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