Bergen asked about lack of direction in the dean's office in Agriculture.
President Richardson said the issue is complicated by due process.
John Heilman came to the microphone.
John Heilman said he has met two times with department heads and faculty representatives about leadership for the College of Agriculture and the Experiment Station. He said that the first step was to get Richard Guthrie into the spot for two months. He said that either the latter part of this week or early next week, the university will initiate a search for a termed person to fill the positions. The process will be similar to the Provost search. The search will be internal and will run into July.
Announcements
from the Senate Chair
Conner Bailey said that the Senate Executive Committee, the Senate Steering Committee, and the Senate Rules Committee have been hard at work. He said that the Rules Committee is meeting weekly to staff University and Senate committees. He said that we hope to bring to the July meeting recommendations for Senate committee appointments for approval by the Senate.
He said that the Executive Committee is in regular contact with counterparts in Staff Council and A&P Assembly as well as with SGA, and its president, John Tatum, and with the Graduate Student Council. He welcomed the new President of the GSC, Zach Bryant.
He said that the Executive Committee also has met recently with Andy Hornsby, President of the Auburn Alumni Association. Further, he said that the Executive Committee is meeting with President Richardson this coming Friday.
He said that the Steering Committee meets every two weeks, and that minutes of that committee are posted on the web. He said that Steering has been working to finalize Ombudsman, Electronic Privacy, and Intimate Relations Policy.
Steering also has discussed a newly established system for “whistleblowers” to report, anonymously to a website maintained by an independent firm to receive reports regarding financial irregularities (and similar ethics related matters) and NCAA violations. This Ethics hotline is the type of system recommended by the American Institute of CPAs as an example of ‘best management practices’ and was recommended to AU by our external auditor. Anonymous reporting systems like this increasingly are in use by the private sector due to legal requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Conner Bailey said that people can learn more about this topic at the website of the office of Internal Auditing. Conner Bailey pointed out that Kevin Robinson, Exec Director of that office, was available to answer questions on this topic.
He reported the activities of the Senate leadership over the past month. The Executive Committee has been meeting regularly with the Provost, and the Provost has been attending Steering Committee meetings. Thus, we have abundant opportunity to interact and that the channels of communication are open, providing a strong opportunity for shared governance. Two items on our agenda reflect this opportunity: Academic Program Review and Strategic Planning
With regard to Academic Program Review, the Provost has made it very clear that this will be a faculty-driven process under the leadership of the Senate’s standing committee. Art Chappelka of Forestry and Wildlife Science chairs that committee and Conner Bailey said that he himself plans to be actively involved. Conner Bailey said that John Heilman will speak further on this topic and provide opportunities for questions.
With regard to the Strategic Plan, Conner Bailey said that most Senators have had an opportunity to take part in the initial scoping phase of this process. He gave thanks to all who participated for the seriousness with which you all became engaged. He also said that Bill Sauser is here to discuss the next steps in this process.
There were no questions for Senate Chair Bailey.
Remarks from Provost John Heilman
Provost Heilman said he agrees with Conner Bailey about the opportunity for engagement. He said he was grateful for efforts of the leadership to recruit people for committees and also to recruit senators for strategic planning sessions. Academic Program Review is one of President Richardson's six initiatives. By the November meeting of the Board of Trustees, we will have a set of criteria and a schedule for periodic review of programs. He said it was important to engage faculty and for the process to be faculty driven. Academic Program Review will make use of the standing committee. He said the committee is hard at work and is a positive example of shared governance.
Provost Heilman said there are good reasons to perform these reviews. If done thoughtfully, program reviews can help us improve the quality of programming. Our peer institutions all have some form of academic program review in place. Provost Heilman also noted that we had a regular system of review in place some 15 years ago. He thought it was a productive process. He said we do not want to have an ad hoc process, such as the one we had 7 years ago. He also said that the process must have substance.
Questions and Answers:
Rik Blumenthal asked if programs with regularly scheduled accreditation would also be reviewed.
Provost Heilman said that whatever process we develop should not be uselessly redundant or force unproductive additional work. The kinds of questions we would want in academic program review may possibly be picked up easily out of the national accreditation process. But he said we would need to have a consistent set of criteria across units.
Bill Sauser: Strategic Planning
Bill Sauser pointed out the considerable assistance he received from officers of the Senate, from A&P, Staff Council, and student governments. He said that we are trying to move rapidly through difficult process, and this takes a lot of people helping. He asked for a show of hands of those participating in process. (Many hands were raised.) He said that if anyone would like to participate, to please let him or a member of the Senate Executive Committee know.
He gave a presentation providing an update on the Strategic Planning Process.
Update on the Strategic Planning Process.
Questions and Answers:
Patricia Duffy asked how can faculty or others provide input.
Bill Sauser said people can email him to provide input.
John Heilman said he met with the deans to discuss the Strategic Planning process. He said that the Strategic Plan should address the future climate, in other words, the characteristics of the environment we anticipate 5 to 10 years from now. He said that looking forward would sharpen the questions and the answers
Bill Sauser replied that the process we are working under did not give us enough time to do a demographic analysis. He said we are able to touch on the issues through faculty input. He said we will have a rolling five-year plan; every year we could consider an aspect of the environment to see what impact it will have.
Ed Richardson said that the Strategic Plan becomes a policy of all policies for the Board of Trustees to adopt. He said that it would be a concern if we came up with something that the Board rejects. He asked Bill Sauser to describe the process that is taking place to avoid having the Trustees reject the plan.
Bill Sausser replied that the Trustees were invited to participate in the process. He said he would be surprised if we get questions from trustees at variance from rest of the University's questions.
Sadik Tuzun said that he understands the process. He raised the concern that just by looking at the questions and answering them we may be losing time because we will need proposals to present. He asked if we should be seeking proposals at the same time from faculty and administrators on how we can make a better AU.
Bill Sauser said that we had answers coming forward during the Strategic Planning sessions. He said we will not throw out or drop information we have already received. He invited people to send proposals or ideas to him.
Conner Bailey said that a member of the 12-person steering committee for Strategic Planning was concerned that distilling the comments would cause a loss of emotional content. He said that the 12-person committee will ensure that the emotional content of the original comments will be maintained and communicated to senior administrators so that they will understand the level of commitment from those who work here.
Linda Glaze: Report of the Core
Curriculum Oversight Committee
Associate Provost Glaze said that part of the academic review process should be a review of the Core. She said that the Core Curriculum Oversight Committee is an active and functioning committee with a dedicated and enthusiastic group of faculty.
She provided a presentation on the Core Curriculum Oversight Committee report.
Presentation of the Core Curriculum Oversight Committee.
Conner Bailey said he appreciated Dr. Glaze remaining on in the Provost's office. The remark was greeted with widespread applause.
There were no questions for Associate Provost Glaze.
Jim Groccia: Mentoring Report
Jim Groccia provided a presentation on the report from the ad hoc committee for faculty mentoring.
Presentation on the Report from the Ad Hoc Committee on Junior Faculty Mentoring.
Rik Blumenthgal cautioned that even if a department head indicated that a department had a mentorship program, the program may not be functioning.
Jeff Bohler (substitute for Tom Williams) asked if the committee looked outside academia for mentorship program.
Jim Groccia said they had not but that it would be a good topic for standing committee.
Cindy Brunner asked about the time line for approval of the report.
Jim Groccia said it would be good if the report was approved before fall.
Comments on the report should be sent to Jim Groccia.
There as no old or new business.
Jim Gravois made the motion to adjourn, which was approved by voice vote without opposition.
The meeting adjourned at 4:35 p.m.