Summary Report for UIUC AAUP Policy Committee on December 8, 2008

Present: Abbas Aminmansour, Connie Caveny, Bettina Francis, Harry Hilton, Walter Knorr (guest), Walter McMahon, Cary Nelson, John Prussing, Art Robinson, Robert Spitze, Donald Uchtmann, and H. F. Williamson

The meeting began at about 12:35 p.m. following the meeting with Vice President Knorr with Donald Uchtmann presiding.

President's Report

(1) Review of the Minutes for November 10, 2008. The minutes for this meeting (and the summary report since its content was identical) were approved.

(2) Guests at Future Policy Committee Meetings. Uchtmann noted that we will consider for two future meetings inviting (a) Vice President Rao and (b) Barbara Wilson (Provost’s office).

Action Items

(3) Review of Vice President Knorr’s meeting with Policy Committee. We were pleased to have had a chance to meet with the Vice president. There was concern about the emphasis in his discussion on private funding and on funding inputs rather than our output. McMahon will prepare a statement for the Policy Committee expressing our recommendations and concerns.

(4) Tenure Workshop and Membership Drive. Hilton and Uchtmann will continue the planning which will include choosing a date and meeting with Provost Katehi. We can contact those attending this and previous workshops about joining the AAUP. Caveny has obtained a list of the faculty who attained tenure recently to help with this effort.

(5) Status of the Global Campus (GC) Initiative. The GC will operate within the UIC for now while seeking accreditation. The Senate Executive Committee (SEC) will continue to monitor the issue and plans to meet with individual members of the Board of Trustees (BOT) to discuss our concerns. We will continue monitor this issue and consider whether a policy statement should be prepared.

Reports

(6) National Office. Nelson reported that (a) the national office would be moving next week; (b) a membership drive was underway (there has been an increase of 3500 members in the past 18 months; (c) Gary Rhoades will become the new General Secretary in January; and (d) a new CFO has been selected.

(7) Senate Actions. There is concern that no member of the Policy Committee is a member on Senates Conference. The first step is to check the current members to see if anyone is or has been a member of the Chapter.