Minutes of the Auburn University Senate Meeting
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
238 Broun Hall Auditorium
3:30 P.M.
A full transcript is available for this meeting.
Attendance
Officers:
Larry Teeter, Chair; James Goldstein, Chair-Elect; Laura Plexico, Secretary; Xing Ping Hu, Secretary-Elect; Patricia Duffy, Immediate-Past Chair
Administration:
Chris Roberts, Dean, College of Engineering; Calvin Johnson, Dean, College of Veterinary Medicine
Ex-Officio
Bonnie MacEwan, Dean of Libraries; Arthur Taylor, Staff Council Chair; Vic Walker, A&P Assembly Chair; Sara Wolf, Steering Committee; Emily Myers, Steering Committee; Kevin Yost, Steering Committee; Lisa Kensler, Steering Committee; Timothy R. Boosinger, Provost
Absent, sending substitute: Emmett Winn for Bobby Woodard, VP Student Affairs; Jim Witte for Betty Lou Whitford, Dean, College of Education; Francine Parker for Gregg Newschwander, Dean, School of Nursing; Charles Israel for Joseph Aistrup, Dean, College of Liberal Arts; George Crandell for George Flowers, Dean, Graduate School; Trey Fields for Jesse Westerhouse, SGA President; Tenchi Smith for Burcu Ozden, GSC President;
Absent, not sending substitute: Bill Hardgrave, Dean, College of Business; Nicholas Giordano, Dean, COSAM
Senators, by Department:
Robert Cochran, Accountancy; Anwar Ahmed, Aerospace Engineering; Michelle Worosz, Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology; Dean Schwartz [2nd], Anatomy, Physiology & Pharmacology; Rebecca O’Neil-Dagg, Architecture; Barb Bondy, Art; Cliff Defee, Aviation Management & Logistics; Mark Dougherty, Biosystems Engineering; Allan E. David, Chemical Engineering; Doug Goodwin, Chemistry; Cliff Lange [2nd], Civil Engineering; Ed Youngblood, Communication and Journalism; Allison Plumb, Communication Disorders; David Umphress, Computer Science & Software Engineering; Melody Russell, Curriculum & Teaching; Liliana Stern, Economics; Jung Won Hur, Educational Foundations, Leadership & Technology; Hulya Kirkici, Electrical & Computer Engineering; David Held, Entomology & Plant Pathology; Justin Benefield, Finance; Traci O’Brian, Foreign Lang & Literatures; Brent Fox [2nd], Health Outcomes and Research Policy; David Lucsko, History; Tom Smith, Human Development & Family Studies; Sean Gallagher, Industrial and Systems Engineering; Gregg Schmidt, Library; Peter Stanwick [2nd], Management; James Carver, Marketing; Dmitry Glotov [2nd], Mathematics and Statistics; Daniel Mackowski, Mechanical Engineering; David Crumbley, Nursing; Kevin Huggins, Nutrition, Dietetics, & Hospitality Mgmt.; Chippewa Thomas [2nd], Outreach; Vicky van Santen [2nd], Pathobiology; Spencer Durham, Pharmacy Practice; Eric Marcus, Philosophy; Michael Fogle, Physics; Tung-shi Huang, Poultry Science; Tracy Witte, Psychology; Marilyn Cornish, Special Ed. Rehabilitation Counseling/School Psych; Jeff Welborn, Lieutenant Colonel, ROTC Air Force; Maj., Roshun Steele, ROTC Army; Captain, Paul Michael Esposito, ROTC Naval; Kristina (Kriste) Shuler, Socio/Anthro/Social Work; Annette Smith [2nd], Veterinary Clinical Sciences
Absent, sending substitute: Amrut Sadachar for Karla Teel, Consumer & Design Sciences; Jeremy Downes for Hilary Wyss, English; Cova Arias for Rusty Wright [2nd], Fisheries & Allied Aquaculture; Sarah Zohdy for Latif Kalin, Forestry & Wildlife Science; Chong Ma for Ming-kuo Lee, Geology & Geography; Daniel Wells for Amy Wright, Horticulture; Andreas Kavazis for John Quindry, Kinesiology; Paul Harris for Cathleen Erwin, Political Science; Robin Jaffe for Adrienne Wilson, Theatre
Absent, not sending substitute: Paul Brown, ACES; Don Mulvaney, Animal Sciences; Bob Locy [2nd], Biological Sciences; Mark Taylor [2nd], Building Sciences; Beth Guertal, Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences; Jerod Windham, Industrial Design; Matthew Hoch, Music
Minutes
At 3:30 PM Chair Larry Teeter called the meeting to order and reminded the Senators of the rules of speaking at Senate meetings. In addition, he asked the members of the senate to sign-in in the back of the room and get a clicker. He then established a quorum using iclickers. There are currently 86 members of the Senate; therefore, for a quorum to be established 44 senators are required to be present. A quorum was established with 54 represented. The minutes of the February 16th, 2016 Senate meeting were approved without modifications.
Larry Teeter then introduced the current and upcoming senate executive committee. He then introduced Bob Locy who serves as the parliamentarian for the meeting. He then introduced the administrative assistant Laura Kloberg who assists with senate meetings and makes sure the business of the senate is conducted as smoothly as possible.
Remarks and Announcements
Office of the Provost, Tim Boosinger, Provost
The provost first commented on the Common Book Program. The Common Book for this year is New York Times bestseller, “Just Mercy,” a story of justice and redemption by Brian Stevenson. Mr. Stevenson will be on campus on August 30. He’ll give a public presentation in the Student Center Ballroom followed by a book signing opportunity and Q&A. All incoming freshmen will receive copies of the book during Camp War Eagle with the expectation that they will have read that book and be prepared to discuss that in their different classes. He encouraged faculty to engage in that process. Arrangements have been made for all tenure track faculty at Auburn to receive a copy of the book. Those will be delivered to the department offices at the end of April.
Following the author’s visit, there will be a month of complimentary programming around these topics. Faculty members that want assistance with developing programs can get that assistance through the Biggio Center or by talking to committee members of the Common Book. The chair of the Common Book Committee is Dr. Bauman.
Following, he made comments about the spring commencement. Commencement exercises will be on Saturday and Sunday, May 7 and May 8. Saturday sessions are at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and Sunday sessions are at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. We have the highest participation rate in commencement of any SEC colleges and schools. Right now we expect to have about 3,200 students participate in the commencement exercises, resulting in about 600–700 in the 4 different sessions to make that work. He encouraged faculty to attend. There are typically 6–8 thousand guests in the arena. This year the Graduation Committee has been working on a symbolic mace. The mace is a wooden structure made specifically for Auburn University from the Auburn Oaks; it symbolizes the authority that Auburn University has to award the degrees it awards. That will be part of the ceremony for the first time during commencement.
At the General Faculty Meeting, the climate study on inclusion, equity, and diversity was discussed. The committee has made significant progress and has almost completed all listening sessions and interviews. There are over 2,500 participants in the survey. The process benchmarking has begun and members of the committee are going to visit peer institutions that are known to have outstanding programs in the area of diversity and inclusion. The final report draft will be ready to present to the President by the end of April. He thanked faculty for participating in different listening sessions and interviews.
A national search for an Associate Provost for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity will begin shortly. The search committee is being appointed now. He hopes to have the position posted in April and time things so that candidate finalists be on campus for interviews in the fall and an appointment by early 2017.
Questions: None
Action Items
Reviewed the background behind the bill and current legislature to allow hand guns on campus. There has been a national movement in state legislatures to change the laws for people with permits to carry concealed weapons and allow handguns on campuses. Texas has a law, for example, and it’s going to go into effect in August. There is legislation pending in states from Alaska to Georgia. Alabama has a Bill that’s been around once in the House, and it’s been referred to the Education Policy Committee. There has been discussion about the desirability of the Senate sponsoring resolutions to express opposition to such legislation.
Voting for the resolution would allow the University Senate to express its opposition to this or any similar bill being passed.
House Bill 12
Questions:
Jung Won Hur, senator, EFLT: Several faculty members in her department shared great concern about the gun policy on campus. She stated that her department strongly opposes the policy change statement.
Melody Russell, senator, Curriculum and Teaching: Echoed what was just mentioned. Requested opening this up to the general faculty and giving an opportunity for all faculty to come and attend and express their concerns.
Requested whether this could be tabled until we could have a general faculty meeting?
James Goldstein. Chair-elect: The possibility of having a special called meeting was considered. There was a sense of urgency because we don’t know when this Bill is going out to committee and back to the floor of the House.
Patricia Duffy, immediate past chair: Added on to what James Goldstein said. We don’t know when the legislature might decide to pass this, and a General special called Faculty Meeting would take at least a month, which would get us into late April, which gets us into everybody doing finals. So even though that might be the optimal way to do it, because of time sensitivity, this is the feasible way to do it.
Larry Teeter, chair: Asked whether there was a second to the motion to table?
Hearing none he called for the vote of support for this resolution. It comes from a standing committee of the Senate so it doesn’t need a second.
The resolution passes 89% in favor and with 63 votes: A=56, B=7.
2. Proposed AU calendar for 2018–2019, Presented by Robin Jaffe, Chair of the Calendar Committee
18-19 calendar proposal Graphic
18-19 calendar proposal pdf file
18-19 calendar proposal PowerPoint
The Calendars and schedules committee was thanked for their efforts. Robin reviewed the guidelines that must be followed when generating the calendar. He presented and reviewed the 2018-2019 proposed calendar.
Questions: None
The calendar passed with 62 votes and 97% in favor of the calendar.
A paper ballot was distributed to the senate to vote on the three candidates for the rules committee. Melody Russell, Traci O’Brien, Robert Cochran, and Greg Schmidt ran for the Rules Committee.
Melody Russell, Traci O’Brien, and Greg Schmidt were the candidates with the most votes.
Information Items
She commented that the library is still open to support students and faculty and provide all the services they have provided in the past. She reviewed the Mell Classroom building. It will be 107,000 sq. ft. of space that will include 26 active learning classrooms and 2 lecture halls. When the building is completed there will be an atrium that will lead to the classrooms and lecture halls. The classroom facility will have the same hours as the library resulting in additional space for students to study in the evening. When you enter the facility there will be a circulation desk. On the second floor of the library the space will be reconfigured to better meet current student’s wants and needs. They have been working with an outside consultant, Dr. Nancy Foster, who is an anthropologist who specializes in helping libraries understand the student and faculty population and how to turn those into premier library services. She reviewed the plans for the library and the Mell Classroom building (see link).
She also reviewed Offsite Library Archiving Facility(OLAF) that is located near the airport. The purpose is to provide offsite storage and to preserve volumes for projects such as the “scholars trust.” Libraries are promising to hang onto a certain amount of paper resources and store them in a secure offsite Library facility, so should anything happen to the electronic versions of those materials, or should a scholar ever need to look at the paper, they are readily available in the Research Library community to share. Many of the materials going out to the offsite library facility will be those materials that are used most often in electronic format but need to be hung on to and kept safe for future generations. The building is 16.900 square foot facility that will be filled with shelving. It will be accessible by a library courier service with office library delivery.
Vicky VanSanten, senator, Pathobiology: Asked whether they are archiving primarily books or journals? And for journals, whether the university will no longer get a paper copy. Also asked what happens if something happens to the electronic version given we don’t have backup paper copies of those.
Dean Bonnie MacEwan, Library: Responded that it will be a mix of materials, but more journals because they are available in electronic format. She confirmed that a lot of journals aren’t produced in paper copy and are only available electronically. The library participates in a number of projects, like LOCKSS, Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe, and if something happens we have multiple copies of the electronic information about the journal.
2. Proposals for the Mell Street Corridor, Presenter: Benjamin Burmester, Campus Planner
presentation
Dr. Boosinger commented on the Mell corridor. Reminded everyone that there has been an open forum on this topic and it was well attended. He extended his appreciation to those who came. He commented that he thinks it is important enough to the life of the campus if front of Mell and all the way down to Samford Avenue that these concepts and ideas be presented in multiple settings. He encouraged faculty to participate and ask questions. There will be at least one additional open forum in the fall.
Dan King commented that they would like feedback from the Senate on the future of Mell Street and what should happen after the construction project is finished. There’s been a trend at Auburn since about the early 2000s of increased pedestrianization of campus where the core of campus becomes more pedestrian friendly. It started with Thach Avenue becoming Thach Concourse in 2002–2003, followed with Roosevelt Drive which became the Roosevelt Concourse, that was the mid-2000s, Haley Concourse about 4 or 5 years ago. Mell Street is closed due to the construction of the Mell Classroom Building so the question is what should be done after the building is complete? Should we open it back up just like it was before the construction started or should we use this opportunity to close Mell Street and make it into more of a pedestrian concourse? There’s been no decision on this yet. There’s obviously some pros to it, once that classroom building is built. The Library was heavily utilized by students, and if we build a classroom building in front of it and it will be even more heavily utilized. So there will be a lot of student, and in general, pedestrian traffic across Mell to go into the facilities there. The cons are: it blocks another road and there are a limited number of north-south routes on campus.
Dan King introduced one of the engineers in Campus Planning, Benjamin Burmester.
Ben Burmester: With the Mell Classroom Building there is going to be a significant increase in students entering the Library which is already heavily used. It will have almost 70,000 sq. ft. added to it. The big picture is that it’s over 1,400 seats for students so at class change time you can visualize all those students coming in and exiting in that 5-minute window.
We started the project and brought on a consultant team: lead by a landscape architect firm, Holcombe Norton Partners, Inc.; a strong transportation component, Skipper Consulting with traffic analysis; Alta Planning, who’s a national bike and ped expert; and civil engineers, electrical engineers, and architects.
Construction of the Mell Classroom started in December and it’s going on until August 2017. Planning work has begun and an open forum was held in late February to get some initial input from campus. He reviewed the existing conditions before construction. A big driver in planning is the TigerTransit routes. Transit originally entered from Thach and traveled south down Mell Street and turned into the Roosevelt transit hub. That’s been changes with construction. Mell Street has been closed in front of the Library and has pushed pedestrian traffic to the west side of Mell and transit’s rerouted from Samford to a new transit hub on Roosevelt.
So the first option is Mell classroom is built, we open Mell Street back up. Maybe there’s some crosswalk improvements. From the original open forum this was the less desirable option from the general comments they got back from a pedestrian safety standpoint, doesn’t seem like the right decision. The next simplest option presented was closing directly in front of the Mell Classroom. There would be a couple of access points with Mary Martin and the Library service. The results of the open forum were pretty heavily in favor of some sort of closure. Went through a few other options and those options we are on the Web site.
If there is a closure in Mell some concepts of how transit would react permanently need developed. The 2 schemes we presented both involve intersection changes at Roosevelt and Mell. Possibly a roundabout at that intersection instead of it tying into Mell. The pros of this would be that it allows transit to enter into their transit hub from either off Mell or off Roosevelt. Cons is the pedestrian movement aren’t as good off the Roosevelt concourse.
A simpler scheme is just a skew in Roosevelt so transit would enter into the hub off Roosevelt. That is better from a pedestrian standpoint, but it does lock in transit. This opportunity is being used to look at the whole Mell Street corridor from Samford Ave. all the way to Ross Square, particularly the Samford and Mell intersection. It has the worst level of service congestion on campus for a 4-way-stop intersection. Proposed possibly putting a signal at the intersection. Positives from a pedestrian standpoint. The downside is that it is pretty close to the intersection with College and Samford and could create a little more back up from that intersection. Also if you are traveling down Samford from College and get a green light you could keep on rolling until you get to the Hill where there is a desire for cars to slow down because it gets into the pedestrian area of campus.
There is also a roundabout scheme. It has similar negatives in that pedestrians would have to go around the intersection. It’s positive in that roundabouts can handle a lot of traffic. From a traffic flow perspective there would be decreased delays. Negatives: a lot of people get confused in roundabouts. Statistics received favor the roundabout, but it was not overwhelmingly in favor.
The full open form presentation is online there. Contact information is on the slides.
Questions:
Laura Kloberg, Senate admin. support: Asked if there would be fire access in front of the Mell Street Classroom Building.
Benjamin Burmester, Campus Planner: There will always be fire access.
Bob Locy, senator, Biological Sciences: Currently where the busses park is a large distraction. Expressed concern over accommodating bus traffic and asked that it be done in a way that there are not traffic hazards being created because the current situation is not safe.
Benjamin Burmester, Campus Planner: Agreed with Bob Locy. The long term solution is not those busses stopping in Roosevelt.
David Lucsko, senator, History: Asked about the intersection of Roosevelt and College, will there be plans if busses go through that intersection regularly? Asked if they could you revisit that traffic light situation, because there is no arrow and it backs up as it is.
Benjamin Burmester, Campus Planner: The city has proposed a project on College Street that addresses Roosevelt. The transit folks aren’t comfortable using Roosevelt as their access to that hub unless there is a protective left turn. The city’s project could line up well and would provide a dedicated left turn lane and a left turn signal at that intersection.
Sara Wolf, senator, Steering: Asked about the parking implications of the new classroom building in front of the Library, because the Library Deck is not large and meets needs for the Library right now. However, we are going to have increased transportation needs for faculty that are teaching in that building, bringing in materials in and out of that building as well as the ever present need of students dropping their friends off for classes. Asked if that’s being worked into the general plan.
Benjamin Burmester, Campus Planner: The project now is not addressing parking. It will be interesting to see more parking demand changes of the Mell Classroom Building, since no offices are added in that facility will faculty members choose to park at the same place that they’ve always been parking or is there going to be a shift into the Library Deck or close by. That’s something that’ll have to be addressed in the master plan wise.
Spent a few days watching all the traffic issues on Roosevelt and trying to figure out what could be done to make them better. Saw almost half of the traffic was drop-offs. The hope is the planning project addresses these in some sort of way but there is not an answer right now.
3. Faculty Parking and the new AU Bikes program, Presenter: Don Andrae, Manager, Parking Services
presentation
Agree with some of the things about Mell Street. Currently parking services is taking a picture of the license plate of the vehicles that come in. When it comes up a student, they get an e-mail the next day saying they’ve got a ticket. We are trying to curtail student traffic. They wrote 4,300 tickets last month and most of them were Mell Street. They are trying to get students to be conscious of the fact that it’s not a place to go.
Currently A and B parking is from 7 to 5 Monday through Friday and after that space is available to any vehicle without a permit for other days and times. This has been a problem for faculty who come after hours to do research or teach a night class. There was a proposal by the Senate to the Traffic and Parking Committee to see what could be done to meet faculty needs. What parking services is going to do is monitor parking 7–10. They are going to put 10 spaces in the Lowder lot, 10 spaces behind Tichenor, 10 spaces in the Library deck, 10 spaces in Comer lot, 10 spaces in Upchurch, and 10 spaces in the new Chemistry Building and Swingle Hall area.
Also discussed the north parking deck that has been purchased. The plan is to move all the RWs up to the north park deck, which gives us 300 more spaces. There’s 920 spaces in that deck. So there will be more Village students in that deck which gets them closer to their residence hall. Then what was the RW will be PC4.
Currently, we have 33 As and 204 Bs in that area, and 314 PC3s, 650 Village residents, and what we are going to end up with is still 33 As, and 348 Bs. There will be 550 PC4s and 920 residents. This creates another 144 B zone spaces in addition we’ve leased 44 spaces in a lot behind Chick-fil-a and Dominos. The entrance is off of Genelda and hoping to expand to 100 spaces in July. Places have been lost on Wright Street. The 100 spaces on Wright Street are going away. Also going to take the 75 spaces in the front part of the Cambridge closest to College and change them to A zones.
The War Eagle Bike Share is in effect. The bikes have puncture proof tires, all aluminum frame, 3 gears, a light in the front, a light in the back, and a GPS in that this model. There are 10 hubs on campus. You check the bike out from one hub and return it to another hub, you don’t have to take it back to the same hub.
If you go to your app store you can download the app on your smart phone or go to it online. It requires credit card information because right now there is 2 hours free usage and anything over 2 hours you are charged $5 per hour. Also if you lock it up outside of a hub it’s $5 and if you lock it up outside the system it’s $50.
There is a hold option. This is available to faculty, staff, students, and even people that come on campus. It doesn’t matter who you are. There is no charge to become a member. There is one hub at the Student Center, one at Roosevelt Concourse, one at Terrell Dining and North Courtyard, Wellness Kitchen, Lowder by the Starbucks there, West Thach by Hemlock, Village Dining on Thach, Cambridge by College, South Quad Parking Deck, and the College of Veterinary Medicine by Greene Hall. The program was started on February 19, 2016. There are currently 1,400 members.
Any questions about the bike share or parking?
Queestions:
Sara Wolf, senator, Steering: A colleague over spring break took that person’s staff to try the bikes as well. What she reported was when they tried to do it all of the bikes at that particular hub except for one were in the under repair status. So how do we make sure that if there are 20 bikes at a hub and that all 20 bikes can be used?
Don Andrae, Manager, Parking Services: The app on the phone will show you how many bikes are available, and when you go to the app on the phone to see where to get a bike from it is going to show you how many bikes are available at that hub. We did have some problems, and we have a contract with the bike shop in town. They have to come out to fix problems with the bikes within 24 hours. They do come once a month and do maintenance on every one of the bikes to keep them operating. What he told me was; he’s had to go around to every one of the bikes and put the pieces back on the bikes that were missing during the break and got about every one of them done.
Tracy Witte, senator Psychology: Had a question about undergraduate parking on campus. Asked if there’s been any consideration why students who live on campus need to have their cars here? I wonder how that would affect the drop-offs if people couldn’t just hop in their car and drive their friend to class.
Don Andrae, Manager, Parking Services: We’ve looked at that and talked to them, but basically Housing said that that’s what the students want because of a safety factor. We don’t think it is because we have our Security Shuttle. If they are parking out in the West one lot out there, a Security Shuttle runs out there all the time, plus the fact that they can ride a bike out there too.
Spencer Durham, senator, Pharmacy Practice: The Pharmacy School primarily uses the Lowder and surrounding lots. Since we went from not having the hang tags any more we’ve noticed anecdotally a lot more parking problems. We have spaces outside of our building that patients are supposed to use who are coming into the clinic at the Pharmacy School and those have subsequently been used by non-patients because the parking has gotten so terrible. So I think opening up a lot of those will help. Second, since we removed the hang tags we’ve also noticed major problems with students in the Lowder lot, picking up and dropping off their friends. It’s gotten to the point where we can’t navigate through the parking lot because of all the students dropping off and picking up their friends. So, do you have any way to address that, or is there anything that can be done?
Don Andrae, Manager, Parking Services: Two things, raise the fine and tow. The problem was that the fine was $10. So now it’s been raised to $150.
Don Andrae, Manager, Parking Services: As far as the license plate recognition, we are trying to stay on top of it, the students come up with new ideas and think they’ve got us beat; we do go to those lots a lot and what we find is most of them are valid. We do find some violations but not as many as thought. The biggest problem we have is a husband and wife who work on campus. They both register a car, and they carpool. Then they let their son/daughter drive their other car; which technically is legal because they both registered. We have a lot of that going on. Part of the problem is that right now parking services doesn’t have the staff they need.
Bob Locy, senator, Biological Sciences: Commented that the wheeled vehicles moving across campus on pedestrian sidewalks are creating some real serious risky situations. Expressed concern about safety and the hazard of having bikes and other wheeled vehicles in pedestrian areas.
Don Andrae, Manager, Parking Services: Benjamin Burmester is the Chair of the Traffic and Parking Committee, there’s been a lot of discussion about doing dedicated bike lanes and to keep them where they need to go. Talked about doing a safety training class. Got a lot of education to do. The other problem we have of course is the State of Alabama does not require a person to wear a helmet.
Vicky Van Santeen, senator, Pathobiology: I just want to put in a word for separate bicycling and pedestrian facilities.
Don Andrae, Manager, Parking Services: We have a lot to learn but we do need to have some more bike lanes.
New Business: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair: None
Unfinished Business: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair: None
Adjournment: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair at 4:40 P.M.