Category: Newsletters

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 2^nd 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

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:

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.

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:

1. Approval of minutes of April, 2019 meeting.
2. Memberships, Buttons – local dues $10
3. Summary of progress made on corporate undue influence: Senate Draft of Resolutions on COI/GAC (Gift Acceptance Committee – handout; on website)
4. Salary update and new peer group, issues to be explored: 

a) Are promises being kept for a two-year increase (this will be the 2^nd 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.

1. Teaching Professors – Longer contracts and other issues
2. Discussion of ideas for educating colleagues about faculty governance. 
3. Possible AAUP motion and draft a charge for a new College Committee on Workload and Compensation?  
4. 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 4^th and 5^th, 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.

Join the National AAUP

www.aaup.org/membership/join

NEXT MEETING: April 25, 3:30-4:30, ZSR Library 476 (note room change)

Agenda:

1. Approval of Minutes of March 2018 meeting (Steve Boyd)
   1. Update on Salary Campaign
      1. Meeting with VP Milam; Announcement by Pres. Hatch (Senate/College) re. salaries AY 2019-2020 & 2020-2021 (Steve Boyd)
      1. Report on WFU and Comparison Universities’ Salaries and Benefits (Jane Albrecht)
      1. Identification of Peer Institutions (Senate Compensation: Steve Boyd)
   1.  Non-Tenured Full-Time Faculty: Issues and Plans (Ryan Shirey & Tanisha Ramachandran)
   1. End of Year Gathering (Sarah Hogan)
   1. New Business

Towards Fair Salaries for All Faculty

In 1966, the AAUP, the Association of Governing Boards and the American Council on Education jointly formulated a statement on shared governance, which recognizes that “the faculty should actively participate in the determination of policies and procedures governing salary increases.”

In accordance with that statement and the principle of shared governance, we wrote to President Hatch, Board of Trustees Chair Roach, Provost Kersh and Vice President Milam to follow up on the motions passed in the March 16, 2018 Faculty Senate Meeting (by a strong majority) and the April 9, 2018 College Faculty Meeting (by a vote of 131-2-2) to raise faculty salaries at all ranks, but especially among the ranks of Associate and Assistant Professors and Teaching Professors. The motion states, “BE IT RESOLVED: The Administration and Trustees raise faculty salaries at all ranks to the mean of the nine traditional cross-admit institutions by 2021 and raise salaries for non-tenure track faculty at a similar percentage rate as Assistant Professors.”

Our voice has been heard.  President Hatch announced in the Senate meeting on March 27, 2019 that there will be 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“). 

Food for Thought

In 2018, the WFU Faculty Senate passed a resolution that the President of the Senate be added as a permanent member of the Gift Acceptance Committee (GAC). Also in 2018, the Faculty Senate charged a sub-committee to “review the existing COIC (conflict of interest and commitment) policy for the Reynolda Campus, including the constitution and responsibilities of a COIC committee, make any necessary changes, and approve the policy by May 2019” (Senate Minutes, April 18, 2018).

The new gift acceptance policy was approved by the Faculty Senate on March 27, 2019. It strengthens faculty governance and the decision-making processes of the GAC and fully adheres to AAUP guidelines on academy-industry alliances, the American Council on Education, the Association of Governing Boards’ statement on governance of colleges and universities, SACSCOC accreditation standards, and follows best practices of peer universities such as Cornell University’s faculty document on Best Practices Concerning Strategic Corporate Alliances. An excerpt:

For any gift over $50,000 and when any member of the GAC (including the Senate president) raises a concern about academic freedom and responsibility … the GAC shall refer to CAFR [Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility] all such donor agreements. The subcommittee will review and submit its analysis to GAC and the Faculty Senate Executive Committee for any gift proposal that impacts curricular and research domains…. If a gift seems closer to a grant, the Gift Acceptance Committee will refer it to the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs as per university standard operating procedures.

CAFR chair Ulrike Wiethaus has invited publication of the approved gift acceptance policy on the website, wfuaaup.org, where you soon will find it under “Faculty Governance.”

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.

Join the National AAUP and support its work:

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