Board of Trustees
Student Union Building
March 5, 2001, 10:00 a.m.
Approved Minutes

1. CALL TO ORDER
In the absence of Mr. Terry Bunn, Chairman pro tem, Mr. T. Raiford Noland, Assistant Secretary to the Board of Trustees, announced that he would call the roll at this time to determine if there was a quorum present.
Mr. Noland called the roll and the following trustees were present:
Mrs. Lena Hardaway, Dr. Louise Nolen, Mr. Alex Saad, Dr. Tom Umphrey, Mr. Nat Watkins
Members absent were:
Mr. Terry Bunn, Mr. Dwight Duke, Mr. Paul Hamrick, Mr. Robert Keahey, Mr. Preston Minus, Dr. Doris Oliveira, Mr. John Smith, Mr. Thed Spree
Since there was not a quorum present, Mr. Noland announced that no action could be taken by the Board. Dr. Roach stated that a couple of reports would be made to those members present for their information.
2. ACADEMIC AFFAIRS REPORT
A. College of Liberal Arts
Dr. David Taylor, Academic Provost, announced that the second in a series of reports from the academic units would be presented by Dr. Roy Underwood, Dean of the college of Liberal Arts.
In his report, Dr. Underwood said that 60% of the basic curriculum is made up of liberal arts courses. He said there are seven majors and eight minors in the College of Liberal Arts, and that all majors are viable according to the criteria set forth by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education.
Dr. Underwood reported that the College of Liberal Arts is home for several performing arts groups, such as: University Band, Theatre, Choir, etc. He also said that the University’s weekly newspaper, The Life, is training ground for students working in marketing, journalism, and other fields of study. Another program from Liberal Arts is the Livingston Press that publishes an average of five books annually. Dr. Underwood stated that the Broadcast Studio 96 is the latest venture for the College and that Channel 4, the local bulletin board channel, is also housed under Liberal Arts.
Dr. Underwood said that Liberal Arts is also home to the University Honors Program.
Also, Dr. Underwood reported that of 28 full-time teaching faculty, 23 have terminal degrees.
Mr. Saad said he wanted to commend the faculty and staff on the way they have approached proration, i.e. they have worked together to identify adjustments that could be made to comply with the Governor’s early request of 6.2% proration.
B. Academic Progress Monitoring for Student-Athletes
Following an Academic Affairs report at a joint meeting of the Board’s Academic Programs Committee and the Budget and Finance Committee on February 12, Dr. David Taylor stated that Mr. Thed Spree had asked about the method of monitoring the academic progress of student-athletes. Mr. Spree had also asked if it were possible to establish a uniform process for monitoring academic progress in all of the various sports and requested that a report be given on this subject at this Board meeting today.
Dr. Taylor said he subsequently discussed this with Athletic Director Dee Outlaw, who convened a committee of the coaches to consider a uniform process. He said he understood the Mr. Outlaw planned to add a couple of faculty members to this committee to provide faculty perspective.
Currently, Dr. Taylor said that each of the University’s teams employs some method of soliciting information on a regular basis from professors concerning each student-athlete’s status in a given class; however, not each team uses the same method. He said that a uniform method would appear to be more desirable because faculty would more easily adapt to and accommodate a single process. He said that the coaches have reported that they and the faculty generally work together in a cooperative manner in monitoring student-athlete progress.
Mr. Outlaw reported that he has asked the Committee to have a uniform process in place by Fall 2001.
3. ADJOURNMENT
Due to a quorum not being present, Mr. Noland announced that this meeting would be adjourned and the next meeting would be on June 4, 2001.