Transcript Senate Meeting
June 8, 2010

Kathryn Flynn, chair: I’d like to call the meeting to order. I’d like to remind all of the senators, if you haven’t done so to sign in at the back. Also if you are subbing for a senator if you would sign in, if you would just put your initials next to their name on the sign-in sheet at the back. I’d like to mention that we have the large room not because we expected and enormous turn out in June, but because they use this room for Camp War Eagle and it is easier for them to leave it open than to have them close it an reopen it.

We have a fairly busy agenda today. As usual I’ll remind you that senators are to speak first and if you have something to say, a comment to make or question, go to the microphones at the middle or on this end of the room. We do allow and encourage guests to speak, but we do ask that you let senators speak first. When you go to the microphone if you would clearly tell us your name, whether you’re a senator or not, and which unit you represent. That will help the transcriptionist to properly identify your comments.

As usual the first item on our agenda is approval of the minutes (from the last Senate meeting. Dennis DeVries, the secretary, has posted these minutes online and sent a link to all the senators. This is the minutes of the May 4 senate meeting so at this time I’d like to ask if there are any additions changes or deletions to the minutes? Hearing none the minutes will stand approved as written. At this time I’d like to invite Dr. Gogue to come forward.


Dr. Gogue, president: Thank you, it’s good to be with you. I just have a couple of items that I want to mention and then I’d be happy to respond to questions. Last Tuesday The Chronicle of Higher Education invited a group of presidents to come and spend a few hours with a all their reporters and go over various things on our campus. They are doing this on a weekly basis and going through groups of presidents rather than an individual president and they are doing it with a mix. I think Texas A&M, ours, one of the Cal State system presidents was there, private schools….  So it’s a mix of different people. I would share with you that we talked about a number of different things at Auburn. One of the areas that they are particularly interested in as you might imagine would be the Gulf oil spill. And I would use that just to say thank you to all of you that are in any way involved in participating in that. I know that there is material in our Web page and I know there has been a lot of interaction with both Federal agencies at the D.C. level as well as in the Atlanta area for the region that we are in, and I appreciate what you are doing. I’m sure there will be stories and more information relative to that and if you’re involved I hope that you participate when the call you.

They were particularly intrigued by what Auburn has done, and I hope I got my numbers right–so Don you need to correct me–this is a story I told anyway. The change in the way we do drugs on campus, prescription drugs on campus. The numbers I had seen shows that in your first full year of having the generics at zero cost to the employee, saved employees about $500,000 in copayment, and saved the university about 3 million dollars. I don’t know that’s the number someone had given me so they were very interested in that and particularly interested in the new plan that starts in the month of May, in which if you go have the physical and you meet certain criteria then you get $25 off of your health care. So interest in that, but interest to be very candid with you, in a variety of areas at Auburn. I hope something good will come about it. We were probably able to meet with nine or ten different writers that the Chronicle uses.


Second thing I want to mention is that the month of May, relative to the educational trust fund was a very good month from the data that we see. Their proceeds or their income in that trust fund was up about 6% over the previous May. Which again, you are having months that are good, months that are about the same as last year, but we’re seeing some progress in that so we feel a degree of optimism when we look at what the revenues are doing.

Several of you have asked, and you ask each month it seems like, what’s the prognosis, what’s happening relative to another round of proration? I think you may recall about 6 weeks ago the general fund did have an additional proration. We have heard nothing in the last 6 weeks or 8 weeks that dealt with additional proration on the educational trust fund. Correct Don? So we have heard that, but that does not mean that tonight when we go home that it couldn’t happen, but at least they usually let you know ahead of time before they make that kind of announcement.

Final thing I wanted to say is that it’s been an interesting year. It’s been a good year. When I looked at the strategic plan results that basically you and your colleagues across the campus have done, I’m really impressed with what you’ve done. Mary Ellen will provide a report to the Board of Trustees next week when we meet, and it goes over the things that we tried to get done. Some of the items we obviously did not get done, but many of them did get done and I’m particularly appreciative of that.

Also since you are changing senate officers, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say thank you to the group that you had this year. They gave great leadership. Probably one of the most collegial experiences that you can have in a university as an administrator is to have great faculty leadership. And I’ve been here 3 years and I have to tell you, every year you’ve had exceptional faculty leadership and that makes the job of president a whole lot easier. These individuals devote a lot of time, we meet several times each month and I know the Provost meets more frequently. But it’s a good feeling and I guess that I sense that we are making some progress. I appreciate what each one of you do, I hope that all of you will have a chance to take some time off this summer and prepare for the fall. I’ll be happy to respond to questions.

Richard Penaskovic, philosophy, not a senator: I’m wondering, are we making progress with the new policy on facilities and how are we doing there?

Dr. Gogue, president: Richard’s question, I think you may recall that Dan King either the last meeting or the one before that at the Senate, presented an array of projects. The total numbers were about $600 million of what we thought we could reasonably expect to do in the next decade. I think if you recall the very first project had to do with a classroom type facility, these are not priority order, but the project started off with a new classroom facility, state-of-the-art, and then the second on that list was really reconditioning, upgrade, redo, change on a series of buildings. Rich, Haley is on that building list, so I know that’s where your question is coming from. That will be presented to the Board at the meeting next week in Montgomery, the Board of Trustees meeting. [8:06] Thank you.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Thank you, Dr. Gogue.  And on behalf of the other officers I’d like to thank you for your kind comments. This is the last meeting that I will chair and both Dennis DeVries, the secretary and I would like to thank all of you for the opportunity to serve you this year. It has been and interesting, educational, and overall a very enjoyable endeavor. I’ve learned a lot from it an I hope that we have served you well.  Claire Crutchley and Russ Muntifering will become the officers July 1 and they are both well qualified and ready to take on this role and I wish them both, luck. I’m looking forward to a little extra free time. We’ll still be involved but in a much reduced way.

There are a couple of items I’d like to provide some insight or some information on before we get to the action items. First is an announcement related to review of the current practice, right now if a student wants to add a class after the first day of class they have to receive permission and be manually added to that class in the banner-system. This is for anyone who wants to add a class after the first day in fall or spring semester. I was asked to let you know that the Office of the Provost is looking into ways we can better utilize our available course capacity. One idea is to allow students to Web register for a class for a period longer than the first class day for both fall and spring semesters. Currently they can add a class through the 15th class day, but they have to have permission to do that and as I said, they have to be manually added to the roster. Sometimes that permission to add the class can be an obstacle to student enrollment. And also adding students to classes with vacancies takes a lot of staff-time, so you could use that time better in some other way.

They’ve looked at other institutions and find that many of them allow a longer period of time for students to Web register for a class, generally through the fifth class day. So one of the things the Academic Affairs Committee is going to do this summer is to explore the possibility of allowing students to have longer to add classes. The Academic Affairs Committee is composed primarily of associate deans. In some cases the committee may find that there are compelling reasons why a student should not add after the first class day and in those cases the class limit can be manually adjusted to zero once the first class day has passed, in other cases that can be expanded. So I just wanted you to know that they are going to be thinking about this and if you have concerns or comments about this potential change then contact Patricia Duffy or the associate dean of your college or school and let them know kind of what your thoughts are.

The other thing I’d like to mention is that the Rules Committee is very heavily into working on staffing senate committees and nominating people for university committees. You may likely be asked through an e-mail, you and other faculty, for another round of volunteers. We don’t have enough volunteers for all the committees. We will be sending out a list of targeted committees and if you could encourage your faculty to consider volunteering if they haven’t done so already, because many of these committees are very integrally involved in the changes that are being looked at on campus.

The other thing I’ like to do is talk a little bit about one of the action items that we have on the agenda today and that is the procedures related to the Lecturer/Senior Lecturer positions.

As you probably remember we adopted an amended proposal several months ago that outlined how the positions, which were previously approved by the Senate, would be instituted. The proposal, the amendment contained language that established de facto tenure for the Lecturer/Senior Lecturer positions and for that reason the administration declined to approve the proposal. Subsequently the Senate leadership was approached by a number of people from a variety of different categories (instructors, faculty, deans, department heads, program heads, directors) and asked what the next step would be in terms of developing guidelines for the positions that were approved by the Senate.

Several significant issues were raised by a number of the people that talked to us and they included things like, an instructor who noted that when she would have to drop from 100% instructor to 80% employment prior to receiving de facto tenure, she would be able to maintain Auburn insurance but would loose the tuition waiver for her dependants, and that of course was a problem. Others pointed out the hardship this places on families where one spouse is tenured and the other is an instructor, or in the issue where you have a tenure track position and someone has a spouse that’s coming along, but we don’t really have a spousal hiring policy and so this is one possible use of such positions.

Additionally people raised the issue of: currently if you are in an instructor position and you apply for a tenure position, your tenure clock has already started from the time you started serving as an instructor. Whereas if we have lecturer/senior lecturer positions there would be no years of service counted on your tenure clock. So those were some of the issues that people asked us to look at, and for these reasons the Steering Committee decided that it was appropriate to ask the non-tenure-track faculty committee to develop document recommending procedures for filling and maintaining these positions. [15:07]

The proposal you have before you today that we will vote on later in the agenda is a result of their efforts. The steering committee felt that given the recent discussion of this topic and the interest that was exhibited by a number of people on campus that we would present this as an action item at this meeting rather than as information at this meeting and later as an action at the end of the summer. So that’s the explanation for that item on the agenda. At this time unless anybody has any questions we’ll move to the action items.

We are going to try the clickers again. We discovered that the base that we were trying to use last time…go to the microphone.

Herb Rotfeld, marketing not a senator: Actually, main question, faculty representation on search committees. We had a number of search committees going on this past year, more than in a long time, but there was a change in part of the approach to them that I’m a little bothered by. In times past all chair searches would have an outside faculty representation, and that person or persons would be someone nominated by the Rules Committee. Say we’re having a search for a dean and the Rules committee would say here are some people to be nominated to be outside representations of faculty. We’d have this for program searches. What I found during the past year, for all searches instead of having a senior faculty member from around campus or different people involved, it has always been from the faculty leadership. This is nothing about yourself, the chair-elect or any members of the executive committee, but I think that wrapping all of this stuff in just the executive committee to be doing all of this stuff and losing the old idea of nominating outsiders or other faculty members, we should also add that one can’t help but notice that sometimes the faculty leadership is not an outside faculty member but becomes an additional person from that college added, such as yourself on Forestry or someone else from the faculty leadership in the area. Why did we drop the old practice of having the Rules committee nominate other faculty members to serve on these search committees?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: I’m not sure and I may ask Mary Ellen if she would like to address (from) the provost because I don’t know what the old practice was because I was never on the Rules committee when there were dean searches going on.

Mary Ellen Mazey, provost: Obviously that’s my response too. If there’s a mistake that’s been made here it is my mistake. I wanted to make sure that there was faculty representation and I did not know about the old practice, so I apologize and have asked faculty governance to be involved and have very positive response about the search committee. So I did not know there was any problem.

Herb Rotfeld, marketing not a senator: One additional question. Apologies that become a bit personal on things, your ending you time as chair and you would be the faculty representative for the Board of Trustees, which has been the practice for several years, however you’ve also applied for an administrative job that would take on in August and if you are selected for this administrative job, and I’m not saying anything about that, what would you do to have a non-administrative faculty member serve in your stead on the Board of Trustees?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Well let me first give you some background. The position he’s talking about is the director for the interdisciplinary studies program. It’s a 60% administrative position, it does not oversee faculty it is what I would consider the equivalent of an undergraduate program director. And I debated with myself, did this make sense, was it a conflict on interest? I talked to a number of different people and got some mixed results frankly, but in general most people felt like it would not be a conflict of interest. I don’t know if there is anything I can do. I’m mandated as immediate past chair to serve as representative on the Board. I think I can do a good job of that. I don’t think managing an interdisciplinary undergraduate program will so remove me from being a faculty member that I can’t represent faculty. If people have a lot of problems with that, they are welcome to let me know that and I will make a decision based on that. [20:11] But personally my view in the whole thing is that it is the equivalent of an undergraduate program director. Many people who are involved in Senate positions are undergrad program directors so I don’t see a conflict and maybe that’s my own bias. So if you have problems, if you would let me know that, I’d appreciate it. Thank you.

Are there any other questions or comments? If not I’d like to move on to the action items. We are going to try to use the clickers again. We found that these are brand new clickers and the base that we used last time was actually too old for the clickers, technology moves really quickly, and so we are going to try it and if it doesn’t work the first time we’ll move rapidly into paper or voice votes.

With that I’d like to call forward Dennis DeVries, he is going to handle an election for a new rules committee member.

Dennis DeVries, secretary: This was sent to everybody with the agenda, at least linked to the agenda so you should have seen it or had a copy of it. If you recall several months ago we had our nomination for Rules committee members and at that time we had nominations of two individuals and then we voted on those two, but we still had a third position remaining. And we have now received a third nomination, Barbara Kemppainen, and this is the bio information that you received with the agenda. The process for this nomination to be brought to this body and voted on. So with that I present on behalf of the executive committee this nomination of Barbara Kemppainen for the third rules committee position.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Are there any other nominations from the floor? If not all those in favor, we’re going to try the clickers, hit A for yes and B for no, C for abstain. (clicking) Overwhelmingly positive, congratulations Barbara, and we will be in touch with you about the meeting schedule, which is pretty amazing. You will actually assume office in August.

Our next item on the agenda is proposed changes to the Curriculum committee and the Graduate Council
and I’d like to call Linda Glaze forward. [24:00]

Linda Glaze, Assoc provost for undergraduate studies: I’m here for the Graduate Council and the university curriculum committee because George Flowers is on his way out of the country, and I don’t think it’s because this is a radical change. Basically what is being proposed is that instead of the current practice for graduate courses to go through review by both the graduate council and the university curriculum committee, those courses and degree programs that are just graduate would just be approved by the graduate council and the university curriculum committee would no longer be involved. Obviously if a proposal such as what we call our piggy back courses that are 5000/6000s those courses are both graduate and undergraduate, those would continue to have to go through both groups, but they could go simultaneously. And the same would be true for the accelerated bachelors/masters proposals even though the requirements are graduate the impact is changes in the undergraduate curriculum model. And this is the wording change (referring to screen). Are there any questions? I heard there was going to be a friendly amendment.

Norbert Wilson, senator from agricultural economics and rural sociology and also a member of the curriculum committee: I have a friendly amendment and it’s actually just to make explicit the idea that when there is a curriculum change that deals with both undergraduates and graduates that it’s made explicit that the university curriculum committee would see both of those. So my change is basically is this wording here.  (The amendment was to insert "and changes that affect both undergraduate and graduate curricula (e.g., 5000/6000 courses, accelerated Bachelor's and Master's programs, etc.)" to the end of the second sentence (i.e., after "curriculum changes"). 


Linda Glaze, Assoc provost for undergraduate studies: I think that’s an excellent change. That makes the language explicit.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: So the committee has accepted this as a friendly amendment so we don’t need a second. Doesn’t require a vote. Does anybody have any comments or questions related to the proposed change to the curriculum and graduate council committees? This is a change in the Faculty Handbook so it will require a two-thirds majority vote in favor. If there are no comments I’m going to call for the vote. So if you will vote using your clicker, A is yes, B is no, C is abstain.–The amended motion was approved (59 yes, 5 no, 1 abstain) If I do the math right the amendment passed and this is now will be sent forward for the administration for approval.

The next item on our agenda is consideration of a proposed change to the Faculty Handbook concerning Academic Freedom. And this is being brought forward from James Goldstein, who’s a senator and a member of the AAUP.

James Goldstein, senator for English and a member of the AAUP: We had sent out two links, one gave a brief background for the reason for this recommended change, which I’ve now got on the screen. I’m not going to read it I hope everyone’s had a chance to look at it. I want to thank everybody who’s played a roll in moving this to the Senate, the senate leadership, the administration, and the steering committee. The short version of the reason for this proposed change has to do with the consequences of a recent Supreme Court decision Garcetti v. Ceballos. That Supreme Court decision made a reservation about whether the ruling which dealt with a case for a public employee, non-academic, (and) whether the same ruling would apply to academic freedom in the case of public university employees. The Supreme Court reserved that question, there have been some recent appellate courts, federal courts, district courts that ignored that question and ruled that it does apply to public university employees. So the scary part that I want to address your attention to is in the second paragraph there which quotes from the district court decision having to do with a civil engineer, some of you may remember reading about this in the papers when it happened, but a civil engineer at the University of California, Irvine who expressed disagreements with the administration of his school and that case went to court and the district court judge there to quote from that ruling, the scary part….  That the university, this is in the case Hong v. Grant, Wong Hong was the civil engineering professor, who objected by the way to various administrative practices including the hiring of what in his view were too many non-tenure track faculty members, but anyway…The federal district judge ruled that the University of California “is entitled to unfettered discretion when it restricts statements an employee makes on the job and according to his professional responsibilities.” So the 1940 statement of principle on academic freedom and tenure that is enshrined in our Faculty Handbook and that of most colleges, back then they never explicitly clarified that academic freedom is not just about research and teaching, that it should also apply to our ability to participate in shared governance and to speak in an unfettered way about our views, about matters of faculty governance. So after this and two other similar rulings the national AAUP organization had a subcommittee conduct a detailed investigation and to make recommendations, so they recommended that local chapters work with their administrations whenever possible to amend Faculty Handbooks to make it explicit for the first time that academic freedom also involves our participation in shared governance and that sort of thing.

So the actual language that’s being recommended to be revised in the Faculty Handbook, let me get that document, and this is the part of the Faculty Handbook right at the top of Chapter 3 that defines academic freedom and these three paragraphs, a, b, c are all quotations from the 1940 statement on academic freedom and tenure. So we’re proposing to make the modifications in paragraph c as shown above, that would make it clear that when college and university teachers speak and write on matters of public interest as well as matters related to professional duties in the functioning of the university that they should be free from institutional censorship and discipline. [34:23]

The business about matters of public interest that’s to clarify what did it mean in the old language which is stricken out in this proposal when we speak as citizens. Well what does that mean? We’re always citizens when we speak so the idea is, when we speak on matters of the public interest as well as related to professional duties and the functioning of the university, that’s the shared governance part. And because the Faculty Handbook quotes from the 1940 statement, we thought that having the footnote would clarify why this slightly revises the quotation from the 1940 statement because this was the recommendation in 2009 by the national AAUP organization. And so that’s basically what we’re hoping that you will approve. Any questions?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: This motion is coming from a senator so it does require a motion and a second. Motion for adoption and a second? Does anyone want to make a motion? Steve Brown from political science made the motion, Michael Clay from architecture seconds. Are there any discussions? Comments? If not, we’ll use our clickers again. This is a change in the Handbook so it does require two-thirds majority. All those in favor press A. Opposed B and abstain, C. It’s 55 and it does not pass, it requires 58. So the motion does not pass.

Darrell Crutchley: Does anyone else have their vote not counted?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Can he enter his vote now? No. Everybody make sure your clickers are still on, make sure you have a blue light and we will re run the vote.

James Goldstein, senator English: I rise to a motion of privilege. I’d like to request that we vote by standing up so that we can make sure there are no technical difficulties.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Do we have a second on that? Tony Moss from biological sciences seconds. All in favor say aye.

Group: Aye.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Opposed? Okay we will…do you want to make a comment?

Larry Gerber, professor emeritus of history, not a senator former senate chair: I was also a member of the national AAUP committee which dealt with this issue and I strongly urge those of you who may have abstained reconsider your vote if you were in opposition, that this language has not met with opposition from anyone that I know of in the administration. Similar wording has been adopted at several other universities that deal with this issue, so I would urge you to vote in favor of this motion. [38:30]

Tony Moss, biological sciences, senator: A question that comes to my mind is, must we then, every time that we make a statement that will appear in the public, state clearly at the beginning or at the end or somewhere in between that we are not speaking for the institution? See what I mean, It’s kind of the reverse side of the…

Kathryn Flynn, chair: I’m going to invite James Goldstein to address that.

James Goldstein, senator from English: That would not change if this is adopted because part of what is currently in the Handbook is language that says and I quote, “as scholars and educational officers, they (that is the faculty members) should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are (and this is the operative part-it currently says) [that they are] not speaking for the institution.” So we got out that earlier stuff and just focused on that candor requires that we make it clear that we are not speaking for the institution when we make statements on matters of public interest. So that business for not speaking for the institution and candor is there in the old version and will be in the new version.

Dennis DeVries, secretary: A point of order. We are debating a motion to vote not the original motion.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: That’s true. We’ve wandered off of Robert’s Rules. So at this time I’d like to ask that all of those who are senators who have a right to vote please stand if you are in favor of this amendment. (counting) Okay, you can be seated. We have 57, which is one short of the 58 required to pass this amendment to the senate Handbook.
Okay, we are going to move forward on the next item. Which is the approval of 3 remaining, vote on 3 remaining changes to the Faculty Handbook related to promotion and tenure. I’m bringing Russ Muntifering, who is secretry-elect forward to manage these.

Chapter 3.11.E, last paragraph
Russ Muntifering, secretary-elect: [43:07] The first proposed revision would create a quote unquote closed dossier by removing the ability to send letters of evaluation straight to the dean, college committee thereby circumventing the department head. In the current wording if you would refer simply to the partial sentence following the semicolon, the proposed revision would result in deletion of that sentence.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Does anybody have any questions or comments on this proposed change?

Herb Rotfeld, marketing not a senator: On the one hand I have long advocated that in the matters of honesty that all things should be closed once they are leaving the department. On the other hand as I talk to other people about this view I encounter a number of people on campus that are concerned because they have encountered times when the felt that deans or department heads were not forwarding everything that was in there. And they felt this removing their ability to at least concurrently sent it up to the Provost, removed their ability of being assured that the letter would get there. And these concerns are not unfounded because I know of at least 3 instances in my time at Auburn where deans and department heads did pull letters from the dossier that did not conform to their particular points of view. And when found out it was not fatal to their administrative job history. Does this mean, the question being that if you send something concurrently to the department head and it’s concurrently sent to the committee it goes to the trash?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: So you’re saying rather than sending it through the department head…

Herb Rotfeld, marketing not a senator: I’m saying people would like to send it concurrently to both places to make sure it’s there.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Oh, send it concurrently both places?

Herb Rotfeld, marketing not a senator: Yeah, to be sure it got to the provost’s office. As I said some people because of past behavior don’t trust it will always go forward.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: I would assume that it would be left up to the provost, but I think if you can indicate in there that you are sending it concurrently to both places it would be…

Jim Witte, senator, educational foundations, leadership & technology: I would rise in opposition to that suggestion. As a matter of fact I have a proposed amendment here that would sort of place that off to the side. I think we have a condition where we allow these unsolicited letters to come in, and there’s no check or balance. They can be filled with allegations, less than factual utterances, and the result can be a material damage to the candidate. I’m very concerned about those things particularly when they go directly from this unsolicited source to a provost or to a committee and I have verbiage at the appropriate time I’d like to recommend to correct that.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Are you making a motion?

Jim Witte, senator, educational foundations, leadership & technology: If I may.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Yes, would you like to read your amendment?

Jim Witte, senator, educational foundations, leadership & technology: Yes mam. We have a copy of it up there for the faculty to look at. I propose that the additional verbiage states that “promotion and/or tenure candidate has the right to review and comment on unsolicited letters of evaluation. The candidate’s response will accompany the P&T package.”

All I’m asking for is that candidate to have an opportunity to respond to those things which are unsolicited.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Can we have a motion to amend? Does anybody want to second that motion? Warner Bergen from agriculture has seconded. All those in favor say aye, or is there any discussion first? Does anybody want to discuss this? Ask questions? If not all those in favor say aye.

Group: Aye.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Opposed? The motion passes. This is now part of the proposed amendment.

Barbara Kemppainen, senator, anatomy, physiology & pharmacology: Several people in our department agreed with the first comment. One person who had been on the promotion and tenure committee suggested that it be strongly recommended to have a closed document, but not necessary in every case.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Does anybody have any other comments, suggestions? If not, this again requires a two-thirds majority. We’ll try the clickers. So those in favor press A, B is no, and C is abstain. If your clicker light turns red, turn it off and turn it back on and then vote.
A–41, B–11, C–5, E–1   The motion did not pass. [50:09]

Chapter 3.11.H, 4th paragraph
Russ Muntifering, secretary-elect: The second proposed revision would simply reflect current practice. If you refer to the current wording, in the middle beginning with the word “such” is proposed for deletion and then there is a rewording of the last sentence in terms of the start date for the appointment for level of assistant professor. [51:30]

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Does anybody have any question or comments related to this proposed change to the Faculty Handbook? If not, we’ll hold the vote, again A for yes, B for no, and C for abstain. If you get a red light, turn it off, turn it back on and vote.
A–56, B–6, C–3.  Okay, it failed by one vote (two votes), so this change is not adopted. We’ll move on to the final change.

Richard Penaskovic, philosophy, not a senator: I’m wondering, the last one failed by one vote. Is it two-thirds of the people here today or…

Kathryn Flynn, chair: No, two-thirds majority of the total Senate membership

Richard Penaskovic, philosophy, not a senator: That’s in the Faculty Handbook?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Yes

Chapter 3.14, 6th paragraph
Russ Muntifering, secretary-elect: In this last item the proposed revision includes a new sentence. “The written request should include any relevant new material not included in the original dossier for the appeals committee consideration.” And this would explicitly allow the addition of new material for that purpose.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Again do we have any questions or comments on the proposed change?

Xing Ping Hu, senator for entomology & plant pathology: Professor John Murphy from our department has one comment related to the second sentence. Which is, “appeals should be made in writing to the Provost through the department head and the dean within 14 calendar days of the date of the faculty member’s receipt of notification of denial.”  He suggests a statement indicating that…let me read…he said, “I am aware of the instances when the department head or chair is inconveniently out of the office during that critical 14 days period.” [54:44] He suggest we consider statement indicating that the department head or chair is responsible, that is accountable, for having all needed appeal materials together and delivered to the Provost within the 14 day period.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: So you’re proposing that as an amendment to the proposed change? [55:09]

Xing Ping Hu, senator for entomology & plant pathology: I think he has a point here.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: So do you want to add that language to this as an amendment?

Xing Ping Hu, senator for entomology & plant pathology: Yes if I may.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Okay, can I get the copy so I can show it, thank you. We are going to read this to you so you can see it again and we’ll call for a second.

Russ Muntifering, secretary-elect: It’s the information in quotations? I believe what you are talking about then is a new sentence that would begin with the word “department head/chair is responsible or accountable for having all needed appeal materials together and delivered to the Provost within a 14-day  period.”

Kathryn Flynn, chair: This would require a second. We need a second and then get comments. Does anyone want to second this proposed amendment? Tony Moss from biological sciences seconds. Do you have a comment related to this?

Mike Stern, economics, senator: I think what you want to do here is, the candidate receives 14 days, if you make the department head do something in 14 days he would have to have receive it a little bit in advance.  I think the point of what it says is that they want the department head and the dean to have a copy of the appeal, because the appeal occurs at the university level, it doesn’t occur at the college or departmental level. So if you simply changed the wording of the second sentence rather than say through the dean and the head, just say you provide the appeal to the provost, the dean, and the department head within 14 days. It doesn’t need to go through because there isn’t any processing of the appeal. It’s the through that’s the problem because they could hold it up then. You just want to make sure that all the relevant parties have a copy, so just rather than through just put comma, these three parties need to receive a copy of the appeal within 14 days. So you don’t allow anyone to hole it up then.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: So you are suggesting an amendment to the amendment.

Mike Stern, economics, senator: Yeah, just change that second sentence, put comma and list the three parties.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: I’d like to ask the senator from entomology if you would accept that as a friendly amendment? Yes, then we don’t have to have a vote on that. And so what it would be then is we would introduce a sentence that would say, “appeals should be made in writing to the Provost, the department head, and the dean within 14 calendar days of the date of the faculty member’s receipt of written notification of denial.” So that’s the change there, it’s been seconded. All those in favor of that change to the proposed change say aye.

Group: Aye.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: All opposed? The motion passes. So now does anybody have any comments to make on the amended proposed amendment?

Mark Fischman, Kinesiology, senator: I have spoken out in the past against the addition of new material on appeal that does not go back through the department, and I still don’t feel that that is a good idea. The word relevant new material; who determines relevant? Is it the candidate, the provost, the dean? If we’re going to pass this addition I would hope that there would be some way that the candidate’s department would be able to find out the outcome of the appeal in terms of what the committee considered relevant with the new material. Otherwise I have no idea what material would have been sent forward by a candidate who was denied tenure and if I had access to that new material, my argument is that the department’s vote may have been different in the first place.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Thank you. [1:00:44]

Mike Stern, economics, senator: I agree with Mark, I wouldn’t use the word new. I would use the word supporting. So I would say the relevant supporting material to the appeal. You can’t tell a person what they can and cannot write the appeal, whatever he deems relevant to support the appeal. The problem using the word new is it suggests like there is new publications or something, that’s what he’s worried about. Simply that the deadline it says is October 1 or September 30 so you’re not suppose to include publications after that fact. Okay. I think what he’s worried about is something published in December or January and now I’m going to put it in there.

If you change the word from new to supporting, I think it reads proper and whatever the candidate is choosing to base his appeal on he submits whatever supporting material he has relevant to his appeal, and would not emphasis anything with the word new. The candidate can submit that and the committee can reject it, but if you put in the handbook, new, it’s suggests that you should somehow put new material in. I’d just put supporting, but…

Kathryn Flynn, chair: So you’re proposing that as an amendment?

Mike Stern, economics, senator: If that would work for him.

Mark Fischman, Kinesiology, senator:  Well [1:01:54] I mean even if you did that the material that’s going to be included on appeal is still new material because the department has not seen it before.

Mike Stern, economics, senator: supporting material can be anything, it’s not necessarily new publications, it can be supporting material like copies of evaluations or copies of other types of things that you are bringing into an issue and to how the work was evaluated. When you file an appeal you are going to have to put something in the appeal. So whatever your claims are you may have supporting documentation for it so you put that into the appeal, right?  I mean somebody does an appeal isn’t just I appeal, one sentence, you put material in the appeal.

Mark Fischman, Kinesiology, senator:  I know, I still don’t like the idea that the material would not have gone through the voting faculty first.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Okay.

Bob Locy, Immediate past senate chair: So the way this has always been done in our department is that, for example, if you’ve got a grant funded or published a new paper, you would take that to the voting faculty in your department before appeal, they would look at it and they might even write a supporting letter saying, if we had know this was going to be published at the time we took our original vote, we probably would have voted differently. And that comes into account. It seems to me we ought to err on the side of giving the appellant the best opportunity, not worry whether the faculty’s feelings are hurt because they didn’t get to review some information. So I think that the original wording should stand and I don’t understand why something new that’s arisen since the departmental vote shouldn’t be considered on appeal. [1:03:49]

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Okay, unless somebody is going to introduce a formal amendment changing ‘new’ to ‘supporting’ we have this amendment and I’ll call for a vote. Did you make that as an amendment?

Mike Stern, economics, senator: I was just suggesting to use the word supporting, but it doesn’t have to be…

Mark Fischman, senator, kinesiology: Let me just comment on what Bob Locy said. I guess my original understanding was that it would just be the candidate that was able to submit material, but if we’re willing to allow what Bob suggested; that I could write, submit material that would support the appeal, I would be much happier with that.
Kathryn Flynn, chair: Your department does that already, is what you’re saying?

Mark Fischman, senator, kinesiology: No, I think that’s good. But is that understood? Is that built into the way the change is worded now?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: I think that would be open to interpretation, based on my read.

Mike Stern, economics, senator: I think that’s the reason that it was going through the department head and the dean. It goes to the relevant party, so if the department wants to comment I assume they can. Anybody can write to anybody. I presume that the department has required in the language the old and the new to be receiving a copy of the appeal, so if the department wishes to do something I presume they can.

Mark Fischman, senator, kinesiology: If the department head…appeal and the faculty is aware of it.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Could you please go to the microphone?

Mike Stern, economics, senator: Why is it that the department head is aware of it.

Mark Fischman, senator, kinesiology: (now at microphone) We’re talking about a really important university decision which is the awarding of tenure and promotion to somebody. And I think we really need to be very explicit about what should be allowed and how it should go forward. That’s all I’m saying.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: So would you like to make a motion to postpone this until August?

Mark Fischman, senator, kinesiology: Well, this is my last Senate meeting. (laughter)

Kathryn Flynn, chair: That’s okay.

Mark Fischman, senator, kinesiology: I’m not comfortable with the wording as is. So whether the group would like to postpone it and come back again.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: The only way to find out is if you make a motion we’ll vote on it.

Mark Fischman, senator, kinesiology: I move that we postpone the discussion and vote on this item until August.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: A second? Tony Moss from biological sciences seconds. Any discussion? All in favor? Say aye.

Group: Aye.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Opposed?

Some: Aye.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: It is postponed until August. Thank you. Thank you Russ.
Those of you who are particularly interested in this and have comments, if you will send them to members of the steering committee, we will try to draft some new language and get it out for comment.

At this time we are going to move on to the next action item, which is approval of a Final Exam policy, and I’m calling Patricia Duffy, assistant provost forward.

Patricia Duffy, assistant provost: Hello, just want to make a comment. I’m not allergic to the Senate I have a head cold, so if you’ll please excuse my voice. The policy we’re asking you to vote on today is to really endorse what we had been doing at least as long as I have been here as practice. We do not require students to take 3 finals on one day, however we have never had a vote in the Senate that says we do not require them to take 3 finals on one calendar day and that one of the finals can be rescheduled. Without written policy we can’t establish any deadline by which we ask students to let us know they want to reschedule one final. And every semester we get students who are calling associate deans or our office the day before their finals on one day. So the policy here says that we will adopt that as formal policy that students do not have to take 3 finals on one day, they can ask to have one moved and it leaves to the steering committee to decide the priority, if the 3 faculty members none of them will agree to move the final, who gets priority to keep their slots. Currently there is an informal priority system, but the main thing is that we have a priority system not any particular one. [1:09:03] Currently it goes to the lowest courses have priority, and if they all are low at the 1000 levels for example it would be the ones with the most students keep their slot, but any other priority system that steering would adopt would be fine and it leaves to the Calendar committee to select the deadline each semester or summer term by which students must request to reschedule a final.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Does anybody have any questions for Patricia?

Herb Rotfeld, marketing, not a senator: I would like to move to amend the 3rd paragraph to add at the end a statement, “and brought to the Senate for approval.”

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Does anyone want to second that motion? James Goldstein, English, senator, seconded. All in favor? Or rather any discussion?

The priority system, once it’s developed by the Steering Committee it will be brought to the Senate for approval. And that’s an excellent amendment, speaking as a member of Steering. Does anybody have any discussion? If not, all in favor of the proposed amendment say aye.

Group: Aye.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Opposed? The amendment passes. Are there any other questions or discussions on the overall policy? [1:10:45]

Chris Correia, senator from the department of Psychology: I have a clarification to ask. Does the policy suggest that the exam for all students be rescheduled or that the one student be allowed to reschedule that exam?

Patricia Duffy, assistant provost: The one student. They do that currently and they go through their associate dean, the problem is without a formal policy we cannot tell them; you must get your request in by November 9th, and they don’t sometimes.

Chris Correia, senator from the department of Psychology: Okay, thank you.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Any other questions? If not, this does not require a two-thirds majority. All of those in favor press A, opposed B, Abstain C.  If you do not get a green light, turn off, back on and then vote.  A=61, B=3, C=1

The procedure passes, thank you Patricia. The next item is approval of two ombudsperson proposals and Claire Crutchley, chair-elect, will present these.

Claire Crutchley, chair-elect: Good afternoon. In January of 2008, the senate approved a proposal to establish an ombudsperson position and at the top we’re not sure it exactly needs to come back to the Senate it says: It is intended the policy be implemented on a two year trial basis and reevaluated for continuation beyond that time period. So we decided we’d bring it back to the Senate. The administration is all very supportive of the ombudsperson position and the first one is simply to request continuation of the ombudsperson position. This is not any specific person, Jim Wohl is the current ombudsperson, but that’s not what we’re asking. We’re just asking, does the Senate approve continuation of the ombudsperson position?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Does anybody have any questions or comments? If not, all those in favor on continuing the ombudsperson position hit A. No is B.
A=58, B=4, C=2 And the position is overwhelmingly approved for continuation.

Claire Crutchley, chair-elect: Just as a side note, it was on the bottom, we will announce the position and applications will be taken very soon.

The second proposal is to extend the term of the ombudsperson. It seems that 2 years is a very short period of time, and I believe when it was originally proposed it took some effort and a 2-year trial period we thought we could get by with, so we’re proposing that the term go to 3 years for more continuity for the ombudsperson position.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Any questions or comments on extending the term from 2 to 3 years? If not, all those in favor press A. Opposed B.
A=59, B=3, C=2   All right, the term has been extended to 3 years and we will be getting a call out for applicants probably in the next week. [1:14:56] We’ll also be putting together a search committee to evaluate those. So if you have an interest you might let one of us know.

The final item on our list today is the proposed procedures for Lecturer/Senior Lecturer Positions. At this time I’d like to call Michel Smith, who is chair of the non–tenure instructors committee forward.

Michel Smith, chair of the non–tenure instructors committee: Hopefully all of you have read this, but I will outline the main issues that we developed. This came out of the non-tenure track committee. The committee is composed of some representatives of instructors, research faculty, and clinical faculty, if I’m not mistaken I think I am the only tenure-track faculty member on the committee.

So let me quickly outline what the committee has done and I should indicate that we use the models of the research faculty and the clinical faculty as our template and we made slight variations and we tried to minimize the wordage. And also one of our goals was to allow the departments and colleges to make the main decisions. So we kept our framework rather small. So for example, in the first item in terms of hiring, we basically felt that as long as the hiring process went through the EEO/AA approved process, which is what legally needs to be done that those issues are considered.

In terms of the evaluation process, we felt that the evaluation should be commensurate with the procedures that are used for other members of the department that have similar duties.

In terms of the termination we feel that as the Faculty Handbook indicates, well first of all one of the purposes for this position series is for the Lecturers to have some security in their position and to feel that there is continuity that they will not be automatically terminated at the end of 6 or 7 years. However if there is an issue that comes up for termination that the individual has the rights of due process and that this due process shall apply to non-tenured faculty members dismissed before the completion of their contracted period. And as in the case of tenure-track faculty and tenured faculty dismissal should not be used to restrain faculty members in their exercise of academic freedoms or other rights of American citizens. [1:18:53] If something comes up such as financial prices where the funding for these positions become problematic we feel that sufficient notification should be given and the second paragraph addresses that. [1:19:20]

The committee feels that the Lecturers and Senior Lecturers should be eligible to participate in the departmental governance. Several specific issues are itemized here, and in fact the lecturers are encouraged to improve their qualifications and thus we feel are eligible for departmental or college resources that could be used for such purposes. The grandfather clause, we feel that faculty members who are in instructional positions or are on non-tenure track instructorship positions should be given the opportunity to have first chance at some of these positions once they are opened up in the different departments.

In terms of promotion the original resolution had two levels the lecturer positions and the senior lecturer positions and as indicated the committee felt that generally the promotion to senior lecturer rank cannot be demonstrated in less than 5 years of service we feel that this is commensurate with some of the current promotional guidelines. [1:21:15]

If a tenure track position becomes open and a lecturer wishes to apply then the committee feels that an appointment can be changed by the lecturer, through the normal faculty-approved hiring process.

And then finally committee feels that Auburn ought to endorse the AAUP guidelines stating that, no more than 15% of the total instruction within an institution, and no more than 25% of the total instruction within any department should be provided by faculty with non-tenure track appointments. Where exceptions are desired, then those must be approved in writing by the Provost. And finally we indicate anything not delineated in this document goes to the college or the department and should be decided in consultation with the Provost.

That’s the gist of it.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Thank you Michel. Obviously, comments and questions? James?

James Goldstein, senator for English: I move to postpone the motion to the next Senate meeting.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: We have a motion to postpone until the next Senate meeting. Do we have a second? Tony Moss and Herb Rotfeld seconded. Any discussion on the motion to postpone?

Mike Stern, senator, economics: If we’re going to postpone…

Kathryn Flynn, chair: does anybody have anything to say about postponement? If not all those in favor of postponing say aye.

Group: Aye.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Opposed?

Group: Aye.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: All those in favor of postponing, it takes two-thirds to postpone. So all of those in favor of postponement press A. B for not postponing.

James Goldstein, senator for English: Point of order, according to my sheet it takes a majority to postpone to a certain time.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Let me check with the parliamentarian, would you like to comment Bill?

Okay according to Robert’s Rules postponement to a certain time are applied to a certain question, this says simple majority. Okay so all we need is a majority. So we’ll see what comes up here, if you haven’t voted. A=28, B=31. Okay so we have a simple majority of 31 against postponement.

So does anybody have any discussion on the procedures that are being recommended by the non-tenure track faculty committee?


Gwen Thomas, substituting for Yasser Gowayed in polymer and fiber engineering: Bring up number 3 again please. It’s a tiny little point but it’s sort of important. The word “insure” if you use an “e” there it means to provide confidence, if you use an “i” there it means to provide fiduciary support. (laughter)

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Thank you we’ll make that change so noted. [1;25:38]

Mike Stern, senator, economics: Three things that my faculty mentioned to me. One in termination, the highlighting of lack of collegiality, thought AAUP was opposed to the use of collegiality (#3) even for tenure track as it’s non measurable and it’s not an assigned duty. Most of our lecturers are going to be contract teachers, the only thing I think should be causing termination in contract would be lack of performance in the classroom. I think that should be highlighted, one’s professional duties rather than evaccuous notion of lack of collegiality, which isn’t even measurable in terms of terminating an in progress contract. That what we typically use them for is mainly teaching classes. I would highlight just performance of professional duties that you are hired to perform if you have a contract. So I don’t think
they are contracted to…

Kathryn Flynn, chair: So you’re making a motion to exclude lack of collegiality?

Mike Stern, senator, economics: Adequate cause related to the performance of duties to which they were contracted. If you’ve got a contract, you’ve got a contract. So then if you go down further to the departmental governance. (#4) The first sentence says, “lecturers/senior lecturers may be eligible to vote on faculty maters.” May and then leaves it to the department or the college governance rules which is fine, but then the later sentence says “ lecturers should be allowed to participate in departmental decisions.” Okay? So we have a dichotomy there, that sentence says that the department should be doing this and the other says it’s simply up to the department. We don’t have a problem with them serving on, or voting on or participating in matters relevant to their contracted position. So if you’re contracted to teach courses, participate in the curriculum, if we’re looking at matters related to the curriculum or teaching, fine, but if we’re voting on matters related to research or something else that’s unrelated to the contracted position, then we don’t want to feel pressured under that sentence that they should be allowed to participate in departmental decisions. [1:27:57] So I like the first sentence that simply says it’s up to the department or college governance, it would depend on what they were contracted for.

And then the very last thing (#8), which is an issue that has arisen before in AAUP guidelines is how the 15 and 25% is measured. When you say total instruction is that measured by FTE, is it measured by student credit hours? It makes an enormous difference if you say only 25% of student credit hours in the unit can be taught versus 25% of like counting heads. Because what happens is we have the tenure track faculty teaching small classes and then we often have the lecturers doing massive numbers of students, so if you go by student credit hour you only have a couple of lecturers and a dozen faculty, but they could be teaching as many student credit hours as all the faculty combined. So a little clarity on how we’ll measure the 15 and 25% is kind of important.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: I’m going to let Michel address that. [1:29:04]

Michel Smith, chair of the non–tenure instructors committee: We took that phrase from the AAUP site, so our assumption is that whatever it is they say it is, is what we’d like to go with.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Okay, let me make sure, are you proposing an amendment that would remove the statement “lack of collegiality” from number 3, and would remove the sentence “Lecturers should be allowed to participate in departmental decisions” and leave it as “a lecuturer/senior lecturer may be eligible to vote on faculty matters according to department and/or school/college governance rules, this may include the ability to serve on committees”? Are you making a motion to make those two changes?

Mike Stern, senator, economics: Yeah, I guess.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Do we have a second? Second, Mr. Clay. Any discussion? We’ve got someone who wants to discuss the proposed amendment?

James Goldstein, senator for English: I wanted to address the proposed amendment. If I could recommend as a friendly amendment to that amendment, in the 3rd paragraph to end the sentence with ‘adequate cause’ and just drop the clause that refers to lack of collegiality or unprofessional behavior.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Okay so take all of that out, “including but not limited to lack of collegiality or unprofessional behavior”?

James Goldstein, senator for English: Right, because there’s already a faculty dismissal policy that talks about misconduct.


Kathryn Flynn, chair: Okay, would that be a change acceptable to the committee? (addresses to Michel Smith) I’m asking him because if it’s acceptable to the committee we don’t have to vote on it, if it’s seen as a friendly amendment. [1:30:55]

Michel Smith, chair of the non–tenure instructors committee: My interpretation is that adequate cause includes unprofessional behavior, so I’m fine with it.

Rebecca Pindzola, representing Communication disorders, filling in for the senator: You had indicated, Michel, at the beginning that roughly these were based on clinical tracks and research tracks, so I would like to comment.

Michel Smith, chair of the non–tenure instructors committee: Roughly, we looked at those documents that are on the Web and we, in some cases, cut and pasted.

Rebecca Pindzola, representing Communication disorders, filling in for the senator: I know for a fact because I’m from a department that has clinical faculty, and I believe it to be true for the research faculty. Once you have these positions they are eligible to vote in all department matters except tenure and they are not eligible for professional improvement leave. Other than that they are eligible to do anything. So that was brought up earlier and I would take issue with what was said. They are eligible to participate if you want it to be parallel to clinical track and research track.

Michel Smith, chair of the non–tenure instructors committee: I felt in terms of the parallel issues that there were some things that needed to be decided at the college level and at the department level. So for example the clinical faculty are in some colleges that have specific reasons for maintaining that sense of equality and it may be different for other colleges and I did not want to make that decision for other colleges. [1:33:00]

Keith Pickens, proxy for Jon Segars for the department of military science (ROTC army): I move to sever the question, we have at least 8 points perhaps only 7 here, but I move to vote on them individually as opposed to a collective body.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: That will require a second, does anybody want to second severing and voting on each of the individual items in the proposal individually? Kimberly Braxton-Hicks seconds.

All in favor of severing say aye.

A few: aye.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Opposed.

Group: Nay

Kathryn Flynn, chair: The nays have it. Not sure who got to the microphone first so you guys decide.

Constance Relihan, English and Liberal Arts, subbing for senator Dean Gramberg: Just about the issue of on what could these lecturers vote? That really is an issue that would be left to the department and to the College. As I understand it while the modeling was on the clinical track, there were adaptations made from the clinical track too, and I think that at least in our college we’re hoping to use these individuals to vote on those things that it’s appropriate to vote on, on those things that they are involved in and not require that any department make them voting members on all committees in the department in which they have no role. If they’re just teaching undergraduate courses, no one at least in the College of Liberal Arts as I understand it would be required, for instance to put a lecturer on the Graduate Studies Committee. So I just wanted to clear that up.

Bob Locy, IPC: (no mic) Point of order? Are we voting on an amendment next or is there no amendment?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: There is no amendment. The amendment, motion to sever was defeated. Although the changes that Michael Stern proposed were amenable to Michel Smith, the chair of the committee, so we don’t have to vote on those. [1:35:29]

Mike Stern, senator, economics: Just clarification. Are we striking the sentence that they have to be in a department just leaving it to departmental and college in the first sentence?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: The language that I have here that Michel has approved is “termination of lecturer during the contract term shall be affected by the university only for lack of funding or adequate cause. If termination during the contract term is for reasons other than lack of funding then the Faculty Handbook provides that rights of due process shall also apply.” Then at number 4 for governance, “a lecturer/senior lecturer may be eligible to vote on faculty matters according to department and/or school/college governance rules. This may include the ability to serve on committees.”

Mike Stern, senator, economics: So read that last sentence what’s the...

Kathryn Flynn, chair: I took out “lecturers should be allowed to participate in departmental decisions.” So this allows them to, but does not require it.

Mike Stern, senator, economics: So the first sentence it’s up to the college and department…

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Still there.

Charles Eick, senator from curriculum and teaching: Just a point of clarification, we’re assuming this is going to be a change to the Faculty Handbook?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: No, actually establishment of the Lecturer/Senior Lecturers was adopted at a previous meeting, this is a proposal for how those positions that have already been approved would be managed or filled and as such is not a change in the Faculty Handbook.

Charles Eick, senator from curriculum and teaching: Thank you.

Tony Moss, senator, biological sciences: Seem to be approaching the end of the discussion. I wish to urge the Senate to vote up on this issue. This is a very important point for those departments that have heavy teaching loads, particularly service loads to other departments and also very large teaching loads within the core. In our department for instance without this lecturer/senior lecturer option we’d be hurting our own faculty trying to draw young faculty to teach some of these courses which require tremendous amount of teaching effort. I’d like to point out also that in departments like our own where there are senior faculty who are retiring, we cannot be competitive as department in hiring young faculty, bringing them in, telling them they have to teach many hundreds of students in their classes, and pull down a half-million dollar grant at the same time, and maintain an active research lab, and attract graduate students; it’s not effective, it’s not possible. So I strongly support from the viewpoint of a science department, but also from a viewpoint that provides heavy teaching service to the entire university. And there are many other departments in that same situation, that the Senate strongly support this overall series of suggestions.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: thank you.

James Goldstein, senator for English: as we’re approaching the time to vote on this I just want to make the obvious point that if approved this would not be in accordance with the AAUPs and for that matter the Faculty Handbook’s statement on de facto tenure. I realize that there’s no point in trying to amend it the way we did before. So this is a difficult decision. It will expose us to the same risk the old version would have done and if it hadn’t been amended we may end up being censored again by AAUP. On the other hand, my department is one of the ones that has the largest number of instructors currently and there was an anonymous poll that was conducted and slightly more than half of our current instructors did participate and that’s a very good return rate. And although they as a body expressed a preference for the possibility of these being tenureable, I think they’re a very pragmatic group of people and there was a clear overwhelming preference for passing this as is even without the possibility of de facto tenure. I personally would have a difficult time trying to take the position that I know better than they do, what’s good for the department. So I just wanted to bring that stuff out into the open.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Thank you, James.

Margaret Marshall, director of University Writing and also a faculty member in the English department: I just wanted to acknowledge James’s hard work on trying to support the positions of the AAUP but also to point out that many, many other institutions have lecturer-ship positions like this and at two other institutions that I’ve been a part of, moving to having full-time lecturers with renewable contracts really enabled us to offer job security and increase the stability of our programs especially in composition, to provide better teaching and working conditions for the people who occupy those positions. So I think there are good countering reasons as James has just pointed out.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Thank you. Are there any other comments or concerns?

Barbara Kemppainen, Anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology: It was brought up earlier that this was modeled on the clinical and research tracks and neither of those have de facto tenure, do they?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: No they do not.

Richard Penaskovic, not a senator, in the philosophy department: I have a procedural question. The Senate already adopted a policy in regard to this lecturer/senior lecturer position and I’m wondering how the two jive? Aren’t we undoing what we’ve already done?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: The Senate adopted a policy that was amended from the floor and it was approved by the Senate, sent to the administration, and it was not approved. And so it basically is dead. So we’ve come back to the Senate with another proposal, developed by the non-tenure track faculty committee, and so that’s where we are.

Richard Penaskovic, not a senator, in the philosophy department: Okay. Then I also wonder now, in the first paragraph here, the last sentence, “a lecturer/senior lecturer is eligible for benefits equivalent to other full-time employees at Auburn University.” Yet I think Rebecca Pindzola pointed out that they are not eligible to vote for people up for tenure and they are not eligible for professional improvement leave. I think that that should be put in there. Do you think that should be in there? I don’t know, I’m wondering. I also wonder, are they going to get like PEEHIP when they retire? Can they stay for 25 years and be in the retirement system of Alabama and retire at half pay?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Any employee of the university would be a member of PEEHIP regardless of your position.

Richard Penaskovic, not a senator, in the philosophy department: Okay, and my final point is this: you know I see shared governance, tenure, and academic freedom as three legs of a stool. And I think if you take one out the stool wobbles and then falls, and I think this system now if contingent faculty do not have the possibility of tenure can they ever speak out without fear of retribution? I don’t think so, there’s none have spoken here. We had an AAUP forum on this and only one person who was selected by them spoke. But others seem to be afraid to speak out, so I’m afraid that this will impact on academic freedom at the university. And it also set up a system of haves and have-nots, those who have tenure and those who don’t. Those are my concerns.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: Thank you.

Constance Relihan, for Dean Gramberg and for the English department as a faculty member even though I don’t represent it: In the English department now there are 43 instructors and 39 faculty members. Many of those current instructors are part-time instructors, some by choice, some because they’ve been here so long that they needed to be put back, I almost said put down. Well it does lead to one of the rhetorical problems here [1:44:57], they often get referred to as part-time people which has it’s own problems, but the issue is that right now many of them are part-time, they are on a section by section appointment, semester by semester. They do not really have any security at all. I see this proposal as moving them to a place of having more confidence in their rights to exert academic freedom, because they know they’ve at least got due process and they’ve got their contract. Right now they just have the good graces of the person who appointed them. This is not a perfect solution, we would love to have everybody be eligible for tenure, I’m speaking now as someone who’s married to a part-time instructor, but we don’t live in a perfect world and this proposal moves us forward towards equity for the people who are responsible for an awful lot of the undergraduate core instruction that needs to be excellent if we’re going to improve our retention rate and our graduation rates.

David King, geology and geography, senator: As I hope everyone here knows and has been mentioned, this policy was voted on before in the Senate and wisely in my view amended so that language was inserted into this policy that at least attempted to conform it to the 1940 principles. Apparently that was rejected after it was passed by the Senate, so I was just wondering if there is any sort of a process in coming up with this new policy where there was an attempt to take what could be taken from that amendment that was attached to that policy last time and directly integrated into the policy that we see here. Was there a dialogue about that? Was there discussion about that?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: The charge that the non-tenure track faculty committee was given was to take what was passed by the Senate that established the positions and develop guidelines for institutionalizing the positions and they were given copies of all of the materials that were available, including the previous thing passed by the Senate and asked to develop their guidelines. Recognizing as they did that if it contained de facto tenure it would not be approved. I think the message is pretty clear on that. That’s the procedure, (to Michel) would you like to say anything else about that?

Michel Smith: I didn’t hear the question.

David King: I can restate it. I think what I was asking was, last time there was the policy and it was approved, but there was an amendment regarding tenure issues, was there an attempt to take that previously passed amendment and policy and sort of integrate it into this new one? I don’t see it, so that’s why I was asking and was there a dialogue involved where say the AAUP group or others who favored this amendment were part of that discussion?
[1:48:44]

Michel Smith: I was aware of the amendment and what my committee was charged to do was to prepare the rules for hiring, evaluation, and the termination of people in that position and that’s what we concentrated on. And yes indeed I did review all the other documents, in fact I was on the first committee that looked at these issues and took quite a bit of what came out of that committee and discussed it with my own committee.

Bob Locy, immediate past chair of the Senate: I strongly support the AAUP overall position that the issue of de facto tenure is very important. On the other hand, as the Auburn Creed says, this is a practical world, and in a practical world we’re confronted with a situation that we have research faculty on this campus who do not have the possibility of de facto tenure, we have clinical faculty on this campus who do not have the possibility of de facto tenure, the only group of faculty about which there’s a debate now remains the teaching faculty. And the problem is, how is it fair that you can be a research faculty member and be able to serve for 15 years in that capacity if your service is found meritorious and be able to continue, but if you’re a teaching faculty [1:50:31] the university finds mechanisms for wiggling you out of the possibility of de facto tenure and it’s believed you have that opportunity under the present rules. And so we have as Constance Rehihan said collections of faculty on this campus who would follow policy potentially to be lecturers or senior lecturers and yet they’re called something else, for example in my department they are called lab coordinators. But they teach and they do the same kind of teaching that this is. The university will continue to find a way around the de facto tenure issue. All we’re doing by insisting on de facto tenure relevant to this issue is we are making it impossible for people in these positions to get the rights of having some faculty status at all and they become something else other than that and they don’t even get considered by your committee, Michel, because they’re not in any way in a faculty line, but they are doing heavy instructional loads in many cases. So I support the idea that de facto tenure is important, and I support the idea of the principles behind the AAUP, but I think it’s time that we made a practical decision about this in terms of treating these people in instructional positions fairly compared to how we treat people in research and clinical positions.

Kathryn Flynn, chair: We have one more comment and then I’m going to call for a vote.

Michelle Sidler, English, not a senator: I’ll be real quick. First I want to second the previous gentleman’s remarks as well as Constance’s and James’s. I direct the first year composition program so I did the annual reviews of all 40 plus of the English department instructors this past spring. They had two questions for me at the annual review, almost all of them, one, will there be more budget cuts–is my job safe?, two, is there any hope that this lectureship will come back? So I actually helped along with one of our long-term instructors who’s in this room listening to the conversation, put together the survey that James mentioned, and I was impressed in the turnout. We had a 50% return and only 5 days to get that information back to us, so it was a really phenomenal opportunity for those teaching faculty to have a voice and this entire conversation I think has been valuable for those teaching faculty to have a voice, but I think offering the opportunity to not be taken down to 80% after 5 years is another opportunity for those folks to have a voice.  There’s a gentleman in the room here who’s taught in my program for over 15 years and he’s incredibly dedicated. And what we did after 5 years was award him with 80% teaching, and I think that’s a real problem.

The last thing, just a quick question and that is, does this require two-thirds or simple majority?

Kathryn Flynn, chair: This is a simple majority. Thank you Michelle. Okay at this time what I would like to do is call for a vote. If you are in favor, and you may need to turn your clicker off and back on because it’s been a while, but if you are in favor press A, if you are opposed press B, C is for abstention.

A=54, B=5, C=3   All right, the proposal is approved overwhelmingly. That completes the action items. And what I’d like to do right quick. First off I’d like to thank Darrell Crutchley in Liberal Arts for the clickers. This was quite helpful I think we would never have gotten here if it weren’t for those. We do not have any information items, does anybody have unfinished business? New business? If not, we’re adjourned and I thank you all for your patience. [1:54:51]