Transcription of the
Senate Meeting Oct.7, 2008
Bob Locy: I’d like to call the meeting to order, and our first item of agenda is the approval of the minutes, the minutes were distributed via e-mail. Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes? Seeing and hearing none, the minutes of the July 8th [Sept. 9] meeting will stand approved as distributed. The first item on our agenda then is the remarks from the president, Dr. Gogue.
Dr. Gogue: Thank you Bob, delighted to be with you. Two things I wanted to talk with you today about; One has to do with the upcoming general election in amendment one and the second thing I want to mention briefly is a little bit about shared governance. On the first item, on the ballot in November there’s constitutional change that deals with amendment one. I’ll explain this as best I can there are those that will be for it and those that will be against it, but if you go back in Alabama’s history from like 1935 and you look at every decade up to the present what you find is that Alabama has anywhere between seven and eight very good years, two or three bad years financially. And it’s almost on a cycle of a decade that you can see those numbers. What amendment does from what I understand, and Don Large and others help me if I get this wrong, on the years on which your budget is high (those 7 or 8 years) they lop off the top part of it and in essence create a larger rainy-day fund than has been historically done in Alabama. Then the idea is that when you have the bad times you have a larger pool, if you will, of rainy-day funds. And when you go back into the good cycles you have to pay the rain-day fund to a certain size before you can continue. Is that in general correct? It creates a leveling, if you will, of budgets over the course of the years. The presidents of the universities in the state have met; they will be supportive of amendment one. Joe Morton that is the head of K–12 in the state will be supportive of amendment one. But you do need to know that there are others that are opposed to it. Part of the opposition that comes from certain groups is that during the good years they’ve been able to see increased pay raises particularly the K–12 school teachers, and in the bad years they argue that we cannot loose our teachers and so they [K–12} have tended to benefit with that particular process that’s in place. I would ask you only to look at it, think about it yourself, and decide for yourself whether or not you think it’s a good idea or a bad idea, but it is on the ballot and think it’s referred to as amendment one.
Second thing I want to mention to you is, I hope that everyday we as an institution do a better job in shared governance. I’ve asked our communications folks to go through and to look and prepare for me lists of all the various committees in the university and the involvement by all the people, and we were surprised that the number of committees and the number of participation by faculty and the various governance committees of the university. If someone is here to correct me please do so, but it’s a little over 400 of our 1,100 faculty that are active in various committees that guide the decision making on the campus. Having said that, at our sister institution, AUM, and there are representatives here that may wish to speak later about this, but there was a situation there that occurred recently in which a position was advertised for. It was an academic position, and it was the person who would be the head of the informatic center of that institution with a faculty appointment. As I understand it in talking with their chancellor, they advertised, they decided on a candidate, and apparently offered the individual the position-in a faculty position, but they had not gone to the math department to the faculty to review the credentials of that individual. I think all of you know that would be a little bit like us when we went through the search for our vice president for research, an administrative position, it has a strong academic tie. We stopped the process when we decided on the candidate we wanted to offer the job to. We went back to the dean of the college where that individual would reside and then back to the department and asked them to review those credentials and make a judgment before we extended that offer for that position. AUM apparently did not do that. My understanding is that the president and the provost have apologized- it’s clear violation of the policies of that institution and certainly most institutions. So that’s an example in my mind of probably not carrying out the philosophy of shared governance. I was asked to comment on it and I [we] don’t condone it. The individual, I understand, is the center director but not as a tenured faculty member hired under a contract. I’d be happy to respond to any questions that you may have on those topics or anything else that may be on you mind. (pause) Thank you.
Bob Locy: With the chairs remarks I’d like to remind you that we currently have an ongoing activity that October is the breast cancer awareness month and Jenny Swaim has already coordinated some activities associated with breast cancer awareness month. Those will be continuing and ongoing if there are any questions if you are interested in any participation, pleas contact Jenny. Let me also remind you that we have a general faculty meeting coming up next week at this time. The agenda for that meeting will be forthcoming over the AU prof. listserv and we’ll primarily be focusing on matters of the strategic plan. To just briefly reiterate what Dr. Gogue said about the ongoing matters at AUM, the faculty senate leadership has also been involved in discussion with the AUM faculty leadership. We’ve kept abreast of what’s going on there and we’re supportive of the efforts of the AUM faculty senate in trying to resolve the matter, and we trust they will execute due appropriate faculty self governance and do so in a way that works best for their institution.
There have been several meetings in recent months involving faculty senate leadership in other academic institutions that out faculty senate leadership has participated in. this includes a meeting a couple of weeks ago of the SEC faculty senate chairs and previous meetings of the coalition on intercollegiate athletics. Those organizations are coalitions of faculty senate leadership that serve to discuss matters of common interest among faculty senates. In both cases somewhat related to athletics, but not in all instances are the matters related to intercollegiate athletics. The SEC chairs meeting, recently for example one of our items on our agenda for today, the issue of the Interdisciplinary Studies Programs at higher ED institutions was discussed and quite frankly was not viewed by other faculty senate leadership as something that their institutions are moving aggressively toward. However I would alert you to the fact that this program that we’re discussing today seems to have a different focus, it’s not being created for student athletes as a mechanism of circumventing a more rigorous academic program and we’ve clearly taken precautions to avoid that. I believe that it’s important that our role as a faculty senate is that we vent this program carefully and we pay attention this, so should this ever emerge as an issue in the future given our past history with the interaction between academics and athletics in let’s say the last 4 or 5 years. It would be good to know that the faculty senate did its job in our future faculty senate leadership going off to these meetings would be able to stand up and proudly say “We’ve added this carefully when it came through.” I would urge you to pay good attention to this and let’s do our jobs to make sure that we get what’s best for our students and our university and that we are not getting a program here that flies in the face of trends to the opposite direction, but we’ll get what our student need. I believe this is such a program, but it’s up to you folks to make sure we have the evidence in place that that’s the kind of a program it’s going to be.
The last item is that another one of these amalgamations of senate leadership from other institutions is something called the Alabama Higher Education Partnership. There’s a meeting on Friday of those folks in Montgomery and we will be getting together with them to discuss things like what Higher Ed needs to do for the legislative agenda and to try and create in any way possible, significant voices for the faculty of all of the institutions in Alabama with the state legislature. So we will be participating in that. Are there any other points of discussion? Any comments, questions, on my remarks?
Herb Rotfeld, department of marketing, not a member of the senate: Sir, since you just discussed the need to vet and view this particular program and it’s down as an information item today, at what time will it be in for senate review?
Bob Locy: we’ll review it today and pending the outcome of this that decision will be made in the future. I can’t tell you whether it will be on the agenda as an information item in November or not at this time. Other questions?
Okay, hearing none the first item on our action agenda is the confirmation of the last view of the senate committee nominations, and Sue Barry will take care of that.
Sue Barry: The rules committee would like to submit two more nominations. One of those is of the one-year term that we voted on last month for an additional member to the core curriculum oversight committee. The second one is just filling an empty slot, a vacant slot; therefore I move that the senate accept these nominations.
Bob Locy: this is coming through steering committee and the executive committee, are there any, I’m sorry, therefore it does not require a second. Is there any discussion of this matter? [pause] Alright, all in favor of approving these last nominees, signify by saying aye?
Group: aye
Bob Locy: Opposed, same sigh? Hearing none, then the motion carries.
Next item on the action agenda is a presentation by Linda Glaze of the definitions of undergraduate certificates, and we will do them together as undergraduate and graduate certificates. 13:50
Linda Glaze: I circulated the definitions of the undergraduate certificate program and the graduate certificate program and let me give you a brief background of how they were developed and why I brought them here. Over the last few years periodically I’ve received inquiries from faculty members or departments that have been interested in having a certificate posted on the academic transcript. And my response has always been that I wasn’t against that, but that as an institution if we were going to have an official designation of a certificate on a transcript we also needed to have an approved definition against which any request would be reviewed. About two years ago I initially met with the graduate council and asked them to, it was George Flowers and Joe Pittman, to look into whether the graduate council of the graduate school would like to have a graduate certificate, and I also asked at that time, Dotty Cavender, to look at the idea of an undergraduate certificate, and what you have before you are the two definitions that were developed. They have been shared with…well the graduate certificate was approved and I verified that with George Crandell that the graduate council did vote on the graduate certificate on April 16, 2008, and also it was unclear whether the university curriculum committee had reviewed the undergraduate certificate, so I shared that with the committee and asked for their input by approve or which to discuss, and the response was that they did not feel that they wanted to discuss it at an in person meeting. So I’ve shared these definitions with you. Certificates in general differ, in that they may be taken by non-degree-seeking-students. The important feature is that through outreach we do offer non-credit certificates. But what we are talking about here is for departments or colleges and schools to develop a group of courses that they want to designate as a certificate and that then they would be denoted on the transcript officially. If this body approves the definitions and that’s why I brought it here. These definitions would then go into the Auburn University Bulletin on page 15 where the institution is defined majors minors for second degrees and double majors and this would just be another designation that we would be able to provide. Are there any questions on details of the certificates that were shared with you? I didn’t go through the explanation of each of them, but I’d be glad to answer any questions.
Rik Blumenthal, chemistry and biochemistry: Looking over the graduate version of it, there’s this last paragraph I found a very important part of that for me. New graduate certificates are proposed that under the full process curriculum review, the same process applies regardless of delivery method. There’s a lot of good stuff in this last paragraph in the graduate one that insures that programs have, how programs are developed, how programs will be approved by the faculty, that’s all completely absent in the undergraduate one. One of the important things I find in the graduate one is a clear statement that there will be a home department, certificates that bridge departments with the home department, also certificates to which applicants apply… these are important. This last paragraph is very important, structural material for such a program to make sure that we don’t have certificates appearing for eight pairs of courses or whatever the minimum, 5 courses, so for every 5 courses you take you get a certificate. I don’t see anything of that sort in the undergraduate one, which causes me to have reservations with accepting that definition without the well thought out description of the process that appears in the graduate one. The other thing I’d like to know…
Linda Glaze: May I respond to that? I am in agreement with you, and quite frankly I have no problem, I would suggest that we- that information that’s in the last paragraph of the graduate council to me was implicit in the way it would operate in the undergraduate, but it would be appropriate to add that language to the undergraduate definition. I have no problem with that, in fact, that’s the reason I brought it here to the senate, was to have an official definition, and it was my assumption and maybe it wasn’t explicit because I didn’t write the language of this one, that anything that goes in the bulletin and anything that goes on the transcript goes through curricular review of the university curriculum committee, and that was just an assumption on my part. But I’m in total agreement…
Rik Blumenthal: I think that language needs to be adopted into that. It wouldn’t be fair to have these words in the section for undergraduate degrees and then you have to read the graduate program to find it.
Linda Glaze: No problem.
I think there is one if I can comment, there is one difference in that the graduate certificate allows for, and George Flowers is here and can correct me, but the graduate certificate would allow for a student to start a certificate and finish a degree, whereas in the undergraduate it’s very clear that a student cannot use the same hours for the major/minor in the certificate and that is consistent with all of our other definitions related to undergraduate degrees.
Rik Blumenthal: The other question I have is whenever these questions come up is, who wanted a certificate in what and what were they proposing? I would love to see an example of my colleagues and who ever initiated this. An example: What did someone want a certificate in; what types of courses did they want to have in that? What are we proposing? Because to some extent I’m looking at this, going well…this certificate is given out independent of your degree and so are we sort of starting a bookkeeping degree program online in competition with University of Phoenix, Westwood Online and the others with the name Auburn University on it? I mean, this is where I went with it, now I could be completely off base on that, but it seems to me that is a major structural change to Auburn University or offering basically an associate degree or something lesser than a bachelors degree that we’ve never offered before if it’s done independently. Now if you described it, that it was something that would go on you transcript that you did this, and you certified that you did that, that all sound nice and I like that idea. I’m just concerned with the wording that when I read it, the certificate is not an undergraduate degree it’s calculated separately so someone could just come here and get a certificate in bookkeeping.
Linda Glaze: No…
RB: This is what I’m reading and it could be done under this and I’m kind of concerned and I don’t know from what’s written here particularly undergraduate, what is meant by this? And I’ll leave it at that.
Jim Wright, senator from pathobiology: We just as a point of information, we’ve had at least one student out our way in the professional curriculum receive a certificate from Purdue and I’m having a senior moment on exactly what that certificate states, the program’s biosecurity emergency preparedness, I believe, but that student…it was a pretty strict program, I had to monitor his exam. It was an online program and he ‘s added it to his vita as an add-on that we were really unable to offer at this pint in time at the college.
Linda Glaze: Just to go back to your comment, Rik, one thing in terms of the bookkeeping, if we do come up with and official definition of a certificate and the graduate council and the curriculum committee reviews them appropriately, we will have to notify ACHE that we have granted a certificate. A certificate is different than an associates degree and part of that, it will go to ACHE as an information item, it does not go as an approval item. It does not have to approve new certificates, but obviously, if we started wandering away from our mission, and also our geographic area, ACHE would probably write to Dr. Gogue. So there are controls, this really is something that I personally see coming more in the technical areas potentially may cross several disciplines. But as I said for us to first do it we have to have a definition, not that a department determines, but a definition against which our review bodies, curriculum committees, graduate councils would review what departments and courses a program is offering. I know at the last ACHE meeting for example, I can’t remember the topic, but I know UAB just notified ACHE that they were offering a certificate, I believe, in a health related profession on the medical side and I also received and article from the provost that UAB is now offering a certificate in Spanish for professions and that is offered by their program in Foreign language and literatures. That is something new that they are just doing, they don’t give a degree—they have a degree in Spanish—but the focus of that degree is not in all the professions.
Bob Locy: Dr Carter, Could you hold on for just a second, the parliamentarian informs me that to be properly in order here we must first of all have a motion to place the report for approval on the floor. So could I hear a motion for approval of the definitions of graduate and undergraduate certificates as circulated?
Someone(s): motion, second.
Bob Locy: Thank you, now we may proceed with the discussion in due course.
Dr. Carter from the department of history: In the history department we have a lot of interest in this particularly at the graduate level we’re moving ambitiously with a new public history focus. I was wondering if you could clarify a little bit about, it sounds the language may sound disparaging but I would characterize it as sort of double dipping, that at the graduate level one would be able to have course count both toward the MA, as I understand it, or PhD and also count towards a certificate. To me that makes good sense, what I did for and African-American studies at Duke, I’m not sure why there’s that discrepancy at the undergraduate level so if you could maybe speak to that briefly.
Linda Glaze: I’ll try. 27:03
Since I wasn’t in the discussion in the graduate certificate, but I have an understanding why it probably works that way. I would assume what the interest is, is that at the graduate level as we are trying to increase our numbers of students that pursue graduate degrees and perhaps as a lead in as undergraduate degrees may become more general and graduate degrees become much more specific, that makes sense to me and I could see it as a recruiting tool that you would not want to say, “If you get a certificate you could not get a degree.” And that again was what came from the graduate council as I read the document. Now I may be wrong, but (I see George Flowers is here he could correct me on that.) as far as from the undergraduate perspective the reason would be that, current languages, we do not allow students to use courses—you can not major and minor in the same program, so since the certificate needs to be different from a minor and if we already say you cannot have a major and a minor in the same field, it would not make sense that you could do a certificate in a major. And in some ways, and a student can only receive a minor, a student could not come back and receive a minor because you have to be a degree seeking student to get a minor. So in some ways a certificate might be for a student that’s graduated, might be a field or an area of study that they want more than an Auburn transcript with the courses listed—that they want some sort of designation, so that’s really the reason. I hope I answered your question. Anything else? Be glad to take my best guess.
Emily Myers senator for social work and sociology: We had an undergraduate certificate in aging studies, long ago. And when I first came on as a faculty member I had students coming in saying “If I take your aging class that means I get to count it toward my certificate.” well as years went by the courses that were part of the certificate program disappeared, people stopped teaching them and there was no clear-cut home for the certificate, so I really agree that you have to have a home department to sort of oversee and are you suggesting that the curriculum committee would be that home or…?
Linda Glaze: No I’m not suggesting that, but in terms of when a request…in other words, for any designation on the official transcript a proposal would have to come the way a proposal comes for a minor or a major and as part of that, the home location would need to be designated on that request for a certificate. In other words if the office of the registrar just receives a note that says, “Please post this.” Unless it’s been approved, the office of the registrar isn’t going to post just anything that they receive a note on.
Emily Meyers: OK, does Auburn benefit from this or is it—on the undergraduate level—what’s the point of having these? I’m not sure, in aging I can see…
Linda Glaze: Well the issue, I had the same question from another individual and in this day and age anyone can say anything on a resume. And so in many ways from my perspective it protects us because, if a hiring agency wants us to confirm that the person received the degree that he or she states, then it needs to be on the transcript. So in that way from my perspective it does protect us. In that we’re saying these are the certificates we offer as an institution. And I can’t remember when the definition of the minor was approved but before that many department talked about having a minor, but the only minors that we list on an Auburn University transcript are those that have been approved through the curriculum process, appear in the Bulletin and then again the Office of the Registrar only post those that have been approved.
Bob Locy: If there’s no further discussion.
Rik Blumenthal, chemistry and biochemistry senator: This is a point of order, I guess, before we close discussion. To me this seems like a fairly significant thing, I don’t know, I actually don’t know where this is going, I still don’t understand exactly what this does, what this is even intended to do. An agreement with the presentation that we need to shore up the undergraduate certificate program so this is an action item, so I was supposing that you were taking this to a vote at this point.
Bob Locy: That was my intention.
Rik Blumenthal: Since it seems agreed between a lot of parties that the undergraduate one needs that paragraph or something structurally similar, I’ll make a motion that we table the undergraduate one for a month. And maybe proceed with the graduate one that seems more completed.
Bob Locy: You’re of course able to make any motion that you see fit. I would ask if you wouldn’t be interested in making an amendment to put that paragraph on the undergraduate one.
Rik Blumenthal: I considered that as I sat there and looked at it, and there is too many odd references to masters degrees and graduate school specific committees and organizations, otherwise I would. So I think the undergraduate one, in my opinion, needs significant work, and I’ll make a motion that the undergraduate certificate program just be tabled for one month and taken up next month when hopefully it will have that extra wording it and everyone can be comfortable.
Bob Locy: As a separate point, Mr. Parliamentarian, do we have to sever the two first in an official action before we can table half of the motion?
34:15
Parliamentarian: Yes,…a postponement
Bob Locy: Alright, so the formal action you have to ask for first to amend the motion for…
Rik Blumenthal: OK, I’d like to make a motion for division of the items.
Bob Locy: Is there a second?
Others: second. second.
Bob Locy: OK any discussion of said motion to divide the items? Hearing none, then all in favor of dividing the items signify by saying aye?
Group: Aye.
Bob Locy: opposed? (pause) Motion carries. The items are now divided. Let’s now consider the undergraduate certificate.
Rik Blumenthal: OK I’d like to make a motion to postpone consideration of the undergraduate certificate program until the next meeting of the senate.
Bob Locy: I have a motion on the floor to postpone the undergraduate degree certificate program, the vote on that until next meeting. Is there a second to the motion?
Other: second.
Bob Locy: Any discussion of the postponement? Hearing none then, all in favor of postponing the consideration of undergraduate degree certificates until next meeting signify by saying aye.
Group: Aye.
36:12
Bob Locy: opposed? (pause) Motion carries. With reference to the graduate degree certificate programs then is there a motion to consider—I don’t need a separate motion—OK is there any discussion then of the consideration of the graduate degree certificate programs [stumble over wording] for approval at this time? (I’ve got too many things in there don’t I?) Graduate certificate programs. Hearing no discussion, all in favor of approval of graduate certificate programs as circulated signify by saying aye.
Group: Aye.
Bob Locy: opposed? (pause) Motion carries.
Next item on the agenda is a report by the Faculty Handbook Committee, Dr. Godwin will present this, the chair of the Faculty Handbook Committee.
Dr. Godwin: Good afternoon. The Faculty Handbook review Committee brings to you today for your consideration, two changes to the handbook and that if I’m a quick learner I will certainly divide them into two. So we will consider them separately, but by way of background the handbook review committee in its charge, the main function of the committee is really twofold; one is to initiate potential changes to the handbook where we identify how things are brought to our attention, places that need clarification, places that need changing that are in conflict with other places in the handbook, so we can ask those who are charged with a particular portion of the handbook, whether they be committee head or some academic unit, to consider proposing changes. So we can initiate changes. We also review changes. We review changes for clarity and for potential conflict with the handbook–changes that are made. We are not a policy-making committee. Sometimes it’s very difficult for us to stay out of policy discussions, but that’s not our charge. Our charge is to make things as clear as possible and to help the handbook to be as clear as possible.
Last year under the leadership of Katherine Flynn, we as part of our charge, contacted all of the chairs of the committees that are described in the faculty handbook. And we asked those committee chairs to look at the description in the handbook and see if they are consistent with the current operation of the committee. We did not receive 100 percent response, but the vast majority of those that responded to us said that the description in the handbook adequately described the process that was currently in place for that particular committee. However there were two committees; the faculty grievance committee and the academic program review committee, that through their changes indicated that the current functioning of the committee was not properly described by the handbook and they proposed to us or gave to us these two changes that we now bring forward to you as motions to approve. And again, I will consider them separately. The first one is the Faculty Grievance Committee, and this is the proposed change to the Faculty Handbook it does not include the changes that were included in the distribution to you –this would be the final version that would go into the Handbook, once it is adopted here. So I guess that it is up to me to move that this particular change, this particular verbiage be included under the Faculty Grievance Committee of the Handbook.
Bob Locy: This is an action coming from a committee of the senate from the Faculty Grievance Committee of the Handbook, it does not require a motion or a second. Is there any discussion? (pause) Hearing none then, all in favor of the approval of the modifications to the Faculty Grievance Committee procedure signify by saying aye.
Group: Aye.
Bob Locy: opposed same sigh? (pause) Hearing none the motion carries.
Norman Godwin: The second committee, and we are charged with making sure things are clear and the distribution to you was not exactly clear, it omitted a particular word that is, that we’re fond of, and I’ve put it up here on the right hand side. The academic program committee shall consist of one faculty member, that was an oversight for the information that was sent to you was incorrectly sent to you without the word faculty there, so I have written that in so it highlights that. So this is the proposed change that came to our committee. I believe Yasser Gowayed is, is he here?, Yasser’s back there and this comes from his committee. If there are questions about this he can address those questions. Pardon, do I need to make a motion? So I move that the changes to the Academic Program Review Committee be adopted as policy in the Faculty Handbook.
Bob Locy: And then I say it doesn’t require a second? So to get it right this time. The motion coming from faculty senate committee does not require a second. Is there any discussion of this motion? (pause) Seeing none then, all in favor of the approval of the amendments with respect to the Academic Program Review Committee signify by saying aye.
Group: aye
Bob Locy: opposed same sigh? This motion carries as well.
Last item on our agenda today is a presentation of an Interdisciplinary Degree Program. This is going to be done by both Linda Glaze and Patricia Duffy.
43:33
Linda Glaze: I’m going to start the presentation because this is a proposal that I initiated with two or three of the colleges in terms of coming up with what might be a way of addressing the large number of our students who are in academic good standing. And Auburn University defines academic good standing as a student who has a 2.0 and somewhere between this we started moving toward raising GPAs for admission to different programs. We have the College of Business, now has its academic excellence initiative that has a 2.5, and in response then we have the Department of Communication, and they have raised their standard to a 2.3. We’ve had other requests from the College of Liberal Arts to raise their standards for admission to take courses and to be in the major; College of Human Sciences has done the same, so that is where the initial thinking came from. In terms of the actual program that we proposed and it did have review of the university curriculum committee is the following: First of all the idea of a general studies program was given to me by the previous provost, and being from Liberal Arts, that individual suggested that ‘well maybe we won’t need to have like other schools a general studies program’ I think probably like the ones that Bob was talking about. And that particular model did not personally appeal to me because, one I am from Liberal Arts and it did seem that that degree was just what I would call a 120 hours of anything. And so I really wasn’t very interested in that. As we looked at what other schools were offering, the models at Mississippi State which is called bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary studies, Texas A&M has just instituted a similar program–not identical, but where students will take organized areas. And also the program at the University of Maryland was very interesting in particular because of the what I saw was the central academic oversight of the program to insure that it was a quality program.
As I indicated the proposed Bachelor of Science degree at Auburn in interdisciplinary studies will be organized so that students will take two to three different disciplines; organize materials from two to three different areas across colleges. We discussed who should have that academic oversight and because it was across colleges that is why the planning group which consisted of associate deans who oversee the curricula in several of the colleges decided that the best location would be in the office of the provost and in particular my office because it is an undergraduate program. I’ve given you some of the justifications one of the issue that we want to have a flexible degree that allows students to combine the study of several academic disciplines. And in part this is in response to more and more departments that are putting barriers for students, and we’re talking—I’m talking about students who are in academic good standing and that is with a 2.0, in terms of that barrier. But at the same time I’m a very practical person and wanted something that, if it is a general studies program, that we want to have something that a student will have the skills to be employable afterwards. That is why the program that we have designed has a strong emphasis on career exploration and development in the structure of the course. Also we’re looking at a program that would allow certain students who do not find programs that exactly model what they are interested in to pursue those. In the planning group one of the individuals was Jim Hanson the director of the Honors College and who is working on the biography of Robert Trent Jones. He told us how when Robert Trent Jones was a student he didn’t find the type of degree that he wanted at Cornell, so we talked about this potentially being the Robert Trent Jones Degree Program in the sense of, a student has an idea and can combine different fields that we offer here at Auburn.
In terms of, Bob has talked about the issue of academic integrity to the program, so in setting it up, who would be eligible for such a program? The first issue would be for students to be admitted into the program, the student has to have a 2.0 GPA or have a 2.2 in the previous semester. For those of you who may not be familiar with academic policy for undergraduates; if a student is in academic trouble the student has to either have in a given term after the student has been put on warning, must reach a GPA for his or her number of hours or have a 2.2 in the previous term. That was the reason for having the designation of having a 2.2 in the previous term because that means the student can continue in residence.
The next issue is that at what point should the student be able to declare such a major and again working with the various colleges that I work with on a regular basis, the colleges wanted the opportunity for the students to start in their home college. And we felt that, 30 hours, as a beginning place would mean basically after the freshman year. In order to guarantee that we established, and Patricia’s going to talk about the introductory course in more detail, we will have an introductory course that will serve as the gate. It’s like the introductory course that has been developed by many interdisciplinary type programs at the minor level. We have the introductory course in women’s studies, the introductory course in sustainability that is one of the keystones of those types of programs. And also to enter, in other words the student could take this introductory course and if the student earns a C or higher, the student can be admitted into the majors. So that it is not for…, we’re not blocking students, but we’re basing it upon their performance in that course.
At this time I’m going to turn it over to Patricia, as you know Patricia Duffy joined the office of undergraduate studies this summer and one of the things I was looking for was someone who had a background in interdisciplinary work and also had done a lot of advising of undergraduates. Patricia brought both of those to the table and has really made a difference in adding those aspects to this program.
Patricia Duffy: First I’ll give a little overview of the program. As Dr. Glaze mentioned earlier, 36 semester hours, and these can be split up into two sets of 18 hours, 18 and 18 across two schools or colleges, or three sets of 12, 12,12,12 across three different schools or colleges. This is similar to the model at Mississippi State. In addition to those 36 hours, which are part of the major, the student would also take the two interdisciplinary studies courses. The first introductory course, which they would need to declare the major and then a senior capstone experience course which would be an internship or a service learning course. Or a student was, perhaps an honors student or a highly motivated student to do a research project could also be a thesis type of work, so either of those three things. They also would take 8 to 9 hours of supporting course work in oral communication, in computer competent computer science or some other course that would demonstrate computer competence and a writing course and upper level writing course, so that’s 8-9 hours depending on whether it’s a 2 or 3 hour competency computer course.
We’ll also follow rules on the requirements of upper level courses for majors. In our catalogue at least 20 hours in a major must be upper level courses, so these cannot be introductory courses. You have to have at least 20 hours at the 3,000, 4,000, or 5,000 level, the same as any other major.
Approvals, and this is where we wanted to be certain that we did not create a program that the university could not be proud of, we wanted to make sure that there was faculty involvement, faculty oversight, and that this could be a degree that students could find flexible, but that we could turn out student that we do not have concerns about the quality of their education. The student will have a faculty mentor a faculty member to approve the entire degree plan, all aspects of the degree plan, including supporting courses that they plan to take or any prerequisites that they would need to satisfy, to take certain upper level courses. They will also need approval of faculty advisors in each of the concentration fields, so if they have two concentration fields, they’ll have two faculty advisors–one in each field that will have to approve that selection on courses as being good courses to take to gain the type of knowledge that a student would need in that area. This would also be a point where the student will find out whether it’s feasible to take these courses. Are these courses going to be available for the student, also would get a heads up on any prerequisites, we hope our students always study the Bulletin and look for prerequisites but sometimes they need a little push to get that prerequisite so that faculty advisors would say, “yes, but you need accounting or yes, but you need calculus to take that class.” That would be also, a good opportunity for the student to make connections inside that field.
In addition to those approvals there will be a final approval from the office of undergraduate studies, but that’s a fair amount of approval but we still want it, we wanted to make sure we were keeping and eye on this program, the same way that faculty members in a department would keep an eye out on their own program to be sure that their students were getting what they wanted, what the faculty in that program thought they needed. So there will be an oversight committee, there will be a faculty oversight committee and this will be composed of one faculty member of each school and college that could have concentrations in such a degree. The natural place to find such faculty members would be on the college or school’s curriculum committee. This would serve to get someone familiar with curriculums in general, the member of the colleges/school curriculum committee, and also would serve as a nice liaison between that college and school and their curricular efforts there and this program. So that was the faculty oversight committee. And this committee will serve as a contact point for faculty advisors and the faculty mentors, and also bring information back to the rest of the curriculum committee in the college. They will review the progress reports from the students. They will not approve the degree programs individually, but they will look at them. They will see what’s going on, and each semester they will prepare a report about what’s going on in this program to bring to the university curriculum committee so that any problems could be flagged early on. Or suggestions for improvements so that if we see something that could be tweaked a little bit, made better with this program that wasn’t obvious because it’s a new program, these folks would say, “hey, maybe you want to consider doing this” or maybe 95 hours or maybe 35 hours or some small changes could be brought forward from this committee.
The introductory course is an important component of the program. A major project of this course is the development of a well justified degree plan it will have a written component as well as a list of courses, what are they trying to get out of this degree, why these courses, they will have to present this as a written report and also they will have to present it orally to other members of the class. We envision that the course will be co-taught by a faculty member and a career advisor and of course help students identify concentration areas, help students identify possible mentors—maybe give them some help in figuring out who is the appropriate faculty advisor to see. And they need a minimum grade of C to declare the major.
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The goal is to have approximately 15 to 30 graduates per year as the program gets going over the next five years. The entry will be limited by the number of seats in the introductory course, because you can’t declare this major unless you go through the undergraduate introductory course, we don’t have to worry about a flood gate of students all of the sudden being in this program. Initially we envision offering two sections per year, one in the fall one in the spring. They’d be fairly small courses because of the type of intensive one-on-one work that would be done and the need for oral presentations, I thought 25 students in each sections. So a maximum of 50 students per year would come through this funnel in the beginning phases.
A timeline. The degree plan was approved by the University Curriculum Committee last week on October 2nd, and still needs approval from the Board of Trustees and ACHE. The hope is to launch this degree in the fall of 2009, to start offering those introductory courses. Now I will open it up to questions, thanks for your time.
Bob Locy: Since this is an information item there is no need for a motion.
Guy Rohrbaugh senator from philosophy: If you could say a couple, I take it there’s this one sort of introduction to interdisciplinary studies. And I guess I don’t have yet a real clear picture of what the content of the class is other than perhaps to help people navigate, to study the navigation of this particular system.
Patricia Duffy: Sure, you want more information on the introductory class. Yes, it’s a three-hour class, so certainly more than a degree plan involved. There would be a faculty member and a career advisor in teaching the course and the faculty member would present information in general about what does it mean to be interdisciplinary– a little bit of background on interdisciplinary work and the model course that we have has the faculty member giving the student four case studies, different types of interdisciplinary projects, of course if I were to start listing them they would all [I’m from the Ag econ department] they would all have an odd connection to my work. One type of thing might be, from something I’m working on is the obesity epidemic, I saw my nutrition colleague over there, which is truly very interdisciplinary because you’ve got economics, you’ve got nutrition, you’ve got exercise science, you’ve got city planning, you’ve got all of these things, biofuels might be another. So you have these types of case studies. The students would also do…(you have the career counselor co-teaching the course) the students also write a careers paper, it would be a research paper, they would go out and look at career trends in the areas that they were looking at possibly moving into, find out what sort of job openings there might be in the future–research that. Also call people who are in this field. Find people, get some help from the career counselor, call people [and ask] what skills do you need?, what do you do?, and then write a paper along those lines. There’d be a midterm, over the readings, there’d be course readings on interdisciplinary case studies, and interdisciplinary works, and then also in addition to presenting your own degree plan and developing your own degree plan other students will critique it, there will be four critiques of your colleagues (of your peers) of their degree plan. So in addition to learning a lot about the concentrations that you yourself are interested in, by critiquing other people’s degree plans you’re going to learn a lot about the rest of the university. So these will be formal written, short two to three page papers that they will give to the students at different points to help them. They will get feedback from the other students as well as from the professor. And there will be a final exam and a midterm.
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David Carter from the department of fisheries: I just had one quick observation and then two concrete questions. I can envision this serving a little bit like…the University of Virginia used to have something called the Echols Scholars Program where very talented undergraduates could come in and not really have a major requirement. People might take courses in lots of different areas, so I can imagine something like this benefiting the really bright interdisciplinary-oriented students. I think the word on the street is that this program might also be designed to benefit students who are not succeeding in different schools and colleges, so it seems to me you might wind up with some interesting mixes of students and it may not be appropriate to comment on that. Concretely, I wonder, does this come back to us as an action item? What is the senate’s role other than being in the informational loop, which I think all of us very much appreciate [it]. And then I don’t know if anyone else experienced difficulty, but I was unable to get this particular item to open from the agenda that I received as an e-mail and I’d very much like to share it with my colleagues, but that may have been a computing problem on my end.
Patricia Duffy: It wasn’t part of the agenda, but it should be part of the minutes. It will be on the Senate Web as part of the minutes after the meeting. Or immediately after or whenever it gets on the Web site. As far as the action item goes I’ll let Bob speak to that, but this was a major that came through the university curriculum committee.
Bob Locy: Um, David, first of all the reason your link didn’t work is that you’ll notice that the date that this went through the curriculum committee was the second of October. We were reluctant to put it attached to the senate agenda until after it had gone through curriculum committee, it may have been an oversight that after the 2nd it did not get made hot, but that’s how that process happened, there was no intention to deceive. The second issue is what’s the future intent of that. This was actually discussed in steering briefly and was not resolved and needs to be yet an issue of steering. No curriculum that we’re aware of has come before the senate for approval, but then no university wide curriculum has ever been approved and so we’re kind of in no man’s land here with respect to rules to follow in terms of approval of this. My personal opinion is I would rather ere on the side of asking for too much approval from the senate in this matter, but that needs to be a negotiated solution, shall we say since there really isn’t a formal rule to follow, that we’re in the progress of still doing and perhaps we should have done that before we brought it to the Senate. The feeling was that we wanted to get it on the agenda for this meeting and get it discussed at least in front of you so that if we decided it should come back we can bring it back next month, then we will have had the chance to air it because my vision is that next month’s senate meeting is going to be real busy, so there will be less time for debate next month.
I’m Jan Kavookjian, I’m senator in the department of pharmacy care systems: I guess I just wanted to make a personal comment, I am the parent a college student on the second end of the continuum that Dr. Carter was talking about. My son just graduated in May from West Virginia University, and they have a multi interdisciplinary studies program that is not quite as structured as this is in terms of the introductory and the capstone courses and so on, but he was one of those students, like many, who changed his major multiple times; and I don’t even remember what the majors were in the second and third rounds of that, but in the end when he finally decided what he wanted to do, that program allowed him to bring it all together with some mentoring and finish the degree and graduate, thank god.
Patricia Duffy: Thank you, and congratulations. If after you leave if something pops into your head that you didn’t think to ask today, I’m duffypa@auburn.edu, and I’ll be glad to take any e-mails that you would like to send me. If anyone walks away and thinks, boy, I’d really like to teach in that program, please feel free to send me an e-mail about that too.
Tom Sanders, not a senator: I probably should have asked this before. You were discussing this in terms of it’s too hard for some students to get into and stay into business because of the 2.5 GPA so the person could graduate in this interdisciplinary program with a 2.0 GPA?
Patricia Duffy: Umhum, a 2.0 to 4.0, right.
Tom Sanders: So in some sense the point that was made earlier is probably relevant because there will be people who couldn’t manage a 2.3 or a 2.5 or whatever, who will still be able to graduate.
Patricia Duffy: Umhum, We do have majors, such as my own major in AG Econ where a 2.0 is an acceptable GPA but in others students are needing higher GPAs.
Bob Locy: Alright, in the absence of further discussion of our information item for today then is there any unfinished business? (pause) Is there any new business? (pause) Then I believe it’s time to stand adjourned until next month.