AU Steering Minutes
Thursday, Nov. 12, 2015
206 Samford Hall 3:30 p.m.

The draft by Xing Ping Hu
Present: Larry Teeter (Chair), Patricia Duffy (Immediate-Past Chair), James Goldstein (Chair-
Elect), Xing Ping Hu (Secretary-Elect), Emmett Winn, Emily Myers, Timothy Boosinger, Keven
Yost, Lisa Kensler, Sara Wolf, Dan King, Constance Relihan, Jan Thornton, Roy Hartfield,
Martha Taylor.

Absent: Laura Plexico (Secretary)

First, Dan King reviewed his presentation to the Senate on changes to the campus landscape, construction, road closures, traffic modifications, and parking reconfigurations. He will do his presentation at the November 17, 2015, University Senate Meeting. The Capital Projects Program is set to complete 15 Academic Capital Projects and 7 non-academic capital projects by 2020. Jan Thornton discussed and answered questions about the Patent and Copyright Agreement for Auburn University Personnel Form and the Conflict of Interest Management Plan. The discussion clarified that the Faculty Handbook is a collection of university policies that link to specific policy database of Auburn University. The Patent and Copyright Agreement form will be reviewed for inconsistencies with existing and proposed copyright policy. An effort will be made to find out why the Conflict of Interest Management form is not posted to the policy database.

Next item approved the minutes from October 29, 2015, Steering Meeting.

Following was a discussion on University Curriculum Committee (UCC) procedures by Constance Relihan. The UCC is a University Senate committee, which consists of 12 faculty members – one from each of the university’s academic units. Faculty Handbook 2:8 Section 12 reads: “The UCC rules on all undergraduate curricular matters, including the approval of new courses, approval of changes in existing courses, deletion of courses, and changes in undergraduate degree programs or minors and curriculum models.” All course descriptions and curriculum models appearing in the University Bulletin must be reviewed and approved by the committee. The committee is charged to “recommend approval or disapproval of requests for undergraduate…curriculum changes.” It also reviews “overall curriculum patterns and course content of the instructional program other than the University Core Curriculum and [recommends] to the Senate curriculum changes needed by the University.” She explained general procedures to perform these duties including evaluating distance learning proposals, new and revised courses, timeframes to make suggestions/decisions, etc. and suggested including senate members to participate in making changes to streamline the approval procedures.

The last item was a review and approval of draft agenda items for the University Senate meeting on November 17th, 2015.