Spring Conference at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill -- April 4-5, 2008.

Keynote Speaker Jennifer Washburn on Higher Learning and Higher Profits: The Privatization of America's Research Universities

The North Carolina State Conference’s annual conference was held April 4-5, 2008, and Jennifer Washburn, currently a fellow at the New America Foundation, gave a keynote address on Friday, April 4, 2008, to an audience of about 120 people. Jennifer Washburn is the author of University, Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education (Basic Books, 2005), which has received critical acclaim both inside and outside academia. Her book looks at the commercial transformation of American higher education over the last 25 years, and the effect this is having on disinterested research, education, and the free flow of public knowledge. Her articles and opinion pieces have appeared in a range of publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Times, Mother Jones, and the Journal of Commerce. In 2001, Ms. Washburn was the recipient of the National Association of Science Writers’ Science-in-Society Journalism Award. Before joining New America, Ms. Washburn was a freelance journalist and a Fellow at the Open Society Institute. You can read her most recent piece in Discover magazine, Science's Worst Enemy: Corporate Funding.

Hope and Collective Bargaining

The NC-AAUP is now a core member of NC HOPE, which is a coalition to rescind a nearly 50-year-old ban on collective bargaining by state and local government employees. In October 2005, the NC-AAUP unanimously endorsed the effort to repeal General Statute §95-98. The AAUP has consistently supported the right for any group of employees to come together for a collective cause, including collective bargaining. Being a supporting member of HOPE means simply that the NC-AAUP supports the right of employees at any public institution, if they so choose, to collectively bargain with their employers. North Carolina and Virginia are the only states that expressly ban state and local governments from entering into collective bargaining deals with their employees. A United Nations agency earlier this year urged North Carolina to remove its 1959 ban, arguing that it violates both labor laws and international human rights standards.

One of our long-time AAUP members, North Carolina State University sociologist, Michael Schwalbe, has written a thoughtful editorial, a Better Bargain for State Employees, that appeared in the Raleigh News & Observer on May 29, 2007.

New Chapters and Revived Chapters across North Carolina in 2007

We in North Carolina have had a great deal of chapter activity this past year -- two brand new chapters, and two revived chapters. We have a newly revived AAUP chapter at East Carolina University, and a new chapter at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk. We have new officers and pending bylaws at North Carolina State University. Guilford College has a vibrant and active new chapter. And Univerity of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, formed in October 2006, has been contributed greatly -- hosting both last March's state conference, and inviting us back for this April's state conference. Welcome back and welcome! Four new chapters just in the past year are a testimony to the enduring relevance of the AAUP in North Carolina, as well as an indication of the critical times we face as faculty. Two other four-year institutions are the process of forming chapters. Stand by. Chapters help form the backbone of the AAUP, directly addressing specific issues and supporting strong faculty governance on each campus.

Below are reports from a number of our chapters' presidents. Enjoy. Join!

From East Carolina University AAUP in Greenville
Chapter President Catherine Rigsby
ECU has had a Chapter of AAUP since at least 1960 (the date of the original bylaws). During its 47-year history, the chapter has gone through phases of intense activity and complete non-activity.  In August of this year, after a several year period of inactivity, the chapter was rejuvenated because of faculty concerns about the state of shared governance and academic freedom on our campus and throughout the UNC system.  We currently have a newly elected Executive Board, regularly scheduled meetings, and a web site (www.ecu-aaup.org). A member of our Executive Board, Purificacion Martinez, attended the Workshop for New AAUP Leaders in Washington DC in October.  Professor Martinez brought back much useful information from that workshop, some of which we are already acting on.  For example, the Chapter is working to increase interaction with both the administration and the Faculty Senate.  To this end, we are planning an extended lunch meeting between the Faculty Officers and the Executive Board.  We hope to invite a national AAUP leader to the meeting to serve as facilitator. We are also in the process of developing a set of procedures for handling faculty issues/grievances, and we are planning to host at least two open forums in the Spring of 2008 -- one on "The State of Shared Governance in the Evolving University" and another on "ECU - the Engaged University."

From Gardner-Webb College AAUP in Boiling Springs
Chapter President Mickey Metcalf
The GWU chapter is active and well. We actively continue our efforts to add membership and as a result we are adding members all of the time. The AAUP was active in two cases involving non-renewal of a faculty member and the non-reappointment of a school dean through the summer months and into the fall, 2007. Both cases were eventually resolved amicably and relations with the senior administrators involved were professional and cordial. In this sense we are blessed by having most of our senior administrators as members of the AAUP and we feel that the AAUP's status to represent the "voice of the faculty" is enhanced thereby.
In order to keep the general faculty current with national AAUP issues and pronouncements, all National AAUP e-mail releases and articles are being distributed to all faculty by the university's internal e-mail system. The executive committee of the chapter talks and meets regularly and we are considering issues such as contingent faculty pay and treatment in order to arrive at a sound institutional position on those matters. Two AAUP executive committee members are serving on two important "ad-hoc" committees: (1)  to review the Promotion and Tenure and evaluation parts of the faculty manual and (2) reviewing and revising the Student Opinion of Instruction questionnaire.

From Guilford College AAUP in Greensboro
Chapter President Richard Zweigart
After a small group of us read Office Hours in a faculty development-sponsored reading group in the spring of 2006, we started an active AAUP chapter in the fall of 2006 (a few of us on campus have been long-time members, but we soon increased our number to the seven needed to start an official chapter, and now we have 17 active members).  During 2006-2007, we met over lunch a few times each semester, talked about a range of topics, and, because of various issues on campus over the last few years, decided to focus on "best practices" in tenure and promotion.  In early April, Cat Warren agreed to come to campus to give a talk on this topic, and about 40 faculty and  administrators attended.  Late in that academic year, an ad hoc committee was appointed to examine the college's tenure and promotion procedures.  Two of the six faculty appointed to that committee are AAUP members. We decided to focus this fall on issues related to part-time and nontenure track full-time faculty.  Cat graciously agreed to visit the campus again (in late October -- on Halloween), and she was joined by her colleague in the English department at N.C. State, Deborah Anne Hooker (the title of their talk:  "Trick or Treat:  The Use and Misuse of Part-time and Nontenure Track Faculty").  Attendance was again quite good -- about 50 faculty (many full-time, some part-time), some administrators, and some students.  Their excellent presentation certainly increased awareness of some issues, and is likely to lead to some procedural improvements.

From Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk
Chapter President Michael Joslin
Lees-McRae College has formed an AAUP chapter this year as a step forward in our progress as a four-year, private, liberal arts institution.  Our faculty members embrace their roles as professional educators and scholars, and see their participation in the AAUP as both a privilege and responsibility.  While ensuring academic freedom is the faculty’s primary concern, we are also committed to shared governance of the institution.  Continual rapid turnover of senior administration has made maintaining a coherent and consistent mission for the college difficult.  We anticipate that developing a strong, independent faculty voice will contribute to stability and a focus.   Joining the AAUP gives Lees-McRae faculty both direction and support at this critical time in the college’s life. 
At this point, roughly 25 percent of fulltime faculty has joined the AAUP.  We have chosen officers and are developing a list of concerns and goals for our chapter.  David Bushman, Lees-McRae president, has offered to pay for each member’s copy of the AAUP Policy Documents & Reports, and we anticipate developing a strong working relationship with him and his cabinet.  We hope that our organization will provide another channel of communication on campus, not only to share our views with the administration but also to see the administration’s perspective.  Our goal is to develop a sense of solidarity that will provide a solid base for future growth and stability of Lees-McRae College.   

From University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Chapter President Carl Ernst
The UNC-CH chapter has been concerned about proposed changes to the UNC system procedures for promotion and tenure, which have been addressed by a committee charged with streamlining procedures; it has added to its charge by also proposing revisions to post-tenure review. Our chapter has voted to endorse Appendix F of the UNC system Faculty Assembly Executive Committee of September 13, 2007, submitted to the Faculty Assembly, which objects to those proposals. Another major topic we addressed was the attempt of the Employee Forum to publish an account of efforts to legalize collective bargaining by public employees in a recent supplement to the University Gazette, which was refused by the Gazette's editors. Chapter president Carl Ernst wrote a letter to the Gazette, urging attention to the collective bargaining issue, which we have supported in a resolution, voted in April; this letter deliberately did not address the censorship question, which the Employee Forum wishes to concentrate upon, because there was not a consensus on this point in the Chapter.
Discussion has also focused on the Gillings gift to the School of Public Health ($50M), which is to result in a naming of the Dennis and Joan Gillings School of Global Public Health. Concern was expressed over gifts doled out to universities over time, dependent on whether donors are satisfied with funded operations. This can lead to demands for curricular objectives not identified by faculty planning, such as developing business skills. Information on one of the Gillings programs, the Carolina Public Health Solutions program, is available at http://www.sph.unc.edu/accelerate/. Comparisons were made with the proposed and ultimately no funded Pope Foundation gift for western civilization, which drew objections from the faculty. It was agreed that recently formulated UNC policies on gifts
(listed on the Provost's website at http://provost.unc.edu/policies/pdfs/curricgifts) should be consulted and followed in such instances.
An additional topic addressed in our meetings has been on the devastating effect of hurricane Katrina on institutions of higher education in Louisiana. Although UNC-CH has a faculty exigency committee, its policies only deal with slow-moving financial problems, and its procedures play out over many weeks of time. It seems desirable to ask faculty governance to address ways in which the University could respond to sudden disasters without sacrificing faculty governance or due process.