A large group of faculty turned out for Monday´s meeting of the WFU AAUP. Only May’s emergency meeting on COVID-19 drew a bigger crowd. Many were there to express disappointment about the process by which the university offered faculty over age 60 an incentive to retire in 2021. The entire assembled group voted to voice the following concerns.
We understand that the University is suffering in many ways, including financially, as a result of the pandemic. However, we are concerned about a cost-cutting process involving the faculty that should have been done openly and in consultation with faculty and department chairs, and then executed in a professional manner.
The process was not transparent, and reveals a breakdown in communication with the faculty. The administration knows that the productivity and success of a department within the University is likely to be optimized when the department as a whole and particularly the department chair is on top of hiring, firing, and retirements among its members. A retirement schedule for each senior faculty member is a delicate and difficult decision in the best of times. In addition to the senior faculty member him/herself, it affects the student mentoring, course offerings, and scholarly productivity for the whole department. Should it be necessary to make faculty staffing reductions, the decisions should be made equitably on the basis of student needs and department chairs should be involved in the decisions.
The incentive plan was poorly rolled-out and generated bad feelings, ill will and confusion. It contained a gross error that, apparently, both the Legal Department and Human Resources rubber-stamped: tenured and tenureable professors are not “at-will” employees. Had they been consulted, any department chair would have caught this mistake.
Senior faculty are devoted to their profession and the University and in some cases, only secondarily think of themselves as employees. For those, the registered letter encouraging retirement by the end of the year was like a stab in the back. A more productive approach would be to have an open discussion with senior faculty and department chairs on how the university can survive the pandemic and beyond.
In addition, if a senior faculty member were to accept the retirement incentive, the administration must recognize that the options listed in the letter for continuing insurance are quite complicated and require a quick turn-around. The faculty ask for professional guidance and adequate time to make these critical choices.
Furthermore, the WFU AAUP strongly recommends that all faculty be treated equitably, particularly in retirement issues. For example, those faculty who in good faith already agreed to retire in 2021 should be eligible for the same sort of incentive packages offered to their colleagues.
We ask for a campus-wide letter acknowledging these concerns over what happened and the harm that this letter has engendered. We ask for guidance regarding insurance options. We ask for clarification of what the university seeks, and does not seek, in terms of reduction in the number of faculty working on the Reynolda campus. Faculty members, particularly the senior members, are eager to help craft the solution that best serves the students and the University as a whole.
Sincerely,
Jane W. Albrecht (in consultation with various faculty members), for the WFU AAUP Executive Committee
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:
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.
The meeting originally scheduled for November 25 did not take place due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Please reserve the fourth Monday of subsequent months for chapter 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.
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.
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:
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.
Please reserve the fourth Monday of the month for this year’s meetings (Oct 28, Nov 25, Jan 27, Feb 24, Mar 23, Apr 27). You do not have to be an AAUP member to attend.
NEXT MEETING: October 28, 3:30-4:30, Tribble Hall A108
Agenda:
1. Approval of minutes from the September meeting (on flip side of the distributed agenda)
2. Memberships, Buttons – dues $10
3. http://wfuaaup.org/ is our Website. A member of the Exec Comm will be liaison to the site.
“Get in touch” function corrected
Faculty Handbook and Senate bylaws to be added
Add a Flow Chart on Faculty Governance?
4. Salaries Update
A new peer group was adopted in the April 24, 2019 Senate meeting. What happened to it? Is it being used?
College Senators – proposing a new standing College Exec Com on Work-life and Compensation
5. ATP, Visiting Faculty and Adjunct issues (ongoing), report
Are there departments/programs flouting AAUP hiring rules for Visitors?
Teaching Professor Task Force
Adjunct issues
6. Crisis on role of Faculty Senate in shared governance
The Faculty Senate:
AAUP request or resolution to the Senate ExCom about whether the administration is complying with Senate resolutions. Ask Senate to do an audit on administration compliance with Senate resolutions.
Has the Senate followed up on recommendations from the two previous Senate reports on Institutes (ad hoc and CAFR)?
Peer group list (as above)
Why is there no faculty director of the Pro Humanitate Institute?
7. Ideas for educating colleagues about faculty governance?
8. Possible AAUP motion for a new College Committee on Workload and Compensation?
9. Wake Listens survey
10. Plans for an AAUP Happy Hour or Open House.
11. New issues?
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.
Gender-Based Pay Disparity Case
The AAUP has filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Professor Jennifer Freyd, who sued the University of Oregon (UO) for pay discrimination based on significant pay disparities with male faculty members.
The amicus brief notes that “the wage disparity in Freyd’s case is an example of the ongoing gender-based salary inequalities in the academic profession, generally, and for women full professors in doctoral institutions, in particular.”
Professor Freyd is paid substantially less than her male colleagues in the psychology department who hold the same positions as full professors. A 2016 department study found a “significant equity problem with respect to salaries at the full professor level.” The UO psychology department also underwent an external review, which found gender disparity in faculty salaries at the full professor level. It recommended that the department “continue pressing for gender equity in terms of pay at the senior levels of the faculty.” Both reviews traced the disparity back to retention raises given to male professors who pursued outside offers of employment.
While UO policy provides for gender equity adjustments, administrators failed to adjust Professor Freyd’s salary. The AAUP’s brief argues that the UO retention raise practice was not a valid defense to the discrimination claims, since UO policy provides for gender-equity adjustments but didn’t make any after boosting the pay of male faculty.
AAUP’s Position on Non-Tenure Track Faculty and Governance
The AAUP’s 1994 statement on faculty governance and academic freedom articulates the necessary reciprocal relationship between academic freedom and academic governance and urges faculty to participate in governance to prevent the loss of those powers of governance to the administration. The 2003 statement on contingent appointments recommends that such appointments include service as well as teaching and research. The statement also advocates the extension of shared governance responsibilities and opportunities to “all faculty,” including part- time faculty.
Many postdocs thus meet the criteria for being defined as “faculty.” These would include the relatively small number of postdocs outside of the sciences, where “postdoctoral fellow” is often another euphemism for “non-tenure- track, short- term faculty member.”
Classification is also difficult when administrative and teaching or research duties overlap in the same individual. In these instances we believe that those individuals who hold such appointments should be defined as “faculty” if their primary responsibility is teaching or research, rather than administration.
An institution or a department, if it wishes, should establish a time- in- service threshold for certain governance activities— for example, one year of service before a new faculty member is eligible to run for the faculty senate. This concern, however, applies equally to all faculty— full and part time, tenure track and contingent— and thus any restriction should apply equally to all faculty as well. If such a requirement for full- time faculty were expressed in calendar time (for instance, a year), it would have to be translated into terms (for instance, two semesters) for part- time faculty, in order to avoid excluding those who teach intermittently. It should also be noted that many contingent faculty have more multi- institutional experience than their tenure- track colleagues and that this experience is valuable in all governance functions as well as in other roles, such as teaching and research.
Eligibility for voting and holding office in institutional governance bodies should be the same for all faculty regardless of full- or part- time status. Institutions may wish to establish time- in- service eligibility requirements; if the eligibility requirement for full- time faculty is expressed in calendar time (for instance, a year), it would have to be translated into terms (for instance, two semesters) applicable to part- time faculty in order to accommodate those who teach intermittently.
Extracted with slight modifications from: https://www.aaup.org/report/inclusion-governance-faculty-members-holding-contingent-appointments
Please reserve the fourth Monday of the month for this year’s meetings, which are open to ALL faculty.
UPCOMING MEETING: September 23, 3:30-4:30, Tribble Hall A108
On the Agenda:
Approval of minutes of April, 2019 meeting.
Memberships, Buttons – local dues $10
Summary of progress made on corporate undue influence: Senate Draft of Resolutions on COI/GAC (Gift Acceptance Committee – handout; on website)
Salary update and new peer group, issues to be explored:
a) Are promises being kept for a two-year increase (this will be the 2nd year)?
b) Administrative bloat
c) The spring salary report should include VAP numbers for the first time.
d) The Chairs’ group is working on a new merit evaluation process.
e) Senate approval of new peer group for salary comparisons.
Teaching Professors – Longer contracts and other issues
Discussion of ideas for educating colleagues about faculty governance.
Possible AAUP motion and draft a charge for a new College Committee on Workload and Compensation?
Other issues? What are your biggest concerns?
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.
Towards Fair Salaries for All Faculty
Our voice has been heard. President Hatch announced in the Senate meeting on March 27, 2019 a significant increase in the salary pool next year and the year after. We hope that the two-year commitment will take us to where we need to be.
WFU AAUP will continue to monitor salaries, seek increases in the pool and the equitable allocation of salaries among the faculty.
Join WFU AAUP. There is strength in numbers and in knowing the facts and figures. You will find the latest average faculty salary and comparison salary tables on the website, wfuaaup.org, under Salary Issues (“2017-18 and 2018-19 Average Faculty Salaries, all Ranks, Reynolda Campus and College Only, with Instructor Breakout” and “2017-18 and 2018-19 Comparison of WFU and Nine Cross-admit Faculty Salaries and Benefits“).
AAUP’s Position on Non-Tenure Track Faculty and Governance
The AAUP’s 1994 statement on faculty governance and academic freedom articulates the necessary reciprocal relationship between academic freedom and academic governance and urges faculty to participate in governance to prevent the loss of those powers of governance to the administration. The 2003 statement on contingent appointments recommends that such appointments include service as well as teaching and research. The statement also advocates the extension of shared governance responsibilities and opportunities to “all faculty,” including part- time faculty.
Many postdocs thus meet the criteria for being defined as “faculty.” These would include the relatively small number of postdocs outside of the sciences, where “postdoctoral fellow” is often another euphemism for “non-tenure- track, short- term faculty member.”
Classification is also difficult when administrative and teaching or research duties overlap in the same individual. In these instances we believe that those individuals who hold such appointments should be defined as “faculty” if their primary responsibility is teaching or research, rather than administration.
An institution or a department, if it wishes, should establish a time- in- service threshold for certain governance activities— for example, one year of service before a new faculty member is eligible to run for the faculty senate. This concern, however, applies equally to all faculty— full and part time, tenure track and contingent— and thus any restriction should apply equally to all faculty as well. If such a requirement for full- time faculty were expressed in calendar time (for instance, a year), it would have to be translated into terms (for instance, two semesters) for part- time faculty, in order to avoid excluding those who teach intermittently. It should also be noted that many contingent faculty have more multi- institutional experience than their tenure- track colleagues and that this experience is valuable in all governance functions as well as in other roles, such as teaching and research.
Eligibility for voting and holding office in institutional governance bodies should be the same for all faculty regardless of full- or part- time status. Institutions may wish to establish time- in- service eligibility requirements; if the eligibility requirement for full- time faculty is expressed in calendar time (for instance, a year), it would have to be translated into terms (for instance, two semesters) applicable to part- time faculty in order to accommodate those who teach intermittently.
Extracted with slight modifications from: https://www.aaup.org/report/inclusion-governance-faculty-members-holding-contingent-appointments
Annual Conference of the NC- AAUP
The annual conference of the North Carolina AAUP will be held on October 4th and 5th, 2019 at UNC-Chapel Hill.
AAUP’s national president Rudy Fichtenbaum will give a keynote address on the evening of Friday, October 4. Saturday, October 5 will feature a presentation and workshop with a representative from the organization UnKoch My Campus. A detailed program will be circulated soon.
Please register by emailing michaelcbehrent@gmail.com by September 23rd. This will help organizers know how much food to order for the (free) Saturday lunch. There is no registration fee.
Workplace Discrimination Based on LGBTQ Status is Unlawful
The national AAUP has joined an amicus brief arguing that workplace discrimination based on LGBTQ status is discrimination “because of . . . sex” and therefore is prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The brief, filed in the Supreme Court of the United States, was prepared primarily by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and was joined by other civil rights organizations. The brief involves three separate cases arising from the termination of employees based on their LGBTQ status, which were consolidated by the court. A decision from the court is expected by June 2020.
The amicus brief that the AAUP has joined argues that Title VII applies to workplace discrimination based on LGBTQ status since it is discrimination because of an individual’s sex. The brief outlines how the Title VII has resulted in progress toward eradicating workplace discrimination and how it bars disparate treatment because of sexuality. It also explains that a decision to exclude LGBTQ status from Title VII’s protections would leave LGBTQ people of color unprotected from pretextual racial discrimination because of the intersectionality of identities. As the amicus brief argues, carving out an exception in Title VII’s protections for LGBTQ individuals would be contrary to its text and other precedents. It would also would leave those most vulnerable to workplace discrimination without protection, rendering Title VII unable to fulfill its purpose of eradicating discrimination in the workplace.
