Minutes
General Faculty Meeting, March 28, 2023, 3:30 PM
Via Zoom
3:30 pm: The Chair, Mark Carpenter, called the meeting to order.
Senate Officers and steering committee were introduced.
The minutes for the General Faculty meeting on October 25, 2022 min-fac-10-25-22 (auburn.edu) were approved by unanimous consent.
The Chair congratulated newly tenured and newly promoted faculty.
The Chair introduced President Christopher Roberts and Interim-Provost Vini Nathan to give their remarks and announcements on Auburn University matters.
President Roberts spoke about a $1.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a new Alzheimer’s therapy awarded to Dr. Raj Amin from the Harrison College of Pharmacy, a collaboration between University Outreach, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, and the colleges of Nursing, Pharmacy, and Human Sciences who have worked with Chambers County and the City of LaFayette to bring affordable healthcare to a community in need, updates on admissions, an update on the SACSCOC process, National Science Foundation rankings, ongoing searches, the RFID Lab launching a new Aviation and Aerospace ID Lab, updates on facilities projects, Tiger Giving Day and Athletics programs.
Interim-Provost Vini Nathan spoke about action/information items to be brought to the upcoming Board of Trustees meeting, and updates on dean searches for the College of Engineering, College of Pharmacy, and the College of Business.
Luke Oeding discussed a motion made at the October 25, 2022 meeting to call for a revision of the policy on background checks. Faculty voted on the motion to review the policy on background checks. The vote was 80% in favor of the motion, 10% against, and 10% abstained. The motion passes.
4:40 pm: Lisa Kensler announced the results from the election of new officers. The results were certified by the current secretary and secretary-elect. Results for Chair-Elect were Lori Eckhart received 56.1% of votes and Brian Anderson received 43.9%. For Secretary- elect, Jaena Alabi received 62.7% of votes and Jung Won Hur received 37.3%.
4:43 pm: Susan McCallister gave an update on Campus Safety and Security. Prevention and protection measures were discussed along with preparedness measures such as training that is available.
Mark Carpenter mentioned that since there is limited time remaining in the meeting, he has asked Jerry Dozier to speak at the April Senate meeting with an update on AI at AU instead of today.
New Business
Luke Oeding requested that a report be made public from the Faculty Salaries and Welfare Committee on what has been done to combat the fact that inflation has resulted in a reduced buying power of approximately 15%. The Chair stated that he would invite the Chair of the Faculty Salaries and Welfare Committee to come to the April Senate meeting to give a report.
Meeting was adjourned at 5:00pm.