AAUP Meeting 4/2/21, 4pm via Zoom
Present: Christine Harker, Bill Alexander, Taner Edis, Jack Davis, Mateo Tornatore, Andrew Kauffmann, Anton Daughters, Carlo Annelli, Elizabeth Wiles, Marc Becker, Jennifer Jesse, Stephanie Russell, Sergio Escobar
- Reminder that the Missouri Conference meeting is next Saturday 4/10 at 10:30 am via Zoom: https://slu.zoom.us/j/93027559406?pwd=UUFQdFlMODNUb2lLMFhBaEpLalFzZz09
- Institutional history (per emeritus member from Physics): During Warren presidency general poor faculty morale, belief of poor treatment; AAUP conducted faculty survey: unfavorable outcome for Warren led to the Full Professors’ vote of no-confidence, resulting in Warren’s removal.
- Under subsequent presidency (Magruder), it was clear that the Faculty Senate did not represent the Faculty (2/3 of the voting members were administrators). Several faculty (incl. AAUP members), proposed a bill governing Faculty Senate makeup as more representative of Faculty, which passed by one vote. Faculty reluctance was connected to fear of possible retaliation.
- Ways in which AAUP were helpful is 1) Having a big enough profile so that the administration paid attention to what they were saying, even if they didn’t always do as asked, and 2) Getting out among the faculty and encouraging them to speak up and not be afraid (and listening to them to really hear what their concerns are).
- Approve last month’s minutes
- New minute approach – we write up a short summative set of minutes. This will be reviewed by Christine and Marc and then it will be put on the website and sent to the AAUP listserve. The minutes will be approved at the subsequent meeting.
- Bill moved to approve last month’s minutes, Mateo seconded, there were 9 in favor and one abstention. The minutes were approved.
- A reminder to vote on Tuesday!
- City Council
- John Gardener seems good
- Seats on the school board
- Jaimee Miller seems good
- Health
- Brenda Higgins is running.
- Two incumbents – have been fine.
- Two covid denialists are running.
- City Council
- Ch 6 language, faculty handbook. Discussions, procedures, plans
- An email went out just a couple of days ago from the administration with a link to the new draft of the Faculty Handbook. They are receiving feedback at this time. Chapter 6 deals with faculty roles and responsibilities.
- The draft is accessible for review and comment until April 14, 2021 and can be found here: http://blogs.truman.edu/aapolicyreview <http://blogs.truman.edu/aapolicyreview>.
- An open forum (via Zoom) will be held after April 14th for feedback and questions. All input received will be considered by the Deans and when appropriate, incorporated into the final version of the handbook. It is the goal to have a completed faculty handbook implemented in fall 2021.
- Consider contributing your feedback!
- The draft is accessible for review and comment until April 14, 2021 and can be found here: http://blogs.truman.edu/aapolicyreview <http://blogs.truman.edu/aapolicyreview>.
- We are concerned with Ch. 6 -particularly The Board of Governors Code of Policies Chapter 6.030.
- The dates by which administrators notify faculty of nonreappointment for the following academic year have changed. These new dates are out of alignment with the AAUP Statement of Principles. This info can be found on Pg. 7 in the PDF.
- Compare to the AAUP Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure (bolded emphasis ours)
- 7. Fifth 1970 comment: The concept of “rank of full-time instructor or a higher rank” is intended to include any person who teaches a full-time load regardless of the teacher’s specific title. [For a discussion of this question, see the “Report of the Special Committee on Academic Personnel Ineligible for Tenure,” AAUP Bulletin 52 (September 1966): 280– 82.]
- The general principle of notice contained in this paragraph is developed with greater specificity in the “Standards for Notice of Nonreappointment,” endorsed by the Fiftieth Annual Meeting of the American Association of University Professors (1964) (Policy Documents and Reports, 99). These standards are:
- Notice of nonreappointment, or of intention not to recommend reappointment to the governing board, should be given in writing in accordance with the following standards:
- 1. Not later than March 1 of the first academic year of service, if the appointment expires at the end of that year; or, if a one-year appointment terminates during an academic year, at least three months in advance of its termination.
- 2. Not later than December 15 of the second academic year of service, if the appointment expires at the end of that year; or, if an initial two-year appointment terminates during an academic year, at least six months in advance of its termination.
- 3. At least twelve months before the expiration of an appointment after two or more years in the institution.
- We discussed this issue and believe that we should push to have our Faculty Handbook put back in line with the AAUP Statement of Principles in both ways. At this point the university isn’t obligated to send any information about reappointment to folks on year to year contracts at all. AAUP does not make a distinction between TT and NTT. Most of our NTT faculty are full time because of our location, so we tend to offer a full-time one-year contract, so this affects a lot of our faculty.
- We decided to write up a formal complaint to nationals about this right now rather than wait for a specific grievance. We have a contact at AAUP that we can ask what to do from here. They have resources to support us with an issue campaign. We will ask about timing based on where we are in the semester.
- We also discussed that this is a retention issue. If the University makes it so that all non tt faculty can assume they won’t be reappointed unless they hear otherwise (which is a real possibility) then there will be significant consequences for retention. The dates of notification helps with retention of faculty who are on year to year contracts. Making this change is in everyone’s best interest because students build lasting relationships with faculty, morale would be better, etc.
- The university is doing this due to constant enrollment issues and they want labor flexibility but this is damaging in the long run.
- An email went out just a couple of days ago from the administration with a link to the new draft of the Faculty Handbook. They are receiving feedback at this time. Chapter 6 deals with faculty roles and responsibilities.
- Vote on Truman’s AAUP chapter bylaws
- Much of the document is boilerplate language from AAUP.
- Chapter 4 diverges somewhat because we changed it from having 4 to 7 officers with roles and responsibilities dispersed more evenly among them.
- We have an election coming up with a rotating seat for a 3 year term (with changeover of two the first year, then three the second year, three the third year, and then back to two again and so on). These are meant to be elections that the full faculty can vote on.
- This would be the only fully elected position on campus.
- Chapter dues are $10/year due on October 1st.
- We approved the Bylaws unanimously
- We still don’t have a paid parental leave policy at Truman. This was something the PPC was working on but it was put on the backburner. This is a serious shortcoming of our institution. It is also really important for retaining faculty. It would be great if we could have a progressive policy we could be proud of. The PPC came up with a policy recommendation and it has been on hold since then. Anton and Elizabeth met with Sue Thomas who was positive about it and said it could be changed quickly but now it seems to have gotten stuck.
- We will address this at the next meeting.
Minutes recorded by Laura.