Transcript Senate Meeting
November 4, 2014
Patricia Duffy chair: Good afternoon, I am Patricia Duffy, Chair of the University Senate. This is the forth meeting of the 2014–2015 academic year, and it’s our last meeting of the fall semester. The Senate does not meet in December. If you are a senator or a substitute for a senator, and have not signed in at the back of the room, please do so now. Also because we will have votes today, please get a clicker if you have not already picked one up.
If you would like to speak about an issue or ask a question, please go to the microphone and wait to be recognized. Then state your name, whether you are a Senator and the unit you represent. We’ve had several people asking questions from inside the benches, the microphones won’t pick it up and we won’t know who you are for the transcript, so please do make the effort to get out to the microphone if you want to speak, thank you.
The rules of the Senate require that Senators or substitute Senators be allowed to speak first; after Senators have had a chance to speak, guests are welcome to speak as well. In addition we would ask that people limit their comments or questions to no more than 4 minutes at a time. People may speak again, but if anyone wishes to speak a second or a third time please be sure that others have had a chance to speak at least once first.
The agenda for the meeting was set by the Senate Steering Committee, it was sent around in advance and is now shown on the screen. So, if we would now please come to order, we will establish a quorum. There are 87 members of the Senate and a quorum requires 45 Senators. If you are present and a senator or substituting for a senator please press A on the clicker. A quorum has been established.
Our first item of business is approval of the minutes from the October 7, 2014, Senate meeting. These minutes have been posted to the Senate website. Are there any additions, changes, or deletions to these minutes? (no response) Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes? Second? We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say "aye." Opposed like sign?
The minutes are accepted. Our next agenda item will be comments from President Gogue. [2:51]
Dr. Gogue, president: Thank you, it’s good to be with you today. Just a couple of items that I want to share with you. Number one, we have a Board of Trustees meeting this Friday. There are no items that pertain to the academic side of the university that are on the agenda. No academic policy related items. There are several Facility items that do relate to the academic side; number one the Textile renovation of that building over in Engineering. We received a very large gift from a private individual that will go into that with some university money, it will probably be about a 12-13 million dollar renovation on that particular building. We anticipate that to be approved by the Board.
Second item is that Pebble Hill through private money there will be a restoration, if you will, of the historic structure plus an addition of a teaching facility at Pebble Hill. Samford Park, which most of us call Toomer’s Corner, will have phase II that will be on the agenda for the Board. That is the actual replanting of major trees in that area, a couple of major trees plus some of the seedlings that are from the original oak trees in that area that will be planted. That is on the agenda for the Board also.
Want to thank the faculty, we received a note from the Honors College in the last week, and I saw it in the newspaper today, for the 5th year in a row Auburn has had Rhodes Scholar finalists. We have a couple this year. They will be interviewed later this month in Birmingham.
I would encourage all of you if you haven’t voted to take the opportunity this afternoon. I think the polls are open to 6 or 7, I am not sure of the exact time, but I hope you’ll look at that.
The final thing is a note of thanks to the faculty. We do a number of events on this campus that involve the community as a whole as opposed to just the campus. In the last couple of weeks there have been several of the World Affairs sessions that was held on cyber security, it was well attended, and we received a lot of interest fro the elected official side out of Washington to have something like that on World Affairs every six months or either quarterly and help us find the right kind of individuals that would come and speak on a variety of topics. So if you have interest in that, please talk to us.
Tomorrow night is the common book over in Foy at 7:00 p.m. with the author here. And this Friday we have the All Star Lecture series, focusing on SERVE, which is the nursing program that we talked about that works with Walter Reed and in turn works with veteran’s families, which is part of the rehabilitation process.
Thank you all for being here. be happy to respond to any questions that you might have.
Someone (not at microphone): What was the first item you mentioned?
Dr. Gogue, president: Yes, over in Textiles, the Textile Building. Is that all you need? I can give you more details. Thank you.
Patricia Duffy, chair: Thank you Dr. Gogue. Just again a reminder please come to the microphone even if it is just a quick question because we won’t pick it up if you are not at the microphone. That is the only way we can get it for the transcript.
We have a fairly full agenda today so I will endeavor to keep my remarks brief. First I will introduce the Senate Executive Committee. I have done this every meeting, so hopefully the names are getting familiar by now. Dr. Gisela Buschle-diller is our secretary, Dr. Laura Plexico is our secretary-elect who’s term will start in July, Dr. Larry Teeter is our chair-elect his term will also start next July, Dr. Larry Crowley is the immediate past chair and he serves as our faculty representative for the Board of Trustees. Dr. Connor Bailey is our parliamentarian, complete with Robert’s Rules, thank you Dr. Bailey. Also I’d like to introduce our helpful administrative assistant Laura Kloberg. Ms. Kloberg assists us with every one of the Senate meetings and Faculty meetings and also does a lot more for us between times to make sure that the business of the Senate is conducted smoothly.
Every fall a nominating committee is put together to find candidates for the position for chair-elect and secretary-elect of the Senate. Elections take place in the spring. This year the nominating committee is Ann Beth Presley, who will chair the committee, Anwar Ahmed, Bob Cochran, Bruce Gladden, Bob Locy, and Hillary Wyss. If you are interested in running for office or you would like to nominate a colleague, please contact one of them to get that name to that committee.
A little while ago faculty received an e-mail message from the Provost concerning the faculty cluster hire initiative. The initiative follows a two-stage submission process and the current phase is going on right now and it is consisting of short presentations giving an overview of key areas of research. The first of these presentations took place yesterday, the next is Monday, November 10, it starts at 4:00 p.m. The full schedule can be found on the Provost’s Web site. I also have a copy of it with me if you want to look at it after the meeting. Videos of the sessions will also be posted on this site if you can’t make a session but you’d like to hear it. An RFP will go out in early December for cluster hire proposals.
Our cyber security awareness training efforts are continuing. I’ve had a recent update from Bliss Bailey who tells me that faculty and staff are gradually completing their training. All the student workers will also participate. The need is still there because the threats are continuing. Several hundred university-employees received a very well crafted phishing message several weeks ago and several fell for it including some faculty members. None of the victims of the scam had completed their Securing the Human training. I’ve completed the training. This is what you certificate will look like. If you finish it, I have not put mine on a shirt as Bliss Bailey did, but that’s an option if you want to do that. Training took about an hour in all and I completed it while having lunch at my desk. It really was not difficult to do that. You don’t need to do it all at once, you can do a few modules at a time and if you have just a few minutes between classes. If you have not completed the training yet, please do so as you can.
Are there any comments or questions on my remarks?
Rusty Wright, senator, Fisheries: Something you just said about that training, are graduate students required to take that training?
Patricia Duffy, chair: If they are employees, I believe so.
Rusty Wright, senator, Fisheries: So what constitutes an employee?
Patricia Duffy, chair: Don are you here?
Don Large: If they are an RA or GTA
Patricia Duffy, chair: I assume if we pay them.
Dr. Liu: If they are on the payroll you will see on the grants money, that’s makes the employment.
Patricia Duffy, chair: So thank you, if they are paid.
Rusty Wright, senator, Fisheries: So basically, everybody?
Patricia Duffy, chair: Well, there are a lot of graduate students who are not on the payroll. And there are a lot of undergraduates who are not on the payroll.
Rusty Wright, senator, Fisheries: But GRAs and GTAs yes.
Dr. Liu: If they are paid from federal grants from certain sources such as NFS, USDA. If they are paid with state money eventually we hope the graduate school will implement some coursework curriculum that will address that issue, but for the time being it’s mandated by federal government from sources of funding as said above but if it’s paid by state funding right now it is set up for those rules. [Correction – email exchange Nov. 5 with Dr. Liu: He apologized for having confused the training question above as a question pertaining to the Conflict of Interest policy and thus the COI training. He emphasized that he wanted everyone to know that all employees are required to complete the training for IT security.]
Patricia Duffy, chair: If a student has a question about whether or not they need to complete the training I am sure Bliss Bailey would be available or someone from his shop to answer that. I believe that everyone who was supposed to receive the training was sent an e-mail earlier this fall saying they would need to complete the training. I certainly got one. Any other questions or comments or remarks?
Our agenda today has several action items coming from the Rules Committee, the Academic Standards Committee, and the University Curriculum Committee. We also have 2 pending action items coming from the Faculty Research Committee and the Graduate Council. And also an information item on printing and the use of Auburn logos.
We will now move to our first action item for the day sent forward by the Rules Committee. Dr. Gisela Buschle-diller will present the item. [11:52]
Gisela Buschle-diller, secretary: Thank you very much. We have a replacement for two committees, the Academic Standards Committee and the Core Curriculum and General Education Committee. We appreciate very much for people that step forward and fill these open slots quickly. If you did not have a chance to volunteer for one we will have a general call for volunteers coming up very soon in early winter/spring and there will be a lot of open slots on committees.
I would like to call for a vote first for the Academic Standards, David Held. His term will run until 2017. These nominations come from the Rules Committee and do not need a second. So if you agree to vote yes for David Help press A. If you don’t press B. [A=57, B=1] Thank you.
Now let’s vote for the Core Curriculum and General Education Committee replacement, Annette Kluck. Please press A if you vote yes and B if you vote no. [A=65, B=2] Thank you very much.
Patricia Duffy, chair: Those items pass.
We have 2 action items coming from Academic Standards. Dr. Xing Fang, chair of the committee is here today to present them. These items were presented at the October meeting as pending. Today they will come forward for a vote. The items are not linked so Dr. Fang will present the proposal for exploratory students first and after we have discussed it and vote he will present the proposal for conditional admissions. Dr. Fang.
Dr. Xing Fang, chair of Academic Standards: [14:34] Thanks and I am Xing Fang the chair of Academic Standards Committee so I will make a brief presentation for these 2 policy proposals. One is dealing with exploratory freshman admission and the other one is conditional admission.
First I will talk about the general issues of the proposal 2013- 2018 Auburn University’s Strategic Plan establishes promoting academic success as a first priority that includes the following. Such as the strategic Goal 1D: Develop a freshman Advising Center for undecided students and strategic commitment B2: revise first-year orientation programs to emphasize not only academic success, but also career and professional readiness. So during the 2013–14 various ad hoc groups developed plans in response to both Strategic Plan objectives.
This is the membership for these 2 Ad Hoc committees, the Freshman Advising Center Committee and the Orientation Review Committee. Then these committees made a recommendation and submitted to the Provost in spring 2014. There are 2 specific proposals one is relating to Exploratory Admission the other one is Conditional Admission, which were submitted to Academic Standards Committee. Then these 2 proposals were discussed, revised and approved by the Academic Standards Committee. Then these proposals were submitted to the Senate Steering Committee in September and there it was discussed and revised and then in October it was presented to the Senators.
These are the 2 Senate Committees that reviewed these two proposals. These are the committee members, I think some of them are here. One is the Academic Standards Committee and the other the Steering Committee, so the 2 committees were satisfied with these proposals.
This is the first policy recommended dealing with Exploratory Freshman Admission. Individuals applying to Auburn as first-time College students would be eligible to select “Exploratory” as a major option on their Auburn application for admission form. Exploratory students would not be aligned with an existing College/School, but would exist within a unit reporting to the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Studies. Advising for these students would be assigned to the Freshman Advising Center, where they would be provided with intensive advising and career counseling provided by a cadre of advisors cross-trained in the rudiments of all majors on campus. Student-to-advisor ratios must be appropriate to meet these requirements. Students would be required to select a college/major and transition into a College or School by the time they have completed two semesters at Auburn.
These are some rationale about the listed policy. Basically about ¨20% of incoming freshmen change their major before they attend Camp War Eagle (CWE). Many students change their major 3-4 times. The longer it takes a student to find the right major, the longer it takes a student to graduate. So this policy is to try to Help the students find the right major in their first year should decrease the length of time students need to complete their undergraduate degree, thereby reducing student cost. Institutions permitting exploratory admission: Purdue, Florida State, Virginia Tech, Mississippi State, Georgia State, Indiana State Moving freshmen who are uncertain about their major out of colleges will permit college-level advisors to focus on students committed to their majors and lower advising ratios in the colleges.
These are some practicalities about the policy:
• Exploratory Freshman & the Freshman Advising Center would not be housed in an existing College (this would prevent steering students toward particular majors), they would be in a unit that reports to the Provost
• “Undeclared CLA” and “Undeclared COSAM” would still be appropriate for many students to choose in the application form.
• The student to advisor ratio would be capped at 150:1; a career counselor would also be on the staff of the Center.
• Students would undergo an individualized regimen of advising sessions and assignments, which would begin at CWE.
• No student would be permitted to remain Exploratory after two semesters; no transfer student would be permitted to enroll as an Exploratory Student.
• Auburn would begin admitting Exploratory students for Fall 2016 (the Freshman Advising Center will begin in a pilot fashion Fall 2015 with incoming students who opt to be advised in the Center).
• The location for the Freshman Advising Center is still being determined.
• This proposal has the support of the Admissions Office.
So that is the first policy.
Patricia Duffy, chair: Questions for Dr. Fang about the policy? [21:34] The memo that has the proposal language on it that shows you what you will be voting on is up on the screen. Questions, comments?
Ed Duin, senator, Chemistry & Biochemistry: I spoke at the last meeting. Generally in our department we don’t think this is a good plan. We think that students should be exposed to their major to see if they like the major. By postponing this it looks like they are going to be loosing a year, probably will be advised to take some baby courses in the first semester and they will not have the right credits for any of the major so they are going to loose a year. Seems like we already have good advising in the colleges, maybe there can be some additional advising for students that are not happy in the college but it seems like it is a waste of money to have another level of advising. That’s the comments from Chemistry.
Dr. Xing Fang, chair of Academic Standards: Okay, this is a question that you raised before. I think the last time when Lisa answered this question, based on the transcript, I will try to answer a little bit. I think Kathleen is also here as Director of Academic Support and other committee members here who could add more.
Basically it is that we have some students that know what they want to study and they will try to finish in about 4 years. So that definitely is good for them to select a college and a particular major. But we do also have certain percent of students, they really don’t know what they want to study, they like so many different things. They give their first year as Exploratory Student and then find a major within that year would actually help. I think based on statistics for those students that really don’t know may change their major 3 or 4 times, they typically cannot finish in 4 years and end up with 6 or 7 year. With this option it will allow them to select a major in the first year and with certain support of career advising and counseling they may not finish in 4 years, they may finish in 4.5 or 5 years. I think it will still reduce the total length and that is what the policy is for.
Andy Sinclair, senator, Aerospace Engineering: There’s been some discussion about a budgeting initiative where part of the tuition money will be divided partly based off of the college the student belongs to. Has there been discussion how this policy would affect any budgeting considerations with students listed under exploratory?
Dr. Xing Fang, chair of Academic Standards: I don’t know, so if any can answer this question…. I know there is a similar question before, they were talking about a report for the advisor at the center then reduce the allocation for the advisor for the college. I don’t know about the budget.
Constance Hendrix, senator, Nursing: We do not oppose the proposal. We see it being beneficial in that students who come the first year are still able to take the core courses. So if you will keep that in mind that we do have common core so students in semester one and two will be advised, should be advised to take courses from that common core. So if we allow the academic advisors assigned to this to do that, those who choose chemistry or what ever the major is will then ultimately get to their major. I call for the question.
Patricia Duffy, chair: Questions before we vote? This comes from a standing committee of the Senate, it does not require a second so we will now be prepared to vote. If you are in favor of the proposal for Exploratory Students please press A, If you are opposed please press B. [26:30] A=52, B=15. The vote is 52 to 15 so the motion carries.
Now we will move to the second item from Academic Standards.
Dr. Xing Fang, chair of Academic Standards: Now I’ll talk about the second policy proposal, the Conditional Admission Policy. It reads as following:
Applicants who are first-time freshmen, and graduates of an accredited high school, but who do not qualify for admission because of inadequate SAT or ACT scores or high school records, but who do meet the first-time freshman curriculum requirements, may be admitted to Auburn University on a conditional basis.
Students who are admitted on a conditional basis are given an opportunity to demonstrate that they can perform college-level work and can reasonably be expected to make progress toward a degree; they may be required to successfully complete a summer “bridge” or other program prior to enrolling in their first fall or spring semester at Auburn. Applicants must demonstrate their ability to perform at the college level by obtaining an overall “C” grade point average (2.0 on a 4.0 scale) in 15 college credit hours. Upon completion of at least 15 college credit hours of approved courses at Auburn University with a grade point average of at least 2.0, students admitted conditionally will be in academic good standing at the University.
Some rationale here:
• So students in this category would clearly know the performance levels needed to remain at Auburn after their first fall semester.
• The proposal would help us “clear a pathway to student success” as called for in the Strategic Plan by providing a more accurate category of admission for some students Auburn is already admitting.
• Students who begin college at a 4-year university are more likely to complete a bachelor’s degree than those that begin at a two-year school.
• Institutions with Conditional Admission policies: Texas A&M University, Clemson University, University of Maryland, Portland State University
• Conditional Admission will also be of benefit as we increase our number of international undergraduate students.
• This proposal would permit Auburn to support and monitor a group of students who may need some additional resources to help them make the transition to success at Auburn.
These are practicalities of Conditinal Admission:
• Conditional Admission would only be available to first-time college applicants, not to transfer students.
• Conditionally admitted students could enroll in any major available to students in good standing; there is no connection between this proposal and the Exploratory proposal
• The “bridge program” for Conditional Admission students would build upon successful bridge programs already in place in Athletics, Engineering, COSAM, and the Office of Multicultural Affairs. It would continue the support and community-building structures through the fall semester.
• Academic support and Student Affairs would work together to develop and implement the bridge program and support structures for these students.
• This proposal has the support of the Admissions Office.
• No predetermined number of students will be admitted into this category; the intention is not to admit a larger number of additional students.
• The intention is to provide the support needed to increase our yield of students who, because of their academic profile, may be anxious about their ability to succeed at Auburn.
So basically that is the information about this policy. [31:52]
Patricia Duffy, chair: So the policy reads exactly as it is. We are going to ask to bring forward to a vote. Are there any comments, questions, or remarks for Dr. Fang? Hearing no comments or questions or remarks we can move forward to a vote. This comes from a standing committee of the Senate, it does not require a second so we will now be prepared to vote. Please press A if you are in favor of the proposal, press B to oppose. [32:25] A=48, B=16. The proposal passes 48 to 16. Thank you Dr. Fang.
The final action item for the day comes from the University Curriculum Committee. Sara Wolf was to present it but I don’t believe she could be here today, so Larry Teeter from Steering committee, which also approved this proposal will present the proposal. It should be a fairly brief presentation, it’s a very simple proposal.
Larry Teeter, chair-elect, also from Steering: Good afternoon. This proposal was brought (forward) by the University Curriculum Committee to the Steering Committee. I will just read the text of it. it’s very brief. Essentially what it says it that: It has been very useful to have someone from the Library at the University Curriculum Committee meetings especially when new programs are proposed which have implications for the Library’s research holdings and potential budgetary expenditures. So consequently we want to replace his expertise with a permanent position, this committee does, so the UCC recommends that the Senate approve making a representative of the Auburn University Libraries a permanent non-voting member of the committee. It further recommends that the Dean of the Libraries be charged with assigning this responsibility to a member of the Library staff on a rotating 3-year term. A fairly non-controversial proposal.
Patricia Duffy, chair: Thank you, are there any comments or questions about this proposal? Again this one comes from a standing committee of the Senate so it does not need a second. We are ready for the vote. If you are in favor of the proposal please press A. To oppose it please press B. A=66, B=1. The proposal was passed 66 to 1, so it is adopted.
Now we are going to move to the pending action item. Art Chappelka, who is chair of the Faculty Research Committee, will present a proposed revision to the Conflict of Interest Policy. This will come forward for the vote in January. [35:40]
Art Chappelka, chair of the Faculty Research Committee: Thanks Patricia. I really appreciate being here today. Hopefully this will not be controversial. This is something that has been worked on for quite a while and it’s gone through several iterations and it’s really something that has been a good process. Processes involved the Faculty Research Committee and the people from OSP from the compliance office, from the Vice President of Research Office and I hope it’s a good policy and we will se here in a few minutes. Like I said a lot of this had been done before me, and I am the person who gets to deliver it to you. [36:46]
What’s the goal of this policy, the goal is we really want something that’s easy to interpret and implement, effective, not meant to be a substitute for already existing policy, and as you know with research there’s a lot of existing policies and we don’t want to duplicate that. The Conflict of Interest Policy outline, and you have that in front of you so I am not going to go over a lot of that, but the policy statement, principles, the effective dates, applicability, management, definitions, etc. You have this in front of you and hopefully have read it. If not then after this presentation you will before you vote I hope.
The statement that I really want to read because it is important is:
It is the intent of Auburn University to manage financial conflicts of interest of its employees as part of ongoing efforts to prevent outcomes that may be harmful to, sponsored activities, operation of regulatory compliance committees, technology transfer efforts, or the University at large. Therefore employees responsible for the design, conduct or reporting of sponsored research and related activities or engaging in Technology Commercialization (Affected Employees) must report Significant Financial Interests and must work with the University to develop a plan to Manage Financial Conflicts of Interest as necessary.
This is the policy statement.
Priciples of the Policy.
• Open exchange of ideas free from COI
• AU Employees have the responsibility to report COIs
• As long as Significant Financial Interests are disclosed and financial conflicts are managed, reduced, or eliminated; they need not be a problem.
Applicability
All Auburn University Affected Employees are required to report Significant Financial Interests held by themselves or by their Immediate Family, which relate to the Affected Employee’s Institutional Responsibilities.
The management of this:
• Responsible Office: Office of Research Compliance
• Responsible Executive: Associate Provost and Associate Vice President for Research
• Responsible Officer: Vice President for Research and Economic Development
Sanctions
• The appropriate Dean, designated Associate Dean, Provost, or Vice President shall utilize the standard disciplinary procedures set forth as a condition of each person’s employment with Auburn University to impose sanctions for violation of this policy and accompanying procedures. Other sanctions that might be imposed include but are not limited to:
• Retrospective Review and submission of a Retrospective Report to the appropriate responsible official and/or applicable sponsoring agency;
• Freezing expenditures from involved funds or terminating sponsored or other agreements;
• Revocation of the privilege for engaging in research, sponsored activities, technology transfer and commercialization and/or other scholarly activities;
• Removal from Compliance Committee membership; and/or
• Penalties if the Financial Conflict of Interest is determined to be in violation of the Alabama code of ethics for public officials and employees. (Code of Alabama 1975 Title 36, Chapter 25).
Interpretation
The authorized institutional representative is, for the purposes of this policy, the Vice President for Research and Economic Development.
Acknowledgements are the Faculty Research Committee (FRC). They worked a long time and hard on this. Larry Crowley who was the past chair of the University Senate; Chris Newland who was the previous chair of the FRC before me; Martha Taylor and Niki Johnson who have put a lot of work into this; and John Mason.
With that I will try to answer any questions that you have. If I can’t, Martha and Niki and Larry are here and hopefully they can answer them.
Patricia Duffy, chair: Our next pending action item is from the Graduate Council and George Crandell who is the vice-chair of the Council is here to present it.
George Crandell who is the vice-chair of the Graduate Council: Similar to what you’ve just approved the Graduate Council is requesting that a representative from the University Libraries be added to the Graduate Council. This will enable the representative to participate in curriculum matters that may affect the Library. The Library also has its own criteria for graduate faculty membership, so this will enable them to participate more fully in the activities of the Graduate Council and with graduate students. I’ll be glad to answer any questions you may have.
Patricia Duffy, chair: Thank you. We now move to our information item, which is some information we can all use on the use of our logos and our policies on printing, and this will be presented by Camille Barkley and Susan Smith.
Camille Barkley, Exec. Dir. of OCM: Good afternoon, I’m Camille Barkley from the Office of Communications and Marketing. I am here with Susan Smith from Trademarks and Licensing and we are going to let you know how to use logos properly. I am going to talk mostly about printing on paper and Susan is going to talk about printing logos on products.
So first some basic information on why do we use logos and why do we use them consistently. Well they are our intellectual property for the university. They are also federally registered trademarks, so using them correctly and consistently manages the use of those trademarks and keeps them in compliance with federal regulations. Also when you use them consistently it helps to build our reputation, because the more people see them the more they know about our university. For the people in this room one of the things that’s really important is it helps you create a really professional appearance for materials you are putting together and also it eliminates any confusion about the legitimacy of what you’re presenting, that it is affiliated with Auburn University. [43:57]
Moving on I will tell you a little bit about the resources and the rules because I think that is why we are invited here mainly because there was some confusion about rules.
This is a slide from our Web site on Communications and Marketing. You can visit auburn.edu/OCM for this Web site. The 2 places I want to point out to you are the tool kit in the orange bar as well as the downloads and you can reach our information there. Those are the places where your are going to get logos so you have to log into this site, to the downloads section, with your Auburn University ID and password, same one that you use for your e-mail. You can download any of the logos there. One of the questions that we always get is, there is an AU and there is a tower, how do we know which one to use? So the way that you remember is the AU is informal and athletic and the tower is formal and academic. So if you have any questions about that we will take questions at the end and we can help you define that.
Then the next thing that you’ll want to look at on our site is the University Style Guide. I’ve got 2 pages from that which are going to be the 2 pages that you actually have to pay attention to when you are creating any kind of printed materials. Page 8 is very important because it tells you what the minimum standards are. What we are really looking for on anything that is printed is a logo that is clear and at a visible size, the equal opportunity statement, a web address, some kind of contact information, a produced by, and a date. That just helps the user of the information know where it’s coming from.
Then you also have page 34, which is very important for the rules. It tells you how to contact Pam Kirby, which is your most important resource in OCM. Pam Kirby is the person who will give you a print approval form for anything that has a logo on it. So if you are doing a flyer, if you are doing any kind of poster presentation, now that CopyCat is gone these are going outside (the university) to be printed. So the print approval form allows PPS to pay your invoice. If you don’t have the print approval form what happens? Well the first time it happens, you go back to Pam and say, I didn’t know the rules I didn’t have a print approval form and PPS won’t pay my bill. And Pam will say, okay send me a copy of what you printed and I will give you an exemption form. The second time, Pam might say, you probably did know the rules this time but I am going to give you an exemption form anyway. And the third time Pam is going to come tell me that you didn’t follow the rules and we are going to say, follow the rules or we are not going to give you any more exemption forms. So it is actually really easy and we are very easy to work with. We do ask for 3 days for approval, but normally it’s within the same day. That’s the general rule.
Many of you are within schools and colleges obviously, and who can help you with these things? Pam can, I can, and these people (indicating the slide of names) who are usually in your Dean’s Office, college communicators. They know the rules inside and out and can help you with anything you are working on and also provide logos that have the college information embedded into them and department information.
The other thing that many of you need to do is order stationary, business cards and that relationship now is with Office Max. They have templates and they are set up to be consistent so that we represent the university very well. So you can order those online, it’s really simple. And there are 2 more things if you want to go further with anything that you are working on. This is still on that same downloads page, you can look at the Brand Inspiration Book, which has all of the This Is Auburn information and how to use it. And there is also a PowerPoint template. There are several different templates in that section that you might want to download. They are all branded and very easy to use for anything. You are welcome to use those for anything you are doing for the university.
Now, I am going to turn it over to Susan. [48:54]
Susan Smith, Dir. Trademark and Licensing: As Camille mentioned, her office manages the use of Auburn marks on paper products, publications, posters, anything that we are using internally. The only time you need to contact Trademark and Licensing for paper products is if you intend to sell it. A calendar for example, then we will review and determine whether the calendar for sale needs to be licensed or not. But primarily what our office deals with are gift types of items, anything that represents and event, your College/School Department, things like pens, cups, mugs, t-shirts, calendars, awards, those kind of things.
Then we have licensed vendors. The university has over 500 licensed vendors that can help you get the product that you need. If you go to our Web site and click on the orange bar where it says campus departments, you’ll have links to lists of licensed vendors that can help you get this product. Being licensed means that a company has been vetted by the university’s licensing agent to determine that they are not a fly-by-night, that they provide quality product and know that they have to adhere to our policies to help us manage our brand, our very valuable trademarks and the Auburn University Brand.
The other things that licensees help us do is they are all familiar with our trademark policies. They are aware of what can and cannot be approved and they are responsible for obtaining design approval, so that you don’t have to call our office if you know who is licensed and you know to go to the licensee, because they will submit your designs for approval. Then if we have any questions we will contact you through the licensee and work out the details. [50:36] As long as you are working through the licensee then they will take care of that process for you. Generally we are looking to know that you are complying with the OCM style guide policies to use the university’s name appropriately on product. All of our licensees are required to carry product liability insurance naming the university an additional insured to help us further protect our brand.
Here are a couple of design ideas. We allow campus organizations creativity on part of the design as long as there is always and interlocking AU or a tower mark on the design somewhere, with your department name or your event name to make it authentic that shows that it’s officially approved by the university and it’s a university event. In rare cases we’ll have a campus department or someone will want to order something that we don’t have a licensee to produce. Building ornamentation, for example, so if you want to put a big sign up in a campus building, we don’t have folks licensed to do that sort of thing. But we can work with a selected vendor through Facilities or whomever to put that company under contract. Put language in their contract or just make them aware that they have permission to use the university’s name in this way and we will make sure we provide them with the appropriate artwork to do that. There is a lot of bad artwork out on the Web and just because you go out there and look for Auburn University’s interlocking AU does not mean that you are going to get correct artwork. It may be a very insignificant thing to you to look at an AU that’s incorrect, it screams at us, we know what is correct and what is not. All of our licensees are required to get their artwork from only one source though the university’s licensing agent and we ask you please do not send out art or ask your selected vendors to find art. Please call our office or OCM when you need Auburn art for any particular purpose. If one of you academic partners is a business, someone you are doing business with and needs Auburn artwork to do something with you, please again, call us. We can also let that company know how they can use their company’s name in association with their company name on their Web sites or whatever. It depends on their level of partnership, what they are doing for us, it’s rarely ever a problem but we just want to make sure that they know how they can use our name and represent us like we would like to be represented.
Most of what we do in our office has…well we work with campus departments a lot, most of the folks that we work with want to produce product for retail. Some of the policies that we have for retail are a little bit different than what we require for campus because if you are doing something for campus you are representing the university in an official capacity. So we allow a little more creativity since most of the designs that you will find at retail are more fan based, spirit based, fashion, those are the kinds of things you will see there. Anything that you see at retail this is the label that you want to be looking for because this is what tells everyone that it is officially licensed and approved by the university. That it is going to be in good taste and hopefully not offend anyone that we’ve vetted anything that we are at all concerned with. [54:06]
If you attend football games you may have noticed a commercial up on the jumbo-tron that explains, “Always look for the label, it only takes a second.”
Finally, licensed designs is something that we are looking for, the colors, the proper logos, those are other things that we look for. You can look at this hat and know that it is not licensed because this is not Auburn’s blue this is Florida’s blue, and we try to avoid this color at all costs. So I can assure you that this cap was not licensed and approved by the university. While we do allow fashion colors, for the most part if it is an orange and blue we want it to be Auburn’s orange, not Tennessee’s yellow-orange, we want it to be a dark, dark navy blue, not Florida’s blue. We want to avoid LSU purple, black and gold, and at all costs we avoid anything that’s red.
Other things that we tend to look for, on Saturday’s we do occasionally patrol campus with police officers, looking for those folks that want to sell the counterfeit shirts out of their backpacks. Some of the things we may find would be something like this where someone has used Cam’s name, who was a current athlete at the time, and things like this could risk his eligibility to play. So we have to make sure we pull this sort of thing from being sold because we don’t want to risk his eligibility and also Heisman, beside the fact that Auburn is a trademark, Heisman is also a federally registered trademark of the Heisman and they are very protective of their marks as well.
You could look at this. This was sold out of a backpack, the colors are awful, all the trademarks are incorrect, yes this interlocking AU may look correct at a distance but I can promise you that it is not. Those kinds of things as you know again here, if the AU doesn’t have an outline we call it naked and it’s not right.
I hope I don’t offend anyone with this, but this is just an example of something that you know is not licensed, if it’s tacky and vulgar. I didn’t even bring the most nasty ones that we have found; another example of one that is not licensed. Here is an example of a shirt that made it to retail and the licensee did not submit it for approval, and they were fined for not having done so. It turns out that my counterpart at Wyoming called and wanted to know why their logo is on an Auburn shirt. He had seen it at a ski resort out in Wyoming. And calls me about it.
Another one we found at retail, at first glance, it is licensed and I wouldn’t have been so concerned about it except that they embroidered our logo in RED. Again, we know that we are not ever going to approve anything in red.
Here is an example that made it to retail that wasn’t licensed at all and we had a long conversation with this retailer. We are not the “War Eagles” we are the “Tigers” War Eagle will always be singular.
A student organization did a shirt and apparently when the licensee sent it to us for approval, they did not explain to us that this student organization had asked to use this color. It follows guidelines as far as logo use and that sort of thing but it was red and we don’t typically…we really want to avoid red on Auburn University’s campus.
A majority of our students are under age, we do try to avoid references to alcohol. The students are very, very creative. Finally, again I hope this doesn’t offend, this Auburn and Alabama marks, hope this is not your grandchild. So this is the sort of thing that we pick up when we are looking for counterfeit items. If you see folks pulling stuff out of backpacks, particularly on game days and the more successful our athletic season is the more often we find these types of designs available. So please, take pictures and get us as much information about the person selling as you can and we will be sure to address those issues. Does anyone have any questions? Thank you. Any time you have questions about use of marks, please be sure to call our office, the Trademark Licensing Office or Camille in OCM, we work very closely together and we will make sure we get you the information you need and as quickly as possible. Thank you very much.
Patricia Duffy, chair: Thank you. Now when I go to stores, I never look at the Auburn shirts the same way after hearing the presentation at Steering the other day. That concludes our information item.
I there any new business?
Is there any unfinished business?
We stand adjourned. [59:56]