Executive Committee Minutes 12/2/11

To read the minutes from the chapters's executive committee meeting held on December 2, click here.

Top Ten Reasons to Join JCU's AAUP Chapter!

the top ten reasons to join jcu's aaup chapter (actually, a few more than ten, because there are just so many...)
10. it's more affordable than you thought, it might be tax deductible, and a membership for that special someone makes a great Christmas gift
9. it might help save your job and that of your friends
8. it's the only organization that represents all faculty in all disciplines in all phases of our work
7. cookies at brownbags, beer at friday afternoon meetings, and first thursday club
6.you know you should, and you know it feels good to be part of a common effort to support academic excellence
5  because you are an Academic who is Against Unilaterally enacted Policy
4. it reminds us that we're not alone, and that we have the support of a 47,000 member national organization instrumental in defining and maintaining academic quality
3. it increases the likelihood that everyone will be a member one day (beat fairfield!)
2. academic freedom, academic integrity, and the protections of tenure aren't free
1. they don't expect it
join here! http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/involved/join/

JCU AAUP General Meeting for Faculty on Compensation Issues, Monday, Nov. 28, 11-1

On Monday, November 28 John Carroll's chapter of the American Association of University Professors will hold a brown-bag discussion on faculty compensation issues from 11:00-1:00 in the Faculty Lounge.  Our guest will be Rick DeWitt, president of the Fairfield University chapter of the AAUP.  Fairfield, which has a very robust AAUP chapter, has made considerable progress on faculty compensation issues in recent years.

Speaker and Discussion, "Fall of the Faculty," at Case, Thursday Nov. 3

Benjamin Ginsberg. David Bernstein Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, will be talking on "The Fall Of The Faculty: Governing Universities in the 21st Century," at 4:30 in Clark Hall 309 (full details are attached),  In his new book The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters, Ben Ginsberg argues that new patterns of governance threaten universities’ missions.  He traces and explains the pursuit of power that, he argues, has led to ever-increasing administrative staff creating make-work that raises costs and impedes the real work of the university.  It’s a controversial argument in the best of ways: it raises important questions and offers ideas that require discussion. 



http://policy.case.edu

Chapter General Meeting, Tuesday, October 23

JCU's AAUP chapter is sponsoring an open conversation about First Year Seminar  on Tuesday, October 18, from 11:30-1:30 in the Faculty Lounge. We'll be discussing how well FYS is meeting the criteria set by faculty in the Core Curriculum document, as revised in 2007.  We're especially concerned about the staffing of sections, the numbers of students in each section, and the level of administrative support given to FYS.  Ernie Dezolt, current director of the First-Year Seminar, will join us.  The lunch is brownbag, but we'll have some snacks and beverages available.  The meeting is open to all, so please encourage colleagues to attend.

The relevant sections of the Core Curriculum document can be read at http://www.jcu.edu/fc/proposals/FYSRevision_2007_04_19.pdf

JCU Chapter General Meeting, Friday, 9/23, 3:30 pm

We'll be holding our first general meeting of the academic year on Friday, September 23, at 3:30 in the Faculty Lounge.  Our guest will be Sara Kilpatrick, executive director of the Ohio Conference of the AAUP.  We'll be talking about the role of local AAUP advocacy chapters, as well as current state issues.  
Refreshments (of the adult variety) will be served!!  JCU faculty are welcome to attend. 

Academe: Focus on the Humanities in Trouble

Academe: Magazine of the AAUP

The road to dystopia is paved with both small cuts and big budget holes. Some of the cuts seem tiny, almost invisible; some of the budget holes so big, you could drive whole programs into them.

The September–October issue is the second of a triptych of Academe issues devoted to universities in trouble. Our July–August issueaddressed organizing in hard times. This issueis devoted to the humanities. In November–December, guest editor Christopher Newfield will take on the escalating troubles at public universities.

Note that I’m not using the word “crisis.” Nonetheless, as historian Ellen Schrecker notes in her trenchant review essay, “The Humanities on Life Support,” the future of the humanities “looks grim indeed.”

And it’s not just in the United States. English art historian, novelist, and journalist Iain Pears writes, in “A Price above Rubrics,” that the humanities and arts are particularly vulnerable in Britain, where universities made a “Mephistophelian bargain” about their abilities to create and deliver quick economic solutions and are now paying a terrible price.

News: A Dissenter Is Fired - Inside Higher Ed

September 8, 2011

On Tuesday, the American Association of University Professors wrote to Erskine College, expressing worry about the treatment of William Crenshaw, an English professor who has been among the most outspoken critics of the role of religious conservatives in shaping the direction of the institution. While the AAUP didn't weigh in on the disputes over Erskine, it said that Crenshaw never should have been suspended and barred from teaching -- as he recently had been -- unless he met the college handbook's requirement of causing "immediate harm" by his presence.

News: A Dissenter Is Fired - Inside Higher Ed:

News: 'Under New Management' - Inside Higher Ed

"While higher education is often spoken of in terms of crisis, this concept might be better treated as a critical juncture or turning point rather than a terminus," writes Randy Martin. This sentiment appears in the preface to Martin's new book, Under New Management: Universities, Administrative Labor, and the Professional Turn (Temple University Press), and it serves as an accurate summary of his stance on many of the issues the book explores.

Under New Management covers matters that prompt much debate in higher education: the decline of faculty autonomy and the rise of administration; the ever-growing emphasis on outcomes and assessment; the increasing focus on professional preparation (generally at the expense of the liberal arts); the promises and pitfalls of interdisciplinary work; and the inevitable rifts between faculty and administration. But the book is distinguished by its use of the work of administration as the lens through which to examine higher education; by the wealth of connections it draws among cultural and historical trends both inside and far outside academe; and by Martin's inclination to see opportunities where many others often see only misdirection or plain disaster.

Inside Higher Ed conducted an e-mail interview with Martin, professor and chair of art and public policy at New York University, to gain a better understanding of the ideas detailed in his complex and ambitious book.

News: 'Under New Management' - Inside Higher Ed

Almanac of Higher Education 2011 - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Almanac of Higher Education 2011 - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Great Colleges to Work For 2011 - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Great Colleges to Work For 2011 - The Chronicle of Higher Education

See Who Made the 2011 List

The Chronicle asked faculty and staff to assess their employers as workplaces. Use our tool to discover which colleges excel.

What Makes a Great Workplace?

The colleges that made our Honor Roll have created an atmosphere where employees feel they can succeed. Find out how they do it.

Administrative Bloat at American Universities: The Real Reason for High Costs in Higher Education | Goldwater Institute

Administrative Bloat at American Universities: The Real Reason for High Costs in Higher Education | Goldwater Institute


“Enrollment at America’s leading universities has been
increasing dramatically, rising nearly 15 percent between
1993 and 2007. But unlike almost every other growing
industry, higher education has not become more efficient.
Instead, universities now have more administrative
employees and spend more on administration to educate
each student. In short, universities are suffering from
“administrative bloat,” expanding the resources devoted to
administration significantly faster than spending on
instruction, research and service.”

Vocationalism, Academic Freedom and Tenure - NYTimes.com

Vocationalism, Academic Freedom and Tenure - NYTimes.com

Interactive Database: 2011 Salary Explorer - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Interactive Database: 2011 Salary Explorer - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education

AAUP President Urges Faculty to Join Battle Against Unwarranted Cuts - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education

AAUP President Urges Faculty to Join Battle Against Unwarranted Cuts - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Labor Board Rejects Religious Exemption for Saint Xavier U. and Says Adjuncts Can Unionize - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Labor Board Rejects Religious Exemption for Saint Xavier U. and Says Adjuncts Can Unionize - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education

News: Adjuncts 2, Catholic Colleges 0 - Inside Higher Ed

News: Adjuncts 2, Catholic Colleges 0 - Inside Higher Ed:

June 2, 2011

The conflict between some Roman Catholic colleges and adjunct professors seeking collective bargaining rights is intensifying.

Last week, the Chicago office of the National Labor Relations Board ruled that adjuncts at St. Xavier University were entitled to vote on a union, and that the university lacked enough of a religious character to be exempt from provisions of federal labor law.

The ruling is the second this year in which an NLRB regional office has rejected the claims of Roman Catholic colleges that they can prevent adjunct unions. In both the dispute at St. Xavier and one at Manhattan College,officials of the NLRB reviewed the ties of Catholic orders to the colleges and found that the institutions were largely secular.

Fawlty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education

From The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/article/160410/faulty-towers-crisis-higher-education

AAUP Member Newsletter: The Media and Higher Education in Hard Times

Academe brings faculty the latest news and thought-provoking commentary.  

The May–June issue of Academe tackles the complex issues of media coverage of higher education, the public’s perception of academe, and the role that conservative think tanks and foundations play in both affecting media coverage of higher education and reconfiguring higher education itself.
Faculty members are losing a critical battle for the soul of America. And we’re losing it partly, but significantly, because we’ve lost the media, if we ever “had” them. We tend to denigrate them, and they don’t like us so much either. It gets worse. The media themselves are on life support, as newsrooms downsize. And are we to follow not long after? The metaphors comparing higher education to Detroit are proliferating.

Kushner, CUNY and Academic Freedom - NYTimes.com

Kushner, CUNY and Academic Freedom - NYTimes.com
Thoughtful comments from Stanley Fish on academic freedom.

Spring 2011 issue of the AAUP Journal of Academic Freedom

Whether by chance or by fate, the spring 2011 issue of the AAUP Journal of Academic Freedom has turned out to be rather timely.
At a moment when faculty unionization is paradoxically at once resurgent and under assault, Bill Lyne lays out rather clearly what its benefits can be for shared governance.
John Champagne and John Powell mount philosophical, political, and pedagogical critiques of the relentlessly expanding assessment movement (if essays arrive on the other side of that question, by the way, we would be happy to consider them).

AAUP: New Faculty Union in Illinois

AAUP: New Faculty Union in Illinois

Statement urging a vote against the “Proposal for the new Academic Program Protocol (as amended at the April 27, 2011 faculty meeting)”

The Executive Committee of the JCU chapter of the AAUP urges you to vote against approval of one of the proposals on the ballot for a Faculty-wide vote this week, “the new Academic Program Protocol.” Though amended at today’s Faculty Meeting, the proposed procedure that CAP is to use for evaluation and recommendation of academic programs remains ambiguous and vague on the need for “endorsement” or “approval” from non-academic sectors of the university. The Faculty Handbook, Part One, Section V, clearly grants primary responsibility on matters of curriculum to the Faculty. The promulgation of a list of regulations that seems to require review and endorsement of new curricula outside of the Faculty endangers this responsibility.

Great Colleges to Work For - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Great Colleges to Work For - The Chronicle of Higher Education

CUNY Faculty Fears Course-Transfer Proposal Could Jeopardize Its Say on Curricula - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education

CUNY Faculty Fears Course-Transfer Proposal Could Jeopardize Its Say on Curricula - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education

AAUP Member Newsletter: Recession Over? Not for Higher Ed

While the Great Recession may be technically over in the broader US economy, the same cannot be said in the higher education sector. The results of the American Association of University Professors’ annual survey of full-time faculty compensation are only marginally better than last year’s and represent the continuation of a historic low period for faculty salaries. For the second consecutive year, the overall average salary level increased at a rate less than inflation. And this is the fifth of the last seven years in which overall faculty salaries declined in purchasing power.

"We're All Badgers Now"

A conversation about unionization and higher education between Stanley Fish and Walter Benn Michaels, professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/were-all-badgers-now/?ref=opinion&nl=opinion&emc=tya1

AAUP Member Newsletter: Faculty Own Their Research, Legal Brief Argues

Recently the AAUP filed an amicus brief (.pdf) in support of the ownership rights of thousands of faculty researchers and inventors to their inventive work.  The joint amicus brief, filed in collaboration with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and IP Advocate, a nonprofit advocacy group, was submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Stanford v. Roche patent case.