Newsletter | December 2019 – January 2020

Wake Forest University AAUP

Please reserve the fourth Monday of the month for this semester’s meetings  (Jan. 27, Feb. 24, Mar. 23, Apr. 27, 3:30-4:30, Tribble A108). You do not have to be an AAUP member to attend. 

NEXT MEETING: January 27, 3:30-4:30, Tribble Hall A108

Agenda:

1. Priorities: 

    Shared University Governance: awareness, education, information 

    Nominations for College Committees

2. Updates:

     Breakdown of benchmark data for the Wake Listens Survey 

    Follow-up on 2nd year of salary commitment for AY 2019-2020

    Update on non-permanent faculty issues (ATPs, VAPs, adjuncts)

    Audit of senate resolutions

    Website: 

         Administration Organizational flowcharts

         College, Senate bylaws

         Where colleagues go for help, support, complaints?

         Add to the FAQs: what do faculty need to know? 

Mission and Goals: 

WFU AAUP embraces the mission of the national American Association of University Professors (AAUP) which advances academic freedom and shared governance; defines fundamental professional values and standards for higher education; promotes the economic security of faculty, academic professionals, graduate students, post‐doctoral fellows, and all those engaged in teaching and research in higher education,  helps the higher-education community organize to make our goals a reality; and, advocates for higher education’s contribution to the common good.

Academic Freedom on the Managed Campus

A substantial component of skyrocketing administrative costs invest in managerial technologies applying to all aspects of campus life: from online learning systems, to course assessment and student evaluation of faculty, to equity evaluations and seminars about workplace harassment. At a time of pronounced austerity in higher education, many colleges and universities dedicate hundreds of thousands of dollars to private consulting. The increasing reliance on these multiple managerial technologies is unregulated by and often beyond the reach of democratic governance by, or even input from, faculty, staff, and students. 

Call for papers: For its next volume, scheduled for publication in fall 2020, the AAUP’s Journal of Academic Freedom seeks original, scholarly articles exploring the ways the myriad managerial techniques in use on campuses today affect academic freedom and democratic faculty governance. Electronic submissions of no more than 8,000 words should be sent to jaf@aaup.org by February 3, 2020, and must include an abstract of about 150 words. Please read the editorial policy at https://www.aaup.org/about-jaf prior to submitting.

In Defense of Knowledge and Higher Education

On January 9, 2020 the AAUP issued In Defense of Knowledge and Higher Education, a statement that advances an impassioned argument for the importance of expert knowledge and the institutions of higher education that produce and transmit it. Addressing an ongoing movement in the United States to attack the disciplines and higher education institutions, the statement defends the critical role these institutions perform in producing the knowledge that sustains American democracy, especially in this moment of intense global instability. In Defense of Knowledge and Higher Education was prepared by the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and has been endorsed so far by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the Council of University of California Faculty Associations, the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, PEN America, and the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

AAUP Articles on Targeted Harassment of Faculty

Given recent events on campus and the need to develop protocols dealing with Targeted Harassment, we offer links to a series of AAUP articles:

https://onefacultyoneresistance.org/faculty-attack-fighting-targeted-harassment/

https://www.aaup.org/news/targeted-online-harassment-faculty

https://www.aaup.org/article/state-profession-targeted-harassment%E2%80%94faculty-report-back

In addition, our AAUP colleague at Elon University, Megan Squire, professor of computer science and expert on rightwing harassment, especially in North Carolina, has shared the targeted harassment policy that the Elon AAUP chapter got passed and put into the faculty handbook. 

http://elon.smartcatalogiq.com/2019-2020/Faculty-Handbook/Definitions-and-Policy-Statements/Policy-Statements/Faculty-Support-and-Safety-Guidance-for-Targeted-Harassment

Colleagues at Elon continue to refine the document and plan to move the “point person” out of Human Resources and into the Provost’s office.

Join the National AAUP

https://www.aaup.org/membership/join