Auburn University’s Board of Trustees has voted to eliminate shared governance of the university between itself and the school’s faculty senate, while also giving itself complete control of course offerings, curriculum and degree requirements.

Under the new model, the faculty senate will be replaced by the Presidential Academic Advisory Council. The board claims this new body will “strengthen Auburn University’s model for meaningful academic consultation by creating a direct, structured and professionally responsible channel for faculty perspective to the president, provost and senior academic leadership.”

The council will be made up of one faculty member elected by their peers from each academic college and one member from each academic college appointed by Auburn’s president, as well as additional members appointed by the president, who can be faculty or non-faculty. Council members will serve in an advisory role to the board of trustees, providing recommendations on faculty affairs issues, including tenure and promotion, academic standards and professional resources. 

At the same board of trustees meeting, board members approved a policy requiring professors to submit all of their syllabi for review ahead of each semester. In a press release, Auburn’s administration said the new policy “reaffirms the board’s oversight of degree programs, credentials, core educational requirements, courses, syllabi and related academic processes.”

The new policies mirror requirements in a law passed by state legislatures earlier this year, HB580 — a bill that Auburn University was exempt from. That bill, which applied to all public universities in the state except for the University of Alabama and Auburn University, greatly reduced the power of faculty senates by giving boards of trustees the power to approve curricular requirements. The bill also places boards of trustees more directly in charge of granted tenure while also creating pathways to dismiss faculty members who have already been granted tenure, a process known as post-tenure review.

Auburn faculty members have raised concerns that the new policies will infringe on their academic freedom, as well as their ability to develop effective curricula.

“(Faculty) are experts entrusted with educating students and advancing knowledge, and that work depends on collaboration, shared governance, and strong academic freedom protection,” a statement released by the Auburn chapter of the American Association of University Professors said. 

Alabama top stories in brief

Judge deems nitrogen gas executions unconstitutionally cruel

• A federal judge has declared the state’s nitrogen gas execution method counts as cruel and unusual punishment. Through this ruling, the judge blocked the state from using nitrogen gas to execute death row inmate Jeffrey Lee, who was scheduled to be executed last Thursday.
• The judge, U.S. District Judge Emily Marks, issued the ruling after an appeals court reversed her initial ruling saying that nitrogen gas executions were constitutional. 
• The state has used nitrogen gas to execute death row inmates since 2024. However, the method proved to be controversial as it causes people to suffocate to death — a process which can cause panic during death and lead to permanent brain damage if the execution process goes awry. 
• Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office appealed the decision last week and an appellate court agreed with Marks’s ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court also upheld Lee’s stay of execution.
• It is unclear how or when Lee will be executed in the wake of this ruling, although Marks did say in her ruling that Lee’s preferred method of execution, firing squad, would be constitutional. 

Birmingham passes new data center ordinance 

• The Birmingham City Council approved new regulations for data center development in the city during a five-hour public hearing last week.
• Under the ordinance, hyperscale data centers must be built at least 500 feet from residential areas. The regulations also require that data centers be built on lots that are a minimum of five acres and use a closed-loop cooling system. 
• The new regulations also call for noise studies to be conducted before and after construction.
• Many Birmingham residents attended the meeting to voice their concerns over proposed data center projects in the city, especially homeowners in the city’s Oxmoor Valley area where a Nebius data center is being constructed. 
• The city currently has a six-month moratorium on new data center projects. These regulations will go into effect in September, when the moratorium is lifted. The moratorium did not halt the construction of ongoing data center projects, including the Nebius center.

AG threatens legal action against abortion pill providers

• Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has issued cease-and-desist letters against six companies that provide abortion-inducing pills through the mail to Alabamians. 
• Cease-and-desist letters were sent to Plan C, Southern Woven, ybycmeds, Abortion Pills in Private, Red State Access and Cambridge Reproductive Health Consultants. The letters called for the companies to stop all advertising, sale and delivery in the state or face legal action under the state’s near-total abortion ban.
• These companies provide the drug mifepristone, an abortion-inducing drug that the FDA has approved for use in inducing an abortion up to 70 days of gestation.
• Marshall’s office also signed onto a letter, alongside 13 other states, asking the Environmental Protection Agency to place more regulations on mifepristone, claiming the medication can contaminate water supplies when discarded. In 1996, the FDA issued a report finding mifepristone had no significant impact on the water supply.

Coastal Alabama gets millions for beach, wetland restoration projects

• A project to revitalize Dauphin Island’s west end beaches received $38 million last week.
• The funds come from the latest allocation of money coming from the multi-billion dollar Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement. The latest round of allocations doled out $403 million for ecosystem restoration projects across five Gulf Coast states. 
• The Dauphin Island project seeks to restore 200 acres of barrier island habitat over five years, including rebuilding 3.5 miles of linear dune, 40 acres of sandy water bottoms and 160 acres of beach and dune habitat. The project seeks to protect seagrasses and oyster beds, as well as reduce flooding vulnerability in nearby communities.
• $43 million were allotted to other coastal Alabama projects. This includes $24 million to use dredged material to create wetlands in upper Mobile Bay, $11.95 million to restore Grand Batture Island and $9.5 million to support continuing efforts to improve water quality in Mobile Bay.

Our stories you might have missed

• If you’re looking for a unique read this summer, then check out Wesley Hyde’s review, Meth and magic: a review of Bringing Home the Rain. “As the series title implies, this book follows Howard Marsh, best described as “a liar, thief, a poor man’s wizard” who lives in the fictional Jubal County, Alabama. Howard is one of the fictional county’s less fortunate residents being borderline homeless and deeply wrapped-up in drug addiction. He scrapes by in the town of Elk Grove by stealing or doing odd jobs around the county: finding lost objects, water witching or solving magical problems for shadowy government agencies.”

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