Minutes, Truman State University Chapter of AAUP
November 4, 2004, 4:30 p.m.
University Club
Meetings are open to all university faculty members.
Faculty present: David Robinson (presiding), Martha Bartter, Kathryn Brammall,
Roger Festa, James Harmon, Diane Johnson, Sylvia Macauley, Tom Marshall, Judi
Misale, Steven Reschly, Peter Rolnick.
1) Follow-up discussion on our Town Hall Meeting, October 12. We were reasonably
satisfied with attendance (about 28, including the university president, VPAA,
and one division head). We were more than satisfied with the quality of the
discussion and with the range of topics covered. Since the secretary has notes
of everything discussed, we decided to circulate these to our membership, for
comment or correction. If there are no objections, we will then pass them on to
the university president and VPAA, as a courtesy and for their future reference.
We will also express our support for President Dixon’s plan to hold similar
meetings with smaller groups of faculty, as she explained the plan. We will
offer to have regular town hall meetings (perhaps once a semester), if these
could help raise the level of communication and discussion.
2) Judi Misale reported on the State of the University Survey (a nearly annual
activity of our chapter). She and Marc Becker will soon put it on-line and (with
help of the VPAA office) will email the whole faculty inviting them to
participate in the survey by November 19. Steven Reschly raised some issues
about the Study Abroad Office and its recent reassignment from the Associate
VPAA to the VPAA (and now put together with International Student Office). We
agreed that this would be an opportune time to include a survey question on the
performance of this office, and so we formulated this survey item.
3) Peter Rolnick recently attended a meeting of Missouri Association of Faculty
Senates, which will meet again in February. They share information about the 13
four-year schools and try to lobby whenever possible. Peter reported on two
particularly interesting discussions. Internal funding at many of the campuses
seems to be connected to clearly stated expectations; funding at Truman, by
contrast, seems more erratic, not apparently linked to performance or
expectations (though such may be expressed in those secretly-held division heads
meetings). The other interesting development concerns Central Missouri State
University, where a large proportion of the faculty has joined together in an
NEA-affiliated ‘union’ called Fellowship of Missouri Education Workers. The
spokesman for that group offered to come to other campuses to report on this
organization; we could invite him here for a future town hall meeting.
4) We shared our concerns about the health of our good friend and long-time
leader, David Gruber, whose health condition is being evaluated in a cancer
center in Houston. Without objection, we voted to send him a gift and greeting,
not to exceed $50 in cost.
5. Other items were reported or discussed. Martha Bartter attended the Vision
Dinner, hosted by Student Senate. She enjoyed the way they organized questions
for each table; attendees learned about the Parents Council, among other
interesting things. Peter Rolnick reported that the bill on Interim Courses will
soon be voted on in Faculty Senate. Although the bill goes far to address issues
that need attention, it says nothing about pay, one of the important areas of
recommendation from the committee that prepared the bill.
N.B. At the December meeting, we will need to approve both October and November
minutes.
Meeting adjourned shortly before 6:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by David Robinson, President