MINUTES
of AAUP Executive Board meeting,
Wednesday
30 November 2017, 3:30-5:20pm
UW
Club
Three priorities in the current AAUP 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:
1. Announcements
2.
Follow-up on previous
items (if any): Dental School, Rachel Chapman case
3.
Report on FCFA and
Lecturer legislation
4.
Discussion of budget
and salary questions
5.
Survey plans
6.
Membership and Spring
Elections
a.
Acknowledge
resignation of Jim Liner
7.
Annual meeting plans
Minutes
Announcements/Brief discussions
· Faculty Forward annual meeting Friday, 11/17 was great.
· Federal tax reform bill will hurt higher education (and lots of other things), debate ongoing.
· The Faculty Senate is meeting concurrently with our meeting today. The intellectual property committee was reporting when Jay left. Little discussion of salaries at the faculty senate meeting. Joanne Taricani reported on legislative matters; We noted the issue of where she gets her direction for how she operates in Olympia (other than from Administration).
· We noted Jay’s problems with the new Workday payroll program.
· Eva has been involved in a negative tenure case for a junior female faculty member of color in Arts & Sciences. She didn’t meet the research requirement in her department because she received hostile mentorship and was subject to higher teaching requirements than promised and a culture tax. We’ll hear more.
· Dan and Amy met with Joseph Rajendran from Radiology, to offer personal support in his efforts to stay employed in a WOT environment.
Rachel Chapman update
Report is short, because a scheduled phone call to debrief thoroughly with Rachel didn’t occur. We understand the UCIRO effort delivered a verbal report to Dean Stacy this week, but could not divulge the substance of the report to Rachel. The UCIRO investigator, Nikolaus Schnermann, describes himself as not beholden to the UW, yet his salary and office are from the UW. Rachel is still being asked to do coaching.
Questions: Has Rachel talked with Mike Townsend? Who is the complainant? Who is driving the complaint? Will Stacy debrief Chapman? Is the “verbal only” rule written down somewhere?
There was a Faculty Code update about who can invoke a UCIRO investigation that was framed as a “housekeeping” repair but turned out to be substantive.
The
UW Faculty Code Section 25-71 (Standard of Conduct) calls
for a meeting between aggrieved parties to mediate, but that isn’t what
happened in Rachel’s or Amy’s cases.
No one oversees how these processes are conducted. SEC can interpret the Code, but there is no enforcement power.
We could get the national AAUP policy documents as a model to get incorporated into our Code.
Dan has drafted some questionnaires for the AAUP list on faculty disciplinary issues, immigration issues, and more.
Duane asked Mike Townsend if we can track the number of people who have been disciplined, but that information doesn’t seem to be available in an aggregate form.
Report on Faculty Council on Faculty Affairs and Lecturer
legislation
Dan reported the legislative agenda was going to include a provision that salary increments should be covered by the state line.
Dan is hosting a gathering at his home this week with lecturers on what their issues are. There is a concern that lecturers have very little voting authority. Do assistant professors need to vote on lecturers? Maybe it’s bad policy for new assistant professors to vote on lecturers.
With regard to promotion, some would like to opt out of promotion reviews.
Duane noted we might advocate for lecturers to be on roll-over two-year contracts, so if they are terminated they have a year’s notice.
Non-competitive part-time (<50%) lecturers will not be renewed after 2018 or 2019 without a search. Apparently there was a change in terminology from “non-competitive” to “temporary.” Now there the science and math division in Tacoma wants to hire “competitive temporary” lecturers. After that a new search would need to be done (temporarily competitive). These are Code issues, but not clear anyone who is clear on the Code is involved.
What are the Seattle lecturer issues, and are they different from Bothell and Tacoma?
The WOT issue is another problem we could pursue.
Discussion of budget and salary questions
Jay noted the discussion in the Senate about how the legislature passes salary increases without appropriating sufficient funds for them.
Membership and Survey plans
How do we build momentum on our issues? What is the space we occupy that is unique? Where do we overlap with the Faculty Forward union?
AAUP can serve as a kitchen cabinet to the Senate. In that way, we have value in gathering information from the faculty about concerns. We also have a stake in faculty shared governance, and identifying problems (e.g., Dean Berg’s reappointment). Dispute resolution could be important for us. Legislative agenda? Academic freedom and travel mobility.
The use of our list server on sustained conversations regarding matters of the day is important. In the salary discussion, it’s important to underscore that the Faculty Code is not a contract, and only a union gives us the standing to negotiate a contract.
In the matter of case management, perhaps that’s more Faculty Forward territory?
A survey makes us visible. We’re also interested in gathering information. Should we revisit our former survey, so we can compare results over time? Amy will forward the last survey’s questions to Dan for his consideration. Dan circulated some “one question” surveys on issues of disciplinary matters and immigration problems; we had concerns people not want to share such personal information with us.
The annual meeting is a good vehicle. We need to build attendance. Organizing a seminar and a blog is part of our goal.
Spring Elections
Zahr Said, associate professor in Law, is someone we’d like to attract.
It would be good to recruit people to the board who have specific topical interests and are willing to move those through.
We acknowledge resignation of Jim Liner.
==============follow up on
previous issues=======================
Dental school
From last meeting, AAUP conclusion: think about outcomes, what is desirable and doable from the faculty’s point of view? How can we get this school back on its feet? AAUP can help document what the Council wants, and help consider how publicizing things might help (or not). We could do a survey, write letters to individuals, post things on the list server. Let’s keep the conversation going.
UW Master Plan discussion
Diane was not here to report.
Dispute resolution
Rob Wood was not here to talk about his service on the Faculty Senate Task Force on the Faculty Disciplinary Code and Process.
Annual Meeting of AAUP chapter
members
The UW Chapter AAUP Annual meeting is now set for Friday, January 26, 3:30 pm, with Chris Newfield and Michael Meranze. We’ll schedule dinners surrounding the visit: Eva will organize dinner with our speakers on Wednesday 1/24.
Remaking the Public University blog http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/
Treasurer’s report
Bert was not present to report.
December: none
THURSDAY Jan 11 (UW Club)
FRIDAY Jan 26 annual meeting (details to come
on location)
MONDAY Feb 5
MONDAY March 5
MONDAY April 9
THURSDAY May 10