Present: Robin Kar, Richard Laugesen, Cary Nelson, David O’Brien, Robert Parker, Daniel Steward, Leslie Struble, Carol Tilley, H. F. Williamson; Guests: Ellen Moodie, Rochelle Sennet
The meeting began at about 11:00 a.m. with Kar presiding.
(1) Welcome and Introductions. Kar welcomed the attendees and thanked them for their service. The attendees were asked to introduce themselves including our two guests: Rochelle Sennet, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the College of Fine and Applied Arts and Professor of Piano and Ellen Moodie, Professor of Anthropology and Director of LAS Global Studies.
(2) Review of the Minutes for the December 4, 2025 Meeting of Policy Committee. Since there were no responses to his request for substantive comments on the minutes, Kar announced that they were approved by unanimous consent given the error in the title was corrected substituting “Minutes” for “Agenda.”
(3) President’s Report. Kar covered several key topics in his report. He began by noting that we all share a belief in the importance of protecting academic freedom, tenure, shared governance. These are the central pillars of what has made higher education in the United States one of the envies of the world and that are now under an unprecedented set of attacks from the federal government. We are well-positioned to add value to those addressing these challenges and need to organize with other groups to achieve this goal. Our specific tasks this semester will be to arrange (a) the annual P&T Workshop and (b) one or more other big events such as those we held last year on (i) authoritarianism and (ii) how to communicate our values to an increasingly polarized public. He complimented Carol Symes on her work arranging meetings with leaders of other AAUP Chapters within the Big Ten. As noted last month, these discussions brought home (i) the severe problems facing so many campuses and (ii) how grateful we are right now at the University of Illinois that these have not occurred here yet. He concluded by noting we would be meeting soon with the informal leadership Council — the group of campus leaders of campus organizations (e.g., USC, Senate, GEO, ISG, CAP, and CFA) — to continue the work that group has been doing.
(4) Meeting with the Chancellor and the Provost. There was general agreement that it had been important to meet with them and establish a relationship for future communications. There was a lengthy discussion of how well we felt they answered our questions and how effectively we feel that they are handling the problems facing higher education. Kar noted that it was not clear, at least to him, how they felt about the need he sees to rethink the role of higher education and how well we are communicating what that role is. Parker suggested that we could make future meetings more effective if we established a time limit on how long the guest could spend answering a given question. There was also a discussion of how they feel about the incidents that have occurred at many campuses regarding Title VI cases. Given how many faculty are interested in the current controversies around Title VI, Parker suggested this might be a topic for a future program sponsored by the Chapter either at the annual meeting or as a separate presentation. O’Brien noted that we had covered a similar program at the 2018 Annual Meeting at which the speakers were Rochelle Gutierrez and Donald Wuebbles.
(5) Future Chapter Events
(a) Sawyer Seminar Series. Kar reported that the Sawyer Seminary series would be occurring based on a Mellon Grant obtained by four co-PIs: David Sapkosky, Susan Koshy, Rosalind Lapeer, and Jason Mazzoni. The title is “At Risk U: the Past, Present, and Future of Academic Freedom.” Kar is one of a number of individuals on our campus who has been involved in this series. He will send the Policy Committee more information about the program. He noted that we could also consider holding a joint event with the principal investigators covering the relevant topics that had been covered at the seminars.
(b) Illinois Leadership Council. Kar noted that we can also work with this group to see which challenges they are facing which they feel are important for further discussion.
(c) Title VI Issues. The discussion of possible future meeting topics returned to the issues involved with Title VI. Kar noted that he is on a campus committee charged with making recommendations about how the campus handles Title VI cases.
(d) Preparing for P&T Workshop. Kar reported that he has begun the preparations for the P&T Workshop. It appears that we will have the same panelists as last year so he is working to see what date will work for them.
(5) Adjournment. Kar adjourned the meeting at about 12:10 p.m.
The next meeting is scheduled to be at 11 AM on Thursday, February 12, 2026.
The next meeting is scheduled to be at 11 AM on Thursday, February 12, 2026.