Summary Report for UIUC AAUP Policy Committee Meeting on April 30, 2012

Present: Abbas Aminmansour, Ken Andersen, Connie Caveny, Bettina Francis, Harry Hilton, Lewis Hopkins, Walter McMahon, John Prussing, Art Robinson, Robert Spitze, Leslie Struble, Donald Uchtmann, H. F. Williamson.

The meeting began at about 11:44 a.m. with John Prussing presiding.

President’s Report

(1) Review of the Minutes for April 9, 2012. The minutes for the April 9, 2012 meeting were approved after the date was corrected.

(2) Schedule of Remaining Meetings for Spring 2012 Semester.
(a) Policy Committee. The decision not to hold a meeting in June was confirmed.
(b) Annual Meeting. The annual meeting will be the afternoon of Tuesday, May 8 in 209 Illini Union.

(3) Proposed Schedule of Meetings for Fall 2012. The schedule of meetings for the fall was approved given that the Union was unavailable on the second Monday in October and November. The dates will be: September 10 (second Monday); October 1 (first Monday); November 5 (first Monday; and December 10 (second Monday.

(4) Remarks from President. Prussing asked Andersen to report on the meeting of the State Conference at Concordia University on April 28, 2012. He discussed the reports that were made about governance/tenure problems at some campuses. He also met and chatted with Kira Ayn Schuman (kschuman@aaup.org) who is the AAUP staff person leading the card-signing drive on the UIUC campus.

Action Items

(5) Plan for the Annual Meeting, Tuesday, May 8, 2012. Arrangements are completed for holding the meeting on May 8 in 209 Illini Union with the social hour starting at 3 p.m. and the Business Meeting at 3:30 p.m. This Business Meeting agenda will include the Election of Officers for 2012-2013 and the President’s Report. This will be followed at about 4 p.m. by the Panel Discussion on Shared Governance. It was agreed that a reminder should be sent to our members this week.

(6) Panel on Shared Governance, May 8, 2012. This panel will be moderated by Struble. The panelists will be Ken Andersen, Nick Burbules, and Matt Wheeler. The questions addressed to the panel are: (a) Is shared governance at Illinois broken? (b) If we believe it to be broken, what can we do to fix it? and (c) What are the appropriate roles of the various stakeholders in shared governance?

(7) Attendance at National Meeting. A motion was made and approved to provide support of up to $1000 for documented expenses of the Chapter delegates to the national meeting. At this point, Ken Andersen is the only individual planning to attend for certain as a Chapter delegate. Other Chapter members attending are Cary Nelson in his role as President and (at least for a day) Harry Hilton who will be making a presentation on the Leo Koch affair at the UIUC.

(8) Discussion of Role of AAUP on Campus and the Unionization Campaign. There was a wide-ranging discussion of what the role of the Policy Committee might be on this issue in general and in light of the results of our poll in particular. We approved the following resolution by Uchtmann:

Resolved: The Policy Committee of the UIUC Chapter of AAUP, an Advocacy Chapter* within the National AAUP, recognizes the importance of the Faculty Collective Bargaining Issue now present on the UIUC campus and is committed to (1) providing balanced, factual information to the UIUC academic community on what it means for a faculty member to sign or not sign a membership card, and (2) Exploring the implications of the presence or absence of a faculty union on shared governance at the UIUC Campus and sharing its findings with the UIUC academic community.

Caveny will lead the group preparing a document on the first topic and Hopkins the group working on the second topic. The importance of circulating these as soon as possible was stressed.

Reports

(9) Government Relations. There was a brief report on the status of the pension bills and related issues in the state legislature. Andersen noted that the SURSMAC Legislative Committee may prepare a resolution on related meeting at the meeting on May 8.

Summary Report for UIUC AAUP Policy Committee Meeting on April 30, 2012

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