UW Chapter AAUP Executive Board meeting MINUTES

Wednesday February 24, 3 pm to 5 pm

UW Bothell, Rose Room

Members present:

Rob Wood, Atmospheric Sciences, President

Dan Jacoby, UW Bothell Interdisciplinary, VP

Amy Hagopian, Public Health, Secretary

Bert Stover, Family Medicine & EOHS, Treasurer

Abraham Flaxman, Global Health (phone)

Christoph Giebel, Jackson School

Jay Johnson, emeritus Environmental & Forest

Jack Lee, Math

Max Lieblich, Math (phone)

Ann Mescher, Mechanical Engineering

Diane Morrison, School of Social Work

Duane Storti, Engineering

Libi Sundermann, UW Tacoma (tried, phone didn’t work)

Absent:

Michael Honey, UW Tacoma

Bruce Kochis, UW Bothell

Kari Lerum, UW Bothell

Jane Koenig, School of Public Health emerita

Dan Luchtel, School of Public Health

Guests:

Louisa Edgerly, SEIU

Charlie Collins, IAS Bothell

Agenda:

1. Introductions

2. Announcements:

a. Regents Watch assignments and reports

i. Feb 11—Allen Library, not attended

ii. March 10—UW Bothell,

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

4. Workers Memorial report (Hagopian): vote on contribution

5. Academic Analytics (Rob Wood)

6. Use of lecturers (Dan Jacoby)*

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

8. Idea from Faculty Forward: combined membership in SEIU/AAUP. Next steps?

9. AAUP nominations for spring election: nominating committee update

10. Harry Bridges Forum report

Feb 23 & 24: Gary Rhoades in Seattle and Bothell

April1: Lillian Taiz

11. Reports:

a. Treasurer

b. Faculty Senate: Provost issue, ABB survey, Research Misconduct policy

c. Reclaim UW

d. Regents Watch

1.  Welcome to the Bothell campus! Introductions.

2.  Announcements Regents Watch assignments and reports

Rob wasn’t able to attend the Regents meeting on Feb. 11,

Do we have a Bothell member to attend the meeting on March 10 on that campus (Bruce Kochis?)

We discussed the Regents vote to remove the More Hall Annex, the historic nuclear reactor building, which has been discussed on our list server. It seems there is need for YACSB (Yet Another Computer Science Building). The University Archives holds extensive records documenting the history of the UW’s reactor, including its decommissioning, as well as records of the former Nuclear Engineering Dept. These collections are located in Special Collections, in the basement of the Allen Library:

UW Dept. of Nuclear Engineering--http://digital.lib.washington.edu/findingaids/permalink/UWResource00336/

UW Radiation Safety Office--http://digital.lib.washington.edu/findingaids/permalink/UWResource00442/

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

We agreed there was no point in rehashing the unfortunate Regents bill loss. Ann noted when she was there on January 20 to testify on the Regents bill, she noted there was a measure to separate the UW campuses (Bothell, Tacoma), seemed to be an R bill, but it failed. The three-year degree bill has been hot for the last 24 hours; it would apply only to the regional campuses, though. The FY 17 legislative funding proposals are not yet firm enough to discuss.

3. Treasurer’s report. We have $20,600 in the bank; we owe $5500 to national AAUP. We have $15,000 remaining, but anticipate paying for 4 trips (Michael Honey to annual meeting, and 3 Rutgers visitors for our annual meeting

3. Workers Memorial event report (Hagopian): We voted to make a $150 contribution to the Workers Memorial event, which commemorates all those who lost their lives at work in 2015. The keynote speaker will be Rebecca Saldaña, from Puget Sound SAGE, who will speak to the plight of gig workers.

4. Academic Analytics (Rob Wood)

Rob was invited to attend a phone conference (sponsored by David Hughes at Rutgers) to discuss the company, Academic Analytics, which collects data on faculty to report to their institutions. The data are used by some subscribing universities to provide evidence for promotions, tenure and/or salary. While there is a plethora of new electronic applications for gathering publications and other metrics (e.g. WOS, Google Scholar, Research Gate....), most are open. Academic Analytics is a different model, in that subscriptions are expensive and its sources are web searches, rather than faculty-supplied data. AA develops a mean score for each faculty member (compared with peers in their field). Rutgers apparently pays $140K or so for its subscription, first signed in 2013. It’s unclear whether UW is a subscriber. The data aren’t publicly available, but some Academic Analytics metrics are reported on UW websites. Apparently Academic Analytics metrics are very poor, and particularly poor at measuring "grantsmanship" (it does measure # and $$ of grants over four years), as it mostly fails to find non-federal grants, and doesn’t count co-PIships. AA doesn’t count book chapters, patents, collaborative work with industry, work with NGOs and social movements, public engagement work, or software produced by faculty. The fear is that administration will use this information to reshape the university, producing "cost effective" departments at the expense of others. The U Florida has it, as does the U of Oregon (where it is used to rank departments by performance and budget decisions, but not T&P).

There is an article in Chronicle of Higher Ed about the company:

http://chronicle.com/article/Can-Data-Measure-Faculty/234595

TO DO: Rob will put out a call for information about whether and how Academic Analytics is used at the UW on the list server, with a summary of our concerns.

5. Use of lecturers (Dan Jacoby)

Dan and other AAUP board members have worked over the last several years to improve the job security and working conditions of lecturers (non-tenure track faculty), as part of ur AAUP strategic plan.

In Fall 2014, there were close to 1000 lecturers on UW campuses, including more than 500 part-time non-competitively hired lecturers. Provost Gerry Baldasty put together a fact sheet on the issue (see below). In 2013-14 then-Provost Cauce issued guidelines that all full time non-competitively hired lecturers go up for a search within 3 years. Her guidelines were at least partly a response to some of our advocacy work.  However, as we noted at the time it did not address the situation of part time lecturers, who form the largest element of non-competitively hired faculty. Instead, she insisted the UW would deal with part-time faculty at later time. The provost refused to consider any eligibility of non-competitively hired lecturers for multi-year contracts through any process other than a competitive search Following the 2014 Tri-campus task force report the provost promulgated new guidelines that were not publicly posted or debated. The new guideline required lecturers having .50 FTE (or greater) lecturers to go up for a search within 2 years. More than 500 faculty in non-competitive ranks are in the part time pool, though no data is available on the number working 50% FTE or greater on an annual basis. So far,  the new search policies have resulted in a number of non-renewals of full time lecturers, and we can resasonably anticipate that part-time lecturers ( a misnomer in itself) will have fewer chances to work .5 FTE or more, the level at which benefits are accorded.  The piecemeal strategy of dealing with different segments of the lecturer population has not served us. Part time people can remain indefinitely in their positions, at this point. Dan talked with Gerry Baldasty, in the past Fall who said he didn’t know he had little knowledge of the situation but that he believed the issues were being prioritized by the Senate The Deans and Chancellors scheduled a meeting to the new policy, and apparently have recommended its continuance. Dan has an appointment with Gerry in April, and Cheryl Cameron will (remarkably) attend, as will Norm Beauchamp. 

Is current policy and practice consistent with the tri-campus task force? The idea of requiring a search is often promoted by progressive people because it can promote diversity. On the other hand, current employees are unable to obtain job security. Tufts and U of O and the University of Denver have collectively bargained contract language that provide greater security for their lecturers.

Jack reported Faculty Council and Faculty Affairs are supposed to be discussing this topic. What proposal are they considering? The policies aren’t public.

Fact Sheet: Lecturers play a critical role at UW.

Diane said there is no guarantee that competitively hired people will favor diversity. There is very little color diversity in the ranks as it is. The diversity thing is probably a red herring.

Bothell just issued a task force report. The cost is a barrier to resolving the issue.

Amy described the situation in her program, where 2/3 of the 26 faculty are part time lecturers, all with day jobs somewhere else. It’s hard to call on them to the governance of work of admissions, peer reviews, curriculum work, and other infrastructure requirements.

Diane noted there is no real oversight of these teachers, either.

What to do?

1. The Senates could consider a Council for Contingent Faculty, originally proposed by Ann a few years ago.

2. Libbi has suggested a response to the Fact Sheet.

3. Diane suggested an AAUP task force.

4. Write a resolution and/or letter calling attention to the Faculty Senate recommendations with regard to the part-time non-competitive lecturers, and that there’s been no response. Letter to Gordon Watts (Faculty Council on Faculty Affairs) and Baldasty.

5. DECIDED: We will draft a letter/resolution for circulation to board members. Dan to lead.

6. AAUP annual meeting:

Amy has invited a team from Rutgers (David Hughes, Ann Gould, Karen Stubaus) to comprise the program for our May 9 annual AAUP meeting.

We decided the format would be: 10 m each, followed by a fishbowl conversation with each speaker sitting in an armchair, then a moderator who would pose a question or two, then take questions from audience. We’d have a microphone on the floor for audience questions. We’ll ask Gina Neff to be moderator (she accepted!).

Amy and Bert will get refreshments from Costco and set them up at back of Lyceum at 3 pm.

Amy has been arranging meetings for the speakers with their counterparts on campus (Organizing Committee for David Hughes, Provost Baldasty for Karen Stubaus, and Norm Beauchamp/Zoe Barsness for Ann Gould).

Amy will deal with travel plans, photos, filmmaker, people to help at the door, refreshments, name tags, sign in, membership sign ups.

We’ll arrange for a dinner with AAUP board members on May 9 evening at Ivar’s.

7. We discussed List Server concerns, some of which lately have bordered on personal attacks. If we block things, we are charged with censorship. It’s been challenging for Abie and Rob, our moderators, to manage.

Comments: It’s the AAUP List Server; when the Seattle Times doesn’t print a letter, that is not censorship. It’s about appearance, though. Individuals observing the list server feel the tone is threatening, and shutting people down who are afraid of being attacked. We have an interest in maintaining the readership and participation, and these dominant voices lead people to unsubscribe. What if we had a monthly posting limit? Nah, that won’t work.

Abie suggested an open list server owned by AAUP that isn’t moderated. The UW faculty community could be offered the opportunity to subscribe to either the un-moderated list or the moderated one.

We take pride in taking the high road in our responses. We need to be calm and issue focused, and maintain our credentials as models of high road message.

TO DO: Amy will draft a statement of concern from AAUP board about the tenor of dialogue and circulate for edits. The message will note that subscribers and posters don’t need to respond to every response to something you said. Not all conversations need a last word; some things can take a pause to reflect.  Remind people that AAUP officers are maintaining a list server at some personal cost to ourselves, including time and energy. 4 people are dominating. Our job is to maintain the high quality content and academic culture of the list. Academic freedom is important, so we let people talk. Readers should not that while AAUP has a stand on unionization we are still hosting a forum for a wide open debate. Interesting that union/Palestine overlap has appeared. The list server is occasionally threatened by people who mis-use it and drive the quality down. Some people might get moratoriums.

8. Is it time to propose a combined membership in SEIU/AAUP? Along the way to the PERC election, perhaps we should have an open membership model. More to come.

9. AAUP nominations for spring election. Dan, Amy and Rob will comprise the nominating committee, but we need a member who is NOT a current board member. The election to two-year terms is in Spring. We suggested Michael Forman as a non-AAUP board member. Amy was named chair of the committee.

10. Harry Bridges Forum report

Gary Rhoades was in Seattle yesterday and Bothell today. Both conversations were modestly attended, but he made a great presentation. He brings an academic approach to the evidence surrounding the effects of unionization on faculty, not too much cheerleading. He helped us understand the sociological concerns that seem to be surfacing in our debate here: status concerns, concerns about SEIU, and relationships with the legislature.

Next up! April 1: Lillian Taiz, president of Cal State system, will address the SEIU question.

10. Reports:

Faculty Senate:

Gerry Baldasty is still listed as an acting Provost. Ana Mari has not said another word about a search.

Research Misconduct policy went into effect Feb. 12. Unspecified federal regulations are still cited. We remain dissatisfied with the policy, which does not permit binding arbitration to resolve disputes about research misconduct.

Salary policy. The policy passed first consideration in December. It went to the January SEC meeting, but was delayed by Code cops for further analysis. The SEC, however, approved the revised measure for a Faculty Senate second vote next week.

The original proposal could also still be considered, but President Cauce has threatened to veto that version. When the first proposal came out, the professional schools were concerned. Meetings were held, and two changes were proposed that seemed to make them happy. What the medical school most wanted was to avoid scheduling a vote of the full faculty on every tier advancement. A change was made to allow schools to delegate tier advancement decisions (and the reviews underlying them) to a committee (with a faculty vote to approve that process). President Cauce, however, maintained the tier recommendations needed to be voted on by faculty. Her compromise was that it was fine for the committee recommendations to be made en bloc, allowing the faculty to vote to support them all at once (without an individual review of each case).

The proposers of the policy tried to avoid having specific numbers in the policy. Since the transition raises are one-time things, they could be written in the code; the President wanted to be able to reduce those. Originally, variable adjustments were flexible and regular to allow keeping up with peers. Under the new policy, a college can propose variable adjustments, the Provost would approve or deny a UW-wide plan, then money goes to departments, then dept faculty have to approve the department-level plan for distribution.

Christoph asked about the Feb. 18 letter from the Board of Deans and Chancellors denouncing the plan, and asked how influential it would be. The deans will lose some power of independent action, admittedly. When the policy goes to the Senate next week for 2^nd vote, it may be influential. We will be looking for communications from deans to their faculty attempting to influence the vote. Vote would be open 2-3 weeks.

The salary policy calls for hearings for dissatisfied faculty.

Preserving institutional knowledge in the Senate. Duane introduced a code amendment to SEC to allow senators to serve 3 (rather than 2) consecutive 2-year terms. The SEC reaction was favorable and it will be included for initial consideration at the senate meeting. The idea is to allow for more institutional memory in the senate without messing up the election process or the regular introduction of new senate members. Will come up for second hearing at Senate meeting next week. [note: this passed]

Errata:

Regents Faculty Representation vote. Last month, we supported the legislative bill to provide for faculty representation on the Board of Regents. While the Senate had a 2007 resolution already in support, it was asked to vote on a resolution introduced by Astley, Hopkins, Edwards and Treser to not support the current bill (the one supported by AAUP and Faculty Forward).

From the Jan. 28 Senate minutes:

d. Class C Resolution concerning adding a faculty representative to the membership of the Board of Regents. [Exhibit H]

Senator Paul Hopkins made the motion; it was seconded. FLR JoAnne Taricani presented the legislative history of four previous bills to add a faculty regent; all were unsuccessful. A bill was introduced during the current legislative session that did not emerge from the Senate; Taricani addressed limitations in that bill. She asked the Senate to advise her on what she should present to the legislature. Discussion followed. There was universal support for a faculty regent, with additional support for multi-year term, a pool of nominees to be considered (broader than the past-chair of the Senate), involvement of the Senate, collaboration with WSU and/or the other 4-year institutions.

Amendment to remove the middle two Whereas statements. Made by Storti, seconded.

Discussion. Amendment passed.

January 11, 2016 SEC Agenda 24 Exhibit H

Resolution concerning adding a faculty representative to the membership of the Board of Regents.

WHEREAS, we as members of the Faculty Senate support the idea of a faculty member sitting on the University of Washington Board of Regents; therefore

BE IT RESOLVED, that the Faculty Senate leadership direct the appropriate faculty governance councils and committees, such as the Faculty Council on Faculty Affairs and the Senate Executive Committee, to explore and recommend the best means of proposing the addition of a faculty member as a voting member of the Board of Regents, including the manner of selecting potential faculty regents and potential partnerships with the other public four-year universities in the state. This discussion and resulting recommendations should be completed prior to the beginning of the 2017 legislative session.

Submitted by:

Susan Astley, Senator, School of Public Health

Paul Hopkins, Senator, College of Arts and Sciences

Kelly Edwards, Senator, School of Medicine

Chuck Treser, Chair, Faculty Council on Student Affairs

Regents Watch assignments and reports

· March 10—UW Bothell, we nominated Bruce Kochis (or Charlie Collins?)

· April 14—Allen Library, Amy Hagopian      

· May 12—Allen Library

· June 9—Allen Library

· 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)

RESOLUTION TEXTS: we did not address this.

1.     UW AAUP supports the Academic Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act

The University of Washington Chapter of the American Association of University Professors supports a Washington State version of the multi-state  Academic Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act, which clarifies that it is unlawful for a publicly operated institution of higher education to take adverse employment action, or otherwise retaliate against a faculty member or graduate student instructor for expression related to academic scholarship, academic research, or classroom instruction. We encourage lawmakers to adopt the legislation, which protects whistleblowers and any “expression related to any matter of institutional policy or action that is of public concern” and “public expression related any matter of social, political, economic, or other interest.”