Meeting of the Truman State University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
September 18, 2017, 3:30-5430 PM, in MG109
Present: Marc Rice (president), Marc Becker (secretary), Taner Edis (at-large), Mark Hatala (vice-president)
- How do we get more people involved in AAUP?
How de we keep better track of members and fees? Another email with fees, etc.? Do we have a better system? Kathryn has the treasury in her checking account? What should we say as to why someone should join the AAUP? Why is it concretely useful? We work with administration on faculty issues such as salary. Faculty can come to use with grievances. “It’s not a union, but it’s the closest thing that we have.” More of our institutional memory is in the AAUP because administration come and go. New faculty who have questions can come to use with questions that their mentors don’t answer (such as issues with sexism). Many faculty don’t know their rights and responsibilities. What are our benefits and insurance? Do we offer anything particularly useful to temporary faculty? People don’t see us as relevant until they need us. We need to try to get ahead of those issues.
Why should people come and join:
- Mentorship
- Freedom of speech issues in classroom
- Salary and retirement issues
Also appeal to idealism? TSU & higher ed are sinking ships, and how to confront that reality.
Maybe we don’t have any practical solutions, but we can talk about it to figure out what we can do. That would be better with a group of 15 rather than 4.
We will draft another message to send out. Attract people’s attention, now how do you join: where to send check, what we will do with money. A more inviting room? Kirk Memorial?
Organize a town hall meeting: Is Truman a sinking ship? Use that to propagandize for AAUP. Maybe for next spring (Feb/March). Can we have an honest discussion about these issues?
Maybe a meeting with Monica Barron and Christine Harker on sexism in the classroom.
- State-wide executive committee meeting in October.
- Are we going to have a meeting with Janet? Not yet—maybe in the spring.
- Next meeting. Third Monday of the month. Move November to second Monday and have a December meeting.
- Should we buy a block for the mall? Buy one thru the treasury and ask for donations to reseed the account.