Minutes
Faculty Senate Meeting
September 19, 2012
Professor Burke called the meeting to order at 2:35 PM
Present: Barlow Burke, Jim Girard, Candice Nelson, Daniel Abraham, Sheila Bedford, John
Douglass, Larry Engel, Artur Elezi, Bryan Fantie, John Heywood, Bob Jernigan, Gwanhoo Lee,
Jie Lu, Nanette Levinson, Stacey Marien, John Nolan, Gemma Puglisi, Jerzy Sapieyevski, John
Smith, Shalini Venturelli, Patricia West, Lacey Wootton, Elizabeth Worden. Provost Scott Bass
and Dean Phyllis Peres
Approval of the Minutes – Barlow Burke
Professor Burke asked the senators to approve the minutes for March 7, 2012, April 4, 2012,
April 18, 2012 and May 2, 2012 which will bring the minutes up to date. The floor was opened
for discussion and comments. No changes were voiced so the senate VOTED and the minutes
were passed, unanimously in favor.
Welcome and Introduction, Barlow Burke
Professor Burke called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone. He thanked everyone for
their service and distributed the roll.
Professor Burke stated that he would be briefing the senate on some of the work that the
Executive Committee had been working on over the summer. He stated that there were changes
to the undergraduate academic regulations that were felt to be editorial for clarification and it
was felt that it did not need to come to the senate floor. He reminded the senate that at the last
meeting of AY year 2011-2012, Professor Girard asked the senators to take back to their schools
and colleges the information on Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Time Commitment for
review and feedback. He stated that he only received one response and asked that the current
senators to take the same information back again for their colleagues review and input. Professor
Burke also stated that Professor Girard, Professor Nelson and he will be meeting with Vice
Provost Jon Tubman to discuss further this information and that Professor Girard will be taking
over this committee.
Professor Burke reminded the senators about the senate-approved merger of the University and
Distinguished Professors’ language in the Faculty Manual. He stated that he would be working
with Provost Bass to form the review committee. They had come up with a list of candidates and
notification of the final committee members will be coming soon.
Professor Burke also stated that the senate as well as all the committees will be provided with a
Sharepoint site. He hopes that the committees will find them useful.
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Professor Burke said that included in the provided materials was a ballot for the election of two
at-large senators as members of the Executive Committee for AY 2012-2013. There were three
nominees and two spots to fill. Professor Burke asked if there were any nominations from the
floor. There were no such nominations so the ballot remained at three. He instructed the senators
to select two members from among, the ballots to be tallied and results reported at the end of the
meeting.
Professor Jerzy Sapieyevski and Professor John Douglass introduced themselves and gave a brief
overview of their history of at American University.
Provost Report, Scott Bass
Provost Bass welcomed the new members of the senate. He stated that it will take some time to
get use to the pace and the culture of how the senate operates and that the senate does address
some very important policy matters and are involved in some key issues that make the university
work and work well. He stated that over the last four years the senate has tackled, in great detail,
some very difficult issues of importance to the university. The senate developed a new faculty
manual that has changed the role of term faculty, has clarified standards and expectations for
them, and triggered new guidelines in every unit on campus. In addition, subordinate policy
memos were reviewed and new undergraduate and graduate student regulations were revised and
are in operation this AY. The Senate went through these documents along with sub-committees
working over the summer on line by line revisions of policies and regulations. It is important to
recognize that each policy is a living organism needing to be adjusted and is a guide as the
university grows and changes.
Provost Bass stated that he was very pleased with the work that the senate has done, and knows
they have taken on very difficult issues and they have done them well.
Provost Bass announced that this summer we have added three new deans and a new interim
librarian. He asked the senators that if they have not met them yet to introduce themselves and
welcome them to the university. The new librarian was not here for the reception celebrating the
new deans but is a wonderful and distinguished individual who brings experience from the
Library of Congress, special collections, and Presidential appointments to major committees; she
is an expert on archival material and is a major addition to our librarians’ roster.
Provost Bass stated that the planning for the faculty retreat in October has begun. This retreat is
focused on issues on diversity and inclusion. The undergraduate class for the last two years and
including this year is dramatically different then classes of the past. In 2008, the AU minority
population was about 9%, and it is now about 25%, of the student population. Low income
students were about 10% and today about 23% of the students; first generation students (whose
parents or family members have never been to college) is about 10%. This changes the dynamics
of a classroom and, as we cumulatively build a class each year, further changes can be expected
from a more diverse student population. At the retreat, we want to acknowledge and understand
this different environment. AU’s students are coming from a wider array of states in the United
States. Our sweet spot is still the New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania area, but AU has been
successful in recruiting students on the west coast, the south and west, and they too bring
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different styles, political persuasions and a different culture to the classroom. The retreat will be
focused on these changes and the faculty’s adaptation to them. A great job has been done in the
planning. The Provost encouraged an early sign up.
Provost Bass said that the major issue he would like to discuss is that, in a tuition dependent
institution such as AU, enrollments are critical to its operating funds. The strategic plan has a
goal of stabilizing AU’s undergraduate population -- not growing the class but focusing on its
quality and diversity and investing resources and attracting students to AU. The plan also set out
student population goals envisioning that AU’s growth would be at the master’s level, with some
very small growth to the PHD level, but that it would be the masters programs that would grow
and provide AU with revenue and elasticity to invest even more resources at the undergraduate
and PHD level. The plan’s projections set a modest goal (over ten years) of a thousand graduate
students, broken down to 100 students a year over that ten year period. In the first two years AU
met these numbers, but last year we did not. We were approximately one hundred FTE shy. A
couple of things that happened over the past three years ago explaining this shortfall-- losing the
Teach to America (about 100 FTE’s), and the fact that MBA applications nation-wide took a
down turn in favor of more specialized master’s degrees in business. Moreover, two programs
that never had had enrollment shortfalls, had FTE reductions last year. This year AU did slightly
better in a number of programs, but overall we are about 200 FTE students behind the goals of
the strategic plan. This shortfall has consequences for the resources planned for this year -- not
something to be alarmed about, but something to be vigilant about. AU will target selected
programs for spring term graduate enrollments, but we do need to step back and look more
comprehensively at the data bases, the analytics, and the methodologies used for graduate
recruitment.
The undergraduate recruitment by the team headed by Sharon Alston, Vice Provost for
Undergraduate Enrollment, had a target this year of 1600 students. The team received over
17,000 applications, and at the beginning of the term the enrollment number was 1598 students.
This team has a well-oiled machine in place and an established matrix. Its work is monitored
almost daily in terms of inquiries; applications; follow up on the applications; conversion,
deposits; and enrollment – each step tightly monitored. On the masters level, however, there is
no universal data base at all. Three schools and units have no data base what so ever. Thus, the
Provost will devote time and energy this year to buying a system for graduate student
recruitment and putting it in place. Once AU purchases such a program it will initially only be
operational for those schools and units that do not any program at all. So next fall its utility to the
university overall will be minimal because recruitment starts now and there is lag time for
building the system and developing new masters programs. SIS has agreed with 2tor to develop a
state of the art program on line in International Affairs, but this too will take time to ramp up for
enrollment and revenue purposes. Provost Bass stated that he was sharing this information to
make everyone aware that at the masters’ level, AU we needs to grow and that the strategic plan
requires the effort of all faculty.
Marketing and Communications Initiatives – Teresa Flannery, Vice Provost of
Undergraduate Enrollment
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VP Flannery thanked the senate for the invitation to speak. She stated that she will be giving a
quick overview of the work we do. She stated she will be talking about the Brand strategy and
the No Wonk campaign and what our process is currently in evaluating the effectiveness and any
evolution that might occur.
The University’s Communications and Marketing division has capacities that relate overall to
strategic communications, leadership and expertise. Areas of development include management
of all the university’s media and public relations, the universities web presence (including the
web site, mobile site, the social media channels). It also has responsibility for university
publications, both printed and digital, and all of the creative services that go with that. Finally, its
marketing provides a strategy for branding for the university as a whole and client service to
component parts of the campus. An easy way to think about us is like an in house public
relations and marketing agency.
VP Flannery stated that marketing and branding are designed to increase awareness and
influence perceptions of quality of the institution. Included in this is loyalty and demonstrations
of repeated engagement of your most important audiences. The alumni were an audience that did
not respond as the university had hoped, so this was an area that was benchmarked and will be
revisited periodically. Also, the percentage of students that accept admission at the freshman
level, the percentage of students who say AU is their first choice, and other items such as these
are measures that help to determine if the branding is moving in the right direction. VP Flannery
proceeded to walk through the brand processing -- how it came to be, and where it stands now.
Vice President Flannery stated that the campaign that was created to address the brand strategy
was the WONK campaign. The WONK campaign was launched in the fall of 2010 internally and
externally in the spring of 2011, so she reported that she has been watching short term indicators
to see how the program is succeeding. The campaign was funded in the current strategic plan and
charged in this year’s objectives to go back and repeat the 2009 stakeholders study to see how
much awareness, perceptions of quality, loyalty and recall of the positioning messages have
changed. After this, the campaign will be evaluated to see what works and what needs changing.
Vice President Flannery provided detailed statistics and explained the process.
Vice President Flannery informed the senate about the “WONK” campaign. WONK is KNOW
spelled backwards. The campaign’s early stages focused on defining the term because testing
demonstrated that 17 year olds did not know what it was and others knew the term but associated
it with a dated definition. For campaign purposes, a WONK is now defined as a passionate
expert who really cares deeply about something and uses their knowledge to create change. She
stated that after defining the term, she started working (1) on layering in messages about active
citizenship and learning from leaders, backed by a perception of Washington DC is a powerful
lab for such learning and (2) on taking a very unusual visual approach: that is, the headless
figures in its advertisements keeps the focus on the strong posture of the people in the ads and
steers clear of things like gender and race. This leaves people more likely to say, “that could be
me” and it also stands out in the market. People now know the ads are from AU even before they
see the logo because of their distinctive design. The brand strategy has been fully implemented
into the undergraduate recruitment and also the welcome center.
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Vice Provost Flannery also said that the new campaign this year is with the Nationals baseball
team. We are the only higher education institution that has partnered with them, so this has been
great marketing coup for AU.
Old Academic Regulations – Lyn Stallings, Interim Vice Provost to Undergraduate Studies
Vice Provost Stallings stated that she is bringing to the senate floor for review the old regulations
and the new regulations that have been rewritten, updated and posted accordingly on the
Undergraduate and Graduate Regulations. She stated that she has checked with all the
appropriate persons that she needed to make sure that all the new regulations are placed where
they need to be. VP Stallings reported that she would like the senate to review everything and
come back at the next meeting to make sure that the transition from the old regulations to the
new regulations is accurate and correct.
Provost Bass stated that he is concerned in the interim (while the transition to new regulations is
underway) the wrong regulations might be relied on by a student, posing compliance issues for
the new regulations.
Professor Burke then asked the senate to vote on the removal of the old regulations as he and
others felt that it was better to remove any misinformation so that as soon as possible, two
policies will not be posted in different places. The senate VOTED and his motion was passed
unanimously.
Ad-Hoc Term Faculty Budget Report – Lacey Wootton
Professor Wootton stated that last spring an ad-hoc term faculty policies committee was
established, to include Professor Wootton as the chair and to include term faculty from across the
campus. During the spring, the committee spent time gathering information at town halls. During
the summer the committee was broken into two working groups. One committee examined the
faculty Manual for inconstancies and gaps with term faculty policies. This committee has
prepared some recommendations which will be brought to the senate at a later meeting. She
stated that today, she is bringing forward what the second working group worked on, which
concern aspects of the university budget of interest to term faculty. She chose these items for
early consideration since the university is now formulating guidelines for its next budget cycle.
The goal of the committee is to get more baseline consistency for term faculty in terms of policy
and treatment across the university -- not to implement policies that take away from the
flexibility needed to address many term faculty issues, but to create more consistency giving
greater protection and opportunity for term faculty. (Sometimes term faculty benefit from the
lack of consistency, but sometimes it works against them.) Professor Wootton also stated that
doing will help in retention of term faculty. The proposals were presented to the Executive
Committee, the Deans and the term faculty community.
Professor Wootton said that the document that the senate has been provided to review was put
together by Michael Keynes, Diane Lowenthal, Gemma Puglisi and Emily Lindsey. Professor
Wootton then turned the discussion over to Professor Keynes.
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Professor Keynes opened the floor for questions and feedback since the senate had already had
time to review the document.
Provost Bass stated that there is a need for computer equipment for full time term faculty. He felt
this was an issue arising after the Faculty Manual was last revised and needs clarifying in the
manual.
Professor Abraham stated that at one point there was a lot of discussion about the number of
term faculty as a percent of all teachers within the schools and units of the university and he
wanted to know if this was every brought back for discussion in terms of tenure line verses term
lines and the possibility of a base line term line. Was this discussion ever finished?
Provost Bass stated that the concern at the time was would term faculty be used as a replacement
for tenure track faculty and he noted the growth of tenure track faculty over the last four years.
The total number of faculty is about 800, 500 tenure track and 300 term faculty; the number of
adjunct faculty has not gone up much over the last few years and in many instances adjunct
faculty have been replaced by term faculty. This has been an expense to the university, but
makes it all the more important for term faculty to have a fulfilling career at AU. Provost Bass
applauded the work of the senate to establish this committee to discuss how term faculty can
develop here.
Professor Nolan stated that he was surprised to learn that term faculty who have been at the
university for many years, maybe five or ten, are still on one year contracts. He stated that this
might be the reason to put them on a base line for budgeting purposes. He asked, what is the
university gaining by keeping them on one year contracts?
Professor Burke stated that the proposals before the senate are proposals for developing
guidelines, not for action. The question to the senate is, are the guidelines worth doing?
Professor Wootton said that the committee is looking for approval to move forward on some of
these issues. This committee can develop some of them. The committee is looking for the
support of the senate to move forward.
Professor Jernigan moved to support the committee’s moving forward with guidelines.
Professor Engel seconded the motion.
Professor Burke opened the floor for discussion and questions. He then called for a VOTE and
Professor Jernigan’s motion was passed unanimously.
Senate Sub Committees Reports
Professor Burke stated that the Executive Committee will at its next meeting have before it a
proposal to establish a task force on the issue of work life balance. There are two ways ad hoc
committee of the senate might review this, one as an ad-hoc committee which might address
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immediate budgetary concerns, or one that might inquire into related employee benefits. He
opened the floor for questions.
Professor Jernigan stated that he did not understand the issue being presented.
Professor Burke stated that there are issues that might be identified in response to recent campus
events, and issues that related to broader areas of existing employees’ concerns -- recruitment,
for example: Are we able to satisfy the job needs of spouses when one in the partnership is
hired? These are budget issues but they are also long term issues of concern.
Professor Burke then said that the existing sub committees of the senate were unable to report to
the senate at the final meeting last year because of the overwhelming work load involved in
reviewing the undergraduate regulations. He then stated that he has asked all the chairs to present
a 5-10 minute presentation of the committees work last year.
1. Committee on Learning Assessment – Sheila Bedford, KSB
This past year was the first year this committee worked as a standing committee of the
senate. The overall mission of the committee is to promote student learning assessment as
part of the AU faculty’s responsibilities. During AY 2011-2012, 68 degree programs
turned in assessments of student learning. Over several years, 109 programs reported.
This means that not only 68 or 109 have been involved in such assessments, only that this
is what has been reported. The committee had the office of Institutional Research and
Assessment look at the assessment quality in four categories: 1) stated learning outcomes,
2) the selection of assessment measures 3) the results obtained from assessments, and 4)
follow through with changes in curriculum. In the reports submitted, there was a high
correlation in stating learning outcomes, determining the appropriate measures, and
obtaining results. So moving forward the committee will endeavor to support the faculty.
2. Committee on Faculty Actions – Stacey Marien, University Library, for the chair
The CFA has completed the first two years of the new committee. This past year digital
files were implemented with a few hick ups, but successfully. Its guidelines have been
improved, being edited annually after each year of use. Included in the guidelines now
are requirements for two open meetings a year. Additionally the committee is looking
more closely at internal and external evaluations, and is going back to candidates if more
evaluations are needed. The Distinguished Professor issues will no longer be subject to a
CFA review. Finally, the committee asks all faculty that deadline dates be observed to
avoid late files, as this slows down its process.
3.
Committee on Information Services – John Smith, WCL
The CIS worked on digital files for action and their connection to FARS reporting
system, trying to find a way to see that all this information be gathered in one place,
lessoning the work for faculty members. The committee has drafted a proposed update of
the description of the committee’s work for consideration for the Faculty Senate’s Web
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Site. The committee is also working on unified principles on Fair Use. The committee
will draft what they hope to be a start on this task during this fall semester. It also
discussed a university software registry to avoid single user purchases and to save money
on later version purchases. CIS work currently overlaps with several information
committees on campus and would like to work on harmonizing them all in some way.
4. Academic and Budget and Benefits – John Nolan, Math and Statistics
The budget side of the committee was very quiet last year since it was not a budget year.
The committee did work with the Provost and the President to change the senate by-laws
to include representation from the committee to the University Budget Committee. The
benefits were reviewed to make sure they were in good standing.
This year the committee has met twice already since this is a budget-formulating year.
Concerns are salaries, term faculty, benefits, and new is work life balance. Please let the
committee know if you have any concerns that you would like to have addressed.
5. Undergraduate Curriculum Committee – Larry Engel, SOC
The committee was changed when the Faculty Manual split the previous committee into
Undergraduate and Graduate committees. The work has been to more diligently and
quickly approve curriculum changes, moving to a digital process in the process. This has
been successful. There were some glitches, but with work they have been corrected.
6. Graduate Curriculum Committee – Jim Girard, Past Chair of the Senate
This committee last year approved 12 masters programs. The work flow with the digital
process has been made much more efficient and is certain to be better as time goes on and
glitches are corrected with a Sharepoint program.
Professor Douglass suggested that perhaps the curriculum committees can come up with a chart
or guidelines to assist the faculty to know when their deadlines are.
Professor Engel stated that guidelines have already been established, but that it is not always
possible to follow them.
For the Good of the Order, Barlow Burke
Professor Burke thanked everyone for their participation and announced that John Douglass and
Bob Jernigan won the election to serve on the Executive Committee.
The meeting was dismissed at 5:00 PM
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