Minutes of the Auburn University Senate Meeting
Tuesday, November 17, 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; Xing Ping Hu, Secretary-Elect; Patricia Duffy, Immediate-Past Chair
Administration:
Bill Hardgrave, Dean, College of Business; Betty Lou Whitford, Dean, College of Education; Chris Roberts, Dean, College of Engineering; George Flowers, Dean, Graduate School
Ex-Officio
Timothy R. Boosinger, Provost ; Bonnie MacEwan, Dean of Libraries; Walker Byrd, SGA President
India Napier, GSC President; 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; Francine Parker for Gregg Newschwander, Dean, School of Nursing; Charles Israel for Joseph Aistrup, Dean, College of Liberal Arts
Absent, not sending substitute:
Nicholas Giordano, Dean, COSAM; Calvin Johnson, Dean, College of Veterinary Medicine
Senators, by Department:
Anwar Ahmed, Aerospace Engineering; Michelle Worosz, Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology; Don Mulvaney, Animal Sciences; 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; 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; Hilary Wyss, English; David Held, Entomology & Plant Pathology; 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; David Lucsko, History; Amy Wright, Horticulture; Jerod Windham, Industrial Design; John Quindry, Kinesiology; Gregg Schmidt, Library; Peter Stanwick [2nd], Management; James Carver, Marketing; Dmitry Glotov [2nd], Mathematics and Statistics; Matthew Hoch, Music; David Crumbley, Nursing; Kevin Huggins, Nutrition, Dietetics, & Hospitality Mgmt.; Vicky van Santen [2nd], Pathobiology; Spencer Durham, Pharmacy Practice; Cathleen Erwin, Political Science; Tung-shi Huang, Poultry Science; Daniel Svyantek [Tracy Witte], Psychology; Marilyn Cornish, Special Ed. Rehabilitation Counseling/School Psych; Kristina (Kriste) Shuler, Socio/Anthro/Social Work; Adrienne Wilson, Theatre
Absent, sending substitute:
Jennifer Mueller for Robert Cochran, Accountancy; Christian Dagg for Rebecca O’Neil-Dagg, Architecture
Absent, not sending substitute:
Paul Brown, ACES; Dean Schwartz [2nd], Anatomy, Physiology & Pharmacology; Cliff Lange [2nd], Civil Engineering; Ed Youngblood, Communication and Journalism; Karla Teel, Consumer & Design Sciences; Beth Guertal, Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences; Jung Park, Finance; Latif Kalin, Forestry & Wildlife Science; Tom Smith, Human Development & Family Studies; Sean Gallagher, Industrial and Systems Engineering; Daniel Mackowski, Mechanical Engineering; Chippewa Thomas [2nd], Outreach; Muralikrishnan Dhanasekaran, Pharmacal Sciences; Eric Marcus, Philosophy; Michael Fogle, Physics; Jeffrey Hemmes, ROTC Air Force; Scott Copeland, Lieutenant Colonel, ROTC Army; Captain, Paul Michael Esposito, ROTC Naval; 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. 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 49 represented. The minutes of the October 20th, 2015 Senate meeting were approved without modifications.
Remarks and Announcements
Office of the President, Jay Gogue, President
Reviewed items that will be addressed at the Board of Trustees (BOT) meeting Friday. The BOT will approve projects dealing with health science corridor, School of Nursing Building, Pharmacy Research Building, Auburn University Memorial area, and athletics volley ball arena space. There are two new projects on the agenda for initiation: research buildings that would incorporate individuals from COSAM, geosciences and Funchess. On the academic side, there is a BS in biotechnology out of College of Agriculture, a Bachelor’s of Computer Science out of College of Engineering, and an online baccalaureate degree option out of School of Nursing. The BOT will revisit policies relative to the audit committee.
Discussed a question regarding give back by athletics to the academic side of the institution. Historically the reduction in ticket prices was the give back, but with the change in ticket prices that is being revisited.
Dr. Gogue also announced that Auburn won the Innovation and Economic Prosperity Award.
Questions:
Bob Locy, senator, Biological Sciences; commented that in discussions with athletics about athletics giving back to academics, there is inconvenience caused by home football weekends and athletic events, particularly related to parking.
Michael stern, Economics: Asked about raises in athletics. Asked about 2014 raises for Gary Waters that was 13%. Well above 8% and asked if there was a memo for Gary Waters. For 2015, he asked about the top three raises: Dr. Gogue, Adam Spurlin, and Jay Jacobs.
Don Large, Executive Vice President, Stated he checked on the raise for Gary Waters. He got a 8% raise and the remaining 5% was a car allowance.
Dr Gogue, President, confirmed approval for remaining raises.
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.
Questions: None
Action Items
Policy on Undergraduate Certificates; Presenter: Lisa Kensler, Chair, Academic Standards Committee
Lisa Kensler reviewed the proposed policy on Undergraduate Certificates presented at the October 20, 2015, Senate meeting.
Link to policy on Undergrad Certificates]
Questions:
Charles Israel, substitute senator, College of Liberal Arts: Asked about the certificates relationship to minors and majors. After a review he commented that it appeared that the difference is it requires fewer courses and it allows a course to double count towards a minor and a certificate. Asked whether there would be a max number of courses that can double count towards a certificate? Is it different from a minor? Residency requirements for a student completing a certificate? Will it be tracked through Degree Works?
Lisa Kensler, Chair of Academic Standards Committee: stated that certificates will follow same residency requirements and be tracked with Degree Works. The unit designing the certificate would have to decide how they want to count courses.
Jennifer Mueller Phillips, substitute senator, School of Accountancy: Expressed support for certificates. Her unit has written a proposal and believes it aligns with the rationale for certificates. Designed for nonaccounting students. She requested that the maximum number of hours for a certificate to be raised to 24 hours.
Marilyn Cornish, senator, Special Ed. Rehab. & Counseling: Now that incarcerated individuals are eligible for Federal Pell Grants how might certificates be able to serve incarcerated individuals interested in gaining additional skills? How do certificates work with non-degree seeking students?
Constance Relihan, Assoc. Provost for Undergraduate Studies: Auburn has put in an application to be one of the experimental sites allowed to offer credits to incarcerated individuals. It would be an interdisciplinary degree to start with if granted permission.
David Carter, substitute senator, History: Stated that no more than 50% of credits can be transfer credits for the proposed policy. Expressed concern that individuals could receive a certificate from Auburn and could have only received 6 hours of credit coming from Auburn.
Tracey O’Brien, senator, Foreign Languages & Literatures: Asked a question about resource allocation. Could a unit design a certificate and end up drawing resources away from another unit? For example, if a unit proposes a certificate that is a minor in another program does the other existing unit have the ability to protest?
Tim Boosinger, Provost: With the new budget model 70% of tuition revenue would be tied to the student credit hour production from the unit that does the work and 30% would go to the unit of record.
Lisa Kensler, Chair of Academic Standards Committee: Another unit could protest through the UCC and the duplication would be worked out.
Larry Teeter, University Senate Chair: Called for the vote.
Jennifer Mueller Phillips, substitute senator for Accountancy: Asked to amend the proposal to allow for 24 credit hours.
Emmett Winn, Associate Provost: Second
The vote on the amendment to extend the credit hours from 21-24 hours passed with 95% in favor of the amendment.
Larry Teeter, University Senate Chair: Called for a vote on the policy with the amended credit hours. The policy passed with 56 votes and 77% in favor of the proposed policy.
Faculty Handbook Revisions; Presenter: James Goldstein, Chair, Faculty Handbook Review Committee
Reminded the senate that the motion is for both of the handbook changes. The first change is to clarify that department heads are required to indicate in their letter whether or not they support the candidate for promotion and tenure. The second change is to add clarity about the reasons for discontinuing a probationary faculty member before they are eligible to come up for tenure and the financial exigency was defined.
revision 3.6.5.E - Dept&Dean Recommendations
revision 3.9.1-3.9.3 - Termination of Faculty appointments
Questions: None
Larry Teeter, University Senate Chair: Called for a vote on the handbook revisions. The policy passed with 56 votes and 98% in favor of the changes.
Information Items
Campus Construction Update; Presenter: Dan King, Associate V.P., Facilities Management
Provided an update on academic and nonacademic capital projects being tracked. There are efforts to increase instructional and research space. The general fund, gifts and bond funding will be used to support the projects.
PowerPoint to Construction projects
Questions:
Hilary Wyss, senator, English: Asked about Haley Center.
Dan King, Associate V.P. Facilities Management: Renovation of Haley will be in 2020 to 2030. Focus is on instructional classroom buildings.
Following questions he briefly addressed road and traffic impact with construction. He also discussed recognized parking issues.
Michael Stern, not a senator, Economics: Questioned how several projects impacted students and the educational services of students. Asked if Haley was moved off because of who uses Haley versus who it is used for.
Administrator Evaluations Survey; Presenter: Yasser Gowayed, Chair Administrator Evaluations Committee
Reviewed the charge put forth by the senate leadership: specifically the provost guideline number 7 that addresses the annual survey of administrators.
The surveys will be conducted by the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment in the month of February 2016. The survey will be online and allow comments. It will have 4 sections and under each one of these sections there are between 4 and 5 questions, so a total of a maximum of about 20 questions or so. It should take between 2 and 5 minutes for any faculty member to fill. Â Information received will got to the chair of the committee, chair of senate and the provost.
Questions:
David Carter, substitute senator, History: would the comments be disaggregated from the scaled survey responses.
Yasser Gowayed, Chair Administrator Evaluations Committee: Yes
Mobile Device Encryption Policy; Presenter: Bliss Bailey, Chief Information Officer
Bliss reviewed recent security efforts and addressed the need for the Mobile Device Encryption Policy. The contract for our cyber insurance was recently rebid and during that interaction with a number of insurance providers we heard several recurring themes during our interviews that went along with the renewal process and one of those themes was encryption. Particularly the encryption of mobile devices.
The first set of protective measures was implemented by requiring cell phones and tablets that connect to our e-mail system to be encrypted and protected with a lock code. The encryption working group continues to iron out the guidelines and best practices for the encryption of laptops and USB attached storage devices.
University is searching for an ISO to address the continuing need for cyber security.
Questions:
None
New Business: Larry Teeter, Senate Chair
Unfinished Business: Larry teeter, Senate Chair
None
Adjournment: Larry teeter, Senate Chair at 4:50 P.M.