Transcript Senate Meeting
May 17, 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 because we have several action items today.

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 so we can get that in the minutes.

The agenda today was set by the Senate Steering Committee and is now shown on the screen. So if we’d please come to order we need to establish a quorum. Turn your clickers on. We have 86 members of the Senate and we have to have 44 senators present for a quorum. Okay we have a quorum.

First order of business today is to approve the minutes of the April 19 meeting. The minutes have been previously posted on the Senate Web site. Are there any additions or changes or corrections to these minutes? Do I have a motion to approve?  So moved. Second? All in favor please say aye.

Group: aye.

Larry Teeter, chair: Opposed? (no response) Okay the motion carries.

The first item on our agenda is comments from the Presidents Office, Dr. Gogue.

Dr. Gogue, President: Thank you Larry.
I want to go over a few items that closed out the Legislative Session of the State. Mention a couple of things going on Federally and then give you a flavor of what we anticipate. We haven’t had the preliminary meetings on what we anticipate on the Board of Trustees meeting for June.

State Legislature, the ETF funds, where our funds come in; a year ago the total amount of money in the fund was about 5.9 Billion dollars, this year it was about 6.3 Billion dollars, so some growth in that fund, which was good. When we look at all 4 divisions at Auburn, that would be this campus, AUM, the Extension Service, and the Experiment Station; we received about $255 million from the state. Got about a 1% increase in O&M across each of the 4 lines that the university receives. And we received about 5 million for an aviation education center.

Bills that died during the session: number one was the concealed carry bill, and Sherri ask me to at least express appreciation for the resolution that you passed that they were able to use during that discussion. An ethics training bill also died during the session. There was an effort to…a bill called “Ban the Box” apparently on many job application forms there is a box in which you have to check if you’ve had any criminal past background; that bill failed. Community Colleges tried to remove themselves from ACHE in terms of oversight and that bill failed.

Special sessions or a special session is under discussion, it will probably deal with prison construction. Distribution of the VP money that you read about and also some effort in the Medicaid area. There were several bills that were special or unique to this campus that we worked on. Two were from the School of Forestry & Wildlife Sciences, one had to do with tic borne illness commission with research related activities. The other was some permit requirements for wild animals and birds eggs in terms of work that was being done in Forestry and Wildlife. Then the College of Liberal Arts there was an Alabama behavioral analyst board that was approved. I’m not sure that I know what that one is. Provost, you might have to help us if there are questions.

At the national level, two things in the last couple of weeks. One has to do with the Fed’s interest in bathrooms. Huge interest, Dept. of Justice, Dept. of Education. Lots of guidance coming out in terms of they way all public university’s and public schools look at their restrooms. I just would share with you that we will be sure to be in compliance with whatever the Federal requirements are. [4:53] It’s not a Federal law, it’s not really an executive order, at this point it’s a dear colleague letter from the Secretary of Education.

The other has to do with the Fair Labor Standards Act. Basically the way I would describe it is historically if you made slightly more than $25,000 you could be an exempt employee. They are going to change that threshold up closer to $50,000, so if you don’t make more than $50,000 then you would be an hourly employee. Is that basically correct, Don? Discussion on that has not passed, there has been a lot of discussion with staff on campus over that particular issue.

The Board of Trustees this Thursday the Budget Advisory Board will actually meet and sit down and talk about the guidelines that will be presented to the Board at the June Board meeting. We get the guidelines approved and then the budget is actually put together during the summer and is actually approved in the September time period of the Board for the new fiscal year.

A couple of projects that I mentioned Gavin Engineering Research Lab renovation is up for final approval. Broun Hall renovations, final approval; Leach Science Center addition, final approval on that one; Performing Arts construction management is up; Haley Center Quad renovation is in project initiation. Poultry and infectious disease and Bio containment research facility, they are trying to move the old chicken houses from out of the Research Park to a different location, so that project is up for the architect selection.

On the academic side a couple of projects. One is a bachelor of science in agricultural science that is on the agenda. Another is from Forestry, it’s a BS in geospatial and environmental infomatics. And there are changes to the faculty personnel policy manual. Provost, you may when you speak, comment on that particular project.

I appreciate you being here. Thank you for all that you did in the past semester. Our graduation numbers were the highest they’ve ever been for the year, so it was a good graduation. I appreciate each one of you and what you did.

Larry Teeter, chair:  Thank you Dr. Gogue. And now we have some comments from the Provost’s Office, Dr. Boosinger.

Dr. Boosinger, Provost: The change to the faculty handbook doesn’t involve very many words, but it’s important. It deals with insuring that there is appropriate support and communication within cluster hires. You know we are doing this strategic hiring process and there is a change in the language, James you can correct me if I am wrong, but the intent is to make sure that it is truly interdisciplinary in the faculty and the hiring of those groups come with promotion and tenure and that interdisciplinary spirit is respected.

What I wanted to do was update you on 4 searches that are going on right now that should be of interest to you. But I would like to start by thanking all of you that are participating in search processes currently for faculty in your respective units. As you know the paper work and final approvals come through my office and it’s pretty exciting, but we’re hiring a lot of new very talented faculty coming in the system for lots of reasons.

The first one I want to update you on is the associate provost for inclusion in diversity. The search committee met this afternoon to launch that search. They’re putting final touches on the position and announcement and hope to post that position within the next few days. So you will start to see that process move forward. We’d like to have candidates on campus early fall after everyone is back from summer break and we are hopeful that we can appoint a new chief diversity officer by January 2017. Dean Janaki Alavalapati is chairing that search.

The second one is the search for the Vice President for Business and Finance. We are in the first round of the interviews, so the confidential interviews some people call the airport interviews. That’s ongoing. They hope to start to bring 3 or 4 candidates on campus for public interviews in the next few weeks, late June early July. I am the chair of that search committee.

The search is also in process for CIO, Chief Information Officer. They are in the confidential interview stage also. Public interviews, on campus interviews will occur we think late June early July, Ron Burgess is the chair of that search committee.

Then the 4th one is the one that’s in the earliest stages is the national search for the Dean of the School of Pharmacy. That search committee meets next Tuesday afternoon, 24th of May. The committee has been appointed, the paperwork is being prepared in order to post that position. Dean Newschwander of the School of Nursing is the chair of that search committee.

Questions for me? Comments?

Larry Teeter, chair: Thank you Dr. Boosinger. 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, Dr. Patricia Duffy is our immediate past chair and serves as the faculty representative on the Board of Trustees, Dr Bob Locy, also a previous chair, is servings as our parliamentarian, and Laura Kloberg is our administrative assistant helps us keep all this stuff organized and tries to get the electronics to work.

As you can see from the screen we have a full agenda today including 5 action items and 2 information items. Our first action item today is a returning item that was brought before the Senate last month regarding extending the last class withdrawal date, to be presented by Lisa Kensler, chair of Academic Standards.
[10:50]

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: This was presented last month when I wasn’t here, but as a quick refresher; the current policy is this. I am not going to read that to you. The proposed policy, I am also not going to read to you, but we changed just a few minor wordings to it and we also calculated the effect that this revised policy would have on summer dates. So that is the content that I think is of interest. [11:56] [13:34bkup]

So how does the proposed policy affect summer? I think that was discussed last time and what we came up with is that the proposed new last date of withdrawal recommends a date of approximately the 56th day of a 70-73 calendar day term. That’s about 72% of the term. Taking that rule into summer we would say approximately 72% of the summer term would be the point at which the new last withdrawal date would be. So for the full summer that would make it the 35th day of a 48-day term and the first and second mini-terms would be the 17th day of that 24-day term. Are there any questions about that aspect of it?

That I think was the primary discussion last time that this is the work that we did since last time to update that information. So for example, this summer these would be the proposed withdrawal dates, the new proposed withdrawal dates in the third column. The proposed withdrawal date for full summer would be July 7, first mini-mester June 10, second mini-mester July 19.

And we could look into next year and you could see what the new withdrawal dates look like for the fall term, spring term, full summer, mini, it’s in that last column. So it adds about 7 days to the mini-mester time frame and for the full summer.

This is the proposed policy, I don’t want to repeat the whole presentation, I think this time around we are voting on it right? Discussion first, are there any questions? I can go back to any slides, I just don’t want to do that to bore people with the same exact presentation.

Mike Stern, substitute senator, Economics: Are you planning on moving the early alert deadline proportionally to this?

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards:: No, that’s not my understanding, is Constance here? My understanding about the early alert deadline is that we would not move it but this actually gives additional time to have grades in. I don’t know if everyone reports early alerts on time or not.

Mike Stern, substitute senator, Economics: Well the rationale for the early alerts was that students could have information to make a decision on withdrawal. And a big complaint of my faculty every time they do the early alerts is that they are so early they have very little graded items, sometimes they are struggling to get right to the end day of the deadline to have a first major graded item reported to them. So it would be a little easier to get, for the same rationale you give here that they can get more graded items before they made the decision and so forth, I would assume the same rationale applies to early alert deadline and the rationale for that was to help a student make a decision about withdrawal. There is going to be a huge gap between the 2 if you push this one back a whole month and make faculty get that early alert grade in before they much graded.

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: Right. So if I understand your question, then what I would possibly suggest doing is for you to submit a proposal or a request for Academic Standards to consider that.

Mike Stern, substitute senator, Economics: Well if you…

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: But we didn’t link the two in this discussion.

Mike Stern, substitute senator, Economics: Well…I am suggesting that it would be a good idea, but if you want to advance it, it’s best that the proposal not come from me.

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: (chuckles) Thank you Michael. Any other questions?

Robin Jaffe, not a senator, Theatre: Could we go back a couple of slides, I think there was a math issue? Keep going, there, it’s the 52nd day. 72% of 73 is 52.

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: (chuckles) I don’t do math on my feet very well, so the 52nd day in the first paragraph?

Robin Jaffe, not a senator, Theatre: Right. It’s a math issue, when it was originally done the person who set up the dates, I missed this, I was helping them as the Calendar Chair, that they used the finals so that added a whole extra week. So I’m sorry I missed that one.

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: Oh, okay.

Robin Jaffe, not a senator, Theatre: It should be the 52nd day.

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: Okay. That doesn’t substantially change what we approved, we can make a motion to amend 56 to 52 and then second that amendment. Anybody? (a motion to amend 56 to 52 and a second received) Do we need to vote on it?

Larry Teeter, chair: All in favor say aye.

Group: Aye.

Larry Teeter, chair: Opposed? (no answer)

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: Perfect, thank you so much. [17:40]

Herbert Jack Rotfeld, not a senator, Marketing: Based on what do you think that this will have more students finishing on time? Because I think you are going to have more students finishing late it you do this, by making them withdraw later. I was going through grades and granted it is only a handful of classes that people had looking at what their grades were going into final exams, what they were coming out. Lot of students that were talking of, should I give up I can’t do this, if you have this they are going to run away, if they stayed in class they would have passed if they got it together. By having it so late, my prediction you are going to have more students graduating later because they are going to drop out more you are going to have more withdrawals. Based on what are you saying that you are going to have more students finishing on time? What is your logic here other than you say it’s going to happen?

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: Well I think we were convinced in Academic Standards that is was worth exploring and it’s hard to know exactly how students will respond to it. The students that we heard a lot from is they don’t have enough grades in their queque, in their canvass, where ever they get their grades, they don’t have enough grades to make a decision by the withdrawal date. So this gives students… this gives faculty time to enter their grades so that students have the grades that they need to make an informed decision for them.

Herbert Jack Rotfeld, not a senator, Marketing: Why so much? Outside of the misleading information on your collection of peer institutions…

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: What makes it misleading?

Herbert Jack Rotfeld, not a senator, Marketing: First of all you say that 11 is most common, and 2 out of 14 is not most common, it isn’t even the median from your own list 10 would be the median, 10 weeks if they did it on weeks, also I don’t know how you calculate, because I looked at University of Alabama, University of Georgia, University of a couple of other places here and they all stated in a certain fixed number of weeks past mid-term or relation to mid-term which varies with the length of the term. None of them stated in terms of weeks in their bulletins. So we are going from being around the mean, well a little bit faster than the mean, to being one of the latest in your whole collection.

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: There’s at least…I don’t want to really don’t want to take time to debate this but there’s at least 3 or 4 at 11 weeks in just a quick eyeball. There are not 2

Herbert Jack Rotfeld, not a senator, Marketing: I count 3 total.

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: There are quite a many that are a few longer, but in any case we could bicker over the weeks data.

Herbert Jack Rotfeld, not a senator, Marketing: Since you are experimenting, and I am not a senator, but I hope someone here would make an amendment to make this a fixed number of weeks past mid-term. Since it is now mid-term, amend it to say one week past mid-term. Since you are experimenting in the first place, you are going from mid-term which is where it’s been for forever to some fixed time past that.

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: The rationale for not choosing a specific number of weeks is so that when the Calendar Committee is choosing the date it is a clear date. It doesn’t vary, it’s always that Monday after the…which I can never say without looking at it. On or before the last business day prior to the opening of registration for the following term. So that’s a defined date without having it flux in position in the semester throughout. That was the rationale for that.

Constance Relihan, not a senator: Just to amplify what you just said, some of the movement in when the date would be in a given term and some of the squikiness about the percentage in the term, comes from the fact that we wanted students to have a clear idea every semester when that last drop date was going to be. And putting it terms of X date in the semester is confusing to students and advisors, but if you say the last business day prior to the start of registration, that’s something that is easier for students to remember as a time when they need to make sure that they’ve made a decision. So that was the rationale for that recommendation and why it causes a little less exactitude than some of us might like. [23:20]

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: Other questions?

Larry Teeter, chair: Okay, hearing none we are ready to vote. Turn your clickers on. Press A for supporting the resolution and press B if you are against the resolution. A=44, B=13. The proposal passes. So we have a new policy on the last withdrawal date. Thank you very much Lisa.

Our next action item is a return of the Copyright proposal presented last month. Hopefully you had a chance to look at it a bit. Sara Wolf and Jan Thornton will present that. [24:30] [26:09-bkup]

Sara Wolf: Since our meeting last month there was a question that we needed to get clarified in terms of the language that Jan and I had a long discussion about and determined that we really didn’t need to alter the language too terribly much. (scroll down to sanctions) The question came because there was language in there that said that if there was an unauthorized use of copyrighted material on university owned servers then that material would be taken down. The question was presented as to what about things like Canvas or student portfolios that are held on weebly or wix or non-university owned servers, and after a decent amount of thought and consideration we determined that those servers that are not owned by Auburn University are in the responsibility of those internet service providers for maintaining copyright protections in case there are questions about it. So if a student portfolio is held on weebly or wix or google sites or something like that and someone says, hey I think that person, that faculty member, that student is using copyrighted material inappropriately then that take down notice would go to google sites (or whom ever) it would not go to Auburn. Or it would go to weebly or it would go to wix. However, the committee did discuss adding some additional information in there just reaffirming that Auburn University will protect the copyright protections of people in accordance of the relevant portions of Federal Law. That is going to be one of the things we make sure is really clarified very, very clearly on the Web site that is being developed.

The second thing that has happened since last month is we have hired an individual to start building that Web site and that person comes on board the 15th. That’s 2 days ago, great.
The third thing, Andy is this okay if I tell everybody?, Andy Whorley, who is one of the Librarians in the RBD Library, has been designated as the “go to man” for copyright questions at the Library. Also his information will be put onto that Web site as well. But those are the 3 new developments with the policy. The policy has not changed in any other way since last month. We’d be glad to answer any questions that you have before we move on to the next phase of things. No questions.

Larry Teeter, chair: Once again, well this comes from an Ad Hoc committee, but appointed by the Steering Committee, so we don’t need a second. If there is no further discussion then get your clickers out again and it’s A for approving the new policy on copyright replacing our old policy, and B for no. A=57, B=5. Okay we have a new copyright policy.

Okay, our third action item for today was also introduced last month. It’s about offering new opportunities to non-tenure track faculty and Jim Witte will come down again and answer additional questions.

Jim Witte: Thank you. As indicated, this was brought up at the last Senate meeting. A very quick recap; current Handbook says that the lecturer faculty will not serve on graduate committees or serve as basically level 1 faculty. We began by looking at, taking in input from lecturer faculty. We actually surveyed some 79 lecturer faculty of which 49 responded. To the questions 25 were full-time teachers, 32 indicated that they would be interested in serving on graduate committees, 40 indicated they would be interested in teaching graduate courses. And this is an indication that the current policy is restrictive. We’re all aware that pursuit of a tenure track position requires more and more qualifications. If an individual takes employment as a lecturer and are held to that position by policy there’s very little chance of expanding the vita to allow them to apply at a later time for a tenure track position. [31:49-bkup] So the policy itself is very restrictive.

What we are proposing and what is being proposed here is not necessarily an omnibus open kind of anybody can do it policy, but rather it’s a policy that says graduate faculty status may be granted. It may be granted to teach, it may be granted to serve on committees. It specifically restricts a lecturer with grad fac label from chairing a committee, but they can be permitted service. Again we’re looking at this as an on exception basis. Specifically there was some concern expressed by graduate faculty that they have a department chair who would impose service upon them, by either teaching or by assignment to committees. As this policy is written, if they do that the chair would certainly be in violation of the policy.

The awarding of graduate faculty is to be initiated by the lecturer faculty member, they simply request. After which they would be voted on by the department as would any other level 1 or higher faculty member. They may serve in a teaching capacity only, they may serve on committees only, or if they so desire could serve on both, a teaching assignment and a committee assignment. To restrict that over usage, we’re asking that the lecturer be limited to only one graduate committee. Now lecturers are appointed for 12 months. Subject came up and said, what if they are on a master’s committee and that master’s student doesn’t finish in 12 months? The way the appointment to committees is visualized is the lecturer would be appointed to the committee for the duration of that student’s activities. Now if their contract is not renewed at the end of 2 months, it’s no different than a regular committee where in the committee member resigns, withdraws, dies, retires, or takes a new position. That individual gets replaced, it’s not a big deal. Except of course when they die, that’s always a big deal and don’t want to go into that.

Teaching, is on a semester basis. [34:41] Course by course approval, one course and one course only. Again, the last point there, committee service is approved for that single committee, so we are not looking to overload faculty here, we’re not looking to create a situation where the lecturer faculty becomes a de facto tenure faculty competitor or candidate. The work load is much less and the number of people affected will probably be very low. It is a better view than the restrictive policy that we currently have. This proposal tends to give support to the lecturer faculty in terms of their own professionalism and faculty development.

Last point of course is that the grad courses would not be undertaken as an overload for lecturer faculty. That concludes the update. Do we have any questions, comments, or observations?

James Goldstein, chair-elect: I spoke against this last time briefly to remind everyone that when a previous Provost was requested at the Senate this type of series was specifically for undergraduate teaching. I think it’s well and good that we’re concerned about the individuals that hold these positions. They are valued colleagues in my department, they contribute enormously to the institution. The problem with the proposal is that it is put in terms of helping lecturers make themselves more attractive to be hired elsewhere, which is not looking at the interests of the institution. When we were asked to approve this it was on behalf of the interest of the institution, the individuals in the sense that they would now have a way to remain full time for the long haul here. So not to make them hired out from other universities. So I think when you look at it from an institutional standpoint it doesn’t do us any good to isolate the case to what’s fair to the individual lecturer. It’s how everything is connected to everything else, it’s hard to see how a graduate program would be improved by becoming reliant on non-tenure track faculty to participate in it. If there aren’t enough people to staff thesis committees then that seems to be kind of a good argument that there needs to be a new tenure track hire.

Then just last of all, I think that the most important reason why we have this is because it does increase the possibilities of the future of gradually eroding the tenure track lines. In the new budget model it is going to be even more tempting to staff these programs on the cheap rather than the more expensive option of getting another tenure track line. Since tenure is the best protection of academic freedom, and the threats to academic freedom both nationally and locally are increasing not decreasing I think that this is where we need to hold the line. Thank you.

Jim Witte: I appreciate that very much, James, and I do share your observation at the beginning, the lecturer faculty were brought on as undergraduate teachers, undergraduate faculty and there’s no question and it served a purpose. I think we have moved on from the time of the original introduction. I think that your phrase, reliance on lecturer, I don’t see a reliance on lecturer who are participating at the graduate level. The restrictions are so high that one course per term or a single ability to serve on a committee I fail to see as eroding that graduate faculty sort of thing. Again it’s a matter of perspective. University protection, absolutely, but we also have an obligation to develop our faculty. We do this through level 1, level 2, a tenure track, we do it though conferencing, we do it though a variety of purposes. As the current policy stands in essence we could hold this lecturer virtual hostage and by remaining in that track add infinitum because we are restricting their ability to seek other employment. That’s the purpose of this.

Robin Jaffe, not a senator, Theatre: I have a couple of things. Why are we doing this at this point? Because last year the Non-tenure Track Committee voted on this and didn’t come to the Senate. This year and came back to the committee and they approved it, so the position was created specifically to make sure that the graduate teaching faculty aren’t teaching undergraduates and they are teaching the graduate courses. And we created this lecturer position specifically to take up that slack to make sure that the graduate classes are being taught by the graduate faculty. Well, who’s going to be teaching the undergraduate class if they are going to be teaching a graduate class? And aren’t we just feeding into that?

The idea that we are moving ahead, well what happened to agreeing to something and sticking with that agreement? Instead of changing something further along down the line. Having been a lecturer at two other universities, one at Arizona State University and one at Drexel University for 7 years, gee you guys hired me and I’ve been here for 25 years in a tenure track position. So being a lecturer doesn’t stop somebody from moving up the track. When they accepted the position, they accepted it with what it was, not what we are changing it to. That’s what the position was originally created to be and it should stay that way. I would ask all the senators to vote against this policy change. I don’t have anything against the lecturers, they work very hard. 850 graduate faculty, 450 tenure track faculty that are not part of the graduate faculty and we are dealing with 32, 35, 70, lecturer positions to give them a help. I thought we gave them a job in a sense and it’s their choice to do what they can to move on. We can help them, we gave them a job, we are giving them the teaching experience and to give them something else like this, I don’t know why…somebody could go on sabbatical, somebody could be sick, extenuating circumstances we could possibly ask someone who could teach the course, but the idea is that we hired them specifically to teach classes so that the graduate faculty can do the other things that are necessary. And by taking the lecturer out of the job that we hired them for we are crippling the other thing. It needs to be looked at as a whole, the whole instructor idea and how we deal with that, maybe that’s what we should look into and not just adding more stuff for the possibilities for the lecturer to do something so they can go and get another job. That’s all, thank you.

Jim Witte: You know what’s interesting, a couple of points Robin, first of all we don’t give lecturers jobs, we hire people because they are fulfilling a need that we have, so let’s work on that basis. Secondly, many people are hired at university A because that’s where the vacancy is. You mentioned that you worked at several different universities as have I, I started out with working as an adjunct and happy to get an adjunct position, but without the ability to research, without the ability to teach at a higher level I’d still be adjunct-ing. So I really see that it’s not that we are giving anything, it’s simply that we are providing an opportunity for individuals who, when qualified and desire can engage as opposed to the current policy which says, you are what you are and you will be no more at that job. Robin.

Robin Jaffe, not a senator, Theatre: I disagree.

Jim Witte: That’s okay.

Barbara Brumbaugh, lecturer in English, and chair of the Non-tenure Track Faculty Committee: I want senators to know that the Non-tenure Track Committee did approve the policy it did so only by a 6 to 4 vote, so I wanted to explain some of the main reasons why the significant number of committee members voted against it and which aspects of it I could support.

One of the main reasons why significant minority of committee members ended up voting against it was the removal of this stipulation which was in an earlier draft. “Repeated teaching of the same graduate course would not be permitted nor would service on multiple committees in a given year.” Since the proposal no longer stipulates that a lecturer cannot teach the same course regularly, having lecturers teach graduate classes could move from being a rare exception to the accepted practice. It seems obvious that having one or more graduate courses within a department be regularly taught by lecturers over time would diminish the need for tenure line faculty members and introduce the erosion of tenure, especially with the issues with the new budget model that were mentioned. Having graduate classes regularly taught by lecturers on an ongoing basis also seem problematic for some other reasons, most importantly it doesn’t seem in the best interest of graduate students to have their classes taught by faculty members with 4/4 teaching loads and service obligations and no tenure. [46:34 bkup]

I also wanted to point out that the survey that was sent to lecturers in March seemed designed to get the results it did. It included no space for comments or qualifications. For example, it asked if given the opportunity to teach a graduate course would you be interested? It did not allow recipients to indicate that they would like to teach graduate courses if they had tenure line jobs. It also did not ask recipients whether they thought it would have been good for their own future careers if their courses had been taught by non-tenure line faculty members with 4/4 teaching loads. And also the survey was only sent to lecturers and yet this issue would affect groups other than lecturers, so I don’t’ think the decision should be based on survey results from only one group.

I do agree that under very limited circumstances it might make sense to have qualified lecturers teach graduate level courses. In my view it would seem appropriate to have lecturers teach graduate courses only under the following circumstances; a specific graduate course really needed to be offered during a current year for graduate students to meet their requirements; the department was actively working to hire a tenure line faculty member to teach the course on a regular basis in the future; or the tenure-line faculty member who usually taught the course was on leave; and all the other conditions on the current proposal were met. Having a lecturer teach the courses under these limited and fairly unusual circumstances would often seem to make more sense than hiring a visiting faculty member. I am research active, I publish several articles and have an over 500-page book coming out soon, so it is not the case that I would never be interested in teaching a graduate class, but I don’t think we should assume that lecturers can only act on the basis of self-interests and the current proposal doesn’t seem to be in the best interest of the institution overall.

If it were amended so that lecturers could teach graduate courses only when the department in question was actively hiring for someone to teach in the future, someone was on leave, I could support the proposal. If anyone agreed I wanted to offer an amendment, I would support that.

Jim Witte: I think you bring up a very, very good point. [47:13] Just for clarity I’m also on the Non-tenure Track Committee, so you all know that I’ve been working with this for some time. I think the key element in the current policy says that the department would vote. And I think that would take into account your concerns. If it’s that you don’t think that the vote would do it, would you want a mater of departmental policy or what would you like here?

Barbara Brumbaugh, lecturer in English, and chair of the Non-tenure Track Faculty Committee: I think that it should only happen, it should not replace tenure line jobs, it should only happen if they are hiring a tenure line person or if the person who usually teaches it is on leave. Otherwise it is going to diminish the need for tenure line faculty.

Ashley Curtis, not a senator, Chemistry: I am also on the Non-tenure Track Committee. First time speaker, long time fan. I think I’m unique in this room that initially I was hired at Auburn University as an instructor and then I became one of the first lecturers in COSAM and until this last semester I was the only senior lecturer in COSAM. So I’ve seen all parts of this at least from this side of things, and I have taught when I was an instructor, we had a need in biochemistry because one of our biochemistry faculty left and they were short. Biochemistry is one of the least represented faculty group members in chemistry/biochemistry. Because I was an instructor it turns out that I had the privilege of teaching a graduate class, so they rushed through the application and I got approved because I have a PhD in chemistry and also to teach this class because of the need.

In my current job title the thing that is supposedly to be a better thing than instructor I don’t have this privilege, I don’t have this option even. I can’t help my department even if I wanted to. Instead it’s too bad guys this is tough. So that’s one thing to kink of observe, if you take the power to decide from each individual department, you are really hamstringing, or crippling them to make decisions that are best for their own departments. For that reason alone I would urge the senate members to vote in favor of the proposal.

The second thing I have is that in my PhD studies I learned techniques that are unique and special to what I do as a chemist, a hyper specialization of my field and I have knowledge and technique and skills that I can pass on to Auburn University graduate students if I was able to teach one of the classes as a specialty class. If, once again, I think it does hurt the university as a whole if graduate students in our department can’t hear my lecture, they can’t hear my specialization, my hyper specialization, they don’t have the opportunity. They’d have to go to Texas to learn that, and maybe they will as post docs, but as PhD students again, I don’t know, but why take that away from them if they can have the opportunity at Auburn? Thank you.

Jim Witte: Thank you very much. Michael.

Mike Stern, substitute senator, Economics:  So this discussion came up previously in the Senate maybe when George Flowers was speaking to it once, but I marked it under existing policy I could petition for a lecturer at one of our peer institutions to be on someone’s committee if they had appropriate knowledge relative to that dissertation. Likewise I could hire as an adjunct faculty member a lecturer at another institution with the same qualifications as they do here to teach a graduate class. So I never understood why a lecturer at Auburn should be treated inferior to lecturers at our peer institutions with respect to this university’s policy.

So either the university should outlaw lecturers here and everywhere else, that is if we truly believe that these types of people should not be teaching graduate classes and so forth, then it should be banned across the board. It should be only people in tenure track positions at other institutions or our own institution should be on committees or teaching graduate classes. [53:23] Since we’ve always been able to get people that from outside this institution if have specialized knowledge to serve on committees or come in to teach a particular graduate course if they uniquely qualify for that, we could even think of having of hiring a local attorney with that specialization of anti-trust maters to teach a PC-level law in economics class for our department if so necessary they are not even a lecturer, tenure track faculty anywhere, so I really don’t understand the discrimination against Auburn lecturers and nobody else, including other university lecturers.

In regards to the claim that these positions that can teach graduate courses or serve on a committee will undermine the tenure track positions, the principle threat to tenure track positions over time at universities is principally the expansion of expenditures on the administrative bureaucracy. And yet I don’t hear any strong complaints coming out of this body or elsewhere to block that expansion, it seems simply to be ongoing. So without any pressure to reduce the spending on that the need to economize on teaching is what’s causing the less expenditure on those that teach. So if you really after maximizing the tenure track line you need to reduce the number of people that don’t teach, you need to reduce the administrators and you need to reduce the amount that you pay them.

Jim Witte: Thank you.

Hillary Wyss, senator, English: First of all, I’d like to thank all of my colleagues for speaking up and I did speak last time so I am going to keep it brief. There’s a basic ethics to this. Lecturers are hired for a 4/4 teaching load. They teach 100% of what they do is teaching. So we are asking them to maintain a research profile on their own time so that they are qualified to teach graduate classes, which functionally is the university asking them to do their research for free and then apply it for the benefit of this institution. It’s unethical and it’s inappropriate. If we want to reduce that teaching load, that’s a great thing, right? But to say that it’s in the interest of the institution, to say that it doesn’t undermine tenure, to say that it’s good for anyone involved, I think it’s not really looking at the situation correct.

Jim Witte: I would point out Hillary that the specific things in here apply. That the graduate course would not be an overload, meaning that if they are teaching 4 classes normally, they would then have 3 undergrad and one grad class. So the number of courses…I beg your pardon.

Hillary Wyss, senator, English: But graduate faculty status applies a level of research. Okay, so when you are a tenure track person then you are paid to do that research. We are asking lecturers to do that research on their own time. And the institution is not valuing that research.

Jim Witte: First of all the proposal is not asking anyone to apply for a graduate faculty, it is simply stated that if you are a lecturer and you choose to apply with all the ramifications you are addressing then they should have a process by which they can do that. That’s ethical and that’s fair to everyone, but to have a policy like we have on the second overhead that simply blanketly states, “you cannot do this” is horrifically restrictive.

Hillary Wyss, senator, English: It’s how the position was defined and how it came in, what everybody agreed to. I do think my colleagues have spoken to all of these issues so I am not going to keep repeating.

Jim Witte: Thank you very much.

George Flowers, senator: I just wanted to make one point. Jim, I believe you have a copy of the actual proposal and the last point in the proposal, the actual document, addresses some of the concerns that Hillary presented.

Jim Witte: I think it is on the Web site.

George Flowers, senator: The last point is that the departments can, as part of this process, provide appropriate relief, what ever that may be.

Hillary Wyss, senator, English: They can, but don’t have to.

George Flowers, senator: They certainly don’t have to. In cases where the faculty is active on his or her own, they are up to speed, then perhaps it’s not necessary.

Hillary Wyss, senator, English: So Auburn is using that research for free but it’s not…It’s unethical in my view, in my view.

George Flowers, senator: I choose to disagree.

Mike Stern, substitute senator, Economics: I heard this said several times about these people that have to teach 4/4 loads, is it university policy in the Handbook anywhere that these people have to teach 4/4 loads?

Jim Witte: Not that I’m aware of. Is anyone aware of the 4/4 load (policy)?

Mike Stern, substitute senator, Economics: I don’t think it is because in fact we have suggest that a lecturer serve as an undergraduate advisor for the department and that would involve course discount. And different colleges in some places, 5/5 loads is actually 100% teaching, and other places depending on the construct of the course it may count double and there is also the issue of the entire summer. So I wasn’t aware of any policy restricting precisely what the workload allocation of the lecturer has to be.

Jim Witte: Any other questions or comments? [59:23]

Larry Teeter, chair: Okay,

Jim Witte: It’s been an absolute pleasure and the truth is, these kinds of discussions are exactly what this forum is about. It’s not about gaining unanimity it’s about having a place where we can voice our differences. And I appreciate everyone who has taken a microphone today. I sincerely thank you.

Larry Teeter, chair: Okay, I think we are ready for a vote on this issue. Turn you clickers on. Press A for support of the new policy and B if you oppose it. A=34, B=26.  Okay, barely, but it passes. We have a new policy on non-tenure track faculty. [1:00:00 bkup]

Okay, our forth action item today has to do with minor changes to the Faculty Handbook to accommodate modifications to the P&T process for new cluster hire faculty. James Goldstein, chair of the Faculty Handbook Review Committee and chair-elect of the Senate will present the changes.

James Goldstein, chair of FHR committee, chair-elect: Now we can see in red where the proposed new verbiage is. Before we look at this I just have an announcement. It recently came to my attention that 10 years ago the Board of Trustees changed the Faculty Handbook for the Faculty Senate Constitution that it remove themselves, the Board of Trustees, from the process and that change never got recorded in the Faculty Handbook in the Senate Constitution. So since that is already Board Policy we don’t actually have to discuss it I just wanted to make everyone aware of that, for 10 years it has been out of date.

So for this, this is to make provisions for a process that will be for the new research cluster hire initiative, as the Provost was beginning to discuss. For those who are [1:02:18 bkup] up to speed on the research cluster hiring initiative, they are interdisciplinary groups led by a cluster leader and there’s a steering committee for each of those research clusters of the people of the different units and different departments. So the faculty member who’s hired under this initiative will have a letter written by the cluster leader, who may or may not be from a different department, after consulting with a steering committee of that cluster. Then that letter will go into the materials for annual review or third year review and for promotion and tenure so that the people who are within the unit who are voting on the candidate will have an opportunity to see input from potentially outside the department. The people from outside are actually not voting on promotion and tenure review, but the people who are get this input to be able to see that. So this will be consistent with what’s been going out in letters of offers so that the new people will understand that these letters will be part of their final. Just like anything for third year review or promotion and tenure, the candidate has an opportunity to see these letters. So that’s the way to get input from the clusters themselves. We found language that would accommodate this different levels of evaluation for those folks. Any questions? Okay, thank you.

Larry Teeter, chair: Suggestions for these changes actually came from the Faculty Research Committee, Sushil Adhikari’s committee. The wording came from the Faculty Handbook Review Committee with the explicit changes which you see before you, but both are Senate standing committees so no second is needed. We just want to have an approval vote so if you turn on your clickers and press A if you approve the changes as made to the Handbook and press B if you do not.    A=52, B=3. 
Okay, we can move on to our final action item. We have 2 information items following this final action item. Approval of nominees for Senate Committees for the next academic year 2016-17 and Laura Plexico of the Rules Committee will make this presentation.

Laura Plexico, secretary: Okay, so this time every year Rules has worked very hard to get volunteers to fulfill the variety of University and Senate committee slots. What we do have for you today are the volunteers (nominees) for the different Senate committees. There are several. They have been posted to the Senate Web site, I hope you have had a chance to review them. This does come from a standing Senate committee, the Rules Committee. Is there any discussion or question about the list of volunteers? Some were recruited. Hearing none, I would like for you to press A if you agree to the slate of names and B if you do not. A=53, C=1. Thank you.

Larry Teeter, chair: Thank you very much. And now on to our information items.

A number of months ago Dr. Gogue asked us to investigate the feasibility of the developing of CBE (Competency Based Education) programs on Auburn’s campus and we sent that request to Academic Standards. Lisa Kensler has a report from her committee. [1:07:43 bkup] [1:06:00]

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: When we were asked to look into CBE for Auburn non of us on the committee knew really what CBE was. This was last fall and we were given this charge, as a committee we had no idea. We started googling, that’s what you do when you have no idea, found some reports, went into Higher Ed and The Chronicle and found some articles. We were trying to strategize. Met a few times in the fall trying to strategize how we are going to investigate this kind of nebulous charge; we don’t have the expertise to know and then Shandra (T. Bowers) came to our attention. Shandra has expertise in CBE. She is studying the topic for her dissertation so she presented to us a full presentation that we are not going to present to you today based on time constraints, but it is available to you online. The purpose for this information item is to give you a very small few minute taste of what CBE is and then to invite you to: if you are interested–if you have strong interest in Competency Based Education, for, against, curiosity, whatever, any interest at all, then we invite you at the end of the presentation I will invite you to join an ad hoc committee. That will then be filled with people who have a vested interest and desire to dig in more deeply and either develop a proposal or develop a final report that’s says this is not something that Auburn should do at this time. Our Academic Standards Committee felt that making a decision one way or the other was beyond the scope of our expertise of the Committee.

I am going to pass it over to Shandra to share the answer to the first 3 questions. If you are interested in the full presentation it is available on the Senate agenda Web site.

Shandra T. Bowers: Thank you allowing me to come to you to speak about the topic. Basically what is Competency Based Education? It is still debatable amongst people even those institutions who are actually providing Competency Based Education. Basically at the core it is a program or programs that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and their skills. It is focused on their competencies, their mastery of their knowledge and skills and to be able to integrate those into authentic real world types of challenges. It is a program that is not necessarily tethered to the clock hour or the credit hour and is not necessarily tethered to a course curriculum. It is focused on what the students are able to know and to do.

Why are institutions doing it? External pressures for access to education, post secondary education, or the changing student population in higher ed. We are having more and more students that are non-traditional, seek opportunities for higher education. Lots of students who have started programs, have course work, have credit hours, but no degree, who have been working, who are adults who have families that need to be able to advance to get degrees, and other various reasons. To improve completion rates because Competency Based Education does give a degree of adaptability, flexibility, affordability for the students so it increases completion rates. As I said more flexible and affordable options and it it focused on the outcomes.

What is considered a Competency Based Education Program? It is untethered from the courses and course hours, clock and credit hours. It allows the flexibility in that students are able to move at their own pace much more so directed. Again, it is focused on their outcomes, what can they demonstrate in terms of their knowledge and skills. There are 2 basic structures that the Federal Government recognizes in terms of CBE programs; those that use clock hour or credit hour equivalencies, so it is still a competency based program in that it’s organized by the competencies, but those are tied to a course or a clock hour in terms of definition. So if the Federal Government says there has got to be a certain number of lecture, instructional hours, certain number of homework hours outside of activities, so those competencies are tied to that in the clock/credit hour equivalency. Or there are direct assessment programs, which are completely untethered. There is no equivalency related in there at all therefore there is no requirement for the educational activity that has to take place within that program. There does still have to be substantial interaction with qualified faculty in the direct assessment program. But it doesn’t require a certain level of educational activity.

Then there is limited direct assessment, which has kind of a combination of those 2 programs there. So you can use some of both. That’s basically what is considered a Competency Based Education Program.

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: So this is our call. [1:14:29 bkup]

If you know of somebody in your department who would be interested in CBE; for, against, curious, whatever reason that they might be interested they are invited to join the ad hoc committee that will more deeply explore…I will pass all of our materials and research articles and related information on to that committee. We do know that there are some faculty who are interested in CBE programing in their departments so we expect that there will be at least a small committee forming, but we wanted to make the call broad and wide. So please pass it along and let people know to e-mail me, LisaKensler@auburn.edu by June 15 in order to participate.
I can answer some quick questions, but I probably do not want to take too much time.

Drew Clark, OIRA: I’m Drew Clark. I direct the Institutional Research Office and because of my behavior in a previous life I am also our SACS liaison. I do want to point out that Competency Based Programing of any kind at Auburn would represent a substantive change in the scope of our accreditation. We have internal procedures that units need to follow when they are contemplating an action that would be a substantive change. If you’ve got any questions about that, you or your deans or curriculum committees it is safest to contact me early in the process and not get all the way to a full proposal, which would be laborious for you without checking to make sure that it’s got preliminary approval to go forward. Thanks.

Lisa Kensler, chair, Academic Standards: Great, thank you. Any other comments or questions? Just an invitation, pass it along. Thank you.

Larry Teeter, chair: Thank you Shandra and Lisa.

Just as a side note, I was really surprised at how many universities have been involved in this for quite some time now. And I didn’t know anything about it until President Gogue had mentioned it probably 6 or 7 months ago.

Our final information item for today is Paul Brown to talk about the mission of Alabama Cooperative Extension System.

Paul Brown, ACES: Thanks, Larry and I know the day is getting late and we will try to keep things moving along with a few minutes with this quick overview.

One of the things that you hear often times by our President and other leaders here at the university talking about the various divisions, and division 4 which represents the Cooperative Extension System. So what I’d like to do this afternoon real briefly is give you a bit of the overview of the Renaissance that’s occurring in Extension as we think about this part of the university and the mission that we have to fulfill that land-grant ideal. So what I’d like to do is talk about the Cooperative Extension System and you hear the word cooperative at times, of course it is part of our title, it does mean that yes we’re a very people centered kind of organization. And we’re very cooperative kinds of individuals but really as it relates to the funding stream that was established initially. Our funding comes from the USDA, State of Alabama, and then the cooperative arrangement that we have with all 67 county commissions across Alabama. That’s really how Extension is funded across the United States.

To back up, quickly, we are the third leg of the stool so to speak in the 3 pieces of legislation that established the land-grant system as we know it today. The Smith-Lever Act was passed in 1914, it had its roots in the south and was signed by Wilbur Willson in May of 1914. And yes, we have just completed our centennial and really look at how we establish this part of the university, this mission central outreach component for a new century. That’s what I’d like to share with you.

Where are we? We’re not campus centric organization although we have a number of tenure track appointments in our various partnered colleges and schools and their respective departments, but we are out across Alabama. We have about 600 full time equivalents, we have a partnership with Alabama A & M University, and a cooperative agreement with Tuskegee University, but we have 67 county Extension offices, we have 9 urban centers, 6 research and extension centers, a couple of plant pathology labs across the state strategically located, but we also have, and some of you may have been there, we have the 4-H Center at Columbiana which is really a neat place for all kinds of events, not only youth camping but conferences and other kinds of activities that are certainly open and available to all of our colleagues here at the university.

When you think about successful organizations and those that have been around for 100 years they are really characterized by a fundamental duality. On one hand you have the core values that are really the central part of the identity of the organization and of course you have the cultural factors, operational strategy and other things that change over time, but I’d like to share with you 3 core values that define what extension is thought the 20th Century as we think about a new century beginning and those are the 3 Rs. The researched based underpinning.

Extension does not exist away from the land-grant institution and we are deeply embedded and connected to 2 colleges in particular, the College of Agriculture, the College of Human Sciences, and the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, but what we’ve been able to do over the last several years as we look at new projects and initiatives dealing with the issues of our time is to extend that reach and partnerships working with other colleges and schools on the Auburn University campus to bring together the resources and the help that we need in order to deal with the issues that we face today. We have a major CDC effort undeway and we have a relationship with the School of Nursing which is new for Extension. And that’s looking at trying to deal with obesity rates in communities in counties that have obesity rates in adult population of 40% or higher. So that reach is such that we really want to look at ways that we can extend the full complement of the university and really ground what we do in the research based underpinning that our extension specialist bring to our extension teams–the individuals that work out across the state.

The second R is the relationship side partnering aspect not only internally with our partners on campus and new partners that may come our way, but also the relationships side is really key in thinking about what we do and how we do it out across the state working with our citizens and the various client groups that we are connecting back to that research base and that research base underpinning provided by Auburn University.

Then the final R is the relevancy. You think about the extension founding 100 years ago, we were very much an agrarian society, but we’re not that any more. The average age of the farmer in Alabama is 59, we have 1% of the population nationally that’s involved in agriculture, and only about 4% of our active youth in our youth program today come from the farm. So we are very much of a culturally competent organization in thinking about the changing issues that our populations face as our demographic profile changes over time. 80% of the population now in Alabama live in 27 of the 67 counties, so we need to think much more about the ex-urban and urban issues that our citizens face. That’s what Extension is trying to do today.

I think in this education and information marketplace that is saturated at times one of the unique things that Extension brings to the table is that credibility and that trust through that research based underpinning of relationships and dealing with the issues that are important to people.

There is a basis for scholarship in Extension. It’s not just activities and number of people that we reach. The logic model is really that underpinning. In my little simplified visual today, you think about an objective a set of goals that you are trying to accomplish, it’s a matter of pulling together the resources and a lot of the resources that we use in Extension they are grant-based. Looking at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the resources that are coming through grant-based and feed programs to help resource what we do. It is about the outputs, the activities and participation, but really most importantly what we really try to do in Extension is focus on the evidence based impacts or outcomes over time. And looking at how we can help individuals look at increasing awareness, behavior change, and ultimately establishing a new condition.

So we have tenure track positions that have a 75% Extension appointment, 25% research, the focus of their research program that dovetails nicely in Extension is producing these kinds of impacts that really make a difference working with client groups out across the state. Just want to share a couple of quick examples with you. A very traditional one in grazing management, those individuals that are working for example in our Animal and Forages team have a situation here where they worked with individuals that have about 20,000 acres of pasture land, there was a net increase in income on practices that were initiated and we calculate things on return on investment. Every dollar invested that we put into the program, using tax based resources, we were able to generate another 135. So that’s the kind of context that we are trying to put these outcomes that have an evidence based scholarship component to them.

Healthy relationships is another broad based program that we do in the College of Human Sciences. This looks at the improvements that were made in lowering the divorce rate in Alabama, going from about 10th nationally down to about 21st over a 10 year period. Saving about $32,000 per divorce. Saving hopefully through that work, avoiding $6,000 and some divorces and that return on investment. For every dollar invested returned about $271 to the state. So trying to put it for our stakeholders at the Federal and State level in the context of what is the return on the investment they are putting into the Extension System today.

Why partner with Extension? On an annual basis, unduplicated, we reach 1.2 million people. Now those are unduplicated counts, individuals that attend Extension programs, come into Extension offices or that make some sort of direct traceable contact. It doesn’t count those social media contacts that are duplicated that run into many hundreds of thousands across the course of the year.

The 4 primary program areas in Extension would be agriculture, forestry and natural resources, family and consumer sciences, 4-H youth development and urban affairs programing. That is the broad disciplinary focuses of what we do. Our focus is really thinking about more of the issues of our time. One of the things we’ve done in our most recent comprehensive needs assessment is we have gone to all of our top stakeholders, grassroots community people and we’ve developed 6 strategic program initiatives. You can see these are not just farm based, they are not agricultural based. We are looking at dealing with the health issues especially with obesity in our state is one of those key topics that is important to our economy and to the health of our citizens. Food safety, the sustainability of ag and forestry systems, environmental stewardship, financial literacy, and workforce development. So it gives you kind of an idea that what we do today in Extension is much different than what you may remember from “Green Acres” for example.

What is the value to the University? I think one of the things is that we have an opportunity to extend the full content of the university. The Extension idea was, yes it was focused in those areas that are fundamental and rooted into the ag and natural resource base, but also families and homes are very important in those early years as well, but we really want to look at opportunities to partner with other colleges and schools and departments across the university that can provide a network to the people of Alabama, but also to look at bringing some of the specialized content that we need to deal with the problem and issues that we face today. I think we are a credible source for that engagement with the connectivity that we have across Alabama through that state wide network.

Laura, if you could help me start this. Before we do that, one of the things that we are really focusing a lot in Extension is the use of technology to expand our notion of community. We talk about community of place where Extension is located across Alabama, but other ways of thinking of community also relates to community practice, interest and identity and technology in this very short commercial gives you a sense of how we’re doing that. (Play video)

So technology is a critical aspect of reaching people, new audiences, a new generation of clientele. And we have this great generational renaissance going on in Extension. We’ve replaced about almost half of our county coordinators, we are bringing millennials in all the time and really looking at an exciting opportunity to look at how we can reach a new generation of Alabamians through the Cooperative Extension System.

So I’ll stop there with the quick overview. If you’d like to visit more about what we can do, I’d like to extend also an invitation to maybe come visit with you in your departments, colleges, or schools to learn more about what Extension is doing today. We will stop now to see if there are any final comments or questions. Thanks everyone. [1:29:56 bkup]

Larry Teeter, chair: Thank you Paul.

That concludes our formal agenda for today’s meeting. Is there any new or unfinished business? Hearing none, the meeting is adjourned. [1:30:15 bkup] [1:28:37]