AAUP Executive Board meeting, Wednesday 20 April 2016

3:00-5:00pm, UW Club Dial +1 (872) 240-3212 Access Code: 110-740-877

Members present:

Rob Wood, Atmospheric Sciences, President

Amy Hagopian, Public Health, Secretary

Abraham Flaxman, Global Health

Christoph Giebel, Jackson School (later)

Jay Johnson, emeritus Environmental & Forest

Libi Sundermann, UW Tacoma (phone)

Duane Storti, Engineering

Ann Mescher, Mechanical Engineering

Absent:

Michael Honey, UW Tacoma (phone, starting at 4 pm)

Jack Lee, Math

Max Lieblich, Math (phone)

Bert Stover, Family Medicine & EOHS, Treasurer

Dan Jacoby, UW Bothell Interdisciplinary, VP

Bruce Kochis, UW Bothell

Kari Lerum, UW Bothell

Jane Koenig, School of Public Health emerita

Dan Luchtel, School of Public Health

Guests:

Agenda:

1. Introductions

2. Announcements:

a. Regents Watch assignments and reports

i. April 14—Allen Library, Amy Hagopian

ii. May 12—Allen Library

iii. June 9—Allen Library

iv. July 14—Allen Center, CSE 691

3. Dental School bailout (Amy)

4. AAUP/SEIU relationship (Rob)

5. Provost Search (Duane)*

6. Faculty Senate issues

a. Salary Policy

b. FCFA Work on Lecturers

c. Research Misconduct policy: what are the federal regulations that required us to eliminate binding arbitration from UW policy?

d. ABB survey

e. Fee-based graduate education

f. Other things?

7. Reports:

a. AAUP nominations for spring election: nominating committee report

b. AAUP annual meeting: May 9 with Rutgers team (David Hughes, Ann Gould, Karen Stubaus)

c. Workers Memorial report (Hagopian) April 27

d. Legislative session 2016: recap of issues pertaining to UW

e. Academic Analytics (Rob Wood)

f. Harry Bridges Forum report (April1: Lillian Taiz)

g. Treasurer’s report (Bert)

* Here’s the link to what transpired in the Senate on 12/1/11, the last time this “preferred candidate” business occurred: http://www.washington.edu/faculty/files/2014/06/senate_120111.pdf

See item 9 (New Business, pp. 4-5) for the discussion, Pres. Young’s explanation and concession about future searches, and text of AAUP-sponsored resolution ultimately adopted. (“WHEREAS, the recent search for Provost did not provide the tri-campus community with an opportunity to learn of the names of the finalists for the position nor to meet the finalists publicly before a ‘preferred candidate” was identified; therefore BE IT RESOLVED, the Senate expresses its clear expectation that future searches for academic administrators will again include open public forums with finalists as a means of gathering broad faculty input before a decision is made.”)

See also Exhibit A on pp. 7-8 for Senate Chair Astley’s timeline under “UW Provost Search Update.”

Regents Watch assignments

· May 12—Allen Library Rob

· June 9—Allen Library Ann

· July 14—Allen Center, CSE 691

· Aug 11—Allen Library (subject to cancelation)

· Sept 8—UW Spokane

· Oct 13—UW Tacoma

· Nov 10—HUB 334

· Dec 8—Allen Library (subject to cancelation)

Meeting schedule 2015/2016 (3 pm to 5 pm)

1. Regents meeting discussion

Amy appeared at the April 14 meeting of the Regents, where she delivered a message that “No matter what spin one cares to put on it (and the UW puts the most positive spin here), this year’s legislative session was a significant disappointment for higher education in general and the UW in particular. The only way to make significant progress in improving the state’s commitment to higher education is to engage the faculty in educating and pressuring the legislature. The most promising way to mobilize the faculty towards this project is to organize a faculty union. Therefore, the Board of Regent’s opposition to a faculty union directly contradicts the UW’s best interests.”

We discussed the Regents approval of the GIX program, wondering if it was it had gone through a faculty process. The Regents on 4/14 approved the Master of Science in Technology Innovation (MSTI) degree, a 60-credit interdisciplinary program developed by the Global Innovation Exchange (GIX). Tuition will be extraordinary. The MSTI degree will be the first U.S.-based program offered through the Global Innovation Exchange, a partnership between the University of Washington and Tsinghua University, with foundational support from Microsoft. We’re going to rent a building from a Microsoft retiree. Tuition anticipated to be $65K / year.

2. Provost Search

Ana Mari Cauce circulated a message to the campus (4/14/2016) stating Jerry Baldasty has performed in the role of Provost for the last 13 months. In February, she organized an 11-person advisory committee, chaired by Dean Jim Jiambalvo and Professor Kate O’Neill, “to advise her on whether to appoint him provost and executive VP for a term of up to three years.” She invited the campus community to “hear a presentation” by Dr. Baldasty on Tuesday 4/26 at 2:30 in the Henry Art Gallery. Then we are invited to “provide feedback” by 4/30/2016 via Catalyst.

Regrettably, the AAUP Red Book is no longer on line in a searchable format, so we can’t find the documents supporting the national organization’s statements on open searches. AAUP national sent a letter reminding President Young of the organization’s position supporting open searches for major administrative positions in 2011.

The UW faculty senate passed a statement of concern 12/1/2011 when President Young announced a preferred candidate for Provost in 2011 (at the time, Ana Mari Cauce):

Senate resolution, 12/1/11: "WHEREAS, the recent search for Provost did not provide the tri-campus community with an opportunity to learn of the names of the finalists for the position nor to meet the finalists publicly before a "preferred candidate” was identified; therefore

BE IT RESOLVED, the Senate expresses its clear expectation that future searches for academic administrators will again include open public forums with finalists as a means of gathering broad faculty input before a decision is made.”

We have now learned that, once again, only one “preferred candidate” for Provost has been identified. It is unclear whether there has been a search at all, with an evaluation of several finalist. The name of the committee tasked to evaluate Baldasty —the Advisory Selection Review Committee— indicates that there was no formal internal search process, that Baldasty was simply “selected” by the President, and that the advisory committee was only to review that presidential selection.

Christoph’s analysis (sent to the Senate leadership) is that the current situation is worse than that in 2011, because:

1. Unlike 2011, it may not even have involved a formal (if secret) internal search process with Senate/faculty involvement, but simply a presidential selection handed down for (advisory) “review"

2. It blatantly went against an express Senate resolution (12/1/11) formulating shared governance expectations in future Provost searches

3. It now threatens to formalize, through precedent, a Provost selection process that eviscerates shared governance and unilaterally increases presidential powers

The provost is the chief academic officer of the campus, and it is therefore very important there be faculty involvement in the selection process.

Decision: We voted to oppose the nomination of a “preferred candidate” without a search. We will circulate a message to the list server about this. Our board members who are Senators are asked to raise the concern from the floor of the Senate tomorrow.

3. Faculty Salary Policy

The Class A resolution before the Faculty Senate was sufficiently revised that the chair has ruled it has to repeat its first reading again at tomorrow’s Faculty Senate meeting. The AG ruled that the merit adjustments could not be used in the way intended by the drafters (original version). Meantime, Kate O’Neill has proposed a Class C resolution (non binding) to start over again with five principles to guide the effort. The Senate Executive Committee could have made changes to the first Class A version, by Duane Storti’s reading of the Code, and still had a 2^nd vote tomorrow. In December of 2015 a Class A resolution was approved, but then a letter from the deans came opposing it; then it was derailed at its 2^nd reading in January.

Jack Lee argues the salary policy embodied in the Class A represents a historic opportunity to create a salary system that transfers a small but significant amount of authority over salaries to the faculty, and offers a real possibility of not reproducing our severe compression problems in the next generation of faculty. The new policy can be operated without forcing the university to add any more to the salary pool each year than it has done for the past twenty-five or more years. Although the policy won't require it, it will probably put some pressure on colleges to devote a little more to salaries -- and about 0.33% extra per year will be enough to ensure that our dire salary compression problems are not reproduced in the next generation of faculty. The administrative burden of the faculty salary policy has been estimated at a million dollars or so, but there is no calculation offered to support this figure.

The policy would provide a default adjustment for all faculty on cost of living and provide merit increases for all faculty, but schools could opt out of the tiers with a majority vote by faculty. Although the policy is affordable with its default percentages in most colleges, the working group realized from the start that those percentages may not be appropriate for some colleges. The proposal has various options built in for addressing this. Most importantly, a college, school, or campus, by vote of its faculty, can customize the tier-raise and market-adjustment formulas to ones that are more appropriate for their financial circumstances. They can also opt out of the tier portion of the policy if necessary, but customizing raise sizes should be sufficient for the vast majority of colleges.

4. Research misconduct policy.

Duane will prepare a letter of complaint about the policy recently adopted. Two issues: 1) administration names “federal regulation” requiring the new policy, without citing specific regulation. 2) the policy eliminates the use of adjudication, which is unfair.

5. Fee based degree program.

GPSS and UAW are mobilizing to address the inequities created by fee-based programs. Now 56% of Seattle campus master program students are in fee-based programs. The inequities for fee-based students are substantial. Students in fee-based programs are systematically denied TA and RA positions (because tuition waivers are more expensive to departments), dual degree programs require double tuition, registration is manual (on paper), GOMAP (minority) scholarships are denied, and other inequities pertain. Amy will be presenting a problem statement to the Faculty Council to Teaching and Learning, with the hope of interesting the committee in working on the issue.

6. ABB committees.

When are these committees reporting? Summer tuition all goes to PCE, thus undermining incentives to offer summer classes.

7. Intellectual property.

No meetings this year have occurred to resolve the concerns about the issues.

8. Dental school

We discussed the dental school’s $29 million deficit problem, how it might have occurred, and the role the Dental School faculty council may have played (or not) in crafting solutions. We await word from our dental school colleagues on how we can help.

9. Nominating committee

The nominating committee reported it has identified five new board candidates to stand for board election this quarter. We could modify our bylaws to create new VP positions for Membership, Mailing list moderation (2 positions), and website management. We would like to ask Diane Morrison to help Abraham Flaxman with list server moderation.

We will ask Michael Forman to run the election.

10. SEIU/AAUP relations

We discussed the AAUP leadership letter to the AAUP board regarding relations with SEIU.