Minutes of the Auburn University Senate Meeting
Tuesday, May 17, 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:
Bill Hardgrave, Dean, College of Business; Betty Lou Whitford, Dean, College of Education; Joseph Aistrup, Dean, College of Liberal Arts; Nicholas Giordano, Dean, COSAM; Chris Roberts, Dean, College of Engineering; Calvin Johnson, Dean, College of Veterinary Medicine; George Flowers, Dean, Graduate School

Ex-Officio:
Bonnie MacEwan, Dean of Libraries; Arthur Taylor, Staff Council Chair; Vic Walker, A&P Assembly Chair; Sara Wolf, Steering Committee; Kevin Yost, Steering Committee; Lisa Kensler, Steering Committee

Absent, sending substitute:
David Crumbley for Gregg Newschwander, Dean, School of Nursing

Absent, not sending substitute:
Bobby Woodard, VP Student Affairs; Timothy R. Boosinger, Provost; Jesse Westerhouse, SGA President; Tenchi Smith, GSC President; Emily Myers, Steering Committee

Senators, by Department:
Robert Cochran, Accountancy; Michelle Worosz, Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology; Paul Brown, ACES; Don Mulvaney, Animal Sciences; Dean Schwartz [2nd], Anatomy, Physiology & Pharmacology; Rebecca O’Neil-Dagg, Architecture; Barb Bondy, Art; Cliff Defee, Aviation Management & Logistics; Bob Locy [2nd], Biological Sciences; Mark Dougherty, Biosystems Engineering; Mark Taylor [2nd], Building Sciences; Allan E. David, Chemical Engineering; Doug Goodwin, Chemistry; Ed Youngblood, Communication and Journalism; Allison Plumb, Communication Disorders; David Umphress, Computer Science & Software Engineering; Melody Russell, Curriculum & Teaching; Jung Won Hur, Educational Foundations, Leadership & Technology; Hulya Kirkici, Electrical & Computer Engineering; Hilary Wyss, English; David Held, Entomology & Plant Pathology; Justin Benefield, Finance; Rusty Wright [2nd], Fisheries & Allied Aquaculture; Traci O’Brian, Foreign Lang & Literatures; Ming-kuo Lee, Geology & Geography; Brent Fox [2nd], Health Outcomes and Research Policy; Jerod Windham, Industrial Design; 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.; Vicky van Santen [2nd], Pathobiology; Michael Fogle, Physics; Cathleen Erwin, Political Science; Marilyn Cornish, Special Ed. Rehabilitation Counseling/School Psych; Jeffrey Wellborn, ROTC Air Force; Maj. Roshun Steele, ROTC Army; Captain, Paul Michael Esposito, ROTC Naval; Adrienne Wilson, Theatre

Absent, sending substitute:
Carol Warfield for Karla Teel, Consumer & Design Sciences; Michael Stern for Liliana Stern, Economics; Joe Pittman for Tom Smith, Human Development & Family Studies; Mark Schall for Sean Gallagher, Industrial and Systems Engineering; Amy Chitwood for Chippewa Thomas [2nd], Outreach; Wesley Lindsey for Spencer Durham, Pharmacy Practice; Emefa Monu for Tung-shi Huang, Poultry Science; Dan Svyantek for Tracy Witte, Psychology;

Absent, not sending substitute:
Anwar Ahmed, Aerospace Engineering; Cliff Lange [2nd], Civil Engineering; Beth Guertal, Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences; Latif Kalin, Forestry & Wildlife Science; David Lucsko, History; Amy Wright, Horticulture; John Quindry, Kinesiology; Matthew Hoch, Music; Muralikrishnan Dhanasekaran, Pharmacal Sciences; Eric Marcus, Philosophy; Kristina (Kriste) Shuler, Socio/Anthro/Social Work; Annette Smith [2nd], Veterinary Clinical Sciences

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. 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 47 represented. The minutes of the April 19th, 2016 Senate meeting were approved without modifications.

Remarks and Announcements

Office of the President, Jay Gogue, President
Reviewed a few items that closed out the legislative session from the state. State legislature ETF funds were 5.9 Billion last years and this year was 6.3 Billion. All four divisions of Auburn will receive about 255 Million from the state. Was about a 1% increase in O&M across the four lines that the university receives. Received about 5 Million for the aviation education center. Bills that died during the session included: the concealed carry bill, the ethics training bill and ban the box. The community colleges were not able to remove themselves from ACHE in terms of oversight.

There were a few bills unique to Auburn. Two were from the College of Forestry. One had to do with tick borne illness and the other was permit requirements for wild animals and bird eggs. And in the College of Liberal Arts there was an Applied Behavioral Analyst (ABA) board that was approved.

Nationally there are two things. First there is interest in public restrooms and AU will be in compliance with federal requirements are. The second is the fair labor standards act. They are changing the level or threshold at which an employee can be exempt to about 50k. So if you make less than 50K you will e an hourly employee.

The budget advisory board will meet to discuss the guidelines that will be presented to the Board of Trustees during the June board meeting. There will also be final approval of the Gavin Engineering and Research Lab renovation, Brown Hall, and the Leach Science Center addition. The Performing Arts construction managers is up for approval as well as the AU quad center renovation is up for project initiation. Moving the Poultry and Infectious Disease and Biocontainment research facility which involves moving the chicken houses from the research park to another location is also up for architect selection. Academically, there is a BS in Agricultural Science and from forestry a BS in Geospatial and Environmental Inframatics. There will also be some changes to the faculty personnel policy manual.

Office of the Provost, Tim Boosinger, Provost
The change to the faculty handbook is insuring that there is appropriate support and communication in cluster hire. The intent is to insure that the interdisciplinary component is respected as they move through the P&T process.

There are four searches going on that might be of interest to faculty. The Associate Provost for Inclusion and Diversity will be posted in the next few days with the goal of having candidates on campus in the Fall. The Vice President for Business and Finance is in the first round of interviews. It is ongoing and should have public interviews in next few weeks. The Chief Information Officer search is in the first round of interviews and is expected to have public interviews in June or July. The search for the Dean of the School of Pharmacy is in its initial stages.

Questions: None

University Senate Chair, Larry Teeter
Larry Teeter introduced the current and upcoming senate executive committee. He then introduced Bob Locy who serves as the parliamentarian. He then introduced the administrative assistant Laura Kloberg.

Action Items

1. Modification to the Course Withdrawal Policy

Presenter: Lisa Kensler, Chair, Academic Standards
revised Presentation
Course withdrawal proposal Jan. 2016 (pdf)
Proposed Course Withdrawal Summary (word)
The withdrawal policy was presented last month during the April meeting. She provided an overview of the proposed policy. Reviewed how the proposed policy would impact the summer semester given the concerns that were raised at the previous Senate meeting. During the summer semester the last date to withdraw would be about 72% into the summer term.

Questions:
Michael Stern, Substitute Senator, Economics. Asked about whether the early alert deadline would move in accordance with this policy. Suggested that the early alert policy also be adjusted to give faculty more time to submit games.

Lisa Kensler: No there will be no change to the early alert date. The two policies were not linked in the proposal.

Robin Jaffe, Theatre: Suggested that there is a math error in the proposed days for summer withdrawal. Proposed an amendment to the numbers -  from 56th day to the 52nd day during the full summer semester.

Lisa Kensler called for a second for the amendment and it received a second from the floor. Larry Teeter called for an oral vote for the amendment. The amendment passed.

Herbert Jack Rotfeld, not a senator, Marketing: Asked whether the policy will have more students finishing on time? He thinks it will result in more students finishing late because they will drop out more. He also expressed that he thinks there will be more withdrawals. He also asked why they are providing so much time and thinks expressed that the data provided is misleading. Requested a senator propose an amendment to make the policy a fixed number of weeks past mid-term. Specifically, one week past mid-term.

Lisa Kensler: Said it gives faculty more time to enter grades so students can make a more informed decision. A fixed number of weeks past midterm was not chosen to provide the calendar committee greater ease with setting the calendar

Constance Relihan, not a senator: Stated that the rationale was for students to have a clear idea of when the last drop date would be. She explained that putting it terms of X date in the semester is confusing to students and advisors, but if you say the last business day prior to the start of registration, that’s something  easier for students to remember.
Larry Teeter called for vote: The motion passed with 57 votes and 77% in favor of the policy on the modification to the Course Withdrawal Policy.

2. Copyright Part 2 – A campus policy on the ‘fair use’ of copyrighted materials
Presenters: Sara Wolf, Bruce Kuerten, Jan Thornton
Presentation
final draft of Policy on Use of Copyrighted Materials
Reviewed a language change recently made to the copyright policy. Specifically she went over language associated with how copyright material on non-university owned servers will be handled. An individual has been hired to start building the educational website on copyright. Andy Whorley will be the contact at the library for copyright questions.

Questions: None
Larry Teeter called for a vote: The policy passed with 62 votes and 92% in favor of the policy on use of copyright materials.

3. A proposed policy authorizing lecturer class faculty to teach graduate courses and serve on graduate student committees
Presenter: James Witte
Presentation
word file of proposed policy
Reviewed the proposed policy authorizing lecturer class faculty to serve on graduate committees and teaching graduate classes. The policy was developed to give lecturer faculty the opportunity to grow, provide their expertise, and develop their vita with protections in place to prevent over usage or coercion. Teaching, is on a semester by semester basis, one course and one course only. Committee service is approved for a single committee. The number of people affected will probably be low.

Questions:
James Goldstein, Chair-elect of the senate: Reminded everyone that when a previous Provost requested at the Senate this lecture series it was specifically for undergraduate teaching. The problem with the proposal is that it is put in terms of helping lecturers make themselves more attractive to be hired elsewhere, which is not looking at the interests of the institution. When asked to approve this it was on behalf of the interest of the institution. Also stated that it’s hard to see how a graduate program would be improved by becoming reliant on non-tenure track faculty to participate in it. If there aren’t enough people to staff thesis committees then that would be a good argument that there needs to be a new tenure track hire.

Finally, he expressed concern that the policy does increase the possibility of gradually eroding the tenure track lines. In the new budget model it is going to be even more tempting to staff programs on the cheap.

James Witte: Acknowledged James Goldstein’s view. He thinks we have moved on from the time of the original introduction. He doesn’t see a reliance on lecturer who are participating at the graduate level. The restrictions are too high. Stated that there is not a reliance on the lecturer at the graduate level and we have an obligation to develop our faculty.

Robin Jaffe, Theatre: Asked why we are doing this at this point? The lecturer position was created to ensure that the graduate level faculty can teach graduate level courses and lecturers can take up the slack of teaching the undergraduate level courses. If the lecturer is teaching the graduate courses, then who is teaching the undergraduate level courses?

Stated that we give them a job and the teaching experience. The idea is that we hire them specifically to teach classes so that the graduate faculty can do the other things that are necessary. And by taking the lecturer out of the job that we hired them for we are crippling the other thing.

James Witte: First, we don’t give lecturers jobs, we hire people because they are fulfilling a need that we have. Second, many people are hired at a given university because that’s where the vacancy is.
Barbara Brumbaugh, English, Chair NTF Committee: Expressed that the Non-tenure Track Committee approved the policy by only a 6 to 4 vote and reviewed the reasons why members voted against it and which aspects of the policy she could support.

One main reason committee members voted against it was the removal of the stipulation that “Repeated teaching of the same graduate course would not be permitted nor would service on multiple committees in a given year.” Since the proposal no longer stipulates that a lecturer cannot teach the same course regularly, having lecturers teach graduate classes could move from being a rare exception to the accepted practice and diminish the need for tenure line faculty members and introduce the erosion of tenure. Also stated that it doesn’t seem in the best interest of graduate students to have classes taught by faculty members with 4/4 teaching loads and service obligations and no tenure.

She also stated that the survey sent to lecturers in March seemed designed to get the results it did. It included no space for comments or qualifications. The survey was only sent to lecturers and this issue affects groups other than lecturers, so the decision should not be based on survey results from only one group.

Stated that if the policy were amended so that lecturers could teach graduate courses only when the department in question was actively hiring for someone to teach in the future or when someone was on leave she could support the proposal. If anyone agreed I wanted to offer an amendment.

James Witte: Responded that the key element in the current policy is that the department would vote.

Ashley Curtis, not a senator, Chemistry: Was previously an instructor who was able to teach graduate classes and is now a lecturer. In his current job title he does not have this privilege or option. Expressed that if you take the power to decide from each individual department, you are really crippling their ability to make decisions that are best for their own departments. For that reason, he would urge the senate members to vote in favor of the proposal. Also spointed out that some lecturers may have unique skills or knowledge that they can pass on to students and why would we want to take that opportunity away from students.

Michael stern, substitute senator, Economics: Under existing policy we can petition for a lecturer at one of our peer institutions to be on someone’s committee if they had appropriate knowledge relative to that dissertation. Likewise, we can hire as an adjunct faculty member a lecturer at another institution with the same qualifications as they do here to teach a graduate class. Questioned why a lecturer at Auburn should be treated inferior to lecturers at peer institutions with respect to this university’s policy.

If we believe that lecturers should not be teaching graduate classes, then it should be banned across the board. Stated that he doesn’t understand the discrimination against Auburn lecturers and nobody else, including other university lecturers. The principle threat to tenure track positions over time at universities is principally the expansion of expenditures on the administrative bureaucracy. If we are really after maximizing the tenure track line we need to reduce the number of people that don’t teach, reduce the number of administrators and reduce the amount that we pay them.

Hilary Wyss, senator, English: There’s a basic ethics to this. Lecturers are hired for a 4/4 teaching load. They teach 100%. So we are asking them to maintain a research profile on their own time so that they are qualified to teach graduate classes, which functionally is the university asking them to do their research for free and then apply it for the benefit of this institution. It’s unethical and it’s inappropriate. Graduate faculty status applies a level of research. We are asking lecturers to do research on their own time.

James Witte: The graduate course would not be an overload, meaning that if they are teaching 4 classes normally, they would then have 3 undergraduate and one graduate class. The proposal is not asking anyone to apply for a graduate faculty status. If you are a lecturer and you choose to apply with all the ramifications you are addressing, then they should have a process by which they can do that. That’s ethical and fair to everyone, but to have a policy that simply states, “you cannot do this” is restrictive.

George Flowers: Pointed out that the last point in the proposal points out that the departments can provide the appropriate relief. He disagrees that they are asking for the lecturers to do something unethical.
Michael Stern: Asked if it is policy for a lecturer teach a 4/4. Whether there is a policy on what the work load has to be?

James Witte: Not that he is aware of
Larry Teeter called for a vote. The policy passed with 60 votes (34-26) and 57% in favor of the policy.

4. Handbook revisions re: Cluster Hires
Presenter: James Goldstein, Chair, Faculty Handbook Review Committee
Handbook revisions (word)
The changes and new language to the handbook were reviewed. It includes provisions for the new cluster hires during the promotion and tenure process.
Questions: None
Larry Teeter called for a vote: the handbook changes passed with 55 votes and 95% in favor of the changes.

5. Approval of nominees for Senate Committees for academic year 2016-17
Presenter: Laura Plexico
list of nominees (word)
A slate of nominees for the University Senate Committees was presented to the Senate. There was no discussion and a vote was called. The slate of names passed with 54 votes and 98 % in favor of the slate of names.

Information Items

1. Competency Based Education

Presenter: Lisa Kensler, Chair, Academic Standards Committee
Overview
Reference List (word)
Presentation (ppt)
Lisa invited those interested in Competency Based Education (CBE) to join an ad hoc committee on CBE. Shandra Bowers reviewed what CBE is and why other institutions are doing it (see PPT link). CBE programs allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and their skills. It is focused on their competencies, their mastery of their knowledge and skills and the ability to integrate those into authentic real world types of challenges. It is a program that is not tethered to clock hours or the credit hour and is not necessarily tethered to a course curriculum. It is focused on what the students know and are able to do. CBE is driven by pressures for access to education, post-secondary education, or the changing student population in higher ed. CBE is adaptable, flexibile, and affordable for the students so it increases completion rates.
Questions:
Drew Clark, OIRA: CBE programing of any kind at Auburn would represent a substantive change in the scope of our accreditation. There are internal procedures units need to follow when they are contemplating a substantive change. It is safest to contact Drew early in the process and not get all the way to a full proposal to make sure that it’s got preliminary approval to go forward.

2. Mission of the Cooperative Extension System

Presenter: Paul Brown
ACES Overview
Discussed division 4 of the University which represents cooperative extension. Reviewed the core values that define what extension is: research-based, forming relationships and the development of relevant programming. Reviewed the basis for scholarship and outcomes of extension. Also reviewed the focus of extension efforts. See link above for more in depth information.
Questions: None

New Business: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair
Unfinished Business: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair
None
Adjournment: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair at 4:59 P.M.