min_09_19

Attendance
Officers:
Daniel Svyantek, Chair; Don Mulvaney, Secretary; Beverly Marshall, Secretary-Elect; James Goldstein, Immediate-Past Chair
Absent: Michael Baginski, Chair-Elect

Administration
Bobby Woodard, VP for Student Affairs; Gretchen Van Valkenburg, VP, Paul Patterson, College of Agriculture; Janaki Alavalapati, Dean, School of Forestry and Wildlife Science; Richard Hansen, Dean Harrison School of Pharmacy; Betty Lou Whitford, Dean College of Education

Ex-Officio
Timothy Boosinger, Provost; Bonnie MacEwan, Dean of Libraries; Lawrence Hamberlin, A&P Assembly Chair; Griffin Osborne substituting for Jacqueline Keck, SGA President; Lucretia Tripp, Steering Committee; Jared Russell, Steering Committee; Michael Tillson, Steering Committee; Charleen Thomas, Staff Council Chair

Absent, not sending substitute:
Taffye Clayton, VP & Assoc. Provost of Inclusion and Diversity; Royrickers Cook, VP Outreach and Associate Provost; Kelli Shomaker, VP Business and Finance and CFO; George Flowers, Dean of the Graduate School; Lisa Kensler, Steering Committee; Tenchi Smith, GSC President;

Senators, by Department:
Lisa Miller, Accountancy; Kyle Kostelecky for Paul Brown, ACES; Rebecca O'Neal-Dagg, Architecture; Stephen Nichols for Anwar Ahmed, Aerospace Engineering; Michelle Worosz, Ag Economics and Rural Sociology; Werner Bergen, Animal Sciences; Satyanarayana Pondugula for Chad Faradori, Anatomy Physiology and Pharmacology; Rebecca O’Neal-Dagg, Architecture; Kathryn Floyd, Art; Cliff Defee, Aviation Management; Anthony Moss, Biological Sciences; Mark Daugherty for Yi Yang, Biosystems Engineering; Mark Tatum, Building Science; Bryan Bechingham, Chemical Engineering; Doug Goodwin, Chemistry; Cliff Lange, Civil Engineering; Ed Youngblood, Communication and Journalism; Allison Plumb, Communication Disorders; David Umphress, Computer Science and Software Engineering; Sharipark Gates for Ann Beth Presley, Consumer & Design Sciences; Yucheng Feng for Charles Chen, Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences; Melody Russell, Curriculum & Teaching; Forest Smith, Drug Discovery and Development; Liliana Stern, Economics; Jung Won Hur, Educational Foundations, Leadership; Jitendra Tugnalt, Electrical & Computer Engineering; James E. Ryan, English; David Held, Entomology and Plant Pathology; Lee Colquit, Finance; Ash Bullard, Fisheries and Allied Aquaculture; Zachary Zuwiyya, Foreign Lang & Literatures; Sanjiv Kumar for Latif Kalin, Forestry & Wildlife Science; Ming-kuoo Lee, Geology & Geography; Kimberly Garza, Health Outcomes and Research Policy; Monique Laney, History; Jatunn Gibson, Human Development & Family Studies; Mark Schall, Industrial and Systems Engineering; Andreas Kavazis, Kinesiology; Ali Krezton for Greg Schmidt, Library; Alan Walker, Management; Dora Bock, Marketing; Dmitry Glotov, Mathematics and Statistics;; Matthew Hoch, Music; David Crumbley, Nursing; Michael Greene, Nutrition, Dietetics, & Hospitality Mgmt.; Pete Christopherson for Vicky van Santen, Pathobiology; Spencer Durham, Pharmacy Practice; Eric Marcus, Philosophy; Michael Fogle, Physics; Cathleen Erwin, Political Science; Tracy Witte, Psychology; Malti Tuttle for Marilyn Cornish, Special Ed. Rehabilitation Counseling/School Psych.;Jeff Welborn, Lieutenant Colonel, ROTC Air Force; Lieutenant Colonel Roshun Steele, ROTC Army; Andrew Chicoine for Captain Willie Billingslea, ROTC Navy; Arianne Gaetano, Socio/Anthro/Social Work; Robin Jaffe, Theatre; Annette Smith, Veterinary Clinical Sciences.

Absent, sending substitute:
Carlton Ley Stephen Nichols for Anwar Ahmed (Aerospace Engineering); Kyle Kostelecky for Paul Brown (ACES); Satyanarayana Pondugula for Chad Faradori, Anatomy Physiology and Pharmacology; Mark Daugherty for Yi Yang, Biosystems Engineering; Sharipark Gates for Ann Beth Presley, Consumer & Design Sciences ; Yucheng Feng for Charles Chen, Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences; Sanjiv Kumar for Latif Kalin, Forestry & Wildlife Science; Ali Krezton for Greg Schmidt, Library; Pete Christopherson for Vicky van Santen, Pathobiology; Malti Tuttle for Marilyn Cornish, Special Ed. Rehabilitation Counseling/School Psych; Andrew Chicoine for Captain Willie Billingslea, ROTC Navy;

Absent, not sending substitute:
Daniel Wells, Horticulture; Daniel Mackowski, Mechanical Engineering; Chippewa Thomas, Outreach;

Minutes
At 3:30 PM, Chair Dan Svyantek called the meeting to order and reminded the members of the senate or substitute for a senator to sign in in the back of the room and get a clicker; and substitutes to sign in by printing his/her name on the 2nd column by the senator. He also reminded the Senator rules about speaking at Senate meetings. A quorum requiring 44 senators was established with 52 senators present.

The minutes of the August 22, 2017 Senate meeting were approved without modification.

Remarks and Announcements
Office of the Provost Dr. Tim Boosinger
President Leath was out of town and administration was represented by Provost Boosinger. He made comment about the speaker series, the Critical Conversations speaker series that were developed last year. After putting a process in place, a committee made recommendations trying to strike a balance between scholars and experts that are on the liberal side and scholars and experts on the conservative side and also experts that could lead us in thoughts about free speech on campus. There are 5 speakers scheduled between now and the holidays including Howard Ross talking about unconscious bias. On October 5 at 5 p.m. in the Student Center Ballroom, Barbara Pierce Bush and Jenna Bush Hager will speak.

Enrollment Update: AU enrollment has increased for this academic year with a total enrollment of 29,776 students (up ~ 5%). Almost 24,000 of those are undergraduates, (~5.8% increase). Significant increases in graduate student enrollment (~3.2%) totaling 5,012.

You may be interested to know that there are others in the room that are on the enrollment management council, but the entering class for this fall, students that are coming to college for the first time was 4,836. That number is up 6.8% over last year.

Credentials of fall class of students: Academic credentials for incoming students, includes average ACT score of 27.3 and average high school GPA of 3.86. Provost Boosinger expressed appreciation to thank departments, deans, and associate deans for efforts to recruit and serve the students.
Final comments included updates on the arrests made resulting from a sexual assault. AU’s highest concern is the wellbeing of the victim, stressing disappointment, shock and distress over this despicable act. There is an ongoing investigation and questions should be directed to the Auburn Police Department.

Questions: None

University Senate Chair, Daniel Svyantek
Chair Svyantek introduced the Senate officers, administrative assistant Laura Kloberg and Jim Witte as parliamentarian.

He reported that the Auburn University Board of Trustees approved measures requested by the Senate last spring. These measures are changes to the Faculty Handbook. First, the new tenure clock policy extending the tenure clock by one year for probationary, tenure-track faculty was approved. This policy will formally be in place for fall, 2018. Current tenure-track will be given the option of using either the current or new tenure clock policy. This policy provides another year for tenure-track faculty to develop their materials for applying for tenure. Second, the Board approved a policy providing a process for non-tenure track faculty to apply and receive emeritus status after 10 years of meritorious service. Third, the Board approved the requiring of letters of evaluation by outside reviewers for candidates for promotion to associate professor, as we do for assistant professors.
He reported the Senate is engaged in a process between Senate leadership and the Traffic and Parking Committee to address after-hours parking concerns by faculty. It was indicated a survey will be sent out to determine both the need and locations needed for such faculty parking.
He also encouraged support of the Critical Conversations speaker series,

Senate Vote on Members of Senate Committees. Secretary Mulvaney noted a few lingering vacancies on some committee shuffles this time of year and presented an action item which was a vote on a slate of nominated members for voting as posted on the web: University Writing Committee : John Kush, School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences– 2018, Emory Serviss, Harbert College of Business – 2018, Lindsay Tan, College of Human Sciences – 2020; Academics Standards Committee: Terry Brandebourg (Animal Sciences) – 2020; Non-Tenure Track Faculty Committee: Grey Parks (Animal Sciences) – 2020; Faculty Handbook Committee: Beth Guertal (Crops, Soil and Environmental Science) – 2020; Faculty Research Committee: Linda Gibson-Young, School of Nursing – 2020. He noted one remaining vacancy is on Academic Standards Committee for a one year term and the Retention Committee for a 3-year term. Since approved by the Rules Committee and the Steering Committee it needed no second. The motion passed 65:1.
A Proposed change to Faculty Handbook 2.1.2, Senate Constitution, Article 4 Section 3, Curriculum Committee Composition was presented by James Goldstein, University Senate Immediate Past Chair. “The Curriculum Committee shall consist of the provost or designee as chair, the registrar or designee as secretary, the dean of the Graduate School or designee, one faculty member from each academic college or school, one representative from the University College, one representative from the Honors College,…” In April because of the constitutional threshold of two-thirds, there was insufficient numbers to complete the vote and postponed to this session. The motion comes from a standing committee of the Senate and did not require a second. Passage requires 58 votes for the motion. The motion passed with a vote of 62:8.

Pending Action Item
An update on proposed changes to Student Learning Outcomes by the Core Curriculum and General Education Committee was presented by Constance Relihan, Associate Provost for Undergraduate Studies. Slides from the presentation are posted online. Changes include a reduced number of SLO’s, implementation of new assessment strategies and improved opportunity for analytics. The item will be brought forward for a vote at the October meeting of the Senate.

Information Items

Cybersecurity and Faculty updates were presented by James O’Conner, Chief Information Officer, Auburn University. An update on the amount of email traffic was reported. Information about the Cybersecurity and Faculty vulnerability, protection, incidence data and need to archive old data from faculty devices, implementation of double verification protocols along with an emphasis on vigilance toward protection was presented.

Questions: None

Unfinished Business:
Dan Svyantek, Senate Chair
None

New Business:
Dan Svyantek, Senate Chair
None
Dan Svyantek, Senate Chair, announced adjournment of the meeting at 4:10 pm.