Also, you may have read in the News-Gazette that colleges and universities had agreed to accept the eventual cost of pensions (in return for relief from some rules about procurement). The plan got a lot of publicity and was passed in the House, but was defeated in the Senate 21-33 last Friday, over concerns that these costs would be passed on to the students.

–Bruce Reznick

By Peter Schmidt

Citing several instances of what it regards as breakdowns in shared governance, the American Association of University Professors is calling for colleges’ governing boards to take steps to hear directly from faculty members, without letting administrators filter such talks.

In a draft statement issued on Thursday, the AAUP calls for colleges to establish committees consisting solely of trustees and faculty members to meet regularly to discuss subjects of interest to both sides. The association also calls for faculty representatives to attend the business meetings of governing boards and have a seat on every standing committee of such boards, including the executive committee.

Faculty representatives on board committees should be allowed to participate fully in committee discussions, even where they are denied voting privileges, the AAUP statement says. Those on governing boards, it says, should go through the same orientation process as other board members, and the ranks of faculty representatives on governing boards and their committees should include faculty members who are employed on a contingent basis, rather than just those who are tenured or on the tenure track.

The statement, approved by the association’s committee on college and university governance, argues that “effective faculty-board communication is a critical component of shared governance,” and its absence “can result in serious misunderstanding between campus constituents and in significant governance failures leading to flawed decision making.”

“Communication between faculties and governing boards has worsened on many campuses in recent years,” the statement says, with critics of shared governance encouraging boards “to adopt top-down decision-making strategies and to intrude into decision-making areas in which the faculty traditionally has exercised primary responsibility.”

Avoiding a Governance Crisis

As a prime example of a shared-governance crisis stemming from a breakdown in communication between a board and a faculty, the statement cites last year’s turmoil at the University of Virginia, where the president, Teresa A. Sullivan, was ousted by the Board of Visitors, only to be rehired after two weeks of public outcry. An AAUP report issued in March faulted the university’s board for removing Ms. Sullivan without faculty consultation, in addition to other errors in judgment.

The Virginia dust-up is one of a few recent governance controversies mentioned in the statement. It also cites the AAUP’s recent reports accusing National Louis University, a private nonprofit institution with campuses in Florida, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and Southern University at Baton Rouge, a public institution, of failing to adequately consult their faculties in laying off faculty members. Another recent AAUP report cited in the statement, dealing broadly with college declarations of financial exigency, argues that the restriction of faculty-board communication has reduced the capacity of colleges and universities to fulfill their educational missions.

Hans-Joerg Tiede, a professor of computer science at Illinois Wesleyan University who headed the AAUP subcommittee that prepared the statement, said on Wednesday that “there is an expectation at institutions that communication will somehow be conducted through the administration, and there will not be any unmediated communication between the faculty and the board.”

He said the faculty-trustee committees called for in the report would be focused solely on facilitating such communication, without making any decisions, and other documents previously issued by the AAUP make clear that boards should exercise self-restraint and not use such committees to try to micromanage colleges’ academic affairs. As a model for how such committees should operate, he pointed to the Regents-Faculty Conference Committee established by St. Olaf College, in Minnesota, which does not set policy but makes recommendations to the college’s faculty and board.

Ada Meloy, general counsel at the American Council on Education, said she believes such board-faculty committees might “serve to benefit the institution” as long as boards and faculty members also hear the perspective of administrators in making decisions.

Richard D. Legon, president of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, said in an e-mail that while his organization and the AAUP “have not always agreed on board and faculty relations, we commend the AAUP for focusing on the issue of faculty and board awareness of each other’s roles. This can only help ensure that shared governance works as institutions deal with the critical issues facing higher education.”

The AAUP statement is subject to revision in response to comment from the association’s members or the public. Comments should be sent to the group’s Washington office by July 31.

Dear Steve:

I write on behalf of the executive committee of the Campus Faculty Association-IFT-AFT-AAUP which offers it’s warmest congratulations and support to the University High School colleagues on their filing with the state education labor board for recognition and collective bargaining rights. Many of our members have strong personal connections with Uni. We have the highest regard for the institution and especially for its students and teaching staff who have made and continue to maintain its remarkable reputation. We are delighted and encouraged with the success of you and our brothers and sisters at Uni. It provides us with a great example as we enter the most critical stage of our own organizing with the faculty at Illinois.

As you know, the labor organizations on our campus have an excellent reputation for supporting one another regardless of our particular state and national affiliations. We offer our sincere support for Uni’s teachers and stand ready to help them in any way we can in their next step toward recognition and a contract.

Again, warmest congratulations to our colleagues at Uni.

Best wishes,

Jim Barrett, President
Campus Faculty Association, IFT-AFT-AAUP

Superprofessors are very happy about being superprofessors. And why shouldn’t they be? After all, they won’t have to repeat the same tired old lectures ever again, the students that do pay attention to them are highly motivated and most seem to have hundreds of (if not a few thousand) adoring fans. Sure, there’s all that work that goes into setting up a MOOC, but the point of a MOOC is to get it so that the machine can run itself. Once it’s perfected, any additional work is supposed be minimal.

So you can imagine that superprofessors might get a little testy when a MOOC backlash comes along and threatens their cushy new lives. “MOOC Professors Claim No Responsibility for How Courses Are Used,” explained the Chronicle‘s Wired Campus blog a few days ago. The point guy in that story was Duke biology professor, Mohamed A. Noor:

Mr. Noor says he believes dismantling departments and replacing them with MOOCs would be “reckless.” But the Duke professor also believes that, in such a case, “the fault lies with the reckless administration,” and not the professor who furnished the MOOC to the vendor that furnished the MOOC to the administration.

“I don’t see it as particularly my business how people use the stuff once I put it out there,” Mr. Noor says—though he adds that if dismantling departments were all a MOOC was being used for, “then I’d stop.”

If you want to see some serious superprofessor-bashing, just read the comments to that Chronicle post. They may be the clearest indication of a MOOC backlash that I’ve ever seen. For now, the worst thing I’ll accuse Noor of being is tone deaf. While his system obviously works well for him, Noor appears to lack any understanding of how education works outside of biology and, perhaps more importantly, outside of places like Duke.

To read the entire entry and comments go here.

1. The Campus Faculty Association opposes the Cullerton and Madigan pension bills (SB2404, SB 1, respectively), and affirms the constitutionally protected right for all Illinois state employees and retirees to receive their full pension benefits. If either bill becomes law, the CFA supports litigation to challenge the constitutionality of the law.

2. The Campus Faculty Association opposes the recent legislation that will charge long-term state retirees for their health insurance. This legislation breaks the long-standing promise of free health insurance after twenty-years service, and proportional coverage for other long-term employees. The CFA supports the court challenge to this legislation by the Illinois State Employees Association and others, Maag v. Quinn, Sangamon Co. Case No. 2012-L-162.

So Illinois is in such dire financial shape that it must violate the contractual retirement agreements with teachers and other state workers. I’ve taught at the University of Illinois since 1979 and am one of those who would be cheated by the bills under discussion in the legislature.

Why stop there? The crisis should require every company with a state contract get paid 20 percent less, and every company with a state concession should pay 20 percent more. I’m looking at you, casinos. This is an emergency!

We all know such actions are unrealistic and near impossible. Companies make business decisions based on signed contracts. You can’t change them after commitments have been made.

Well, people are corporations too, my friend. People are corporations too.

- Bruce Reznick, Urbana

Click on cartoon for larger image.

Today in the last meeting of the year of the Academic Senate, it was announced that the Senate Executive Committee might meet over the summer to examine wages, benefits and working conditions.

We in the CFA have spent the past two years talking with our colleagues about  salaries, benefits, working conditions. Clearly our efforts have attracted the attention of the central administration, which has finally taken serious notice of these concerns. However, our discussions have also revealed that the vast majority of faculty voices are not usually part of the top-down policy-formulating and decision making process.  This newly announced and vaguely constituted committee may or may not come up with recommendations; it is a very small step.

The CFA wants to emphasize that only a legally binding collective bargaining agreement can effectively and fairly resolve salary disparities, improve retirement benefits and family leave policies, guarantee a fair and transparent grievance process, and address many of the other issues that affect the faculty.  We also point out that anything granted by administrative fiat can also be taken away.  Collective bargaining is the best path to protect and enhance working conditions here at UIUC.

For further information please check out this website or email us at campusfacultyassoc@gmail.com.