Minutes of the Auburn University Senate Meeting
Tuesday, Sept 22, 2015
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; Patricia Duffy, Immediate-Past Chair
Administration: Bill Hardgrave, Dean, College of Business; Betty Lou Whitford, Dean, College of Education; Gregg Newschwander, Dean, School of Nursing
Ex-Officio: Timothy R. Boosinger, Provost; 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
Absent, sending substitute: Emmett Winn for Bobby Woodard, VP Student Affairs; Charles Israel for Joseph Aistrup, Dean, College of Liberal Arts; Steve Duke for Chris Roberts, Dean, College of Engineering; Andrew Wohrley for Bonnie MacEwan, Dean of Libraries
Absent, not sending substitute: Xing Ping Hu, Secretary-Elect; Nicholas Giordano, Dean, COSAM; Calvin Johnson, Dean, College of Veterinary Medicine; George Flowers, Dean, Graduate School; Walker Byrd, SGA President; India Napier, GSC President
Senators, by Department:
Robert Cochran, Accountancy; Anwar Ahmed, Aerospace Engineering; Michelle Worosz, Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology; Paul Brown, ACES; Don Mulvaney, Animal Sciences; Dean Schwartz [2nd], Anatomy, Physiology & Pharmacology; Barb Bondy, Art; Cliff Defee, Aviation Management & Logistics; Bob Locy [2nd], Biological Sciences; Allan E. David, Chemical Engineering; Cliff Lange [2nd], Civil Engineering; Ed Youngblood, Communication and Journalism; Allison Plumb, Communication Disorders; David Umphress, Computer Science & Software Engineering; Beth Guertal, Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences; Melody Russell, Curriculum & Teaching; Liliana Stern, Economics; Jung Won Hur, Educational Foundations, Leadership & Technology; Hulya Kirkici, Electrical & Computer Engineering; Hilary Wyss, English; David Held, Entomology & Plant Pathology; Rusty Wright [2nd], Fisheries & Allied Aquaculture; Traci O’Brian, Foreign Lang & Literatures; David Lucsko, History; Sean Gallagher, Industrial and Systems Engineering; John Quindry, Kinesiology; Gregg Schmidt, Library; Peter Stanwick [2nd], Management; James Carver, Marketing; Dmitry Glotov [2nd], Mathematics and Statistics; Kevin Huggins, Nutrition, Dietetics, & Hospitality Mgmt.; Vicky van Santen [2nd], Pathobiology; Muralikrishnan Dhanasekaran, Pharmacal Sciences; Spencer Durham, Pharmacy Practice; Eric Marcus, Philosophy; Michael Fogle, Physics; Cathleen Erwin, Political Science; Tung-shi Huang, Poultry Science; Tracy Witte, Psychology; Marilyn Cornish, Special Ed. Rehabilitation Counseling/School Psych; Jeffrey Wellborn, ROTC Air Force; Captain, Paul Michael Esposito, ROTC Naval; Adrienne Wilson, Theatre; Annette Smith [2nd], Veterinary Clinical Sciences
Absent, sending substitute: Christian Dagg for Rebecca O’Neil-Dagg, Architecture; Carlton R. Lay for Jerod Windham, Industrial Design; Anne S. Duraski for Matthew Hoch, Music; Walter N. Austin for Scott Copeland, Lieutenant Colonel, ROTC Army; Emily Myers for Kristina (Kriste) Shuler, Socio/Anthro/Social Work
Absent, not sending substitute: Mark Dougherty, Biosystems Engineering; Mark Taylor [2nd], Building Sciences; Doug Goodwin, Chemistry; Karla Teel, Consumer & Design Sciences; Jung Park, Finance; Latif Kalin, Forestry & Wildlife Science; Ming-kuo Lee, Geology & Geography; Brent Fox [2nd], Health Outcomes and Research Policy; Amy Wright, Horticulture; Tom Smith, Human Development & Family Studies; Daniel Mackowski, Mechanical Engineering: David Crumbley, Nursing; Chippewa Thomas [2nd], Outreach
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, get a clicker, and reviewed the rules for speaking into the microphone. 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 56 represented.
The minutes of the August 25th, 2015 Senate meeting were approved without modifications.
Remarks and Announcements
Office of the President, Jay Gogue, President
The general fund budget was approved at $166 million. They added 25cents to cigarettes to generate 66 million dollars of the 166. They put a tax on prescription drugs for 8-10 million. They put a hidden tax on nursing homes that will generate 10 million. The big issue was the use tax took a percentage of that out of the education trust fund. It was about 80 million dollars. Not clear if that was a onetime allocation or if it is ongoing.
The Board of Trustees meets this Friday. There are 16-17 facility or property related items on the agenda. There are 3 or 4 that deal with the sale of timber within the College of Forestry and College of Agriculture. There is a road project that deals with Mell Street. They are looking at changing the entry point on Thach into Mell Street to reduce the number of cars through there for pedestrian usage. They are also looking at round about on Samford and Mell Street to move traffic a little better. There is an infrastructure project that is in health science area. Two buildings that have been approved. One is the College of Nursing and the other is the Pharmaceutical Research building. The Library has a project to build a warehouse to reduce the number of holdings and to allow more space for students. There is an addition to the Leach Science Center that will allow the physics faculty to be relocated to that site while Parker-Allison is taken down for the second phase of the classroom facility. On the Engineering side is the Engineering Enhancement Center, which they received private money for. That will cause removal of the L building and the shop buildings to allow the Engineering Enhancement Center to go in its place. A private gift will allow the removal of poultry buildings out on South College and to be moved to a different location on North College. There is an academic proposal from the Business School for a graduate certificate in data analytics. There is also a modification in the College of Veterinary Medicine for a Federal code that changes it from Veterinary Medicine to Biomedical Science. The University budget will also be approved at the board meeting. In terms of salary increases there is a 3 percent permanent salary increase on average and a 2 percent one time increase on average in the December time frame. There is about a 40 million dollar increase in budget from the previous year.
The president then discussed an article on student debt, regarding the amount of debt students have when they graduate. It listed schools with high student debt. The top debt schools were the University of Phoenix, Walden University, Nova Southeastern University, and DeVry University. All for profit institutions. The highest debt load for public and private schools include New York University, Liberty University, University of Southern California, Penn State, Arizona, Ohio State, and Temple. We often hear about debt loads. The top ten public and private schools, collectively, have less debt collectively than the University of Phoenix.
Office of Provost, Tim Boosinger, Provost
The senate was provided with an update on the strategic plan. We are into the third year of the five year strategic plan. Metrics for student success were reviewed. The goal for 4 year graduation rate was to increase that number to 50% and it has increased from 47% to currently 49%. There is also an increase in the 6 year graduation rate from 68% to 73% with a goal of 78%. Our ACT scores are up to 27.3 for freshman. Out of state enrollment is at 41%. International student goal for undergraduate enrollment is on track. There is also some publicity on the exploratory advising center. Outreach and extension is making significant progress and more details will be reported on that later.
We need to make continued progress on increasing student and faculty diversity, a more clearly defined plan on spousal partner hiring, and continue to try and increase the research profile and research enterprise at Auburn University. The cluster hiring initiative should boost the research initiative.
Questions:
Michael Stern, Economics: Asked the provost about an article from February of this year that appeared in the Charlotte Observer. In that article is a disparaging quote from the previous Chancellor of North Carolina. After reading the excerpt from the article, Michael asked for the Provost’s reaction to the Chancellor’s comments.
Tim Bossinger, Provost, replied that he would argue that it was an inappropriate analogy and stated that Auburn enjoys a very good reputation for its academic programs and the integrity of those programs.
University Senate Chair, Larry Teeter
Larry Teeter first introduced the current and upcoming senate executive committee. He then introduced Bob Locy who serves as the parliamentarian for the meeting. Following that he introduced the administrative assistant Laura Kloberg who assists with all senate meetings and makes sure the business of the senate is conducted as smoothly as possible.
Questions: None
Action Items
1. Vote for new members of select Senate committees; Presenter: Laura Plexico, Senate Secretary
The first item up for vote was a vote for new members of select Senate committees. There was no discussion and Laura Plexico called for a vote. The policy was passed with 62 votes and 97% in favor of the slate of candidates.
Questions: None
2. Policy on Creation of Copyright Materials; Presenter Sara Wolf, Bruce Kuerten, Jan Thornton
Sara Wolf reviewed the rationale for the review of the current policy. She stated that the current policy was last updated in 1984 and is out of date. It was also revised to fall in compliance with Federal Law. The policy is being revised and divided into two separate documents. This first policy covers the creation of copyright materials. Another policy will cover the use of copyright materials and will be presented at a later Senate meeting.
Questions:
Rusty Wright, Fisheries: Asked for clarification on whether there are no gains or benefits for Auburn for copyright materials as opposed to patents.
Sara Wolf responded that historically the University has not been interested in benefiting from scholarly work. If there is extra support from the University for the Completed Work then copyright might be shared by the University.
Rusty Wright then asked about copyright of software.
Jan Thornton indicated that if you had funding from a sponsor then it is owned by the University. And then an agreement has to be made on how the revenue should be distributed.
Sara Wolf then indicated that the policy emphasizes the need for the creator and University to have conversations early so nobody at the end is unclear about the outcomes.
Following discussion, the policy was moved to a vote: The motion passed with 60 members of the Senate voting. The vote was 98% in favor of the policy and 2 percent opposed.
Information Item
Female Faculty Members at Auburn University ; Presenter: Beth Guertal, Chair, Commission on Women in Academic Careers
Beth Guertal delivered a presentation on female faculty satisfaction at Auburn University. Due to results derived from the COACHE survey, a committee was created to explore why female faculty are less satisfied and what barriers are contributing to the decreased satisfaction of females when compared to male faculty. Specifically, five key areas for improvement were identified: Departmental collegiality, the nature of work and service, the nature of work and teaching, personal and family benefits and promotion. Statistically females are less satisfied than males across these areas.
The committee explored available COACHE data and conducted focus groups. They evaluated time differences for promotion to Associate or Full Professor. Overall, it was found that the mean values for assistant to associate were exactly the same for males and females. They are also similar for associate to full. The problem is that the distributions are skewed. Looking at the medians revealed significant differences for promotion from associate to full. When looking at 10 year blocks from 1963 to 2003, differences are not observed in the last 20 years.
The committee also did an odds analysis to look at the odds of a female faculty who has been associate for more than 10 years getting promoted. There was a greater odd that the male would not get promoted. Data does not evaluate effort or leakage. To get a better handle on the data focus groups were held. Eighteen percent of female faculty participated in the focus groups.
The focus groups revealed that female faculty feel they are being asked to teach more undergraduate courses and to serve on more committees. They also have concern over work flexibility and have concerns over lack of available child care, lack of spousal hiring and over pay differences. They also found interest in mentoring and indications that there is not understanding of the promotion process. There were also concerns over there being a “good ole boy” network and sexist comments.
Some recommendations from the committee include looking at leakage data, evaluating teaching loads, evaluating the spousal hiring policy, and performance of a salary data analysis.
Questions: None
New Business: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair
None
Unfinished Business: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair
None
Adjournment: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair at 4:15 P.M.