Minutes, Truman State University Chapter of AAUP
October 24, 2003 4:30 p.m.
University Club

Meetings are open to all University faculty members.

Faculty present: Natalie Alexander, Martha Bartter, Marc Becker, Roger Festa, David Gruber, Wolfgang Hoeschele, Sylvia Macauley, Tom Marshall, Arnold Preussner, Alanna Preussner, David Robinson, Peter Rolnick, Jan Saffir.

1) Minutes. The minutes of the September 23 were read and approved.

2) Dixon meeting. We had a pleasant and fruitful lunch meeting with President Dixon yesterday. We engaged in an extensive discussion of our optimistic outlook for her tenure with us and her desire to document transparent procedures. We would like to have more meetings with her again in the future. Pictures from the presentation of the Redbook is on our webpage at http://aaup.truman.edu.

3) Faculty Senate restructuring. The vote on restructuring Faculty Senate will happen next week. We are sending out a document from Peter Rolnick with information to encourage our colleagues to support this plan, and will also post this on our webpage (http://aaup.truman.edu).

4) Summer School. We discussed changes to the Summer School program, Interim classes, and the new on-line courses. If the main motivation for these concerns are budgetary, we should receive more information on that process. Faculty Senate will establish a standing faculty budgetary committee to help oversee this process.

5) Administrator evaluations and assessment data. We discussed what is the purpose for evaluation and assessment data, and if this data could be used more effectively.

6) Membership drive. We cleaned up our AAUP email list. David Gruber has the Footnotes in his office and they are ready for distribution. We need personal contact with potential members in order to encourage them to join.

7) Concealed-gun law. This law is currently held up in the courts, but some AAUP members are concerned for the potential impact of this law on our institution. Perhaps we need a forum to discuss the issues that this raises for the university community. We could arrange for presentations from different local groups that are involved with firearms (DPS, ROTC, hunters, etc.) and from other groups who represent programs for gun control. A general discussion would allow people to gather information and voice their concerns about policy. The issue might also be raised in Faculty Senate.

8) Course load. There are continuing rumors that in some divisions the course load may go from a 3-3 to a 3-4 in 2005. We will discuss this topic more in our next meeting (Thursday, November 20, at 9:00 a.m. in the University Club).

Meeting adjourned at 6:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted by Marc Becker, Secretary