08.25.20 Senate Minutes

Establish a Quorum

• A quorum was established, with 59 out of 87 Senators in attendance. 52 Senators responded to the quorum poll, plus 7 among panelists who could not use the polling tool.

• Don Mulvaney, Senate Chair, called the meeting to order at 3:33pm. Chair Mulvaney gave attendees an overview of the basic procedures for the Zoom meeting format, and then began the meeting.

• Approval of the minutes from the Senate Meeting of June 16, 2020: No corrections, changes or comments were raised. Chair announced that the minutes were approved by unanimous consent. 

Remarks and Announcements

University Senate Chair: Donald Mulvaney

• The Chair introduced the officers of the senate, the new Senate Parliamentarian Sidney Phelps, and the Senate Administrative Assistant, Laura Kloberg. The chair then discussed the role of the Executive Committee and the Senate Steering Committee in university governance and the opportunities Senate leadership has in discussing issues with AU administrators and the Board of Trustees. He encouraged Senators and faculty to share their thoughts and concerns.

• Chair Mulvaney announced that the scheduled New Senator Orientation has been postponed until a later date, as yet undetermined.

• Chair Mulvaney then proposed to use his time each meeting to recognize faculty who represent resilience, responsiveness, development, and innovation in their work. Mulvaney recognized Professor Jacek Wower for his microbiological research on SARS and COVID viruses.

President: Jay Gogue

• President Gogue welcomed everyone to the fall semester and thanked faculty for their ongoing efforts during challenging times, and for prioritizing health and safety. The President thanked faculty and senators for their committee work and their University service.

• The President then moved his remarks to announcements about the Board of Trustees meeting upcoming meeting:

  • Auburn has secured state bond money for facilities. Auburn wants to use these funds build a STEM Agricultural Sciences Complex to house Funchess faculty, Geosciences Department, and Math and Statistics faculty. The President estimates a $100M price tag. Upcoming Board meetings will determine architect, location, and cost. - The BoT Property and Facilities Committee is moving forward to upgrade Comer Hall, adding a new stairwell and an elevator. A $2.3M project

  • Operating Budget 2020/21 will be presented to the board. At $1.5B it is a slight increase from last year. No salary increase funds are included, but there will be funds for promotions and new faculty positions. One-time supplements have not yet been discussed and will depend on how the fall semester financials work out.

  • The President noted that the current BoT has been supportive of all proposals and academic recommendations coming from the Senate and Administrators.

• The president continues his remarks by discussing his visits to academic departments and announced that a letter summarizing those meeting is forthcoming. He closed his remarks by noting that there have been no discussions at Auburn about furloughs, pay cuts or program closures.

Provost: Bill Hardgrave

• The Provost thanked faculty for the good start to the semester and mentioned three items he wished to note:

  • Safety protocols. Everyone needs to do their part. The Provost encouraged faculty to enforce the classroom face covering mandate and confirm student use of the GuideSafe Healthcheck green screen.

  • Student Engagement: Student engagement is an issue and we need to get students into active learning spaces. Engaged students are much more likely to continue their education, especially freshmen. The Provost encouraged faculty to find ways for engagement. Engagement with peers is also important for mental health.

  • Financial well-being of the university: The provost shared encouraging enrollment numbers for fall 2020. Total enrollment, freshmen enrollment, and graduate enrollment have all increased over last year.

The floor was then opened for questions.

• QUESTION: Luca Guazzoto (Physics): What are Spring Semester plans for live face-to-face teaching?

  • ANSWER: Provost Hardgrave: We are going to assume it will be a normal spring, but we will plan for if it is not. Building our Spring course roster will be pushed from September to October. Student enrollment will be pushed into November, prior to Thanksgiving.

• COMMENT: Richard Sesek (Industrial and Systems Engineering): Faculty are not sure what to do when a student in their class tests positive. The Covid Resource Center has not responded to inquiries about this. Faculty are concerned about reporting of COVID contacts and COVID weekly data.

  • RESPONSE: Dr. Fred Kam will address this later in the meeting. Bob Norton of the COVID Ops group can discuss this too. Bob Norton asked to receive the questions and comments from the ISE faculty.

Vice President: Ronald Burgess

• General Burgess began by noting that Dr. Fred Kam will be giving remarks in a few moments at his invitation. Before that, Gen. Burgess had 2 areas to cover; COVID-19 with Dr. Kam and also the Opportunity and Diversity Task Force.

  • Gen. Burgess described the COVID-19 Ops group, the group structure, and its agenda. He described the COVID-19 Resource Center and it’s role in answering questions from faculty, staff, students, and parents. He encouraged mask use and mask use.

  • Gen. Burgess remarked on Auburn having three dorms available for quarantining COVID positive students who live on campus. ¼ to 1/3 of the capacity is being used and plans are in place in case of dorm overfill. He finished his COVID remarks describing the PPE supply chain and encouraging departments to keep the supply chain orders going. Dr. Fred Kam was then invited to speak.

  • Dr. Fred Kam, AU Health Clinic Director Remarks

    • The COVID situation is very fast-moving and changing. We so far have had no hospitalizations of students who are COVID positive. EAMC reports ventilator use has gone down. Testing capacity at the AU Clinic has not been exceeded. Staffing is increased as have incoming phone calls. We expect a higher positive rate through October, then a flattening and decline over time.

• General Burgess remarks of the Presidential Task Force on Equality and Opportunity. Gen. Burgess chairs this Task Force. The task force has several initiatives under discussion:

  • Education Training for staff, faculty, and students on race relations: a subcommittee has made recommendations and the task force will be making plans in the next weeks.

  • Recruiting and retaining African American students – report has been made and actions are being considered

  • Recruiting and retaining African American Faculty – report forthcoming

  • Recruiting and retaining African American Employees – report forthcoming

• Questions:

  • QUESTION: Tracy Witte, Psychology – Will the Task Force look into building names and name changes?

    • ANSWER: Gen. Burgess – State law requires involvement of a Montgomery governance group. Board of Trustees has a task force making recommendations on building names.

  • QUESTION: Vinicia Biancardi, Veterinary Medicine – How can the Medical Clinic improve the backlog for testing and help students avoid insurance problems with other testing centers?

    • ANSWER: Fred Kam – We have an arrangement with CVM and their students to get testing done. There should be no backlog for students on the list provided by CVM.

Action Item

Members for Senate Committees

Presenter: Greg Schmidt, Senate Secretary

• Secretary Schmidt presented two replacement candidates for committee vacancies.

  • Academic Computing Committee (2023) – Amy Curtis (Nursing); Retention Committee (2023) – Natalie Henri-Bennett (Libraries) There was no discussion on the candidates. The senate then voted on the slate.

  • The candidates were approved by a vote of 48 in favor and 2 abstentions.

Information Items

COVID Ops Center

Presenters: Robert Norton, Poultry Science and Lady Cox, Associate VP for Student Engagement.

• Professor Norton began the presentation by encouraging faculty to contact him with their questions and concerns. He described questions he has received about building and facilities safety, clinic use, local testing center. He then turned the presentation over to Associate VP Lady Cox.

• Cox presented the Covid-19 Resource Center and described its purpose, its membership, the teams involved in its operations, and then thanked campus units who have partnered with the center. She then gave information on the activities of the Center and the questions the Center is receiving. Cox described the COVID self-reporting form and what happens when a report is submitted by a student, including reporting and data sharing. Dr. Cox closed with an overview of Covid Ops plan, including the creation of an information website and fostering an ability to flex as new issues arise.

• QUESTIONS:

  • QUESTION: Cheryl Seals, Steering Committee – Regarding students and COVID, What does a student do when they find out their roommate is positive?

    • ANSWER: Lady Cox – Roommate, if this is an on-campus situation is isolated in the isolation dorm and exposed student should quarantine.

  • QUESTION: Richard Sesek, ISE – Regarding isolation and quarantine, How do Quarantine rooms work and Isolation rooms work?

    • ANSWER: Lady Cox – These are private rooms, and hopefully the exposed student will not get COVID. Quarantines are for 14 days per CDC guidelines.

The Healthcheck Daily Risk Assessment Screener and the Guidesafe App

Presenter: Tim Jones, Associate Director of Information Technology

• Jones presented the statewide Guidesafe initiative including the Healthcheck risk-assessment screener that is required of all people who are coming to the Auburn campus and the Guidesafe notification app that is recommended but not required. He began his demonstration from the A Healthier U web page.

• He demonstrated how someone can navigate to the Healthcheck screener, how one goes through the screening process, and then discussed the campus pass “passport” that is generated upon completion of the daily screening.

• For the GuideSafe mobile app, Jones discussed where to download the app and then detailed how an exposure notification can be triggered and how the notification process works.

• QUESTIONS:

  • QUESTION: Scott Ketrick (HDFS Senator) – iPhone6 users have found that the exposure app does not work with their operating system. Will the app be updated so that older phones can run the app?

    • ANSWER: Tim Jones – The App developers at UAB have been made aware of this issue and we will report back on this.

  • QUESTION: Rich Sesek (ISE) – If the exposure notification is only triggered if someone is within 6 feet of someone for a consecutive 15 minutes, does that not undermine its effectiveness in bars and other social situations?

    • ANSWER: Tim Jones – Yes, that is how the app works, and yes, it does limit its utility in certain situations.

  • QUESTION: Tracy Witte (Psychology) – For Dr. Cox. As only the instructor is notified of a positive case in their class, what are instructors supposed to do with that information? Do they share it with the rest of the class? Cancel class? We need more guidance.

    • ANSWER: Lady Cox – The instructor is the expert for the classroom and can make a decision depending on the classroom situation. Instructors can share that there was a positive, but they cannot reveal names.

  • QUESTION: Susan Youngblood (English) – Is there any consequences for students who willfully misrepresent their information on Healthcheck?

    • ANSWER: Tim Jones – This is a student code of conduct infraction.

  • QUESTION: Ralph Kingston (Secretary-elect) – 20% of freshmen are reporting themselves as currently being in quarantine. Is this usual? Or is this extreme?

    • ANSWER: Lady Cox – 20% of students in quarantine is normal and not surprising. It will likely continue and might rise.

  • QUESTION: Monique Laney (History Senator) – The reporting of COVID numbers. Is this going to be a weekly update? Will you give projected numbers?

    • ANSWER: Lady Cox – Campus Safety is responsible to report numbers. They plan to report weekly. Self-reporting through the app should help with accuracy.

  • QUESTION: Mary Riley – Is there a way for faculty to report % of students in classes reporting to be in COVID quarantine?

    • ANSWER: Lady Cox – This is a good idea. Please work with Bob Norton to see if this is possible.

  • QUESTION: Susan Youngblood (English) – Weekly updates are not as useful as more frequent reports. Can you do it daily?

    • ANSWER: Bobby Woodard – We are working on daily numbers, but it is important to avoid duplicate data. We are working on it.

  • COMMENTS: Richard Sesek (ISE) - More granularity of data could be useful, including where infection/exposure locations are. Faculty are not COVID experts about public health decisions. Putting the classroom safety decision on faculty is expecting too much.

    • RESPONSE: Bob Norton – Please contact me with questions and concerns about classroom decisions to bring to the group.

  • QUESTION: Scott Ketring – What do faculty do about erroneous/accidental red screens? Who do you talk to?

    • ANSWER: Tim Jones – Red screen people receive an email within an hour. Please contact your Covid liaisons and supervisor. Right now, there is no way to reset until midnight.

  • QUESTION: Don Mulvaney, Senate Chair – What are the data that will trigger a decision to close operations?

    • ANSWER: Ron Burgess – There are no single data points to trigger a decision. It is an analysis of trends reported by Dr. Kam, Isolation/Quarantine capacity, overall numbers, hospitalizations, EAMC capacity, and the situation in the surrounding area.

Unfinished Business

• None.

New Business

• Tony Moss, Biological Sciences Senator – Regarding concerns about interactions between students of color and the local police department, has there been an investigation into this?

  • Answer: Ron Burgess. Auburn Police Department participates in local diversity training. We have reached out to the President of the SGA and the head of the Black Student Union to involve them making improvements.

Adjournment

Meeting was adjourned at 5:30 p.m. by Senate Chair Mulvaney.

Respectfully Submitted,
Greg Schmidt Secretary, University Senate

Attendance