Minutes of the Auburn University Senate Meeting
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
238 Broun Hall Auditorium
3:30 P.M.
A full transcript is available for this meeting.

Attendance
Officers:
Patricia Duffy, Chair; Larry Crowley, Immediate-Past Chair; Gisela Buschle-Diller; Secretary; Laura Plexico, Secretary-Elect.

Administration:
Bill Hardgrave, Dean, College of Business; Gregg Newschwander, Dean, School of Nursing; Lee Evans, Dean, School of Pharmacy;  Joseph A. Aistrup, Dean, College of Liberal Arts; Nicholas Giordano, Dean, COSAM; Calvin Johnson, Dean, College of Vet Med.

Ex-Officio
Present:
Tim Boosinger, Provost; Bonnie MacEwan, Dean, Libraries; Ashley Hamberlin, A&P Assembly Chair; Sara Wolf, Steering Committee; Keven Yost, Steering Committee.

Absent, sending substitute:
James Witte for Betty Lou Whitford, Dean, College of Education; Steve Duke for Chris Roberts, Dean, College of Engineering; Brett Walton for Walker Byrd, President, Student Government Association.

Absent, not sending substitute:
Larry Teeter, Chair-Elect; George Flowers, Dean, Graduate School; India Naiper, Graduate Student Council President; Michael Freeman, Staff Council Chair; Emily Myers, Steering Committee; Michael Baginski, Steering Committee.

Senators, by Department:
Present: Don Mulvaney, Animal Sciences; Dean Schwartz, Anatomy, Physiology and Pharmacology; Rebecca O’Neal-Dagg, Architecture; Barb Bondy, Art; Cliff Defee, Aviation Management and Logistics; Mark Dougherty, Biosystems Engineering; Mark Taylor, Building Sciences; Allan David, Chemical Engineering; Ed Youngblood, Communication and Journalism; Allison Plumb, Communication Disorders; David Umphress, Computer Science and Software Engineering; Wi-Suk Kwon, Consumer Sciences; Jada Kohlmeier, Curriculum and Teaching; Michael Stern, Economics; Hilary Wyss, English; Jung Park, Finance; Brent Fox, Health Outcomes Research and Policy; Amy Wright, Horticulture; Sean Gallagher, Industrial Systems and Engineering; John Quindry, Kinesiology; Peter Stanwick, Management; Dmitry Glotov, Mathematics and Statistics; Daniel Mackowski, Mechanical Engineering; Matthew Hoch, Music; Kevin Huggins, Nutrition and Foods; Chippewa Thomas, Outreach; Vicky van Santen, Pathobiology; Wesley Lindsey, Pharmacy Practice; Michael Fogle, Physics; Murray Jardine, Political Science; Gwynedd Thomas, Polymer & Fiber Engineering; Daniel Svyantek, Psychology; Jill Meyer, Special Education, Rehab and Counseling; Kristina Shuler, Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work.  

Absent, sending substitute:
Jung Won Hur for Lisa Kensler, Educational Foundations and Leadership; Cova Arias for Rusty Wright, Fisheries and Allied Aquaculture; Lourdes Betanzos for Traci O’Brien, Foreign Languages and Literature; Arata Hamawaki for Eric Marcus, Philosophy; Leonard Bell for Tung-shi Huang, Poultry Science; Paul B. West for Scott Copeland, ROTC Army; Tanya Johnson for Constance Hendricks, Nursing; Robin Jaffe for Adrienne Wilson, Theater;.

Absent, not sending substitute:
Robert Cochran, Accountancy; Andrew Sinclair, Aerospace Engineering; Valentina Hartaska, Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology; Paul Brown, ACES; Bob Locy, Biological Sciences;  Eduardus Duin, Chemistry; Cliff Lange, Civil Engineering; Beth Guertal, Crops, Soil and Environmental Sciences; Thomas Baginski, Electrical and Computer Engineering; Leonardo  De La Fuente, Entomology and Plant Pathobiology; Latif Kalin, Forestry and Wildlife Science;  David King, Geosciences; Tiffany Sippial, History;  Tom Smith, Human Development and Family Studies; Jerrod Bradley Windham, Industrial Design; Gregg Schmidt, Library;  James Carver, Marketing; Muralikrishnan Dhanasekaran, Pharmacal Sciences; Jeffrey Hemmes, ROTC Air Force; Paul Michael Esposito, ROTC Navy; Annette Smith, Veterinary Clinical Sciences.

Minutes
At 3:30 PM Chair Patricia Duffy called the meeting to order, introduced the Senate Officers, reminded the Senators of the rules of speaking at Senate meetings and to speak into the microphones for better recording and to limit comments to 4 minutes at a time. She then established a quorum using iclickers. There are currently 87 members of the Senate and a quorum requires therefore 44 Senators to be present. The minutes of the April 7th, 2015 Senate meeting were approved without modifications.

Remarks and Announcements
Office of the Provost, Tim Boosinger, Provost
The President could not be here for this Senate meeting, so the Provost extended his congratulations and thanks to everyone that had helped for the large gift to become a reality that will allow Auburn University to build a world-class Arts Center. He further reported on the items on the Board of Trustees meeting in June which include a proposed BS in Food Science in the College of Agriculture which (Food Science) previously had been an option. Further, he mentioned two new certificates from the College of Education on the Masters level, one in teaching instructional technology to be used for distance learning and the other for educators in more effectively teaching with technology. If approved, these will be the 34th and 35th MS-level certificate programs. The third item is the proposed closure of Polymer and Fiber Engineering at the BS level and all its undergraduate programs be terminated; the department will be closed effective August 15. Lastly, proposed dual enrollment policies for high school students will allow Junior or Senior level high school students to earn AU credit. These courses will include core curriculum courses offered on-line in the College of Liberal Arts and COSAM.

The Provost further gave an update on Senate Bill 159 (enabling legislation for Alabama to join in the National Council for State Authorization of Reciprocity Agreements, SARA); House Bill 101 (setting the maturity age from 19 to 18 to participate in research conducted at colleges and universities, typically surveys); Senate Bill 179 relating to the educational budget; and Bill 551 which calls for a constitutional amendment that would adjust the composition of the AU BoT in terms of expiration of terms and the addition of two minority seats.

As an update on the Cluster Hire Initiative, the Provost said that a decision will be made over the summer in regard to the submitted proposals. Ten competitive proposals have been received; five have been selected to develop full proposals and to at least three clusters will be funded, maybe even more. The process involves the inclusion of vacant positions and start-up money of the Colleges/Schools with matching funds being made centrally.

In earlier Senate meetings there was a discussion about enrollment of student athletes in specific Colleges. The Provost introduced Karen Battye of the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment to report on the distribution of undergraduate student athletes in different majors in Fall 2014 since this issue had come up in the last Senate meeting.

A total of 283 female undergraduate student athletes have been enrolled in 76 different curricula; 30 of these in pre-Business and 21 in unclassified Science and Math. 254 male student athletes were enrolled in 57 different curricula, 48 of these in Public Administration and 41 in pre-Business. No other curriculum had more than 13 male student athletes. Broken down by sports, in Baseball of 43 male undergraduate students 9 were in Public Administration and 8 in pre-Business; Men’s basketball had 16 students total, 4 of them were in Public Administration and 2 in pre-Business; Football had 120 undergraduate student athletes, 28 of them enrolled in Public Administration and 13 in pre-Business; in Men’s Golf, there were 9 students, 3 in pre-Business and 2 in Public Administration; Men’s Swimming had 27 students with 8 being in pre-Business, 3 in Economics and 2 in Public Administration. 10 students were in Men’s Tennis, of these 5 were in pre-Business, 3 in Finance, none in Public Administration and 2 in other curricula. Finally, Track and Cross-Country had 27 students with 3 students enrolled in undeclared Math and Science, 3 in Public Administration and 2 in pre-Business. In summary, of the 120 Football players 28 were in Public Administration and 13 in pre-Business; of the 134 students in other sports, Public Administration was the curriculum of choice for 21 students and pre-Business for 28.
The Provost concluded with the announcement that an ad hoc committee of five faculty, 4 curriculum members and Larry Teeter as the Senate Chair-elect has been appointed to review the information on this topic and make recommendations.
Questions: none

University Senate Chair, Patricia Duffy
Patricia Duffy introduced the Senate Officers and the Administrative Assistant and announced that Constance Hendricks is substituting as Parliamentarian for this meeting for Conner Bailey. She reported on a few recent actions of the Steering Committee including, first, a slight revision in wording of the Transient Student Approval Policy (the substance of the policy did not change); the second item was concerned with the guiding principles to the Provost Office to allow exceptions minimum GPA required for junior and senior students who want to study abroad. Previously a GPA of 2.25 was needed. The policy now considers an exception if the students with GPA in 2.0-2.25 range showed strong academic performance in their coursework in the past semester.  She also corrected a mistake that had occurred during the last Senate meeting when the modifications of the budget model were discussed. The second paragraph had by accident been merged into the first due to automatic formatting. She showed the corrected version that had been up for voting, including the recommendations made.
Questions: none

Action Items

1. Rules Committee nominees for Senate Committees; Presenter: Gisela-Buschle-Diller, Secretary of the Senate
   The first item for vote by the Senate was a replacement on the Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Committee to fill the slot of Teresa Gore who is leaving the University. James Witte has been nominated. Non-tenure Track Faculty appointment. There was no discussion and Patricia Duffy called for a vote. The candidate was approved.
   
2. The second item up for voting was the entire slate of the Senate Committee nominees whose terms will start in August 2015. The nominees have been posted on the Senate website and were nominated by the Rules Committee. Rules approved nominees to Senate Committees. Again, there was no discussion and Patricia Duffy called for a vote. The entire slate was approved.

Pending Action Items
1. Revised Policy on Military Credits; Presenter: Xing Fang, Chair of Academic Standards Committee
Xing Fang briefly went over the revised policy on military credits and explained the limitations and restrictions for those credits. The policy will be up for voting in the June Senate meeting. presentation MCP (ppt) Military Credit Policy
Questions: none

Information Items

1. Report from Faculty Salaries and Welfare Committee, Presenter: Michael Kozuh, Chair of Faculty Salaries and Welfare Committee
   Michael Kozuh responded to the concerns of emeritus professors (as raised by an emeritus professor) in regard to policies and privileges and where most important information can be found (computer software, mailboxes, travel funds, etc.). Many issues are handled locally within the departments or the School/College; it is similarly handled at peer institutions. Overall the Department Chair should be the interface between the emeritus professor and the university. A few of the crucial problems of emeriti professors – e.g., being automatically removed from People Finder – have been remedied, some others are currently being addressed but may take time, and some might be more difficult to be attended to. presentation (ppt); report (rtf).

Questions: none

As the second part of his presentation, Michael Kozuh reported on the survey that has been carried out in regard to faculty preferences in salaries being paid over a 12-month period instead of 9-months. The main initiative for this survey has been coming from the AUM campus. AUM response rate was much higher than the one of Auburn (approx. 60% at AUM, 38% at AU campus). The results have not been finalized since the survey closed only today on the AU campus. However, he stated that over 91-93% of faculty (that participated in the survey) would support having the option of being paid over 12 months and, although there are no final numbers available at this time, there is a clear interest on both campuses that suggests that the issue is further explored. He also mentioned some of the misunderstandings and open questions that surfaced during the survey which should be clarified so everyone understands the implications.
Questions: none

1. The Biggio Center, Learning and Teaching at Auburn; Presenter:  Diane Boyd, Director of the Biggio Center
   Diane Boyd showed some of the reorganization the Biggio Center had undergone since last year and mentioned that Testing has dramatically increased. She mentioned some of the programs of the Center and the currently on-going course design workshops. presentation (ppt)

Questions: none

1. Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities  (SENCER) What it’s About: An Invitation to Participate ; Presenters: Robert Holm, Associate Director
   Office of Proposal Services and Faculty Support and SENCER Leadership Fellow and Paula Bobrowski, Assoc, Dean of Liberal Arts and SENCER Leadership Fellow
   Paula Bobrowski explained the meaning of SENCER and the history and efforts of SENCER at Auburn University. She encouraged everyone to participate and pointed out that there is quite some interest to collaborate with the Biggio Center in this area. presentation (ppt)

Questions: none
New Business: Patricia Duffy, Senate Chair
None
Unfinished Business: Patricia Duffy, Senate Chair
None
Adjournment: Patricia Duffy, Senate Chair at 4:35 P.M.