9/23//22 Chapter Meeting, 4 pm (Zoom)
Present: Marc Becker, Heidi Cook, Anton Daughters, Jack Davis, Yuna Ferguson, Jennifer Jesse, Erin Joyce, Andrew Kaufmann, Joshua Nudell, Stephanie Russell, Elizabeth Wiles, Stacy Davis, Emily Olsen, David Robinson, Jack Davis, Mateo Tornatore, Meg Edwards
New exec members this year: Heidi Cook, Jack Davis, Stephanie Russell, Elizabeth Wiles
Meeting minutes from 4/22/22 approved.
Chapter 6 proposed changes regarding reappointment notices for (term) faculty
In the revised version of this section on reappointment notice dates, term (NTT) faculty are excluded. Currently, the Board of Governors’ Handbook does not mention notice dates for term faculty at all. AAUP proposed at the last faculty senate meeting that term faculty be added to that section and have the same notification dates applied. However, the deans at the faculty senate meetings expressed that 1) the early notification dates may do a disservice to term faculty who may want their performance reviewed across a longer period of time and 2) that the administration often does not know about their budgets until December/Spring of the year, making it difficult to know whether there is sufficient funding to support term faculty positions.
AAUP members were disappointed with the lack of support from administration on this issue and wondered why term faculty cannot be informed earlier as the deans find out about their budgets. Members also mentioned that retaining term faculty is to the university and its functions.
A possibility was raised regarding AAUP asking that the dates of notification be at least earlier, such as in March. However, this still isn’t early enough for faculty to begin their job search, which starts in the fall.
In relation to this, AAUP might consider advocating for multi-year contracts, which would provide greater job security.
It was also mentioned that several COPLAC institutions have notice dates for term faculty that are consistent with AAUP standards. Other institutions still at least have some dates, even if they do not align with AAUP standards. This may be a point of argument for Truman to determine dates of notification.
Parental leave policy—next steps
To continue advocating for longer leaves, greater flexibility of leaves, and other kinds of leaves (i.e., caregiving, catastrophic illnesses, among others), a standing committee was proposed as a possibility. AAUP will continue to be involved in this effort.
The linguistics program
Emily Olsen explained some concerns about the viability of the linguistics program and the two majors and 2 minors that they support. Currently, there is only one tenure-track faculty member, two non-tenure track faculty members, and one tenured member who is retiring at the end of the year. It seems that with just one tenure-track faculty, all of the faculty members are really strained on what they are able to do to sustain the majors and offer courses. It was suggested that AAUP could email the current chair to continue this conversation and to advocate for improving the program by converting one of the NT lines to TT line. This current issue facing the linguistics program seems common across several programs on campus.