11/11/2022 Chapter Meeting, 4 pm (Zoom)
Present: Jay Belanger, Jack Davis, Anton Daughters, Jennifer Jesse, Joshua Nudell, Stacy Davis, Stephanie Russell, Yuna Ferguson, Mark Hatala, Andrew Kauffman, Mateo Tornatore, Meg Edwards
Board of Governors Handbook Ch. 6 changes
The proposal by AAUP was approved by Faculty Senate vote, but it is suspected that Amy Clendennan (General Counsel) will not endorse it at the next BoG meeting on December 3rd. It is proposed that AAUP is present at that meeting to speak on behalf of the proposed changes. Anton will be there at the meeting.
Accessibility for faculty
What happens when faculty members suddenly become unable to teach in-person due to accidents, health issues, etc.? One of our members was not able to switch their classes to online to accommodate a health condition, because the classes have not been previously approved as online courses. In-person classes require faculty to have in-person contact at least 80 percent of the time and the administration was not willing to accommodate this faculty member’s unique situation to allow them to teach online. Other members mentioned their experiences related to this, which suggest that faculty are not being treated equally. Some faculty have been allowed to teach online whereas others have been denied the opportunity. Is the different treatment based on faculty status (e.g. term vs. tenure-track)? This may be an equity issue. Do we have a policy that guides us in the event that faculty experience emergencies and cannot teach in-person? This may be an issue that overlaps with faculty/staff leave policy that has been discussed by the PPC.
We also talked about how term faculty in general are asked to do more (service, additional teaching). This might backfire on the goal to recruit more students and improve engagement.
Faculty who are not meeting the 16/1 FTE will not be paid to teach an additional class whereas faculty who are meeting that load will be paid for additional teaching.
Influence mapping
We might consider identifying people at Truman (faculty, staff) who might share AAUP values. This could be an initial step in organizing for a union. We can try to figure out members in our department who might be interested in unionizing vs. not or are otherwise likely to support AAUP agenda. We may later approach these individuals to share ideas, not necessarily to ask them to do any additional work.