Welcome to an occasional newsletter from the Truman State University chapter of the American Association of University Professors. AAUP is committed to advancing academic freedom and shared governance, to defining fundamental professional values and standards for higher education, and to ensuring higher education's contribution to the common good.This issue of the newsletter focuses on principles of shared governance.
SHARED GOVERNANCE
The Truman State University chapter of the American Association of University Professors urges our colleagues across campus to support the work of our elected Faculty Senate toward being the primary point of decision in establishing the structures by which faculty evaluation, tenure, and promotion decisions are made. We need to encourage our Faculty Senate colleagues in their firm insistence that the representative body of the faculty should deliberate and largely decide the mechanisms by which these decisions are made.
In addition to the tensions resulting from budgetary troubles, there are many topics under discussion that are of immediate importance to faculty interests and professionalism: long-term planning, research grants, the proposed absence policy, a proposed revision of the summer program, the use of student evaluations, and the formative third-year review. Under principles of shared governance, the faculty’s deliberative bodies should be concretely involved at each stage of discussion and decision. It is not adequate to a healthy culture of shared governance that the faculty and Faculty Senate would be only consulted early in policy development or given reports after decisions have been made. The process by which the recent proposal for revamping the summer program emerged cannot inspire confidence in the level of respect for faculty governance.
The summer program does have budgetary and scheduling implications as well as implications for faculty effort and planning; however, decisions about the processes by which we will evaluate faculty and make personnel and status decisions must be based in the faculty and its representative councils. Along with the curriculum, there is no arena of university activity that is more at the core of faculty responsibility than the composition of the faculty, the judgment of its performance, and its determinations as to tenure and promotion. Obviously, A.A.U.P. principles support careful and deliberate evaluation of faculty performance by professional peer review; the faculty, speaking through its governance structures, must be intricately involved in formulating and approving the system by which faculty are evaluated.
For excerpts from A.A.U.P. documents that more eloquently state these principles, see the end of this “newsletter.”
For more information on A.A.U.P. principles and statements on sound shared governance, faculty priority in faculty hiring and status decisions, and academic freedom, see the A.A.U.P web site, http://www.aaup.org.
SUPPORT THE WORK OF A.A.U.P.
Federal and state educational lobbying; assistance for individual faculty members; chapter development and leadership training for effective faculty citizenship; vigilance on accreditation, intellectual property, and distance education; the salary survey—it won’t happen without a healthy AAUP. Take the first step to fulfill your responsibilities for academic citizenship: join the AAUP. For membership information, or to join online, http://www.aaup.org.
Join us in the work of the Truman State University chapter of AAUP. Visit our web page at http://aaup.truman.edu. The Truman chapter of AAUP meets at the Washington Street Java Company, on the south side of the square.
Wed., December 12, 8:00 A.M.
Thurs., January 17, 8:00 A.M.
Thurs., February 14, 8:00 A.M.
Thurs, March 7, 8:00 A.M.
Thurs, April 4, 8:00 A.M.
Wed., May 8, 8:00 A.M.
Truman Chapter officers
Jan Saffir, President, Fine Arts
Jan Grow, Vice-President, Education
Marc Becker, Secretary, Social Science
James Harmon, Treasurer, Fine Arts
A.A.U.P. Policy Statements.
All A.A.U.P. principles flow from the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. http://www.aaup.org/1940stat.htm
Excerpt from the Statement on Procedural Standards in the Renewal or Nonrenewal of Faculty Appointments http://www.aaup.org/rbrenew.htm
Any recommendation regarding renewal or tenure should be reached by an appropriate faculty group in accordance with procedures approved by the faculty.
Excerpts from the 1966 Statement on Government of
Colleges and Universities
http://www.aaup.org/govern.htm
This statement was jointly formulated by the American Association of University Professors, the American Council on Education (ACE), and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB). In October 1966, the board of directors of the ACE took action by which its council "recognizes the statement as a significant step forward in the clarification of the respective roles of governing boards, faculties, and administrations," and "commends it to the institutions which are members of the Council." The Council of the AAUP adopted the statement in October 1966, and the Fifty-third Annual Meeting endorsed it in April 1967. In November 1966, the executive committee of the AGB took action by which that organization also "recognizes the statement as a significant step forward in the clarification of the respective roles of governing boards, faculties, and administrations," and "commends it to the governing boards which are members of the Association."
Joint effort in an academic institution will take a variety of forms appropriate to the kinds of situations encountered. In some instances, an initial exploration or recommendation will be made by the president with consideration by the faculty at a later stage; in other instances, a first and essentially definitive recommendation will be made by the faculty, subject to the endorsement of the president and the governing board. In still others, a substantive contribution can be made when student leaders are responsibly involved in the process. Although the variety of such approaches may be wide, at least two general conclusions regarding joint effort seem clearly warranted: (1) important areas of action involve at one time or another the initiating capacity and decision-making participation of all the institutional components, and (2) differences in the weight of each voice, from one point to the next, should be determined by reference to the responsibility of each component for the particular matter at hand, as developed hereinafter.
The faculty has primary responsibility for such fundamental areas as curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, research, faculty status, and those aspects of student life which relate to the educational process.
Faculty status and related matters are primarily a faculty responsibility; this area includes appointments, reappointments, decisions not to reappoint, promotions, the granting of tenure, and dismissal. The primary responsibility of the faculty for such matters is based upon the fact that its judgment is central to general educational policy. Furthermore, scholars in a particular field or activity have the chief competence for judging the work of their colleagues; in such competence it is implicit that responsibility exists for both adverse and favorable judgments.