Transcript Senate Meeting
April 19, 2016
Larry Teeter chair: I am Larry Teeter, chair of the Senate. I’d like to welcome everyone to the Senate. Don’t forget to get a clicker when you are signing in in the back. If you are a senator or a substitute for a senator make sure you sign in in the back and pick up a clicker.
If you’d 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 or not you are a senator and the unit you represent. 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.
The agenda today was set by the Senate Steering Committee and was sent around in advance and is now shown on the screen. The first order of business is to establish a quorum, so we need to have our clickers out. We have 86 members of the Senate and we have to have 44 senators present for a quorum. If you are present and a senator or a substituting for a senator, please press A on the clicker. Okay we have a quorum.
First order of business today is to approve the minutes of the March 22 meeting. The minutes have been previously posted on the Senate Web site. Are there any additions or changes or deletions to these minutes? Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. A second. All in favor please say aye.
Group: aye.
Larry Teeter, chair: The minutes are approved.
The first agenda item today will be comments from President Gogue.
Dr. Gogue, President: Thank you. I appreciate you being here today. I just want to mention a couple of items, number one at the last Board meeting I think you are aware that a 3% tuition increase was approved by the Board. So it’s during this period of time of the April meeting until June which Dr. Large and a committee will establish the budget guidelines. We will present the budget guidelines to the Board in June, hopefully they will approve those. Then we will work on putting the budget together for approval for the September Board to begin October 1 of 2016 budget. If there are any questions on the budget process and where we are, let us know on that.
Second thing I’d mention is we had several searches underway that are National searches. One is the Chief Information Officer search, one is the General Counsel search for the university, and the other is the Vice President for Business and Finance. [3:18] So those 3 searches are underway. Hopefully bring resolution to them over the next several months. So those are the key searches that we have. [3:29]
Sheri Fulford today is going to give us a legislative update a little bit later, so I won’t cover the comments on the legislature that we usually talk about. We have reports that show that fall enrollment will be very much consistent with the goals that have been set, somewhere around 4,400–4,500 new freshmen. Feel good about that, if you look nationally at certainly the numbers at many of the universities their numbers are down appreciably. Number of students in American higher education has dropped by several million over the past year. So for our number to be pretty consistent with what our plan is really quite a testament to you guys and the work that you do.
Tomorrow will be the release of the Climate Survey. The Provost will be spending time with student groups and faculty to try to go over what was heard, what we are trying to do in the short term, medium term, and long term. Delighted to have all of you here today, I appreciate you. Thank you.
Larry Teeter, chair: Thank you Dr. Gogue.
Before we get started with the main parts of our agenda today I’d like to introduce our Senate officers. Dr. Laura Plexico is our secretary, Dr. Xing Ping Hu is our secretary-elect, Dr. James Goldstein is our chair-elect, and Dr. Patricia Duffy is our immediate past chair and serves as the faculty representative on the Board of Trustees, Dr Bob Locy, our parliamentarian, is not here today – thought he was. Laura Kloberg, our administrative assistant, helps us stay organized with general procedures of the Senate and keeps us on schedule.
As you can see from the screen we have a pretty full agenda today, one action item, two pending action items, and 3 information items. Our first action item today, or action item of the day is about extending the last class withdrawal date and will be presented by David Held from the Academic Standards Committee.
David Held, Academic Standards Committee: I’m David Held, I’m representing Academic Standards and presenting this on behalf of our Chair, Lisa Kensler, who has a professional conflict today.
So this is what we have been talking about in our committee is a changing of the course withdrawal date. The current policy is stated here and as you read through that please pay particular attention to the words that are in bold because those are going to be reflected in oncoming slides as the changes. [6:45] Basically we are talking about great penalties relative to when courses are dropped, current policy on or before the 5th class day, so prior to the 5th class day of the fall or spring semester or after the 15th day will be the assessment of the W, withdrawal passing grade. In the second paragraph in particular, a course dropped with a W after mid-term only under unusual circumstances and those have been previously defined following. Those are the 2 points in particular I want to point out as changing in the new policy that is being suggested.
We have basically the same introduction no grade penalties for dropping a course. But this is the change, “on or before the last business day prior to the opening of registration for the following term.” And Lisa in just a second will give us a practical example on the oncoming slide, so bear with me. The rest of the policy is not changed. Finally, “a course may be dropped with a W after the mid-semester withdrawal deadline only under unusual circumstances.” So practically we are changing those deadlines and extending them.
Here it is in practical terms. Fall 2016, course registration for Spring 2017 would begin on Monday, November 7. Proposed last day to withdraw from a course would be November 4. The current last day to withdraw is basically a month previous on October 5, which creates about 22 additional class days for students to withdraw. What was the rational for having this discussion? There was some discussion that faculty would have more time to provide graded feedback to students. That there were some courses where students were not getting enough graded feedback in order to make a decision as to whether or not they should withdraw from a course. Again that way students could determine whether or not they could make adjustments in that current semester to make their grades for that particular course.
Again, that’s the second point there, potentially resolving in fewer course drops and more likely to (result) in 4-year degree completion. Again, students would have more time to discuss a possible course withdrawal with professor, advisor, or parents if you give that additional 22 days in the previous example. Again, survey results at peer institutions suggested that during week 11 is typical. I think maybe there is a summary, yes, here is the peer institution summary; Auburn University currently at the end of the 7th week. You can see many of our peer institutions such as Alabama and Georgia are at the end of the 10th week, some extending like LSU to the end of the 11th week, University of Tennessee to the 12th week.
Any questions on this proposed change? [10:04]
James Goldstein, chair-elect Senate: Can you go back to the slide please that shows the proposed change? I got confused about this and I don’t think I’m the only one. In the second paragraph the appearance of the term mid-semester before the withdrawal date would on the face of it seemed to conflict with what the first paragraph says, so I would think that there should be an amendment to drop the word mid-semester, because that’s no longer an operative term.
David Held, Academic Standards Committee: Okay, so it would then read “a course may be dropped with a W after the withdrawal deadline.”?
James Goldstein, chair-elect Senate: Right and the first paragraph is the one that specifies when that one is, it’s got nothing to do with mid-semester.
David Held, Academic Standards Committee: Yes, that makes sense.
James Goldstein, chair-elect Senate: So that’s what confused me. Thank you.
I thought I had to wait to propose an amendment. I move to amend this motion to drop the word mid-semester from the second paragraph.
David Held, Academic Standards Committee: Okay we have a second. All those in favor?
Group: aye.
David Held, Academic Standards Committee: Any opposed? (no response) Thank you.
Marilyn Cornish, senator, Special Ed Rehab. Counseling/Sch Psy: The way that the new date for dropping is worded would perhaps create some problems for the summer term, given that registration for the fall occurs during the spring semester, meaning there is no business day prior to registration that occurs in the summer. So how’s that going to be accounted for in this new policy?
David Held, Academic Standards Committee: Constance, do you remember the discussion we had? So for the summer term all the withdrawals with no W grade assignment? (some confusion here) Are you asking about this particular point or a separate point relative to the summer term? [12:36]
Marilyn Cornish, senator, Special Ed Rehab. Counseling/Sch Psy: I missed that in there, so that’s taken care of, but now that’s a very short period of time relative to the amount of time students have to drop in the fall or spring semesters from their class. Especially thinking graduate classes, which I teach, we typically only teach one day per week, so essentially we have only one day to decide whether or not to drop the class.
Patricia Duffy, immediate past chair: That in the first paragraph refers to a student dropping the class when they don’t show a W, there is a subsequent longer period of time when students have the opportunity to withdraw from the class and then they get a W without and F assigned if they do it before the deadline. The question that would make sense then would be when in the summer is the deadline for withdrawing with a W since there is no registration period in the summer?
David Held, Academic Standards Committee: There’s no change, I am referring to Constance, sorry I didn’t introduce Constance, she agreed to help me out with questions for our committee. So there would be no change to the summer.
Patricia Duffy, immediate past chair: The summer term W deadline would not change, this would only affect the fall and the spring.
David Held, Academic Standards Committee: Yes. Are there any additional comments or questions.
Sara Wolf, senator, Steering: I am still kind of back on this idea that we are not changing summer at all? We are essentially giving a proportion extra to fall and spring students that we are not giving to summer. I am wondering if there might be a way to figure out what proportion of the total of the fall and spring extra the students are getting and then have that same proportion extra for summer students. I agree with the previous person about the classes that meet once or twice per week, you aren’t going to get any graded work the first week of classes in the summer, so that rationale is not met by not changing the summer date. That’s what I would offer.
David Held, Academic Standards Committee: Any ideas for how to change the summer because I don’t remember us having a detailed discussion about the summer term in our committee.
Sara Wolf, senator, Steering: I guess what I would think is if we’re giving the fall and spring people 22 extra days, what fraction of the semester is that extra? Then figure out what that same fraction is for the summer and if it’s not workable, they should at least get more than what they are getting. Right now this penalizes students who are taking summer classes because they don’t get any extra time. And they barely get any time as it is to make the decision or not to drop without a W.
David Held, Academic Standards Committee: Okay. [15:55]
James Carter, senator, Marketing: I was asked to bring up a couple of points. Some people have already done so, but particularly in the practical term slide it was pointed out and highlighted for me to point out is it believed necessary to change it by an additional 3 week period of 22 days? Particularly if you make that relation to the term of the rationale that says the survey of peer institutions suggest that the withdrawal dates during the 11th (week) are typical, but if you look at the numbers of the peer institutions, first off supposedly and I think he is correct on this one the W date for Auburn University is within the 8th week rather than the 7th week based on the number of days and if you look at the median, the median would be 10 weeks if you rank all these, and definitely 11 weeks which is what we are suggesting, is not typical when 3 out of all only have that. I was asked to make a motion to postpone the vote on this until May, so departments can discuss it more thoroughly.
David Held, Academic Standards Committee: Okay.
James Carter, senator, Marketing: I’m just making sure to bring all these concerns.
Constance Relihan, not a senator: Part of what played into the decision to go for the day that was recommended was the date that registration begins, and the registrar can chime in on this, but given the date that registration is going to begin going forward in November and then in April, moving the date to the last business day prior the start of registration seemed a fairly memorable date for everyone. It would be easy for advisors, students, faculty, once they got it into their heads the date when registration began to then know when the last date to withdraw was and one thing we wanted to avoid was it being confusing every semester. At the same time we wanted to give students more time to make decisions. As to the summer question, currently students have until the 24th class day during the summer to withdraw without getting a W. Summer’s are compressed and students don’t have enough time any way you want to define it.
Larry Teeter, chair: There is a motion on the floor to delay the vote until the May meeting, is there a second? There is a second. Okay, any discussion about the delay? Reasonable or unreasonable? Okay, then we’ll take a vote, pick up your clickers, A is a yes vote for delaying the vote, B is a no. A=34, B=15.
It looks like we will delay the vote, clean up that language and those numbers and come back to you in May. Thank you very much David.
Next item is our first pending item and is coming from the Graduate Council. It has to do with offering some opportunities to non-tenure track faculty. Jim Witte is going to be our presenter.
Jim Witte: Thank you Larry. The policy for consideration I bring forward has been viewed by the Graduate Council and even feedback received from the Non-Tenure Track Faculty Committee. By way of disclosure I serve as a member of the Non-Tenure Track Faculty, I am also a member of the AAUP Executive Committee. I represent neither of those organizations as a mater of fact I don’t represent anything much at all except for the interest of the lecturer faculty and that’s what this proposal is about. So let us proceed.
The question of interest is this; should lecturer faculty be permitted to teach graduate courses? And the second thing is should they serve as members of graduate committees? When the lecturer faculty was first developed it was specifically restricted to the teaching of undergraduate classes, we fully recognize that. I also would like to recognize that any policy rule or law deserves an occasional revisit and that’s what this policy is doing. It’s revisiting a very restrictive initial policy.
When we talk about activities of the lecturer under this policy it’s really 3-fold. One, serve on a doctoral committee; two, serve on a master’s committee specifically not chairing. That interferes with level 1 level 2 faculty responsibilities, and the purpose of this proposal is not to cloud other faculty responsibilities. And lastly, to teach at graduate level courses.
The concerns that we’ve identified in discussions thus far are basically 3-fold; one, a very legitimate concern that lecturer faculty could be used to replace tenure-track positions. That was a concern when lecturer faculty was first developed. It remains a concern today and is very much in the forefront. As you’ll see when I give a little more detail on this policy it is not intended nor should it in any way support the idea that the lecturer faculty will be used in lieu of tenure- track positions. [24:22] Number 2, lecturer faculty could be compelled to participate. This is a concern, it has been voiced in several sectors and I find that’s an absolute abomination. The idea that we’re having faculty members compelled to either teach beyond their calling or their pay grade or what have you, I think is not an issue of policy it’s an issue of management. So I’m going to let that one go. And the last one, as it stands right now we have a group of professors, well founded, capable instructors who are denied the ability to develop their own portfolio and somehow create the ability to demonstrate their skill with working with graduate students. There is a progressive track as a lecturer, just as there is with clinical faculty. Not a problem. My concern is this: many times junior faculty members will take a position as a lecturer only because that’s the position afforded them. Career wise they’d like to move on. If they stay in a lecturer track position for several years they will have a magnificent portfolio of teaching, with no graduate work, no graduate committee work, and most likely limited research. It is very difficult to move to a tenure-track position with a limited vita. Actually It’s quite difficult to move there if you’ve got a good vita, so let’s leave it at that.
Now the next one shows us where we receive data. A lot of decisions are made by people in universities by very well meaning others and what we did we went to the lecturer faculty themselves and this is what we found. We had 74 lecturers on campus, of those 74, 49 responded; 12 had Masters, 4 had professional degrees, and 33 held PhD’s. That’s a very small percentage of the Auburn faculty.
Our results overall. [26:50] For our 49 participants, Is this your first time full teaching position? Almost half of them, yes. That in essence would be the target for this policy. Next you have, would you serve on graduate committees? 37 would like to and 40 of them would like to teach a graduate course. Now here comes the other side. Are you concerned the department would pressure you to serve? And 13 out of the 49 said yes, I’m concerned about that. And lastly, are you concerned the department would pressure you to teach graduate…and 10 out of these were. That’s an entirely different issue and I don’t intend to address that today.
We then separated out the PhD’s. Of those with PhD’s teaching as lecturers only 13 are in full-time teaching position for the first time. These are brand new professors to lecturer positions. The next one up is, would you serve on graduate committees? 25 of them said they would. Again 25 out of 43 a fairly high number. Would you teach a graduate course? Yes. This basically conveys that the graduate population is ready and willing to teach at the graduate level and participate in committee work. Again departmental concerns, 10 PhDs, 8 PhDs, all concerned that they would be departmentally pressured. What does that bring us to?
It brings us to a current proposal that’s designed to do 2 things; one, provide an opportunity for lecturers to participate and number two, serve to help to protect these people from this undo pressure that they perceive may be there. [29:03]
Let me just share with you a brief extract from this proposed policy that includes, “the request has got to be acceptable to the department’s tenure and tenure-track graduate faculty and chair in evidence by a memo submitted to the graduate dean. Authorization may be requested for teaching or for committee service, or for both. No more than one lecturer faculty member will serve on a graduate student’s committee. (it’s limited to one) Authorization should be requested each semester.” So it is not an ongoing kind of responsibility. Lastly, “A lecturer would not teach a graduate course as an overload.” This in essence is the proposal that I bring forward simply for consideration by the Senate and if we go to the last slide… now’s the time, questions, comments, observations. Let’s bring it forward, hold our discussion and let’s just see where this puppy goes. [30:30]
Paul Brown, senator, ACES: We have a number of non-tenure track extension specialists that have PhDs that maybe sometimes would have a combination of research, typically experiment station appointment in an extension appointment. Did you committee give any consideration at all about those non-tenure track faculty that may not necessarily be involved in the teaching side, but potentially could be a part of graduate committees and being able to round out the experience beyond those committee as well as other opportunities for them to serve in a capacity that would really bring in an applied component to those committees, to those various activities and potentially could be even involved with adjustments in funding and so forth, involved in some practical teaching?
Jim Witte: Paul that’s an excellent point and I agree with you. They were not included in the initial survey for any reason other than oversight. And I really think they should be looked at. I am also credentialed over in Cooperative Extension so I do work with these people that he’s talking about and I think they would have a role to play in these kinds of activities.
Paul Brown, senator, ACES: I would ask if at some point that perhaps it be considered, we have job titles here Lecturer, Extension Specialist, that they really fall under the non-tenure-track faculty and I would expect that if we make adjustments or changes that we would apply this to everyone that would fall within that category, either tenure-track or in this case non-tenure-track faculty. And we are actually working with our partner colleges and schools on more and more of these types of positions. Looking at the tenure positions in cases where we’ve got solid researchable long term questions and we’re looking at non-tenure-track options to fill key positions that might be more applied or have an extension focus.
Jim Witte: Do you have any objection to us surveying your people to see where they fall out compared to the university lecturers?
Paul Brown, senator, ACES: Not at all. I think we also have some of the career concerns that you mentioned that would apply for their future and career development.
Jim Witte: Happy to explore that.
James Goldstein, chair-elect: I rise in opposition to this proposal. We should ask it’s sponsors to demonstrate what institutional need this proposal addresses. For a little bit of history for people who weren’t in the Senate at the time, when Dr. Mazey, the previous Provost came to the Senate in 2009 asking our approval for a lecturer title series to address the perceived need for undergraduate teaching, so we did. [33:40] During the discussion of this proposal on July 14, 2009, you can look it up if you want to, she was asked specifically if lecturers would be used for graduate teaching, and I can quote from her (Dr. Mazey) reply in the transcript of that meeting; “I certainly think if you are teaching graduate students research should be a component of your position, so therefore I don’t think that the lecturer, senior lecturer should be teaching or advising graduate students.” So that was the view from the previous Provost.
I think it’s a slippery slope and I think I just heard something that makes me think that it might be even more slippery, I fear that if it becomes routine for lecturers to teach graduate students there will be institutional pressure to replace tenure-track faculty with non-tenure-track faculty. That’s why I introduced the motion to make lecturers ineligible for graduate faculty, the motion of course passed and is in the Faculty Handbook now.
With the new budget model an even more worried about the erosion of tenure-track lines, it’s cheaper to hire lecturers to teach graduate students. Why should we care? Because the protections of tenure are the strongest lines of defense against threats internal and external to academic freedom, and the threat is real. I urge the Senate to vote no when the time comes.
Jim Witte: Alright, I would respond to that James by review of the built-in safeguards that I verbally outlined earlier. The idea that it’s a semester by semester, one course limitation to teach, one lecturer per committee at one time. I think these kinds of safeguards protect us from the idea of the lecturer faculty taking away these tenured positions. Now that’s just a very quick response, I’d be glad to formulate that better in writing for the future.
James Goldstein, chair-elect: If I could just respond quickly to that.
Jim Witte: Sure.
James Goldstein, chair-elect: There was a safeguard that would prevent lecturers from participating in the teaching or advising of graduate students, that’s now gone. There is nothing that would make permanent the safeguards that are in this particular proposal, so that’s what I mean by slippery slope. This could be just stage 2 of an ongoing process that budgetary constraints make people see things differently in the future. So, I’m not that assured by the current proposal safeguards because they can be changed on any day.
Jim Witte: My last response on that issue would be that a 7-year old policy by a previous Provost, maybe it’s about time we relooked it.
Hillary Wyss, senator, English: I’d also like to speak out against this policy. I realize that from an individual lecturer’s perspective it may seem like it’s in their interest, but I would just remind everybody that a lecturer position is a teaching position. That is a 4/4 teaching load in our department, and I assume the same across the university, with zero attached to research. No research is required or asked of these people or compensated. So we are asking people through graduate faculty status to conduct research, which we are not going to pay them to do, and then we are asking them to support or supplement the work of people who are doing half the teaching or having their research funded and afforded in all kinds of ways by the university and it strikes me as really potentially exploitative of lecturers, of the entire category of lecturers. I would like to speak very, very strongly against it. It does seem to me that it goes very much against the whole idea of tenure-track line which builds research into it. So we are going to ask people to do research in their spare time and then exploit that.
Jim Witte: I’d address that in this sense. I think we’re overextending what this proposal calls for. We are not asking that these individuals be specifically involved in research other than serving on a Master’s Committee or a Doctoral Committee, they are not chairing.
Hillary Wyss, senator, English: The status requires
Jim Witte: Well we are not talking about grad fac 1 or grad fac 2, we’re talking about a proposal that would allow the lecturer to simply teach a graduate course and to serve on a committee. All other issues involving grad fac 1 would be exempt from this policy.
Hillary Wyss, senator, English: That is what grad faculty 1 and 2 mean.
Jim Witte: No, grad fac can chair a committee, lecturers should not chair.
Hillary Wyss, senator, English: Grad fac cannot chair a committee
Jim Witte: They can chair a Master’s committee. And that’s what we are talking about here. What I’m concerned is we are making a class of very, very capable, very well trained, very well credentialed instructors who are virtually destined to be instructors…
Hillary Wyss, senator, English: I agree, but the solution is then to build research into that position. So let’s make it a 3/3 load with the research component attached to it. That’s a completely different proposal.
Jim Witte: Different issue.
Hillary Wyss, senator, English: Until that gets in I will have to oppose this proposal.
Jim Witte: I’ll accept that. [39:33] Paul?
Paul Brown, senator, ACES: Jim, just again I think that maybe the point of confusion here is not looking at specific job title and not looking at the general aspect of what the roll and function of non-tenure track faculty would be. Our individuals are very well paid. Our pay scale if you are not tenure-track extension specialists compliments the pay scale for tenure-track. We also have a very rigorous process of scholarship and I think maybe we should come back to the question and look at this a little bit differently rather than just in the lecturer position, but maybe more broadly as we look at this class of employees.
Just by a quick example we have a case where there is an extension methods graduate course that’s being taught, our extension people who live and work in this area can’t even teach the course and it’s gone to another department where an individual is teaching the course that’s never been in the extension arena. So I don’t see how dividing these things along tenure-track and non-tenure-track lines are good for the students and good for the university.
Patricia Duffy, immediate past chair: I noticed that George Flowers is here. I hate to put you on the spot George, but I’m going to do it. My understanding is the only class of people at the university who are specifically forbidden to get special permission to teach a class or to serve on a committee are the lecturers, and that other people can do that with special permission from the graduate school. [41:17]
George Flowers, senator, Dean Graduate School: Yes, that is correct. The only class of faculty that are currently explicitly prohibited from participating in graduate activities are the lecturer class faculty. We have a variety of affiliate faculty, we have a variety of adjunct faculty, of clinical faculty; all of those serve or can serve in graduate capacities. They can teach graduate courses, they can serve on committees with the permission of their departments and do. It’s fairly common in some units for that to occur. So what this proposal is seeking to do is provide an opportunity for those who are qualified, I noticed that the survey focused on doctoral level faculty and also faculty that have an interest, so if the faculty do not have an interest then they way the proposal is laid out then they would not ask to serve and would not seek the opportunity. The proposal that was presented also provides a safeguard from the perspective of the department. If the department says no, this is something we don’t want to do and we don’t feel it is appropriate because the lecturer faculty that we have are teaching 4/4 and they are not doing research, so in our particular discipline they are not qualified to serve on certain committees, then the department can say no. So there’s 2 levels of protection, the faculty member has to ask, the department has to approve. It’s meant to provide protections against those negative concerns that were brought up by Jim.
With the positive results of providing those who are interested, particularly young faculty, well not necessarily young, newer, less senior faculty who have an interest in participating in graduate activities and their department wants to support them. As you saw here this is a very small number of people that are in the lecturer class at all. It is an even smaller number that will be interested. You are looking at roughly about 25 or so out of about 70 lecturers overall. A relatively small number that would be interested and even in those cases the department has to give permission. So it’s meant to provide them with the opportunity to teach and develop their work with graduate students. It helps them in terms of professional development, it is not meant to be a negative, it is certainly not meant to be anything that is onerous or burdensome to the person. Quite often the lecturers that are interested in doing research have continued to do research and they are doing it as Hillary previously mentioned, they are doing it on their own dime. They are doing it on their own time. So if they also want to participate in these kind of activities it would allow them to do it. If they don’t want to then it’s out. So that’s how this is laid out, it’s meant to provide a counter balance to the concerns of a number of different groups on campus who have requested lecturers to be able to teach versus the units and faculty that have concerns about the slippery slope and about making inappropriate demands of the lecturers.
Sara Wolf, senator, Steering: I don’t want to speak for or against it but I just have a question for clarification. [45:11] You mentioned that the permission would need to be gotten each semester. And that makes a lot of sense for teaching but the nature of committee work is such that it is typically multi-semester in length and you also mentioned that they would only be able to teach one graduate class, I think you said per semester.
Jim Witte: That’s correct.
Sara Wolf, senator, Steering: So are there any limits on the number of committees on which someone would be interested.
Jim Witte: Yes.
Sara Wolf, senator, Steering: And second would that student or that lecturer have to ask for permission every single semester that they are serving on ‘Suzie Smith’s’ committee or would it be once per committee?
Jim Witte: On committee service, once appointed would remain for the duration. For teaching classes, it must be renewed every semester. So it’s on a semester by semester basis. Again it’s initiated by the lecturer through a letter to the chair, the department chair then goes through the procedures necessary for appointment. Yes mam?
Tracy Witte, senator, Psychology:
Jim Witte: Make a note Tracy, we are not related.
Tracy Witte, senator, Psychology: How would this policy affect promotion to the senior lecturer position? Would there be a…if someone went up for senior lecturer and they opted out of participating in the graduate component would that count against them?
Jim Witte: Recommendations on promotion are through the system and would be a departmental function. I do not see that a person doing this thing would necessarily have a leg up on the lecturer track. Again, do be determined, but I don’t see it. The intent is certainly not that.
I’d really like to thank you all very, very much and I will leave now.
Larry Teeter, chair: Thanks Jim. That gives us the flavor of the ?, this proposal comes from a standing committee of the Senate and doesn’t need a second so next month we will get together to continue discussion on the item and call a vote.
Our next pending action item is part 2 of our campus copyright policy. Sara Wolf.
Sara Wolf: Hello again, we are here to present the second half of the revised copyright policy which if you recall our current policy was last revised in 1984. I was in high school. So we are looking at it again. Historically the first policy we talked to you about didn’t change a ton from the current one, basically the university is going to let you keep your copyrights and the 5 cents per copy of book that you earn for the things that your write, unless of course we help you do it. The second half of the policy is new. We’ve had a lot of questions from various different people, different units on campus saying, “what am I allowed to use?” People have gone to people in the Library, people have gone to people in the Biggio Center and saying am I allow to do this, am I allowed to do that? And we didn’t really have a policy that addressed that.
So what I’d like to do, we could read it to you, except that’s not going to do you a whole lot of good because we all can read and it’s 3 pages long, it’s on the Web site, so the address is up there if you want to read it. https://auburn.edu/administration/governance/senate/website/agendas/2015-2016/Apr16/PolicyCopyrightedMaterialFinalDraft.pdf
But what we are going to do is give it to you in a nutshell. [49:06] Basically what the current copyright law says is that the university has to provide educational materials and we need to promote compliance with Federal Copyright Law. So the university expects us to follow the law. The second thing that the policy says is that we expect employees and students to comply with the law by making informed decisions regarding the use of copyrighted materials and then also keeping a record of how those decisions were made. So, on a day-to-day basis what that looks like is if you are using copyrighted materials your teaching, your research, your publication, or learning activates as a student, you…kind of as a default, have to have permission to use those copyrighted materials, unless that item is in the public domain or it was previously copyrighted and has moved into the public domain, like some things can do, or your use meets one of several exceptions that are already written into the copyright law. The most well known of those exceptions is the fair use statutory exception. [50:21] That is the text of what the fair use exception says. The thing to pay attention to and that really works well for people in acediema is the fact that if you are using copyrighted materials for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, which is what we do everyday, then that use is not necessarily a violation of copyright. However in order to determine whether that use is fair use you have 4 factors to consider. Those are again listed straight out in the law. I am not going to try to interpret them for you because I’m not an attorney, but Jan is, and if you have questions of a legal nature Jan can answer them for you. There are some other exceptions that are written into the copyright law as well. And some of those we deal with on a very regular basis.
So there are certain performances and displays and this deals with the classroom use of video as well as the use of distance education efforts. So there are things that you can do that are just fine and those are written into the law. There are other uses that are already provided for you, like the way the library can provide copies of materials to you when you do interlibrary loan requests and things like that, the law permits that. Dr. Boosinger’s wife is not breaking the law by giving us copies.
Certain uses of computer programs or certain uses of things to be reproduced for blind people or other people with disabilities. All of these uses are delineated in the actual law of the copyright which is online, it’s title 17 of the U.S. Code http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html. If you download this presentation that address is listed throughout it.
So what does this mean for you in terms of your responsibilities and for our students. First of all you need to make informed decisions. Jan’s Office, the Office of Innovation and Commercialization, can assist you in making those decisions. There are people in the library that can assist you by referring you to get the proper resources in order to make the decisions as well as an educational Web site that has not yet been developed, but that’s the summer project, that will be there to help you interpret whether or not your particular use would be considered within the bounds of fair use.
What we are also going expect according to this policy if you approve it, if you able to produce your rationale and your justification for using a particular copyrighted work upon request. [53:01] I am going to go out on a limb and say, 9.876 times out of 10, no one is going to ask you about it, but that remaining fraction, if someone comes to you and says I think you’re using this copyrighted material inappropriately, you have to be able to produce your rationale, your decision making–whatever you decided, what you are doing is fair use. No one is going to be following you and saying you have to file these every time you do it or anything like that. If someone asks you need to be able to produce it.
How long do you keep those records of justification? We went back and forth a variety of times with this and what we kind of lit on was that you needed to keep it in line with the university record retention policy which is anywhere from 3–7 years depending upon the type of record that you are keeping.
There are certain circumstances in which Jan’s Office would be able to help you retain those records, particularly if you are using copyrighted works in university supported activities. If a particular unit asks you to create something and you need to use copyrighted materials in it, because that’s a university project, she’d be able to help you retain those records. The other thing that will potentially happen in terms of keeping records is if for what ever reason your working on something that ends up being transferred to the university in terms of ownership of copyright, then those records would be able to be maintained by Jan’s Office.
The horrible part, not the horrible part, but the part that no one wants to talk about, sanctions. It is important to remember that copyright is Federal Law and failure to comply with that may place us as individuals and this university in legal jeopardy, and we do not want to have that happen. The one thing that right now that I think we need to probably revisit in terms of our wording up here based on some feedback that we got prior to the Senate meeting is this next statement that says, “unauthorized use of copyrighted materials on Auburn University Web sites or on any Web sites stored on Auburn University servers is prohibited. So you can’t use pirated stuff on Auburn servers. In accordance with the digital millennium copyright act, if those are found the Web site will be disabled until that’s taken care of. It was brought up to me that we have a number of university projects that are not sitting on university servers, particularly like student portfolios, there are people on campus that are using university funds to purchase their own domain names, so we need to revisit this particular language to make sure that we are basically saying that, whatever you are doing if you are representing the university you have to follow the law.
So the next step after we hopefully get this all approved when we talk about it next month is we are going to institute policies regarding copyright, and we’re doing that right now, and the next step after that is we need to provide informational materials that accurately describe compliance with the laws of the United States relating to copyright and that’s our actual next step. [56:19] What we have in mind is this summer we have identified someone who will be working with our committee to write a Web site that will be housed in IAC, linkable by anybody on campus whether their college, department unit, anything like that, that will provide things like template if you want to request permission to use something, flow charts to help you make decisions, discipline specific examples of acceptable or non-acceptable use and other kinds of things that will help you make these decisions. The goal is that it will be complete by the end of summer depending on how much information we put on there.
It shall not be construed as legal advice, that’s the big thing to remember, it is just to help you make those decisions. As always if you have actual legal questions you should consult an actual attorney.
Questions, problems, or concerns? I broke all know speed records in my speech. Thank you.
Larry Teeter, chair: Once again this proposal comes from a standing Senate committee and doesn’t need a second and will be available next month for further discussion and a vote.
Our first information item today comes from the Business and Finance Office, Karla McCormick will present this plan for extending 9 month salaries over 12 months. Something faculty here and at AUM have wanted for quite some time.
[58:30]
Karla McCormick, Assoc. VP of Human Resources: Good afternoon, thank you for giving me the opportunity to come and talk with you about this. A lot of the 9-month faculty have been asking for us to develop a way to allow them to defer a portion of their pay over the 9 months to a full year, so that they can receive that compensation over the summer months and develop something we are calling the salaries savings plan that will allow employees to be able to do that. What it does and what makes it a little bit different than a traditional salary deferral plan is that it gives that 9-month faculty member complete control over their money. So they can make decisions that make it as easy or as hard as they’d like it to be to get access to their money, but they have control of that money and can access it when they want it. It lets them determine when they want to begin saving it, it let’s them determine how much they want to save, let’s them determine when they receive it and how they receive it, and it also let’s them have access to the money during the fall or the spring semester if they want it where a traditional deferred comp plan would not allow that. So it gives them total and complete control over their money.
What happens is they set up an account through the Auburn University Federal Credit Union, it’s payroll deducted and we send a portion of net pay to the Credit Union into an account that that employee owns, so it is not an Auburn University account it is an account owned by that employee and that employee can then set up with the Credit Union a method that they want to receive that money and the frequency and the dates they want to receive that money. So if they want to receive it just like they would if they were a 12-month faculty member being paid semi-monthly for 12 months, they can set it up and the Credit Union will actually mail a check to you if that’s what they want. They can transfer that money into a checking account if that’s what they want to do, it gives them total and complete control over how they receive that money. All they have to do is go to the Credit Union, and we are going to bring them to campus to make this easier for folks if you want us to do that. All you have to do is go to the Credit Union, open up an account, there is a $5 minimum balance to maintain an account, not a charge because the money is yours, so they will ask for $5 to open the account. They will have you fill out the forms that come back to payroll and employee benefits, we are going to set up your deduction and it is part of your net pay that would then be going to the Credit Union. That means that all of your benefits deductions and all of your taxes would actually be paid or taken out of your check over the 9 months. So it’s net pay, it’s a portion of your net pay that goes into the account at the Credit Union for you to receive at at later time.
There is a calculator that we’ve built through self service banner, it’s the same screen that you go to to see your check stub. It’s the last entry they salaries savings program calculator. And this is what it actually looks like. The only caveat to using this calculator is that you have to have been paid through Auburn University. Ideally if you are a 9-month faculty member and you want to do this and you know your pay is going to be the same in the fall, as it is now you may want to go ahead and do that based on one of your paychecks in this spring semester because what it is going to do is use the calculations in this calculator to determine how much money to pull so that you can have an even distribution of that money over 24 pay periods instead of over 18.
So again, new faculty members walking in the door, until they receive that first paycheck and have a net pay the calculator is not going to work for them. You can still do the calculations; my team will help you do that if the calculator will not work because there is no net pay in there. They can determine how much they would want to have deducted and sent to the Credit Union and we will help set that up.
Any questions? Thank you.
Larry Teeter, chair: Thanks for all your work on this. I know a number of people have been asking for a number of years to formalize something like this.
Our next information item is one I’ve been looking forward to, Sherri Fulford will talk to us a little about the Governmental Affairs Office and how they interface with the Legislature.
Sherri Fulford, Exec. Dir. Governmental Affairs: Thank you so much for inviting me to come today. Larry asked me to talk a little bit about what my office does and then following that I am going to give you a brief summary on where we are right now with the Legislative session.
I will start with our office. [1:03:49] It’s part of the President’s Office and I answer to President Gogue when I can, because I am busy, real busy. In our role in Governmental Affairs we basically handle all the interactions with government on the State level. Some of you may know Brian Keeter and he handles the Federal side and Governmental Affairs handles the state side. We work with all branches of state government, specific agencies at times. K–12, 2-year schools a number of trade associations and sometimes even alumni groups in Montgomery. It covers all 4 Divisions of Auburn; main campus, Experiment Station, Extension System, and AUM. We are looking at everything with a broad picture. By the State Ethics Law I am called the agency’s head representative, the agency head being the President. Not a lobbyist. Public employees are not lobbyists. So by that definition our role is to find in the ethics law as providing information and communicating with people in Montgomery at all levels about policies or positions that might affect Auburn University. So that’s basically overall how we approach it.
I have 2 primary responsibilities. The first one is to protect and improve Auburn’s state appropriations in the Education Trust Fund (ETF). Obviously that happens every year through a budget process that begins in the governor’s office. We work through that, but in addition to working with the state agencies we also work with the people who are coming after our money, our revenue money, so our budget process actually starts with Auburn working with K–12 and 2-year and anyone else to preserve our revenue sources in the ETF. Fro there we look toward the traditional split, the money that goes between higher ed and K–12 and beyond that we are looking at Auburn’s market share of the money for higher education. So that’s kind of the way it’s laid out.
The second thing we do is determine to what extent the university is going to interact or participate in policy development and other legislative issues in Montgomery. It’s hard sometimes to think about all the different things that come up in Montgomery because if a legislator can think about it then they are probably going to write a Bill about it. That’s kind of the way they operate down there, so this session so far we’ve had about 1,000 Bills introduced and we’re tracking over 200. Some of those Bills, some of the topics for example would be ethics, of course the budget, there are Bills that would merge the ETF with the General Fund, there are laws that could affect our students, could affect faculty. In fact we’ve had several Bills over the years that have tried to affect established faculty workloads. We’ve had bills to take money from the university that was gained from patenting different items. We’ve always been able to address those, but that’s the kind of thing that they will pursue. We have Bills related to the general operation of the university, purchasing and that sort of thing. PEEHIP, retiree PEEHIP insurance, retirement, all those things have Bills connected with them so we are usually involved with all of that.
The other thing that we do pretty much on a regular basis is manage the confirmation process for the Trustees for the university. So for this session on the education budget, the budget has passed each house and it was different versions so it is going to go into a conference committee we hope this week and from there we will kind of make it work and they come out and take a vote on it and hopefully we will be through with the education budget. In that Bill we will receive about a 1% increase on our O & M lines which is pretty good. We do look at the traditional split to be sure we stay consistent with that, and with the market share for Auburn and we’re pretty much within the range we had expected we would be in.
Other Bills this session that I think that you all have had an actual interest in was the conceal carry gun legislation. Conceal carry on college campuses. Last week that Bill had a public hearing, we brought some people from law enforcement to speak about it and really appreciate the resolution that you all provided and we were able to use that during the committee process so that was very helpful. We really don’t expect that Bill to leave the committee. We kind of think we’ve got it settled down for the session, but it will be back and that will be an issue that will have to be dealt with again in the future. It’s never over until it’s really over. I haven’t seen a Bill yet to ever been totally over.
There are several RSA Bills that would affect our defined contribution retirement plan. 3 or 4 of them, one of them, not directly, but has to do with the automatic enrollment in the state’s RSA 1 and that particular Bill has a chance to pass. We have been able to get built into that an opt out, since universities already have different options to provide to the faculty and staff. So that one may pass but there are several others that were a result of a joint legislative interim committee on pension reform. A number of things included in that and the folks at the Retirement System worked very closely with all the people who came in to make presentations. There was a report that came out of that particular reform process and the Bills that were introduced were supposed to follow the things that were coming out of that committee because the Retirement System did approve those. They were in favor of those. However, as it turned out several legislators had some different thoughts and they’ve added some things into several of those Bills that the Retirement System does not support. So we’re not real sure if those Bills will pass or not, but again, those type Bills will definitely be back again next session if they don’t pass this session.
One of the big issues that we’ve had is the General Fund because they don’t have enough money to fund it. That budget has gone though, it’s passed, it’s 85 million dollars short. They are going to have some hearings this week to talk about that. Not sure what will come of it, not sure if we’ll have a special session on it, but the bottom line is that we will continue to protect the revenue sources that are coming into the Educational Trust Fund because that is definitely on their radar.
I am happy to answer any questions. Thank you.
Larry Teeter, chair: Thank you Sharri. Our final information item today comes from the Faculty Research Committee and it has to do with how we might go forward working with these new cluster hire employees for P&T.
Sushil Adhikari, chair of the Faculty Research Committee: Maybe the title is not correct, this is not really the language for the Cluster hire offer letter, but this talks about the process of evaluating faculty hired through the cluster hire. As many of you probably know this process was initiated by the Provost’s Office. We have 5 clusters that are hiring about 41 new faculty members. It talks about is that there will be a package from the cluster leaders and the steering committee, so like all of us have and a resolution to meet 3 year P&T review and the final P&T evaluation. I am not going to read all the language there but in a nutshell what you see is the department head or chair has to get the information from the faculty candidate and forward that information to the cluster leader. The cluster leader would then work with the steering committee and then provide the feedback on that individual on how he or she is performing in regards to the cluster. The same process goes for the P&T review also and for the P&T evaluations.
I am happy to take any comments that you have. Thank you all.
Larry Teeter, chair: This information was just brought forward primarily as a kind of a heads up to some minor changes that may need to be made to the Handbook in order to reflect the differences between people who are hired in these cluster hire positions.
Is there any new or unfinished business? Hearing none, the meeting is adjourned. [1:15]