Minutes
Senate Steering Meeting
March 8, 2022, 3:30 pm
Via Zoom

Present: Todd Steury (Chair), Donald Mulvaney (Immediate Past Chair), Ralph Kingston (Secretary), Mark Carpenter (Chair elect), L. Octavia Tripp (Secretary elect), Danilea Werner, Robert Norton, Robert Cochran, Vini Nathan, Laura Kloberg (Administrative Assistant).

Not present: Cheryl Seals.

Guests: Xing Ping Hu.

Senate Chair Todd Steury called the meeting to order at 3.30pm.

Approval of Steering Minutes from February 15, 2022:
Hearing no objections, approved by unanimous consent.

Discussion and approval of Senate Agenda for March 19, 2022, at 3:30 pm

Provost Nathan communicated that, to her knowledge, President Gogue would not be attending the upcoming Senate meeting and would not be making remarks.

Information Item: Presentation by Xing Ping Hu, Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics, on updated athletic ticketing policy

Xing Ping Hu presented on a revision to the rules on staff/faculty tickets to athletics events on behalf of the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics designed to add clarity. The main changes are the inclusion of a warning that policy violations are subject to Alabama ethics law; the removal of outdated information; the inclusion of gymnastics and softball in the policy; and the inclusion of digital tickets and links to more information. There are no changes to eligibility, seat selection, or the policy regarding away games and the post season for football.  Faculty continue not to be allowed to sell their discounted tickets at a profit.  Not only can violations result in forfeiture of ticket privileges but selling tickets for a profit is a violation of Alabama ethics law, and the Alabama Ethics Commission has the power to levy fines and criminal charges.

Action Item: Vote on Rules Committee Members

Steering committee members discussed and conducted a brief trial of the electronic (canvas) ballot to be used in the upcoming senate meeting to elect three new members of the Rules committee.

Action Item: Vote on resolution about Russia’s attack on the Ukraine.

Bob Norton proposed that senate should vote on a motion to condemn the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. The following text was agreed for the motion by the Steering Committee, to be included on the agenda for March 19 as an action item.

Be it resolved that the University Senate, as the representative body of shared governance at Auburn University strongly condemns the Russian Federation’s aggression toward the sovereign nation of Ukraine as being in violation of Article 2, paragraph 4 of the Charter of the United Nations – an obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State.

Action item: Vote on Statement on Academic Freedom

Todd Steury informed the members that the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee had not yet finalized a text for a statement. The DEI committee expected it to be ready by Monday 13, but this would not be in time for it to be included on the agenda for the meeting on March 14, 2022.

The Steering committee decided that, if the DEI committee is able to finalize and circulate a statement to the members of the Steering committee in time for the members to approve it for inclusion on the Senate agenda in advance of 3.30pm on Thursday, March 10, it could be included on the Senate agenda.

If the Steering Committee is unable to include the statement on the agenda for the next senate meeting, the Steering Committee recommended that it should instead be included on the agenda for the upcoming University Faculty meeting on March 29.

(See also the addendum below.)

Pending action item: Change in Faculty Handbook related to composition of DEI committee

Kingston explained that this was to rectify the inadvertent exclusion of faculty from the Libraries from representation on the committee.

Information item: Updated Election Guidelines

Kingston presented guidelines developed by the Rules Committees for elections of senators and for faculty members on the Faculty Grievance and Faculty Dismissal Hearing Committees. This document should be on the Senate website and communicated by future Senate Secretaries when notifying unit leaders of the need to run an election.  Kingston highlighted the following points in the guidelines:  the definition of who is considered a member of faculty and, consequently, eligible to vote; the requirement that senators be elected by secret ballot; and the emphasis on open calls for nominations in the elections to the two committees.

Todd Steury noted that the reason this is an information item and not an action item is because the guidelines are based on current policy and practice.

Legal Considerations for faculty (Intellectual Property)

Chair Steury recalled that this presentation was made by Grant Garber, University Counsel, to the Steering Committee in its February meeting. It will precede the return of the revised Data Research policy in the April senate meeting as a pending action item.  

The committee voted unanimously to approve the agenda as amended.

Unfinished or New Business

Discussion of Policy on P&T election

Chair Steury shared with Steering that the Rules Committee is currently discussing a change to the mode by which the faculty members of the University Promotion & Tenure committee are selected. Currently faculty on the committee are nominated by the Rules Committee.  The Rules Committee is in favor of their being elected by faculty in the colleges.

The Rules committee proposes bringing the issue to senate for discussion and a vote.  Technically, because the P&T committee is a university committee, Senate does not have the power to make such a change.  The purpose of a Senate vote would be to indicate whether faculty support or do not support the potential change.

Kingston noted that the Senate Executive Committee had already discussed this with President Gogue. 

In response to questions, Steury confirmed that this was in regards only to the University P&T committee and would not affect the constitution of college committees.  The elections would follow the sort of process already followed for the election of faculty members of the Faculty Grievance and Faculty Dismissal Hearing committees.

The Steering committee welcomed a motion out of Rules to be presented in either the May or June senate meeting.

Discussion of Policy on FAR appeals committee

Chair Steury then shared that the Senate Executive Committee has been discussing the creation of college-level committees for appeals of Faculty Annual Reviews.  The tentative plan is that Senate would pass a resolution requesting that these be created, and the Office of the Provost would then develop a policy for implementation, most likely in the form of a directive to deans.

In the discussion that followed, there was discussion as to the scope of such committees in terms of what sorts of appeals they might hear besides appeals of Faculty Annual Reviews. There was also a frank discussion of the operation of FAR in some parts of the university, including the use of “scores,” and the correspondence between scores received by individuals and the distribution of merit raise amounts within units. The committee also discussed whether or not some department heads and chairs followed written-down criteria in reviewing their faculty, and whether FAR criteria originally written down under Provost Mazey had been updated since in some units.

Chair Steury and Mark Carpenter shared that the ad hoc PTR review committee was likely to call for changes to the FAR processes and would probably precipitate action on this issue. 

New Business

Chair Steury shared that he would share the agenda for the upcoming “General” Faculty meeting with the members of the Steering coming before it was published.

The meeting ended with a brief discussion of complaints made in Senate, often by non-senators, that they had not been able to read the materials related to action items, when, in fact, they had received emails drawing their attention to the agenda and with links to the documents in question.

Adjournment – Chair Steury adjourned the meeting at 5.01pm.

ADDENDUM to the Minutes:

The Chair of the DEI committee transmitted the text of a statement to Chair Steury on Wednesday, March 9, and it was approved for inclusion on the March 19 senate agenda, with some textual edits, by a majority of members of the committee in advance of a 3.30pm deadline on Thursday, March 10.  The text of the statement approved read as follows:

We reaffirm the principles of Academic Freedom that protects the rights of both faculty members and students to express and challenge ideas, present different viewpoints, engage in scholarly debate, and share their authentic voice through their own pedagogical ideology and intellectualism, without interference from political entities or fear of censorship, sanction, and retaliation. We further affirm that Academic Freedom includes the ability to introduce, teach, and discuss current scholarly theories relating to race, sex, gender, sexuality, religion, and other dimensions of diversity. A robust and free exchange of ideas, and debate over their validity, is a core value of higher education and, promotes intellectual curiosity. We reject any efforts that serve to silence faculty, students, or staff or threaten the intellectual integrity of institutions of higher education.

Respectfully submitted,
Ralph Kingston
Secretary, University Senate