Minutes, Truman State University Chapter of AAUP
February 4, 2005, 4:30 pm
University Club

Meetings are open to all university faculty members.

Faculty present: Judi Misale (presiding), Martha Bartter, Marc Becker, James Harmon, Sylvia Macauley, Tom Marshall, Steve Reschly, Peter Rolnick,.

1) Minutes of December meetings were approved.

2) Report on President Dixon's meetings with faculty groups. Peter said the meeting he was at was good and he felt that the president was sincerely listening to faculty feedback. She was very interested in receiving faculty reactions to the idea of rethinking the current divisional structure. They also discussed the role of discipline conveners who often do not have enough power over issues such as money and hiring/promotion. Some felt this is not a workable system. We also discussed the difference between divisions in terms of the roles, expectations, pay, and release time for conveners. This raised the issue that perhaps we need a discussion across the University on the role of conveners.

Although the president focused on the divisional structure, we discussed other important issues that faculty may wish to raise with President Dixon in these meetings:

• economic priorities of the University that includes a poorly functioning faculty senate budget committee and that is manifested in issues of salaries, funding of sabbaticals, and research grants;
• we should have a summary and public reporting of these conversations in order to have a sense of their global and cumulative content, perhaps with a written report followed by a town hall meeting to discuss the outcomes;
• we commend the president for holding these meetings, but suggest that they should be held regularly and more frequently.

3) Julie Lochbaum invited AAUP to participate in the Conference Day, February 16. We decided that it was too late to do that this year, but maybe we could help out next year.

4) By consensus, we decided to decline the offer to take responsibility for the University Faculty Clubhouse.

5) We passed a motion authorizing use of AAUP funds to pay for refreshments at AAUP meetings.

Meeting adjourned at 6:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by Marc Becker, Secretary