Meeting of the Truman State University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
November 27, 2018, 4:00-5:10 PM, in BH100
Present: Marc Rice (president), Marc Becker (secretary), Mark Hatala (vice-president), Bill Alexander
- Debriefing of last month’s meeting with Terry Olson.
Marc R: AAUP deals with larger issues than just salary.
Bill: But low salaries are an issue, which makes it difficult for people to come here. If we don’t nourish our talent we will backslide into a regional institution. People who graduated from TSU want to come back here because of being inoculated into the values, but it is hard to survive on the salary.
Mark H: Why are administration salaries high when faculty salaries are so low? Why can’t we chop from the top?
2 other issues:
Enrollment is dropping, which is also a major problem (and demographics don’t work out long term for us).
Senior faculty are willing to teach unpaid overloads, which puts pressure on younger faculty.
- The coming state Executive Committee Meeting in St. Louis on Saturday
Marc R.: would like to see AAUP chapters work together to put pressure on Jeff City, and will raise that issue at the state meeting on Saturday.
- AAUP activities impacting Higher Education in the state
Bill: was there pushback from Greiten’s slashing of university budget? (no really)
Mark H.: 2 factors: University faculty don’t vote for Republicans anyway & students tend to come from wealthy families and we’re subsidizing their education.
Marc R: is there anything that AAUP can do to address staffing issues?
Mark H.: Our focus should be on faculty.
Bill: are there other universities like us who faced similar issues and came out on top?
Mark H: A problem is our rural location.
Bill: some of MO’s directional schools might get cut.
Mark H.: A problem is aging faculty who aren’t being replaced with fresh talent.
Plagiarism in a legal term that can be sued, so use “inappropriate citation” instead.
Mark H: Threat of moving classes online means that faculty don’t have to retire.
- New ideas for our chapter
Marc R.: Can we generate good ideas spring semester? He will also try to raise issues with state AAUP.