To: Auburn Chapter AAUP

From: Auburn Chapter AAUP Executive Committee

Subject: Concerns about the 2003 SACS Self Study

Date: January 26, 2004

In less than a month the SACS Visiting Team will be on campus to consider our Reaffirmation. At present, we do not know exactly what the Visiting Team will investigate. Although Senate Chair John Mouton announced that the SACS Criteria identified in the JAC complaint will not be a part of the February visit, we have not received a confirmation of Mouton’s announcement from the administration. The required “follow-up plan to address issues identified in the self-study” (Section 1.1) has also not been released to faculty.

In the present chaotic conditions at Auburn, we believe it is necessary to document our concerns about the 2003 Self Study Report.

• Regardless of statements to the contrary in the 2003 Self Study Report, Auburn University has violated the Criteria identified by SACS on December 9, 2003. (These Criteria are provided as Attachment A to this memo.) It is important to point out that the violations concern lack of appropriate administrative control, conflicts of interest among the Board of Trustees members, and micromanagement.

• The Steering Committee charged with preparing the 2003 Self Study Report was directed to focus on only the 2001-02 academic year, thereby ignoring all infractions of SACS Criteria that occurred from 1993, the date of the last Reaffirmation Visit, to 2001. In most Sections of the Self Study Report, this one-year injunction was not followed. However, in the Criteria covered by the JAC complaint, it was enforced—with a few well-documented and well-known exceptions, including the Board of Trustees’ demand for a Grade Forgiveness Policy and the secret meetings of the Athletics Committee of the Board. The Self Study Report also pointed out that secret meetings of the Athletics Committee no longer occur. Throughout the Self Study Report, a concern to avoid negative comments about the Board of Trustees was evident.

• The Administrative Process Subcommittee, with Joe Kicklighter as Chair, was charged with responding to the Criteria in Section 6.1. Like several other subcommittees, the Administrative Process Subcommittee designed a survey. The survey was sent to Board members, students, faculty, and administrators. Although the Subcommittee received responses from faculty, administrators, and students, it did not receive responses from Board members, indicating a lack of cooperation by Board members with the Self Study process. Concerned about the lack of Board response, Wayne Alderman, the Steering Committee member responsible for the whole of Section 6, and Grant Davis, Secretary to Board of Trustees, conducted another survey. Although this second survey brought in a few anonymous responses from Board members, it was not designed by the Administrative Processes Subcommittee, which analyzed and reported the data.

Besides the irregularity of the design and administration, the survey had a total of only 18 respondents—5 past or present Board of Trustees members, 6 past or present administrators, 5 faculty members, and 2 students. The Steering Committee did not know how many surveys were sent out; no response rate was available. Some members of the Steering Committee managed to convince the rest of the Committee that at least one item from the campus-wide Faculty Survey be included. However, on the whole, the data collection procedure for Section 6.1 was an anomaly. (See Attachment B for relevant items from the Faculty Survey.)

In addition, even though the administration of the survey was suspect, responses clearly indicated large differences in perceptions between faculty members and Board members and administrators.

• The full extent of faculty disagreement with the compliance statements for Section 6.1 was not reflected in the final version of the Self Study Report. Unlike the other Sections of the Self Study Report, which were revised extensively based on comments from the campus constituency, often without approval from the subcommittee that developed a particular Section, Section 6.1 was revised only slightly and at the insistence of a minority of Steering Committee members. The extent of the disagreement from faculty who did not serve on the Administrative Processes Subcommittee was downplayed, and no specific comments from critical faculty members were included. According to Section 6.1, “The Administrative Processes [Sub]Committee has arrived at its own conclusions on these matters. These do not represent any particular individual but the unanimous view of the committee’s members. However, there was not the same unanimity within the Steering Committee.”

During this time of attention to the JAC complaint and rapid changes at Auburn University, we do not want the Self Study Report to pass by without comment. Moreover, we are embarrassed by Auburn’s suit against SACS to stop investigation of the JAC complaint and hope that suit and the Sunshine Law suit will now be dropped. In these hard economic times, Auburn cannot afford to spend millions of dollars from its General Fund on lawyers’ fees.