MINUTES
of AAUP Executive Board meeting,
Wednesday
28 September 2017, 3:30-5:20pm
Three priorities in this cycle’s strategic plan:
1. the escalating division of insecure academic labor
2. reductions and restructuring of public funding and budgeting processes
3. the increasingly hostile environment affecting students and faculty
Items we’re monitoring
Faculty Regent bill
Freedom Foundation request for emails
Dental School deficit
Lecturer job security
Higher ed finance
Hate crimes on campus &
The shooting and UW Police Department issues
The use of the UW’s “workplace violence” rule to pursue faculty
Agenda:
3:30 Welcome back, Introductions, Minutes
3:35 Announcements
3:45 Membership
3:50 Annual Meeting (Newfield/Meranze Fri Jan 26)
*Fall Seminar?
*Research Teams?
4:05 UW Master Plan Coalition
4:20 Dental School report
4:20 Adjudication Issues/Questions
4:40 Web Opinion Page Policy
4:50 Good of the Order
5:00 Adjourn
Minutes
Membership & mechanics of our board: We worked hard to make Thursdays work for our regular meeting time, but it turns out to still be difficult. Bruce Kochis has a class, Duane has a meeting on Thursdays. Shall we try for Monday afternoons? Amy will doodle that.
Amy moved and Diane seconded to add Theo Myhre to our AAUP board for the remainder of the academic year. Passed unanimously.
Annual Meeting of AAUP chapter
members
The UW Chapter AAUP Annual meeting is now set for Friday, January 26, 3 pm, with Chris Newfield and Meranze. We hope to stir a lot of conversations, perhaps to engineer exploration activities to examine how the UW is on the cutting edge of the privatization drive. Individual privatization projects include the GIX project with China, the digital evening degree, privatized master’s degrees. We could identify fruitful lines of inquiry around characteristics of these projects, failures of faculty governance, roles of donors.
“Un-Koch my Campus” is a student-driven effort to identify the various nefarious Koch-funded endeavors on campuses. Dozens of campuses have involvements with the Koch’s agenda. Does anyone know of any Un-Koch activities at UW? Perhaps USAS knows. The Un-Koch website says UW got $16K in 2015 directly from Koch, although there is also indirect money.
UW Master Plan discussion
In June, we considered whether to join the UW Master Plan Coalition. We have an interest in how the university connects with the UW, including in relation to the Master Plan. Amy circulated the SEIU letter to the City’s Design Review Planner (9/15/2017) outlining principles pertaining to housing, transporting, childcare, workplace justice and racial justice.
Corporate partnerships and privatization are driving the Master Plan. The corporate investment, of course, won’t cover the cost. The gross revenue will look great, but we will end up with net losses. How will this mega expansion and upzoning affect the balance of contingent faculty?
Max worried the immediate financial crises will be the focus on campus this year, not the Master Plan. Many of the colleges are running at deficit, and we’re at the limit of our borrowing capacity. We acknowledge we need alliances to other entities to save this institution, perhaps the likes of UW Master Plan coalition partners.
What more information do we need before deciding on how to engage with
the Master Plan?
-List of members of the coalition
-Presentation from David West
Without this information, we don’t have the clarity and unanimity to proceed.
With changes in city government this fall, we probably have some time to figure this out.
Are any AAUP affiliates on the Faculty Council for facilities and services? (Rich Christie, of Electrical Engineering, is chair).
No decision at this time.
Dental School update
Amy reported the faculty have three concerns:
1) Renewal of Dean’s appointment over the summer—based on what criteria? How could the dean be at such odds with the faculty, and have driven the school into such debt, and still be renewed?
2) The debt keeps growing (now at $40 million); the plan (never approved by the faculty) isn’t working.
3) The dean is unilaterally deciding how state line support for teaching is being distributed, and clinical money generated by faculty is being confiscated by the school; faculty are being asked to sign agreements to give back their clinical money to the school.
Address hot topics
Addressing dean and chair reappointments, prompted by the dental school’s experience, is a key issue we could focus on. We decided to explore sponsoring an open session to discuss dean reappointments.
Dan would like to use our web page to discuss these issues. It’s important, though, to distinguish opinions of AAUP from individual contributors. He’s looking for help conceptualizing these issues. Rob will help with this.
[name redacted] case update
Dean Stacey has “tabled” the persecution of [faculty member], although the initial letter of reprimand by her chair is still in her file. Was anything in her case handled according to Code? Her charges were retroactively “tabled” to make space for a UCIRO investigation. There is already documentation of racial bias in the department, including having a mediator to deal with racial bias in the department and a formal accommodation for a faculty member who has been excused from faculty meetings because they are so racially toxic. She is still accumulating legal fees, and who will be accountable for that? It may require her to file a lawsuit to get a settlement on that. Bob Stacey received a letter from African American alumni that may have played a role. A number of faculty showed up to support [name] at her meeting with her chair in the spring. Bob Stacey rejected our AAUP enquiries, dismissing our interest because it is “a personnel matter.” How public is this? Is national AAUP still interested? Amy & Eva will check in with her on this.
Note re. national AAUP
Jim Bakken is available to help on [name]’s case, the Dental School issues, or other issues. Let’s follow up on that.
The shooting? Where does that
stand?
The November 2016 assault on the Muslim woman freshman has never been fully resolved. It was not reported as a hate crime, perhaps because the intent of the assailant was not known. Amy and Eva have written an article for AAUP’s Academe journal, should be in the November issue.
Frivolous public records
requests.
There is a picket of the Freedom Foundation’s annual fundraising event tomorrow at the Bellevue Westin, organized by Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action.