Timothy Boosinger:

Last week The Wall Street Journal published an article critical of the enrollment of student-athletes in one of Auburn's bachelor's degree programs. The original article blended a few facts with a good deal of misunderstanding, and follow-up stories in other media outlets only increased the level of exaggeration and innuendo, unfairly calling into question Auburn's academic integrity.

As your Provost, I have closely examined the facts of this matter and have found no basis for a claim of impropriety. A program review team recommended that an over-committed department reduce its offerings and convert an undergraduate major into a minor. The faculty committees charged with approving and advising me on curricular actions accepted the department's proposal, however, it was implicit that additional funding would be needed. I identified resources to make it unnecessary to close a viable and long-established undergraduate program. I did this within my scope of authority and budget as Auburn's chief academic officer. None of those resources came from Athletics. That is a boring story, I fear, but it is the truth.

As a faculty member, I am disappointed that anyone would question the reputation of any of our academic programs on the basis of so little evidence, particularly one that does excellent work and produces successful graduates. In addition to a group of committed faculty, the program i s fortunate to have dedicated, hard-working students who strive for success. The program is further supported by an impressive group of alumni — many of whom have served and continue to serve Alabama's citizens as civic leaders, community planners, and public officials. the faculty, students, and alumni of this program are contributing to the public good, and I am proud of the work they and all of you do to support the success of our institution: Moving forward, we will continue our efforts to maintain and enhance a strong academic community — one that is measured by its ability to advance the success of out students and the achievements of our faculty.

Kathleen Hale:

Public administration is about public service, and about how we implement political decisions to address the problems that face us in our communities, across our country, and around the world. These are important challenges and many students at Auburn want to be involved in making a difference. Public administration requires not only a servant heart and committed mindset, but also specific technical skills that help foster a sense of civic agency – that is, the ability to engage in a community or around an issue in a professional and effective manner.

Here at Auburn, we have nationally and internationally recognized faculty in public administration and public policy. Our mission is to teach students how to do the work we

love, and how to be true civic agents. Together, we are responsible for the curriculum and courses, and for the experiences that students have as Public Administration majors. Now equipped with new resources, we have exciting changes planned for the undergraduate and graduate programs that will add new skills and prepare students to meet emerging public service challenges.

It is important to note that the issue about discontinuing the Public Administration major was never about quality, but was about resources and the lack of enough faculty to support a major. Any narrative that suggests that the Public Administration program is of low quality is inaccurate and mean-spirited, and is also fundamentally unfair to our students and alumni.

I am tremendously proud of our students. They work hard, and work hard with faculty to develop the skills they need to understand complex problems and the complicated situations that face us all out there in the “real world.” I am also tremendously proud of my colleagues who teach in the Public Administration program for their perseverance and dedication in the face of scarce resources and a changing public service environment. We are all here at Auburn to do good work and together we will continue to do that.

Mike Clardy on behalf of Jay Gogue: As you may know, Dr. Gogue wasn't involved in the decision-making process related to Public Administration. Provost Tim Boosinger, as Auburn's chief academic officer, made the decision to maintain the program based on a recommendation from the dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Dr. Joe Aistrup. Dr. Aistrup is a political science scholar and saw value in the program for students. Last year, he and Dr. Boosinger directed resources to strengthen and improve the program, and those efforts have proven effective. Finally, it's important to note that Auburn Athletics has and continues to serve as a partner to the university's academic mission. Among other things, Auburn Athletics has endowed professorships, contributed to the marching band's capital campaign and financially supports the veterans Yellow Ribbon program. David Aistrup: Saving the public administration degree was the very first recommendation that I made to the provost, one that I made before I arrived at AU from Kansas State. To be clear, there were three factors that influenced my request to the provost to save the public administration bachelor degree program. First, I have a public administration background and believe strongly in the academic viability of this undergraduate major. Second, the academic program review documents indicated that political science wanted to eliminate this degree because the department did not have the faculty resources to continue to support the major. This seemed like a problem that could be resolve with money from the Provost’s Office. Finally, public

administration, with over 100 pre-professional majors, had more majors than five other departments in the college. I felt it was important to keep a major open that was serving this many students. I am concerned with CLA losing majors. Dropping a degree with 100 majors would only add to this problem. Note, the academic program review documents, on which I relied to make my recommendation, did not mention student athletes being in the program. Thus, I did not request that the program be saved because student athletes were enrolled. Nor did any of these documents suggest that the program should be discontinued due to academic fraud. This would be a strong academic reason to close any program, including this one. The day after I arrived at Auburn, I went to my first football game. As I scanned the program, I noted that a number of our football players were enrolled as public administration majors. This is not a violation of any rule or a sign of academic fraud. Simply put, there are no NCAA rules limiting the number of players that can share a major. Later in September, I had a meeting with the new chair of political science and the program director of public administration. At that meeting, I asked if hiring a lecturer in political science would provide them with the necessary resources to continue to support public administration. They indicated it would, and thus they supported continuing the public administration program too. Please note, that I made my recommendation independent of any contact that may have occurred between the Athletic Department and any other administrator at Auburn.