By Ross Nadal
(June 2002)
The first section of this paper provides a description of
early actions in regard to the issue of faculty status for librarians, leading
up to the formation of ALUW in 1969. The
second section examines the early years of the newly formed association. The report
is based on the papers of ALUW and other research collections in the University
Archives.
Early Collective Actions
The
first recorded (in University Archives) collective action taken at the University
of Washington in regard to the status of librarians was actually taken in 1947
by the University chapter of AAUP (American Association of University
Professors) who, in their study of librarianship at the University as a whole,
focused on the key issues of salary and faculty status as the most important
areas in which librarians needs had been neglected. But while the consideration of these issues
was a step towards their eventual address, in its final conclusion, the report
ultimately decided not to recommend giving faculty status to librarians because
it felt the status issue was merely a manifestation of dissatisfaction with
salary and could not “be solved by a nominal change in status.” Though it should be noted that the
investigation did not take into account the educational role served by
librarians in judging their claim to faculty status, instead focusing on their
role in facilitating research.
The issues (of salary and faculty status) then lay dormant
for approximately ten years until 1957 when a group of librarians and library
administrators decided to form a Faculty Status Committee so as to more
directly and formally pursue their agenda.
Chaired by Helen Johns, on January 24th of that year the committee
submitted a petition to University President Schmitz (with the approval of Mr.
Bauer, then Director of Libraries). The
petition outlined four specific demands:
1.
Change of status from non-academic to academic
2.
Change from present designation to one equated with specific
faculty rank
3.
Librarians to be called by faculty titles, though only if they
have teaching assignments
4.
Librarians to be extended full faculty privileges
The Committee considered the
librarian’s educational contributions to satisfy the chief requirement for
membership in the Association of Faculty of being “engaged in teaching and
research” as sufficient support for the status change. Though no direct action came as a result of
the petition, it did draw enough of President Schmitz’s attention for him, in
early 1958, to ask the Faculty Status Committee to continue work on the issue.
The Committee then submitted a memorandum to Harry C. Bauer
(then Director of Libraries), which he, through Dr. Theime, brought to the
attention of the Senate Personnel Committee.
The memorandum contained largely the same demands as the above petition,
but left out a request for full faculty privileges, and noted 1) the role of
comparatively lower salaries for librarians at the University of Washington in
lowering morale and in the increasing difficulty in recruitment, as well as 2)
the fact that major neighboring institutions (University of Oregon, Oregon
State, and Washington State) had already granted faculty status to their
librarians.
The Personnel Committee of the Faculty Senate (chaired by
Dr. Charles R. Strother) addressed the above issues at their 23rd and 30th of
April 1959 meetings. In response the
Personnel Committee formulated a set of questions regarding the librarian’s
reasons for pursuing recognition as academic workers and implying they only
desired the status change because of the accompanying change in salary. Consequently, on May 5 the Committee on
Faculty Status submitted the following definition of ‘Academic Status’ as
applicable to librarians (intended as a more realistic substitute for faculty
status):
·
Designation by the University as ‘Academic Personnel’
·
Salaries to be based on those paid to librarians at comparable
institutions1
·
Administration of personnel policies to be by the Director of
Libraries through the President of the University.
·
Eligibility of librarians for administrative leave
·
Extension of the Merit System
·
Full tenure after 5 years of service
·
Recognition of the Library’s desire and willingness to serve on
University committees
To which the Senate Library
Committee reacted as follows: It
concurred on all points except the issues of salary (as University policy
dictated, the Committee had no right to address salary issues) and tenure (as
the Committee considered the issue equitable with job security and therefore
unnecessary to address separately).
Also, in regard to some areas, the Senate Library Committee went further
than the Committee on Faculty Status by suggesting specific plans for salary
increases and a ‘merit’ based reward plan.
As for the new issue of ‘Academic Status’ recognition, the Senate based
its support on the grounds that librarians provided academic, rather than
maintenance or administrative, support to education and research (and again the
implication that Academic Status provided a more realistic alternative to
pursuing full faculty status). Though
the issues of librarian’s direct educational responsibilities (i.e. teaching)
were once again given little consideration.[i]
Then in June of 1959 the Senate Personnel Committee met with
the Committee on Academic Status (independently from the Senate Library
Committee) and also expressed its support for the recommendation of ‘Academic
Personnel’ status. They based their
support on the grounds that five of the seven institutions with which the
University of Washington used for salary comparisons granted all their
professional librarians full faculty status, as well as the need to improve
morale and recruitment in the University’s library department as a whole
(widely acknowledged to be lagging behind many comparable universities) 3 .
After the Faculty Senate reviewed the above documents they
were then passed on to administration, and the University granted Academic
Personnel rank to all librarians.
Formation and Early History
On
26 November 1968, the Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of Librarians decided to
renew work on the Faculty Status issue by issuing a list of reasons for redress
to Merian A Milczewski: 1) The importance of information science as a growing
necessity in research and education (and as a academic subject in its own
right) 2) The academic research responsibilities of Librarians and 3) The low
status of University of Washington professional librarians relative to those of
comparable institutions.
At this same time, John S Rundborgs (Assistant Book Order
Librarian) and a group of 14 other librarians together issued a document noting
the major problems with the UW libraries.
Particularly attention was given to the issue of turnover, as most
librarians were leaving after only 2 years of employment, as well as the
observation that some areas of the library seemed overstaffed, oft by
overqualified individuals, and thus a recommendation for a number of job cuts
and reorganizations was given. In
general, this group also seemed to see the redress of the faculty status issue
as taking too high a priority amid more serious issues involving the quality of
the library staff and organization / communication issues, as well as salary
grievances (without regard to accompanying status). But while these views tended to de-emphasize
(but not reject) the issue of faculty status as secondary to a host of other
more pressing issues, this feeling seemed to be held by a rather small
minority, and resulted in no documented changes in the librarian’s collective
grievance actions. And so the first
steps in the creation of ALUW followed shortly, with the issue of faculty
status remaining as a, but not they, most pressing issue.
In February of 1969 a questionnaire was distributed to
library staff to judge the actual support for the creation of an
association. The results are as follows:
1.
Are you interested in an organization of the professional library
staff? Yes 69, No 2.
2.
If so, do you want it to be something entirely new? Yes 46, No
3.
3.
As an alternative, would you prefer a professional organization
within the framework of the Constitution of the Staff Association? Yes 8, No
43.
4.
If such a professional organization were formed, who would be
members? Almost complete agreement on
“all professionals (no exclusions)”
Though most did wish to exclude library administrators.
5.
What questions would you like the organization to consider? ‘Evaluation of professional content in jobs
and use of libraries’ received the most support. Second were issues dealing with communication
within the libraries in general. And
third were issues involving the ‘status and respect of librarians.’
Following the support
demonstrated through the survey, on 4 March 1969, a meeting of professional
staff was held and a vote was taken, and passed, ‘in favor of formation.’ During this same time the groundwork was laid
for the pending Association’s constitution.
Of many different sources, a chief role was played by Gerald J.
Oppenheimer (then Assistant Director for Health Sciences who would go on to
play a continuing and very influential role in the ALUW) who advised that
portions of the Faculty Handbook be incorporated so as to cater to future
Faculty Status negotiations. Also
incorporated were portions of the constitution from UCLA’s recently formed
association of librarians.
At their 20 November 1969 meeting, the new ALUW’s Executive
Committee addressed the need and desire by librarians to gain some kind of
tenured status, leading to the newly formed association’s first major action:
the formation of the Interim Implementation Committee on 3 December 1969. They formulated a report, sent to Mariam
Mikzowski (Director of Libraries) for further action, stressing the need for
the eventual adoption of faculty status.
This was accompanied by a ‘request for clarification’ submitted by a
large number of librarians to the library administration which asked the
following issues to be addressed: Why no major affirmative action had been
taken on the issue of faculty status for librarians; Why there was no
application of tenure or other forms of job security for librarians while such
protections had been granted to faculty and classified staff; and why the
current designation of Academic Status does not provide the security and
benefits of Faculty Status.
This was followed by the 9 June 1970 meeting of the ALUW
Executive Committee to address, primarily, “what progress has been make on the
request for faculty status for librarians.”
As a result, the Committee of the Council on Faculty Affairs made a
report for eventual submission to the Executive Committee of the Faculty
Senate. But there is no documented
response by the Faculty Senate to these actions, and the ALUW made no
documented follow up actions.
In fact, after 1970, the faculty status issue seemed to
lose prominence in general. This was
possibly affected by the emergence of new issues of prominence on campus. In 1971 two new major issues emerged: first were
major reductions in large portions of the library budget accompanied by job
cuts (23 positions). And second was the
university wide issue of collective bargaining rights. Also starting in 1971, two other issues, the
professional right to determine work week hours/schedule and the general
intensification of salary grievances, took to the forefront.
However, after the two-year lull, in October of 1972 the
issue of Faculty Status reemerged with a letter from Marion A. Milczewski
(Director of Libraries) to all the professional staff. It urged the re-adoption of the effort to obtain
Faculty Status and presented a wide array of practical grounds for the
viewpoint. Some of the more prominent
are: On 30 October 1971 the Council of the American Association of University
Professors voted to take a stance favorable to collective bargaining and to
admit librarians to membership regardless of status; The Northwest Association
of Secondary and Higher Schools found the lack of Faculty Status for librarians
as the prime reason for the University of Washington’s many problems with their
library; letters from Prof. Guthrie (1972 Chairman of Faculty Council on
Faculty Affairs) and Thomas R. Nilson (1973 Chairman of Faculty Council on
Faculty Affairs) supporting Faculty Status for librarians and urging the
faculty to get behind the issue (these were written in response to several
memos from Dr. Katz); On 1 September 1972 the Washington Higher Education
Library Committee by unanimous vote agreed all professional librarians should
be awarded faculty status.
However, at this same time an effort was being made to
reopen the faculty status issue, which had earlier taken a back seat to issues
such as general library budget cuts, library funding started to be increased
overall, and somewhat crossed canceled the compensation and status complaints
of librarians (possibly due to the fact these issues were often being argued on
the basis they would aid librarians in contributing to the libraries overall
success). And so despite the above
actions, as well as major steps by various national organizations and major
institutions to implement faculty status for librarians, the issue at this
point largely died out at the University.
Judging from archived documentation, it was primarily replaced by the
issues of salary and collective bargaining.
But as you will read in the accompanying report, it has recently
reemerged as a central issue for ALUW.
©2002 Ross Nader
SOURCES:
Manuscript boxes and
accession numbers (all from University Archives, basement of Allen Library,
1. ALUW
-folders: all presidents and secretaries folders and 2
faculty status folders
2. ALUW
-all folders
3. ALUW
-folders: Ad Hoc Agenda Committee
List of Important Documents (accession number-Box)
1-1
Faculty Status Committee.
Petition to President Schmitz. January
24, 1958.
Mr. Bauer. Proposal
to the Personnel Committee of the Faculty Senate. February 1959.
Committee on Faculty Status. Definition of Academic Status. May 5, 1959.
1-2
ALUW Executive Committee and Mr. Milczowski. Report to the Executive Committee of the
Faculty Senate. June 9, 1970.
Various Librarians.
Request for clarification. Date
Unknown (late 1969/ early 1970?).
M. Gary Bettis.
Letter to ‘colleagues’ (addressing the formation of ALUW). March 20, 1969.
Meeting of Professional Staff. March 4, 1969.
Results of Agenda Committee Questionnaire. February 10, 1969.
Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of Librarians. Report to Marion A. Milczewski. November 26, 1968.
ALUW Survey. What
should the main function of ALUW be?.
1980
1-3
Marion A. Milczewski.
Letter to all members of professional staff. October 12, 1971.
3-1
Questionaire in regard to the support and purpose of a
possible library association. February
1969.