Present: Anton Daughters, Bill Alexander, Marc Becker, Mark Hatala, Christine Harker, Laura Bigger, Carlo Annelli, Stephanie Russell (left early), Andrew Kauffmann, Jack Davis, Jennifer Jesse, James Harmond, Mark Rice (left early)
- Will Henrickson – Election day petition
- The Student Climate Union has called for campus closure on election day to encourage students to vote.
- They had 622 signatures at the time of the meeting.
- Will will give us a link to the petition. He asks faculty to send the petition to students and asks faculty to not hold classes on the Tuesday of election day.
- This is the link: http://chng.it/wmgm5ZdF
- They want to close down campus so that the TSU employees have ample time to vote.
- They want students to be able to drive home to vote because they don’t trust the postal service right now.
- Even if the administration doesn’t want to close down campus, faculty can still make the decision to honor this and/or to change around what we are doing on that day and we can encourage our colleagues to do something similar.
- The vast majority of students are registered to vote but not in Adair county.
- Will recommends we try to encourage students to keep calm after the election given we likely won’t have clear results immediately following the election.
- Updates
- COVID-19 task force
- Our recent jump from 2 to 9 cases was not fully traceable.
- We probably have a number of asymptomatic positive students who are shedding; we should know that things are unpredictable.
- A professor’s anecdote: one student recently came out of quarantine because their roommates were positive. They told Anton that they have been turning students away when they seek testing if they don’t actively have the primary symptoms.
- This fundamentally comes down to money. We should be doing random testing at some level to actually see where we are at.
- Another faculty member shared an anecdotal story of a student who infected both their parents after getting Covid and had non-traditional symptoms.
- A professor’s anecdote: one student recently came out of quarantine because their roommates were positive. They told Anton that they have been turning students away when they seek testing if they don’t actively have the primary symptoms.
- Chapter 6 changes
- Anton and Marc have been in touch with Scott and ultimately with the PPC. The PPC are putting Chapter 6 changes on their agenda. They will address this but it might be a while. Anton asked if a couple of AAUP reps could be there when the PPC discusses it.
- COVID-19 task force
- Faculty Survey
- We had 155 responses to the survey.
- Opinion about administration
- Chairs appear to be doing well. There was a general negative trend against the administration. There were a few pointed responses about pausing the tenure clock.
- Opinions about handling of COVID-19
- Responses were average overall but negative comments focused on lack of transparency and inadequate testing policy at TSU.
- Issues and concerns
- Primary concerns include complaints about salary and morale. A number of comments had to do with morale and increasing workload, particularly when framed against low salaries.
- AAUP should change question #10 on the survey to be more sensitive in the language toward contingent faculty.
- There were some comments on how the AAUP could better represent the faculty.
- Jennifer pointed out that many people who responded to the question about collective bargaining may not have any idea of what that would look like on the ground.
- What will we do with the survey results? Will they get posted on the website? Is a link to the results typically sent out to faculty?
- The results have typically been sent out in an email and then have been archived on the AAUP website.
- These results are quite stunning and we need to share these with the administration and probably to bring it to the Board of Governors.
- It may feel threatening to the administration. What would be the purpose of presenting this data to them?
- We should also compare these results to previous surveys.
- James suggested we talk to Judi Misale who used to implement the surveys 10-20 years ago. Unfortunately, she has Alzheimers and would be unable to help.
Marc takes over here (5:10):
Harker: what are we trying to accomplish with the results?
Alexander: don’t need to hide but also don’t need to go out of our way to show the results to them.
Hatala: Troy talked about a level above full prof as a reward, but the idea died because no one did anything. We can’t trust the administration because stuff goes nowhere. Too many full profs and no way to distinguish because they do not want to go to merit pay.
Alexander: where are comments from the 2014 & 2015 surveys? (They may not have ever been collected.)
Meeting ends: 5:20pm