Minutes of the Auburn University Senate Meeting
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
238 Broun Hall Auditorium
3:30 P.M.
Attendance
Officers: Larry Teeter, Chair; James Goldstein, Chair-Elect; Laura Plexico, Secretary; Xing Ping Hu, Secretary-Elect; Patricia Duffy, Immediate-Past Chair
Administration: Betty Lou Whitford, Dean, College of Education; Gregg Newschwander, Dean, School of Nursing; Nicholas Giordano, Dean, COSAM; 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; Kevin Yost, Steering Committee
Absent, sending substitute: Emmett Winn for Bobby Woodard, VP Student Affairs; Charles Israel for Joseph Aistrup, Dean, College of Liberal Arts
Absent, not sending substitute: Bill Hardgrave, Dean, College of Business; Chris Roberts, Dean, College of Engineering; George Flowers, Dean, Graduate School; Timothy R. Boosinger, Provost; Jesse Westerhouse, SGA President; Burcu Ozden, GSC President; Emily Myers, Steering Committee; Lisa Kensler, Steering Committee
Senators, by Department: 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; Mark Dougherty, Biosystems Engineering; Mark Taylor [2nd], Building Sciences; Allan E. David, Chemical Engineering; Doug Goodwin, Chemistry; Beth Guertal, Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences; Melody Russell, Curriculum & Teaching; David Held, Entomology & Plant Pathology; Justin Benefield, Finance; Rusty Wright [2nd], Fisheries & Allied Aquaculture; Latif Kalin, Forestry & Wildlife Science; Brent Fox [2nd], Health Outcomes and Research Policy; Gregg Schmidt, Library; Peter Stanwick [2nd], Management; Dmitry Glotov [2nd], Mathematics and Statistics; Daniel Mackowski, Mechanical Engineering; Matthew Hoch, Music; David Crumbley, Nursing; Kevin Huggins, Nutrition, Dietetics, & Hospitality Mgmt.; Cathleen Erwin, Political Science; Tung-shi Huang, Poultry Science; Tracy Witte, Psychology; Marilyn Cornish, Special Ed. Rehabilitation Counseling/School Psych; Jeff Welborn, ROTC Air Force; Kristina (Kriste) Shuler, Socio/Anthro/Social Work; Adrienne Wilson, Theatre; Annette Smith [2nd], Veterinary Clinical Sciences
Absent, sending substitute: Carol Warfield for Karla Teel, Consumer & Design Sciences; Michael Stern for Liliana Stern, Economics; James Ryan for Hilary Wyss, English; Pedro Cebollero for Traci O’Brian, Foreign Lang & Literatures; W.M. Malezyck for David Lucsko, History; Mark Schall for Sean Gallagher, Industrial and Systems Engineering; Amy Chitwood for Chippewa Thomas [2nd], Outreach; Pete Christopherson for Vicky van Santen [2nd], Pathobiology; Dora Bock for James Carver, Marketing;
Absent, not sending substitute: Robert Cochran, Accountancy; Anwar Ahmed, Aerospace Engineering; Cliff Defee, Aviation Management & Logistics; Bob Locy [2nd], Biological Sciences; Cliff Lange [2nd], Civil Engineering; Ed Youngblood, Communication and Journalism; Allison Plumb, Communication Disorders; David Umphress, Computer Science & Software Engineering; Jung Won Hur, Educational Foundations, Leadership & Technology; Hulya Kirkici, Electrical & Computer Engineering; Ming-kuo Lee, Geology & Geography; Amy Wright, Horticulture; Tom Smith, Human Development & Family Studies; Jerod Windham, Industrial Design; John Quindry, Kinesiology; Spencer Durham, Pharmacy Practice; Eric Marcus, Philosophy; Michael Fogle, Physics; Major Roshun Steele, Lieutenant Colonel, ROTC Army; Captain, Paul Michael Esposito, ROTC Naval
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 44 represented. The minutes of the May 17th, 2016 Senate meeting were approved without modifications.
Remarks and Announcements
Office of the President, Jay Gogue, President
There was a Board of Trustees meeting last week. All items on the agenda shared at the previous Senate meeting were approved. Mike Demaribus was selected as the Vice Pro-tem. They also approved budget guidelines that will be presented to them in the Board meeting in September. For permanent salary increases, the Board looked at a range from 0 to 6% based on merit, and for one-time funds 2% provided university wide with an opportunity in the colleges for there to be adjustments or additions to that depending on their budgets.
Third thing mentioned was the change in the numbers from hourly employees to exempt employees. There are about 600 employees affected by that change and they are working through it to make sure that the impacts are as minimal as possible to our employees.
Next he discussed how the House of Representatives member was found guilty on a number of ethics charges, so the new tentative speaker of the House is Victor Gaston. For our House seat, locally the governor will call for a special election. He ended by thanking Dr. Patricia Duffy and Larry Teeter for their efforts.
Questions:
Michael Stern, Economics, substitute senator: Because AU has a building named after Mike Hubbard, what will happen with that, do we have a process, and is there a policy in regard to building name changes and so forth.
Dr. Gogue, President: It will go to the Board of Trustees and I can assure you that we will do what’s best for Auburn.
University Senate Chair, Larry Teeter
Larry Teeter first introduced the current and upcoming senate executive committee. 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.
Following, Larry made remarks about his time as chair and the year’s accomplishments. He concluded his presentation by thanking the Executive committee.
presentation ppt
Action Items
The first item up for vote was a vote for a slate of new members to Senate committees. There was no discussion and Laura Plexico called for a vote. The motion was passed with 51 votes and 100% in favor of the candidates.
Questions: None
Information Items
1. Report from Core Curriculum and General Education Committee
Presenter: Constance Relihan, Chair, Core Curriculum and General Education Committee
Constance reviewed the charge and membership of the Core Curriculum General Education Committee (CCGE). Following she reviewed the activities of the CCGE. In terms of assessment they have gathered three years of data. Conducted 10 focus groups, facilitated by Dr. Megan Good, director of academic assessment, to determine what was working well and was not working well. From those sessions it was determined that there is some variation in awareness of Core SLOs. There is a lack of confidence in the data gathered and the data’s ability to help faculty improve their instruction. There was also frustration over the time it takes to assess the general education activities. CCGE decided to pilot an instrument that will assess student competency in their final semester prior to graduating. An internal ad hoc group was formed to work on the pilot assessment initiative. The other focus of the committee’s work was the review of courses. She closed with reviewing anticipated activities for the upcoming year.
presentation (ppt)
Questions: None
2. Report from the Teaching Effectiveness Committee
Presenter: Don Mulvaney, Chair, Teaching Effectiveness Committee
The purpose of TEC and its membership were reviewed. He reviewed ongoing work. The first charge is to evaluate whether the current approach to the evaluation of teaching serves us well. Reviewed current approach and some of its flaws. Challenges associated with current student participation rates, the questions in the evaluation, and how the evaluations are used for merit were discussed. TEC is working on pilot questions to replace the current global questions, mid-term feedback programs, and peer review processes. Then he reviewed work associated with teaching, research and travel grants.
After reviewing the activities for the year he proposed a resolution to modify the membership of the TEC. The resolution is proposing the addition of the Director of Assessment as an ex-officio member. The resolution will come back to the senate for consideration in the fall.
presentation (ppt)
Resolution to modify TEC membership (word)
Questions: None
New Business: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair
David Held, senator, Entomology and Plant Pathology: Read a letter regarding the unfair levying of the full benefit rate, currently at 32% on campus, on summer salary used by 9 month faculty. According to HR Benefits, faculty with a 9-month appointment paid bi-monthly are paying their benefits basically in 18 installments. Faculty on a 9-month appointment that choose to supplement their salary over summer are also funding that salary through grants, contracts, etc., and within the context of those budgets are bringing in an additional 32% full fringe rate when we write those budgets for grants.
During the summer when 9-month faculty use those fringe benefits it’s roughly about 10% that go toward retirement contributions with none of the remaining approximately 22% of that fringe coming back to the faculty or the department. Made a motion to have an existing committee look into the matter or form an ad hoc committee.
There was a second from the floor.
Michael Stern, Economics: Benefit rates are based on average cost pricing. This indicates that the rate for 9-month could increase.
Rusty Wright, senator, Fisheries: Asked for clarification on the resolution.
Larry Teeter, Chair: Larry Teeter called for a vote and the motion passed with 48 votes and 87% in favor of the motion to refer this to a committee for further review.
He then passed the gavel to James Goldstein who closed out the meeting.
Unfinished Business: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair
Adjournment: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair
Meeting adjourned 4:30