Minutes of the Auburn University Senate Meeting
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
238 Broun Hall
3:30 P.M.
A full transcript is available for this meeting.

Attendance Record
Senate Officers:
Michael Baginski, Chair; Nedret Billor, Chair-elect; Beverly Marshall, Secretary; Adrienne Wilson, Secretary-Elect; Daniel Svyantek, Immediate-Past Chair

Administration attending: Taffye Clayton, VP & Assoc. Provost of Inclusion and Diversity; Kelli Shomaker, VP Business and Finance and CFO; Venus Hewing substituting for Royrickers Cook, Associate Provost and VP for Outreach; Gregg Newschwander, Dean School of Nursing; M. Daniel Givens substituting for Calvin Johnson, Dean College of Veterinary Medicine; Vishnu Suppiramaniam substituting for Richard Hansen, Dean Harrison School of Pharmacy; Gretchen Van Valkenburg, VP Alumni Affairs

Administration absent, not sending substitute: Paul Patterson, Dean College of Agriculture; George Flowers, Dean of the Graduate School;
Ex-Officio attending; Tammy Williams, Staff Council Chair; Mark Bransby substituting for Robert Kulick, A&P Assembly Chair; Jung Won Hur, Steering; Jared Russell, Steering; Robert Norton, Steering
Ex-Officio Absent, not sending substitute: Bill Hardgrave, Provost; Nancy Noe, Interim Dean of Libraries; Dane Block, SGA President; Elizabeth Devore, GSC President; Michael Tillson, Steering;

Senators, by Department: 
Attending or Represented by Substitute
Lisa Miller, Accountancy; Anwar Ahmed, Aerospace Engineering; Valentina Hartarska, Ag Economics and Rural Sociology; Molly Gregg, ACES; Jacek Wower, Animal Sciences; Chuck Hemard substituting for Kathryn Floyd, Art; Anthony Moss, Biological Sciences; Yi Yang, Biosystems Engineering; Tom Leathem substituting for Mark Tatum, Building Science; Bryan Bechingham, Chemical Engineering; Doug Goodwin, Chemistry; J. Bryan Anderson, Civil Engineering; Ed Youngblood, Communication and Journalism; Mary Sandage, Communication Disorders; Kai Chang, Computer Science and Software Engineering; Young A Lee, Consumer and Design Sciences;  Charles Chen, Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences; Jamie Harrison, Curriculum & Teaching; Gilad Sorek, Economics; James E. Ryan, English; Lee Colquit, Finance; Ash Bullard, Fisheries and Allied Aquaculture; Zachary Zuwiyya, Foreign Lang & Literatures; Wayde Morse, Forestry & Wildlife Science; Chung Ma substituting for Haibo Zou, Geology & Geography; Kimberly Garza, Health Outcomes and Research Policy; Monique Laney, History; Andreas Kavazis, Kinesiology; Greg Schmidt, Library; Dmitry Glotov, Mathematics and Statistics; Daniel Mackowski, Mechanical Engineering; Matthew Hoch, Music; David Crumbley, Nursing; David Mixson, Outreach; Spencer Durham, Pharmacy Practice; Eric Marcus, Philosophy; Michael Fogle, Physics; Stacey Hunt, Political Science;  Ken Macklin, Poultry Science; Chris Correia substituting for Tracy Witte, Psychology; Malti Tuttle, Special Ed. Rehabilitation Counseling/School Psych.; Shashank Rao, Systems and Technology; Kenneth McDonald, ROTC Air Force; Celina M Creech, Lieutenant Colonel, ROTC Army; Kimberly McCadden substituting for Captain Willie Billingslea, ROTC Navy; Robin Jaffe, Theatre;

Absent, not sending substitute:  Chad Faradori, Anatomy Physiology and Pharmacology; Rebecca O’Neal-Dagg, Architecture; Forest Smith, Drug Discovery and Development; Ellen Reames, Educational Foundations, Leadership; Lloyd Riggs, Electrical & Computer Engineering; David Held, Entomology & Plant Pathology; Daniel Wells, Horticulture; Scott Ketring, Human Development and Family Studies; Carlton Lay, Industrial Design; Mark Schall, Industrial and Systems Engineering; Alan Walker, Management; Dora Bock, Marketing;
Michael Greene, Nutrition, Dietetics, & Hospitality Mgmt.; Peter Christopherson, Pathobiology; Arianne Gaetano, Socio/Anthro/Social Work; Robert Cole, Veterinary Clinical Sciences.

Remarks and Announcements
Comments by University Senate Chair, Michael Baginski
Chair Michael Baginski called the meeting to order at 3:30 pm. He reminded the members of the senate or substitute for a senator to sign in in the back of the room and for substitutes to sign in by printing his/her name in the column by the senator. He also reminded the Senate about rules for speaking at Senate meetings.  

Minutes
A quorum, requiring 45 senators, with 54 senators recorded as present was established. The Chair called for the approval of the January 15, 2019 minutes. The minutes were approved by unanimous consent.
Chair Baginski addressed the Senate regarding collegiality and decorum. He asked that regardless of our personal feelings about policy or individuals that everybody should treat others with respect. 
Chair Baginski recognized the officers of the University Senate. He then called on President Leath for comments and mentioned that General Ron Burgess would also be speaking.

President Leath announced the Carnegie R1 research designation and congratulated everyone who had a role in accomplishing that long-term institutional goal. President Leath then introduced his new Chief of Staff, Steve Pelham. In his new role, Mr. Pelham will be wearing two hats since he will also serve as the Vice President of Economic Development.

President Leath went on to talk about parking concerns and introduced General Burgess to discuss the need for a long-term comprehensive solution to parking. General Burgess indicated that from today through May 2019 he would be running town halls to help address issues. He showed that with all Auburn is on track to do parking spaces will need to increase by 40% over current levels by 2023. He promised that he would also work hard to address proximity in terms of where people worked. He mentioned the cost of parking spaces, stating that the cost per parking space in the new hotel deck is $26,500.

General Burgess also spoke regarding the transit side of the house and the need for an increase in the annual rates for parking passes, from $80 to $160.  He indicated that a search of other institutions indicated the next lowest entity was Mississippi State at $255 for their lowest fee. He went on to talk about the increase in enforcement including doubling the number of tows and increasing by a factor of 1.5 the number of wheel locks so far this year (compared to the same time last year). He then called for any questions.

Ash Bullard, Fisheries Senator, asked about data on the portion of students that take A zone parking and get a ticket and went on to suggest that an increase in those fines could generate a lot of revenue.  General Burgess indicated his agreement with her concerns and described how the federal government actually only allows one parking space for every three employees so we are lucky to live in Alabama.

Tony Moss, Biological Services Senator, asked about the number of transit buses and consideration of a quiet system instead of diesel. Don Andrae, Director of Transportation Services, indicated that Auburn had some electric buses that had been running the last few weeks and that buses are not idling anymore at the Student Center.
Michael Baginski, Senate Chair, asked Mr. Andrea to remind faculty about the employee shuttle service available for faculty/staff. Mr. Andrea indicated (in response to a question by Tony Moss) that the shuttle would go to the vet school and Mark Bransby reminded senators that the shuttle service number is 844-8400.
Mary Savage, Communications Disorders senator, asked about incorporating parking in the lowest levels in new building construction. President Leath indicated that these things are always considered, and that some new parking was associated with the Harbert Graduate Building for instance, but underground parking is extremely expensive and hard to justify over investing that money in academic programs and scholarship.

Action Items:

Faculty Handbook Amendments
Chair Baginski called for another counting of attendance. Since there were only 58 senators in attendance, he indicated we were four votes shy of being able to vote on the amendment to the faculty handbook relating to the elimination of the August and June Senate meetings.

Nominations for Rules Committee
Beverly Marshall, Senate Secretary, called for nominations from the floor for Senate Rules Committee after reminding Senators of the basic function of the committee and that all nominees needed to be current Senators.

Dan Svyanteck, Immediate Past Chair, nominated Matthew Hoch, senator from Music. Adrienne Wilson, Secretary Elect, nominated Mary Savage, senator from Communication Disorders. Tony Moss, senator from Biological Sciences self-nominated.
Having three nominees, Beverly Marshall asked for any further nominations. Since there were none, nominations were closed. There will be a secret ballot vote at the next meeting.

Beverly Marshall, Senate Secretary, also asked for approval of Loka Ashwood as a replacement for Christy Bratcher on the Faculty Salaries and Welfare committee. There were 47 votes in favor and 2 opposed.

Information Items:
Technology Project Status Update

Michael Baginski, Senate Chair, introduced Jim O’Connor VP Information Technology and CIO to give an update on behalf of the Academic Computing committee. He talked about the IT Strategic Plan, eResearch Administration, Research Computing, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, Campus Network updates, and classroom upgrades. He went on to discuss the ongoing challenges of Cyber Security and Phishing. He indicated that last year Auburn had 1.4 billion messages coming into the university with approximately 86% of those having some type of malicious content. He concluded by reminding us that the biggest threat Auburn has right now across the institution, is someone getting our credentials and using that access to cause real damage to systems across campus.

Nominations Committee Report

Jared Russell, Chair of the Nominations Committee, provided the nominations for Senate Officers. Nominees for Senate Chair-elect are Donald Mulvaney, Department of Animal Sciences, College of Agriculture, and Jim Witte, Educational Foundations, Leadership, and Technology, College of Education. Nominees for Secretary-elect are Ken Macklin, Poultry Sciences, College of Agriculture, and Greg Schmidt, Library, Special Collections and Archives. He concluded by reminding the Senate that voting would take place 5 days prior to the Spring General Faculty meeting in March. Statements and bios would be available for the faculty to review on the Senate website prior to voting.

Michael Baginski, Senate Chair
Unfinished Business: none
New Business:  none
Michael Baginski, Senate Chair 
Declared adjournment of the meeting at 4:42 pm.