Auburn University
Steering Committee Meeting Minutes
September 12, 2013
206 Samford Hall


Present: Dr. Larry Crowley, Chair; Dr. Patricia Duffy, Chair-Elect; Dr. Gisela Buschle-Diller, Secretary-Elect; Dr. William Sauser, Immediate Past-Chair; Dr. Larry Teeter, Steering Committee; Dr. Don Mulvaney, Steering Committee; Dr. Michael Baginski, Steering Committee; Dr. Emmett Winn, Associate Provost; Dr. Jennifer Kerpelman, Chairing Research Week 2014; Rob Wellbaum, Associate Vice President, Auburn University Foundation

  1. Meeting convened by Dr. Crowley at 3:30 p.m.

  2. Minutes from previous meeting approved on motion by Dr. Emmett Winn and second by Dr. Bill Sauser as written without modifications.

  3. Dr. Jennifer Kerpelman presented Auburn Research Week 2014 which will be an Information Item on the Agenda of the September 17th  Senate Meeting. This coming year’s Research Week will be April 14-17, 2014 with the central topic of “food”. The program has been drafted. There will be plenary speakers, presentations, a workshop on writing grants for young faculty and grad students (possibly up to 60 participants), poster sessions (simultaneously for students and faculty, not separated as last year), gala dinners and awards. Some taped presentations might also be included as well as some of the “3-min-thesis” presentations, a contest effort of the Graduate School. As before, AU Research Week will be following the Graduate Forum, conducted by the Graduate School in March, to preselect the best student contributions.

    The presentation was followed by a brief discussion of some questions raised: reasons for the late date of Research Week (scheduling issues); how to convince graduate students to participate (practice, feed-back and potential awards); how to reach out to sponsors from the industry and to Community colleges plus some of their students (direct invite, be judges on presentations and posters, etc.).

    Jennifer Kerpelman and Carl Pinkert will give the presentation at the Senate Meeting on Sept. 17th. The PP slides will be available via link on the Agenda.

  4. Rob Wellbaum presented a preview of the Auburn Fundraising Campaign, the second Information Item at the next Senate meeting. Specific requests for clarification were made and Rob will include these in the final presentation (e.g., asset allocation, contributions to Athletics versus academic programs; which programs will get the support, such as endowed chair positions, etc.). The PP slides will also be available electronically. Jane Parker, President of AU Foundation, will give the presentation.

  5. The only Action Item on the Senate Meeting Agenda will be voting for Rules Committee members. Since there are 5 candidates for only 4 positions, the vote will be performed on paper instead of clickers. Patricia Duffy and Bill Sauser volunteered to count the votes.

  6. The Agenda Items for the Sept. 17th Senate Meeting are:
  7. Other items of business: none
    The meeting was adjourned at 4:45 PM