April 30, 2021 Minutes

AAUP TSU Chapter Meeting 4/30/21

Present: Marc Becker, Bill Alexander, Jennifer Jesse, Stacy Davis, Jack Davis, Andrew Kauffman, Christine Harker, Stephanie Russell, David Robinson, Yuna Furgeson, Sergio Escobar, Anton Daughters, Marc Rice

Approval of minutes from the last meeting (https://aaup.truman.edu/minutes/april-2021-minutes/)

  • Bill moved to approve, Christine seconded, minutes were approved with one abstention

Announcements:

Meeting:

  • Revisions to the faculty handbook
    • We went to the faculty handbook forum and the admin was very responsive to the comments. One of the issues was that faculty weren’t supposed to talk to the media without talking to the PR person at TSU.
    • AAUP guidelines say that faculty should be careful when speaking “for” the university, not just ‘as’ a member of the university. TSU has changed the text in the faculty handbook to be in line with the AAUP guidelines after we pushed back about it.
    • Faculty Handbook 04212021
    • Faculty Handbook Detailed Updates 04212021
    • There might be a response on the horizon after we pushed back about the Ch. 6 language.
  • There is a rumor that they are thinking about turning non-tt positions to post-doc positions. The idea is that faculty would be training for working at other liberal arts schools. This could be a workaround to the Ch. 6 requirements.
    • There is some concern about postdocs being able to conduct effective research with the resources available.
    • This would only potentially work in the sciences? There isn’t a tradition of postdocs in most of the humanities.
    • If this would work, someone other than Truman would probably be doing this already…
  • Next steps in changes to the BOG Chapter 6 language (https://www.truman.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/CHAPTER-6-revised-August-1-2020.pdf)
    • We are continuing to work on and monitor this.
    • We think we are getting some leverage in regard to the language applying to non tt folks in addition to tt folks
  • Laura and Bill have both been put on the PPC committee.
    • The PPC have put this on their agenda along with the parental leave policy
  • We scheduled an upcoming training with AAUP nationals on organizing an issue campaign on 5/25 at 3pm. It will be an hour and a half. Mark your calendars!
  • We should put out an end of year report to the entire faculty that documents what we did. It should be bulleted, not too long.
    • We should also put out another flyer before the first meeting in the fall.
    • We have some chapter development funds we can try to access from state MOAAUP. $300-$400 range. Example use: paying for a Zoom account.
    • Executive committee to discuss strategy for application for this funding
  • Administration response to sub minimum wage paid to student workers
    • We received an email from a student protesting the pay that students receive, which is below minimum wage. The administration sent back a response that essentially argued that this is actually a benefit for the students.
    • We are part of a community and these wages move up the ladder.
    • AAUP could put out a statement about this.
    • The staff and students have their own groups that should advocate for themselves, though. We can support them as they challenge this.
    • We could reach out to the head of student government and say that we plan to put out a letter of support for raising these wages. We could possibly ask faculty to sign on in support of the letter.
    • Maybe we should first just respond to the former student who sent the email.
  • Nominations for two new members of AAUP executive committee
    • We can nominate or self-nominate and need a second
    • There will be an electronic vote in the future
    • If elected, you have to be a paying member of AAUP nationals
    • Remaining leadership is: Stacy Davis, Laura Bigger, Christine Harker, Marc Becker, Anton Daughters
    • NOMINATIONS:
      • Christine nominates Yuna Fergusen, Bill seconded, she accepted
      • Bill nominated himself, Laura seconded, he accepted
      • Marc nominated Sergio Escobar, nomination seconded, he accepted
    • All of the folks nominated will receive an email prompting them to write a little statement. Then there will be a digital vote.
    • Marc will oversee the nominee statement and Laura will oversee the digital vote administration
  • Parental leave
    • Elizabeth Wiles is in a meeting but was hoping to pop in to talk about this.
    • The university is putting forward this idea that they are progressive but there is actually no parental leave policy at Truman. There is a similar issue at Mizzou. They actually closed their student centers that were focused on particular subgroups of the student body.
    • Should we wait to see what the initial discussions are about the policy before we decide how to proceed?
    • The PPC has worked hard on some of this stuff and has pushed back on issues such as providing benefits to people on sabbatical. They just have a lot on their plate.
  • The New Yorker article
    • We can’t speak for the university on this issue. This is something that we can say as a preface if we have to respond to a query.
  • Summer salaries are a percentage of contract salary, but NTT make less than TT. No fixed pay. Unfair. Attempt to fix it several years ago, but some senior faculty who teach summer on a regular basis opposed changing it. Will take a big push to get it changed. Stacy Davis was on summer compensation plan last year that made proposals, but nothing changed. We need to push that we already did committee work, but where are we at. Do we need a letter to the administration to urge them to address the issue? Stacy will see if we can contact the committee chair to press issue with administration.