Minutes of the Auburn University Senate Meeting
Tuesday, May 21, 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: Kelli Shomaker, VP Business and Finance and CFO; Chippewa Thomas substituting for Royrickers Cook, Associate Provost and VP for Outreach; Gregg Newschwander, Dean School of Nursing; Paul Patterson, Dean College of Agriculture; Maria Witte substituting for George Flowers, Dean of the Graduate School; David Givens substituting for Calvin Johnson, Dean College of Veterinary Medicine; Salisa Westrick substituting for Richard Hansen, Dean Harrison School of Pharmacy; Gretchen Van Valkenburg, VP Alumni Affairs

Administration absent, not sending substitute: Taffye Clayton, VP & Assoc. Provost of Inclusion and Diversity;
Ex-Officio attending; Emmett Winn substituting for Bill Hardgrave, Provost; Shali Zhang, Dean of Libraries; Carlos Smith substituting for Mary Margaret Turton, SGA President; Nima Aliadeh, GSC President; Mary Bransby substituting for Robert Kulick, A&P Assembly Chair; Jung Won Hur, Steering; Michael Tillson, Steering; Jared Russell, Steering; Robert Norton, Steering
Ex-Officio Absent, not sending substitute: Tammy Williams, Staff Council Chair;
Senators, by Department: 

Attending or Represented by Substitute
Mollie Mathis substituting for Lisa Miller, Accountancy; Roy Hartfield substituting for Anwar Ahmed, Aerospace Engineering; Valentina Hartarska, Ag Economics and Rural Sociology; Joy Scott substituting for Molly Gregg, ACES; Don Mulvaney substituting for Jacek Wower, Animal Sciences; Rebecca O’Neal-Dagg, Architecture; Anthony Moss, Biological Sciences; Yi Yang, Biosystems Engineering; Mark Tatum, Building Science; Doug Goodwin, Chemistry; J. Bryan Anderson, Civil Engineering; Ed Youngblood, Communication and Journalism; Mary Sandage, Communication Disorders; Young A Lee, Consumer and Design Sciences;  Charles Chen, Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences; Jamie Harrison, Curriculum & Teaching; Forest Smith, Drug Discovery and Development; Gilad Sorek, Economics; Ellen Reames, Educational Foundations, Leadership; Lloyd Riggs, Electrical & Computer Engineering; James E. Ryan, English; David Held, Entomology & Plant Pathology;Lee Colquit, Finance; Ash Bullard, Fisheries and Allied Aquaculture; Zachary Zuwiyya, Foreign Lang & Literatures; Todd Steury substituting for Wayde Morse, Forestry & Wildlife Science; M. Biller substituting for Haibo Zou, Geology & Geography; Kimberly Garza, Health Outcomes and Research Policy; Monique Laney, History; Daniel Wells, Horticulture; Scott Ketring, Human Development and Family Studies; Carlton Lay, Industrial Design; Alex Vinel substituting for Mark Schall, Industrial and Systems Engineering; Andreas Kavazis, Kinesiology; Andrew Wohrley substituting for Greg Schmidt, Library; Alan Walker, Management; Dora Bock, Marketing; Dmitry Glotov, Mathematics and Statistics; Matthew Hoch, Music; David Crumbley, Nursing; Baker Ayoun, Nutrition, Dietetics, & Hospitality Mgmt; David Mixson, Outreach; Peter Christopherson, Pathobiology; Spencer Durham, Pharmacy Practice; Michael Fogle, Physics; Stacey Hunt, Political Science;  Ken Macklin, Poultry Science; Tracy Witte, Psychology; Malti Tuttle, Special Ed. Rehabilitation Counseling/School Psych.; Shashank Rao, Systems and Technology; Paul West substituting for Celina M Creech, Lieutenant Colonel, ROTC Army; Arianne Gaetano, Socio/Anthro/Social Work; Robin Jaffe, Theatre; Robert Cole, Veterinary Clinical Sciences.

Absent, not sending substitute: Chad Faradori, Anatomy Physiology and Pharmacology; Kathryn Floyd, Art; Bryan Bechingham, Chemical Engineering; Kai Chang, Computer Science and Software Engineering; Daniel Mackowski, Mechanical Engineering; Eric Marcus, Philosophy; Lieutenant Kenneth McDonald, ROTC Air Force; Captain Willie Billingslea, ROTC Navy;

Remarks and Announcements
Comments by University Senate Chair, Michael Baginski
Chair Michael Baginski called the meeting to order at 3:31 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 60 senators recorded as present was established. The Chair called for the approval of the April 9, 2019 minutes. The minutes were approved by unanimous consent.
Chair Baginski called for a moment of silence in honor of Officer William Buechner who was killed and prayers for Officers Sistrunk and Elliott who were injured. Chair Baginski recognized the officers of the University Senate.

Action Items:
Approval of Senate Committee Volunteers
Secretary Marshall presented a slate of volunteers for Senate committees. These volunteers were approved by both the Rules and Steering committees prior to their presentation to the Senate. The vote was 65 in favor and none opposed.

Revision to Policy and Procedure for Promotion and Tenure Outreach
Emmett Winn presented the revision to Section 3.6.5.3C Outreach of the Policy and Procedure for Promotion and Tenure as an action item. This proposed amendment would require faculty who hold tenured or tenure-track Extension Specialist positions to have an evaluation letter from the Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES) Director included in their dossiers. This item was presented at the April meeting as a pending action item. Dr. Winn reiterated that this is the current procedure and it was the desire of the Promotion and Tenure Committee to formalize this as policy to bring about consistency in dossiers. There were no questions or discussion.

The amendment passed with 69 Senators voting - 67 in favor and 2 opposed.

Information Items
Grant Listing Tool
Gina Bailey, Contracts and Grants Accounting, provided an overview and demonstration of a new Grant listing tool. The Grant Listing tool is an effort to address reporting needs and combine information from multiple database tables into a streamlined format. It is a web-based report in the Master Contact List of Self-Service Banner developed by Information Systems Support based on a request by and with input from Contracts and Grants Accounting. It is not intended to replace anything already used, but is offered in addition to other tools.
The Grant listing tool provides current grant/fund attribute information for active or expired sponsored awards for all contracts and grants awarded since October 2005, or the implementation of Banner. Each column includes filter and sort options, and the information can be downloaded to Excel at any time. There is also a way to customize the view by displaying selected columns or hiding them if desired.

Gina Bailey reminded the audience that AU business processes and deadlines affect whether or not an expenditure is reflected in Banner Finance; for example, p-card, payroll, and indirect cost transactions will not be reflected until they have been fully processed and recorded in Banner Finance.

The Grant Listing tool is located under Master Contact List, on either the Employee tab or the Finance Tab of Self-Service Banner. Once you click on Master Contact List, click on Hierarchies, then Grants Listing. It may take a few moments for the page to load, due to the volume of information displayed. Once the table appears, you can start filtering and sorting. There is a link immediately above the Grants Listing table to a resource page for using the Grant Listing.

Extension Title Series
Mike Phillips, Associate Dean, Extension, presented the new Extension Title Series. He indicated that presently the new title series would affect less than ten faculty. The promotion track blends the existing research title series and the clinical title series by creating three titles: Assistant Extension Professor, Associate Extension Professor, and Extension Professor. He went through the process to this point including review by the College of Agriculture, Provost’s Office, Provost’s Council, and the Non-tenure Track Faculty Committee. 

Professor of Practice
Emmett Winn shared the Professor of Practice title series as amended and approved by President Leath. Changes from the document approved by Senate at the last meeting were not substantive and so this amended document is presented as an information item only on the approval of the Steering Committeee.

Make up Policy Reminder

Beverly Marshall, Secretary, presented a summary of the University Makeup Policy. She reminded faculty that students have one week from the end of their excused absence to initiate the makeup. Under the policy, normally makeup exams shall occur within two weeks from the time the student initiates arrangements for it. Instructors are encouraged to refrain from giving make-up examinations during the last 3 days prior to the first day of final examinations. She provided some examples of violations to this policy that she had come across. She also indicated that while make-ups are not required for minor quizzes and assignments, care should be taken to not penalize students for excused absences. She suggested that if there are 10 minor quizzes and a student has excused absences for 2 of them, it is okay to average of the 8 quizzes taken. Professors using points to determine grade cutoff should be careful to properly adjust points of any completed exams when there are missed quizzes. So, again, you don’t have to give a make-up for a quiz but you don’t want to be penalizing students that have a valid excused absence. She asked if there were any questions.

Tony Moss, Senator, Biological Sciences, asked about missed quizzes and explained how he adjusts points in the case of excused absences but not unexcused ones. Beverly Marshall indicated that his interpretation was correct.

Stacey Hunt, Senator, Political Science, asked about whether there was any policy on other assignments or it was just an interpretation. Beverly Marshall indicated that the policy does not address minor quizzes and assignments but she recommends while no makeup is required that faculty refrain from penalizing students for missed quizzes and assignments when they have a university sanctioned excuse.

Scott Ketring, senator, Human Development and Family Studies, asked whether it has to be two weeks for a makeup exam.  Beverly Marshall clarified that the policy reads within two weeks and clarified that the point is that makeups are on a timely basis and it could certainly be before two weeks.

Michael Tilson, Senator, Steering, asked to clarify Scott Ketring that the makeup could be sooner but just not while they are still sick.

Ed Youngblood, Senator, Communication and Journalism, asked for clarification again on the timing of the exam. Beverly Marshall clarified that you could give less than two weeks and reminded the audience that the bigger issue is instances where faculty are indicating there will be no makeups or having unrealistic expectations about when the makeup is going to be given.

Alan Walker, Senator, Management, asked about whether he could require students to contact him prior to a missed exam if they had prior knowledge of the absence.  Beverly Marshall indicated the policy allows the student seven days from the period covered by the absence to initiate a makeup.  She did clarify that if the student had prior knowledge of an absence (other than illness) she had worked with students to accept assignments early or allow them to turn in homework via email.

Mike Fogle, Senator, Physics, asked who was responsible for the makeup policy and where could faculty get clarification.  Beverly Marshall indicated that it would be under the Provost’s Office.

Michael Baginski, Senate Chair
Unfinished Business: none
New Business:  none

Michael Baginski, Senate Chair 
Declared adjournment of the meeting at 4:20 pm.