Transcript General Faculty Meeting
March 6, 2018
Daniel Svyantek, Chair: Good afternoon. There is no sign up sheet for the General Faculty meeting, a quorum is those who attend the meeting. I now call the meeting to order. Thank you for coming today to the Spring General Faculty Meeting. I am Dan Svyantek. As University Senate Chair I also act as chair of the General Faculty.
Our first task is to approve the minutes from the October 3, 2017 Fall General Faculty Meeting. These minutes have been posted on the University Senate Web site. Are there any additions, changes, or corrections to the minutes?
Hearing none do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Do I have a second? Second. All in favor of approving the minutes say aye please.
Group: Aye.
Daniel Svyantek, Chair: Opposed? (no response) The minutes are approved. Thank you very much. [:54]
The next I tem on the agenda is remarks from the President of the University, Dr. Steven Leath. It is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Leath to this meeting of the General Faculty.
Dr. Steven Leath, President: Thank you Dan. Good afternoon folks. I will be relatively brief. If there are some pressing issues or questions, feel free to ask them.
I’m spending a lot of time right now in Montgomery, as a matter of fact I was there today. I met with the governor and a number of legislators. A big part of my time is generating revenue for you folks to do your jobs, whether that is philanthropically, which I was doing Friday and Saturday night, or whether it is in the legislature. The legislative session is half over, a little more than half way. A couple of updates; the House unanimously passed the Education Budget. It’s 216 million dollars larger than last year, that’s a huge increase. So that will be the trend of these legislative [? Com as]. We are looking at the best session we’ve had in a long time from our perspective. So, a lot of these dinners and trips to Montgomery are paying dividends.
All 4 of Auburn’s divisions that have separate budget lines have received an increase thus far. Now we are not all of the way through conference. Right now, it looks like we will hold increases in all of those areas. I am optimistic that it will be 3% or maybe a little better which would be tremendous compared to what we’ve seen over the last 10 years or so. Good news there.
We have also been working on some other legislative activities. We did get a license tag bill passed. You might think, why spend time on that? Well, one it’s scholarship money for us, but by making a change in the law where people can choose to self-report their identity to us, it allows us to count them as donors to the university, which helps in our overall metrics. It was a small thing, but it was good.
There are a number of other bills some of which could be problematic. We’re watching them; freedom of speech, Title IX, guns on campus, a number of things. I think we know where they are going or not going. I would say right now there is no sense of urgency to deal with any of those. That’s being shepherded appropriately.
So, all in all right now a very good session, people feeling positive about Auburn from the Govornor’s Mansion through the Senate and through the House.
Installation. My installation that the Board’s doing is at 10 a.m. on March 29. You are certainly welcome to come, I’d love for you to come. The committee has spent a lot of time planning it and worked hard so it would be good, but from a more academic reason, that’s where I am going to lay out where I see us going over the next 5 years. Now, there will be other ways to see my vision on that, it will be live streamed on the Web site. I think it’s important because we are about to start a strategic plan here and I have made some changes in the way we are going to approach that. Got a lot of advice from Dan and his colleagues. This will be the time maybe in a long time, maybe ever I don’t know the history of Auburn completely, where the plan will be driven by two senior faculty members rather than by administration. It will be a very different plan, but to help charge that strategic plan process I will lay out my priorities first then we will see how the plan matures after that. It doesn’t have to track it completely, but there will be some reason to do that.
A couple of other things. I was brought here partly to drive research and we started this up presidential initiative to put up funds to start paring faculty together in a different way for interdisciplinary research to look at putting programs together, so we could compete better for large grants and drive research here on campus. The response was overwhelming. I mean that literally. We have 101 proposals submitted. I think the expectation was somewhere in the 20–25 range, 55 of them were tier 1 proposals, the big proposals. So, it will be somewhat of a challenge and chore, it is somewhat overwhelming to go through and assess all of those. We will probably restructure how we are going to do that because of the response we got. But…it tells me that there is a lot of enthusiasm for research here, lot of enthusiasm to grow research, there’s also a need for more resources here in research. All of those things are registering, and we will respond to them accordingly. I am really excited about that. It’s good for Auburn.
So, with that I am going to stop. If there are some pressing questions before going on I will take them.
Mike Stern, Economics: First, did I hear you correct that you said there is going to be two senior faculty
members that are going to write the strategic plan?
Dr. Steven Leath, President: No. I said there’d be two senior faculty members that would lead the initative (At least that’s what I hoped I said). So, someone has to drive the process. It could be me, it could be the Provost, it could be an Associate Provost. But I would rather this generate from the faculty up. When a senior administrator, despite our best intentions, when we get set to speak and set priorities you get a less inclusive process. So I am going to as faculty to do this.
Mike Stern, Economics: How are those two faculty members going to be chosen?
Dr. Steven Leath, President: I’ve got nominations from the Deans, senior administration, and the Senate. I am going through the resume strengths, make sure they are not duplicative. I’ve interviewed some people we’ll be making a recommendation decision soon.
Mike Stern, Economics: Okay, just a quick follow-up from our Faculty Meeting last fall where I mentioned the turnout. So, I was wondering what you think of this turnout of the university’s faculty and what that says about the institution?
Dr. Steven Leath, President: I could say a lot of things. One, it’s surprisingly light to me, the other part is; if a lot of people are delighted with the way things are going so they are comfortable, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But the more people that are informed and engaged the happier I’ll be.
Thank you, folks.
Daniel Svyantek, Chair: I have some brief remarks too. First let me introduce the University Senate Officers. James Goldstein is the past chair, Mike Baginski is the chair-elect, Donald Mulvaney is the Secretary this year. Bev Marshall is the secretary-elect, James Witte is our Senate parliamentarian. Finally our administrative assistant is Laura Kloberg.
We’ve had some issues and we continue to have issues with voting and committee volunteering on the Senate Web site. One of the issues arose because OIT doesn’t automatically clear votes from the past year, so some of you may have found out that you voted last year. We took care of that as much as we could and think that we have come up with a procedure for that issue.
We also discovered that there may be issues that may need to be resolved regarding the way faculty are classified for voting and volunteering purposes. The Provost’s Office provided the Senate Executive Committee with a listing of the titles of faculty positions at Auburn University. Did you know for example there are 10 different ways to classify full professors here? We now know that. We also know there are another 20 or 30 ways to classify different ranks as well. We are beginning to discuss this and hope to come up with a better way to provide a clear classification of those eligible to vote and volunteer. Hopefully this will disappear in the future.
I would like to ask you to serve on one of the many Senate or University committees. We are always looking for people who are interested in serving. If you do have any problems volunteering please contact Don Mulvaney or myself and we will deal with your problem as soon as possible.
Forth, our Critical Conversation series is having a speaker on campus tomorrow. [10;09] The event will take place tomorrow at 5 p.m. in the Student Center Ballroom. The speaker is Reshma Saujani. Reshma is an influential author, political activist, former U.S. Congressional candidate, and founder and CEO of the Girls Who Code organization. She will be sharing a keynote discussion with us entitled “Women, Diversity, and STEM.”
Finally, I would like to ask, again it is a small turnout, but if you have issues send them to the Senate. We are dealing with things that have come in in the last few days. We are happy to deal with them, but we need to get them formally through some process, ideally e-mail so we have a record of them. We are happy to work on them.
Are there any questions for me? (none)
I will get started with the agenda. I do have regrets, our first information item was to be an update on the activities and initiatives for the Administrative and Professional Assembly by Lawrence Hamberlin, who is the chair of the Administrative and Professional Assembly. However, Lawrence sent me an e-mail this morning, he is out of town due to family medical reasons. I would like to wish Lawrence and his family the best, but he will not be here to speak.
We will now move directly to our second information item. Our second information item is a discussion by Chris Heacox, the executive director of the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center. Chris will describe the activities going on in the Performing Arts Center.
Chris Heacox, the executive director of the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center: Good afternoon everyone. [12:00]
Just a few updates on what’s happening at the Performing Arts Center before I get to my agenda today. As you may or may not know if you’ve driven down South College, we are now vertical. Steele has gone up in the stagehouse, it’s very exciting times, you can see the highest point of theatre right now. Which is very, very high…I can’t tell you how high it is, but it’s the stagehouse of the theatre where all of the 45-line sets go when we start flying things in and out. It is an exciting time as the building is constructed and as we move forward.
I came here today to talk to you about the educational initiatives that I am moving forward with the Performing Arts Center and looking for your help as faculty members. Last fall, I arrived here in July of last year and last fall I met with all of the deans individually to discuss what my vision was for creating the campus educational programs collectively. What I envision is that faculty here on campus have a tremendous say in what our educational programs are.
It doesn’t just mean that we bring a musician or an actor here that they are in the classroom teaching those arts disciplines, but it actually looks at a interdisciplinary co-curricular way of integrating these arts practices, the research these artists and musicians are doing into the research and teaching that you are doing here on campus. [13:39] So, I have reached out to a number of my colleagues across the field at various universities to get them to come to Auburn and present best practices, what has worked at their universities and what has not worked in a symposium type way here in the last spring of this year.
We have participation from the University of Illinois, from Cal Berkley, from a colleague who just left Chapel Hill and is not at U. Mass and the University of Michigan. Some will have to skype in, but the majority are to come here and give best practices for a couple of days. So, the idea is from recommendations from deans and also from you is to put a working group together this spring working into the fall to look at best practices. Look at what I believe would work very well at the university, and then to work on it next semester, excuse me, in 2018–19 while we are still in construction, then set forth a vision for what our integrative arts education or educational program through the Performing Arts Center will look like at Auburn.
So, I look to you as faculty for representation for ideas. We really want to have representation from all of the colleges. It is very important for me to be as inclusive as possible in this process. So, I have recommendation from a number of deans across campus, but I would like your input as well. We should have the dates finalized this week for when the symposium is going to go on. So I will send that information to Don to send out to all faculty.
Again, I would like as much participation as possible, if not at the beginning, then through the process as we develop these very important programs here on campus. With that, I will take any questions about anything that is going on and be happy to answer.
Mike Stern, Economics: What is your relationship to the Museum?
Chris Heacox, the executive director of the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center: The Museum Director reports to me.
Mike Stern, Economics: Is that a normal construction?
Chris Heacox, the executive director of the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center: It is a normal construction at a number of different institutions.
Mike Stern, Economics: Okay. So, in speaking with some people associated with the Museum, why is it that you feel qualified to supervise the Museum?
Chris Heacox, the executive director of the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center: I feel that it is very important that the arts district in what we are building across the street is inclusive and wholistic from a programmatic, educational, and operational standpoint. I think the experiences that I’ve had running arts organizations, running facilities, as well as curatorial practice make me qualified to do so. [16:30]
Mike Stern, Economics: So, you have overseen a Museum before?
Chris Heacox, the executive director of the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center: I have overseen curatorial process and programs at Museums, yes.
Mike Stern, Economics: What’s your educational background?
Chris Heacox, the executive director of the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center: It is in music and arts education.
A question about when opening.
Chris Heacox, the executive director of the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center: In August of 2019 when we open up we are opening with a 4-day festival. The idea is that we want to be as inclusive of our community and campus as possible, so we will start with a performance for students, which we are co-presenting with Student Affairs. Friday night, will be for the community, Sunday will be our Gala, excuse me, Sunday will be for families here in the community. With building a facility like this there are a lot of intricacies. One of the benefits, I think, for me coming in here in July and seeing 2 facilities being built was that I saw that there were a number of different punch list items that have to happen, so we are going to have to open in August, do our festival, and then probably shut down for a few weeks to make sure some things are rectified and corrected before we move on with our series with usage from the Department of Music and other departments as well.
Our web site is up and running now. It is goguecenter.auburn.edu. We have live streams, we have information about positions that are open, fundraising and that sort of thing. [18:11] So, as information is propagated it will be put on there.
another question about links to the site.
I am not sure about that, I think there is one from the Provost’s Office.
Anything else? Thanks again for the opportunity. If anyone needs to get a hold of me: cjheacox@auburn.edu.
Daniel Svyantek, Chair: Chris, thank you very much for your presentation.
Our final information item is the announcement of the results of the Senate election. Mike Baginski, Senate Chair-Elect, will announce the results of the Senate election. Mike?
Mike Baginski, Senate Chair-Elect: The chair-elect is Nedret Billor and Adrienne Wilson is the secretary-elect.
Daniel Svyantek, Chair: Adrienne could not be here because she had an accident too. She is getting that taken care of.
And congratulations to our new officers. Nedret is in COSAM and Adrienne is in the Theatre Department.
This concludes our formal agenda for today.
Is there any unfinished business?
Mike Stern, Economics: I was just wondering why for the third year in a row we are not going to award the Glenn Howze Award to anyone?
Daniel Svyantek, Chair: For people who are unfamiliar with the award mentioned, the local Chapter of the AAUP academic freedom award, named for former Senate Chair, Glenn Howze. This award is given to a faculty member who has been outstanding working for academic freedom at Auburn University
Traditionally this award is given in the spring faculty meeting. This is the third year in a row that this award has not been given. However, this award is given by the AAUP and is not given by either the General Faculty or the Senate.
Therefore, I will refer your question to the president of the AAUP, Robin Jaffe, who is the current president of the Chapter.
Robin Jaffe, AAUP Chapter president: One of the reasons I haven’t pushed forward with the Academic Freedom Award, for the last 2 years we had nominations for it but did not think the people nominated were appropriate for the award. This year I am really focusing on trying to build our membership back up. I don’t have a problem giving out an award, but if everybody at the university would join that would then be an all-inclusive type of thing. It is $10 to join our chapter and I am lucky if I have 40. I know we have a whole lot more faculty at this university. My goal was to build up our membership. I am happy to give an award, but it really means a lot more when it comes from a lot more people.
Mike Stern, Economics: Is the membership dues what funds the award or is there an endowment for it?
Robin Jaffe, AAUP Chapter president: Well, there is no endowment for it.
Mike Stern, Economics: It’s just funded from the membership?
Robin Jaffe, AAUP Chapter president: Yes. Michael, as you know, I did ask you last July to join and you turned me down.
Mike Stern, Economics: I won’t join an organization that gives the award to the administration and then refuses to give it to me.
Robin Jaffe, AAUP Chapter president: You know what? I don’t’ think you will ever get that award.
Mike Stern, Economics: I hope not.
Daniel Svyantek, Chair: Thank you. Any other unfinished business? Is there any old business? Is there any new business? Hearing none, I now adjourn the meeting until our next General Faculty meeting in Fall, 2018. [21;08]