MINUTES of AAUP
Executive Board meeting, Wednesday 5 April 2017, 3:30-5:20pm
Attendance: Dan Jacoby/president, Amy Hagopian/secretary, Bert
Stover/treasurer, Abraham Flaxman/List server VP, Max Lieblich,
Diane Morrison, Eva Cherniavsky, Duane Storti.
Guest: Zoe Barsness, Faculty Senate Chair (UW Tacoma business school
faculty)
Absent: Hwasook Nam, Christoph Giebel, Ann
Mescher, Charlie Collins, Michael Honey, Jim Liner, Rob
Wood/past-president, Jay Johnson, Bruce Kochis, Jim
Gregory, Libi Sundermann.
Follow-up items from last month:
Membership: Thanks
to the SEIU list, we have increased list server membership by 10%. AmyÕs
student Christina Leal has posted AAUP posters across campus; weÕre paying her
as an hourly student.
Theo Myhre talk is still being negotiated. We are co-sponsors.
AAUP Lecturer status issue
Zoe Barsness, Faculty Senate chair, came to discuss with us the
Lecturer issue. The Board of Regents dedicated its January meeting to faculty
issues, and Zoe joined that meeting; the topic of lecturers was featured. Eric Bugyis, a faculty union member, came to that meeting too.
Lecturer
guidelines came out in 2015. There has been a substantial increase in FT
competitively hired and a corresponding decrease in FT faculty hired non-competitively
on short term contracts. We asked how many are still in part-time positions. Zoe
also talked about the need for a cultural shift, but was not yet certain that tenure
track faculty recognize lecturers fully. She said members of the Faculty
Council on Faculty Affairs after attempting to address the code changes
required by the proposed faculty salary policy wholesale and failing at that
approach, felt that addressing lecturer issues via incremental changes to the
code might have a better chance at working their way through the Senate.
One goal is to
extend voting rights to part-time (50% and above) lecturers, and another is to
drop a research publication requirement for teaching positions, although such
research might still be recognized as fulfilling the requirement of all faculty
at the UW to engage in scholarship. But how do we determine a personÕs FTE
status (full year average, by quarter)? And at what point in the year do we
know someoneÕs FTE statusÑin time for them to vote? Dan suggested a fair policy
might be to have lecturers be voted into a Òvoting rightsÓ status, similar to
how we do graduate school status. Dan reported Provost Baldasty
is talking about a 15% cap on part time lecturers at Bothell. Dan noted these
issues donÕt get discussed by the faculty in a robust fashion, however. Concern
was expressed that current legislation being brought by FCFA may drive more
people to <50% status to keep them from voting. The Provost still approves
new hires, but he doesnÕt create lines. Do we know the cost of moving everyone
in a part-time position to a 50% minimum position?
Dan crafted a statement
on Lecturers, focusing on the concerns of the part-time people. Action: Dan will put the first paragraph of the statement on
the list server to generate discussion and case examples, and reference the
rest of the statement on our website. HereÕs the paragraph: Now, five years after the UW AAUP publicly
advocated for measures to improve UW lecturer job security and working
conditions, itÕs time to renew university discussions. Much work has been done since that time
but several of the thorniest issues still remain, especially concerns involving
those who are referred to as part-time non-competitively recruited
lecturers Over the last three
years the ProvostÕs Office has published several guidelines
relating to the hire and renewal of lecturers. These guidelines have received little
faculty notice and even less discussion. One essential prerequisite to public
discussion requires the administration to fulfill the ProvostÕs Tri-Campus Committee
on Lecturer 2014 Recommendation that it Ògather and report recruitment,
appointment, and reappointment data on full- and part-time lecturers in each
appointing unit, for the next five years at least.Ó If such data has been gathered, we
urge that it be made publicly available for discussion. Without such data, we cannot know
whether current guidelines and policies are being adhered to, and if they are,
whether this has occurred through the creation of more benefit ineligible
part-time lecturers who work under conditions of extreme insecurity.
Dental school Deficit
Last March the Regents
approved the financial stability plan with the proviso the Faculty Council
would be consulted about the plan. We are aware the Faculty Council in
Dentistry wrote a letter (May 12, 2016) rejecting the Dentistry DeanÕs
Financial Stability Plan, and yet the plan appears to have gone forward without
faculty support. An Exec Comm, including a new
comptroller, is now in place to monitor and manage the financial situation, and
there is also now a Solutions Committee (chaired by the Elected Faculty Council
chair and staffed primarily by faculty) which is working to identify solutions
to address the annual deficit. We are also aware of rumors related to
administrationÕs desire to close the Dental School, although Zoe reports that Provost
Baldasty has stated at an ÒAll HandsÓ meeting of Dental
School faculty, staff and administrators that the school is not going to close.
An internal audit revealed there are multiple sources of problems, including
the Sand Point-based Medicaid clinic, but also other clinics. Action: we will monitor this to see what the new committees
will do this month, then consider a letter.
We are aware the
current estimate of the deficit is $35 million, as reported by Katherine Long
in the Seattle Times on March 12, 2017, although the DDS Solutions Chair
indicates that this is actually the cumulative debt, with the annual deficit
amounting to 5 or 6 million. There
has been no direct communication from UW administration to the campus community
about this.
There is
considerable turmoil among faculty in the Dental School, some of whom report
unfortunate political dynamics such as loyalty to the Dean rewarded by
favoritism, rather than attention to solving the problem.
We wrote to the
Senate Committee on Planning and Budgeting last spring, copies to Provost Baldasty and President Cauce and
Dean Berg, but received no reply. We noted that, consistent with the UW Faculty
Code, faculty councils Òshall advise the dean on matters of faculty promotion
and tenure, and advise the dean on matters involving academic policy, including
priorities, resource and salary allocation, and budgetsÓ [UW
Faculty Code, Section 23-45C].
It was our
understanding that the SOD Faculty Council were not consulted by the SOD dean
prior to, or during, the creation of the FSP. The SOD Faculty Council were only
notified by Dean Berg about the FSP after it was presented to the UW Board of
Regents at their meeting on April 14, 2016. The absence of faculty involvement
in addressing the serious financial problems being faced by the SOD is
particularly troubling from a shared governance perspective, and moreover is in
violation of the UW Faculty Code.
The SOD Faculty
Council provided a written response to the FSP on May 12 in which they express
concerns that the FSP will not result in a balanced budget for the SOM. We
suggest that it would be appropriate for the Senate Committee on Planning and
Budgeting (SCPB) to undertake an investigation of the FSP and its potential for
addressing the financial problems facing the SOM.
Strategic Agenda 2017-2018
Approved as is,
ready for posting to the website. Action: post to the
website.
Annual meeting
May 3, 2017: Hugh
Spitzer has agreed to be our speaker. Paul Hodgins, UW lobbyist, has agreed to
join a response panel. Who else can we get? Legislators (Lynda Wilson, Gerry Pollet)? Stan Barer? GPSS? SEIU? WEA? Someone to make the
business case? Can we talk about
how to use SpitzerÕs argument to boost spending on higher ed?
It would be great
to do a showing of Starve the Beast
in the fall, as a way to transition our annual meeting to the fall. Eva talked
about her friends who are co-authoring a new book on faculty. Chris Newfield
(Unmaking the Public University) and Michael Meranze
(Remaking the University).
To whom shall we
issue any awards? Aaron Katz was an effective presence in the Senate.
Promotion: UW
Today, our list server.
Action
item: invite speakers to the annual meeting response panel, promote the event.
UW Resist
Does it still
exist? Hard to know how to connect at this point. There is an emerging
Sanctuary Campus Collective, http://www.sanctuarycollective.net/, which may serve some of the
functions of UW Resist. We see intersections with our mission. Action: weÕll continue to find opportunities to connect.
Shooter
Are we satisfied
with the UWÕs response to the January 20 Red Square shooting? UWPD has botched
this investigation, and no prosecution has resulted. What would have happened
if a police officer was shot? The shooting of a protestor seems unimportant to
the authorities. Is this our issue? It affects campus climate, it undermines
public expression, discourages people from coming to campus for evening events.
The ÒConcerned FacultyÓ never received a response to their call for a public
review board of UWPD. AAUP could ask UW administration to do a public forum on
debriefing the associated policies and what appropriate university responses
would be in response to future kinds of offensive events on campus? If there
was a rally called at the fountain for those who oppose Breitbart that might
have been a satisfying alternative (as opposed to asking people to go to an
event at ECC). Regents could bring charges. LetÕs talk more on line. Who would
sponsor such an event? A faculty council? The Provost? Action:
a subcommittee will consider the options.
Announcements
On Monday 27March
2017, Judge Ramsdell of King County Superior Court
granted SEIUÕs motion for a permanent injunction against releasing about 3,000
pages of Rob WoodÕs emails to the Freedom Foundation. We anticipate appeal, but
this is very good news. ItÕs a helpful precedent to the request for AmyÕs
records, but there will still likely be lots of work involved in that fight.
The faculty regent
bill, House Bill 1437, is dead for this session. Aaron Katz joined several WSU
and UW faculty members last week in testifying on behalf of in front of the
Senate Higher Education Committee. Unfortunately, it appears this was only a
courtesy hearing and there is no intention to move it forward. Some pieces of
legislation take several cycles to get through. Lynda Wilson will likely remain
the chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee in the 2018 session.
WeÕll carry the
AAUP banner at the April 22 march for science. (Eva
has it)
DROPPING
Regents Watch
Items
weÕre monitoring
1)
State Ethics board investigation into
Higher Ed Forum posting on List Server
2)
Faculty Regent bill
3)
Freedom Foundation request for emails
4)
Dental School deficit
5)
Lecturer status
6)
Higher ed
finance
7)
Hate crimes on campus
8)
The shooting and UWPD issues
AAUP
schedule 2016/2017 (3:30 pm to 5 pm), remaining meetings