Excerpts of address by Harry Hilton to
the 2015 AAUP National Meeting
Washington, DC, June 13,
2015
There was no prepared written speech.
The following is a reconstruction from a brief outline and memory:
Dear Colleagues,
I
am here as the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) AAUP Chapter
president and one of its three delegates to report on University activities. I am no stranger to the AAUP having been a
continuous member since the mid 1950s and chapter president twice before – once
during the Koch affair and then again at the time of the campus disturbances. We overwhelmingly supported censure after the
unilateral firing of Professor Koch by president Henry. During the disturbances
the UI trustee wanted to fire 15 tenured and tenure track faculty members for
their “impolite utterances.” The UIUC
chapter intervened and was successful in preventing the trustee’s contemplated actions.
The
chapter membership that was 800 plus from the early 1950’s to the 70’s has been
declining steadily reaching the current 66 with a much larger total campus
faculty compared to some six decades ago.
First
let me tell that we polled the Chapter on its views regarding AAUP censure. With 48.5% of the members voting, 27.3% of the
chapter members voted for censure, 18.2% against, 3% for delay and no
abstentions. As chapter president I will
therefore vote for censure.
Secondly,
I need to report to you on current and past campus conditions regarding
academic freedom and shared governance.
Last
December, our Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure (CAFT) after
investigating the Salaita matter issued a lengthy set of findings and recommendations
that have been referred to by Committee A in their report presently before us. Some of CAFT’s proposals have been adopted at
UIUC while others are being worked on.
It
is worthy to note that in some respects shared governance at UIUC is
effectively working. During the past eight years the UIUC Senate was visibly instrumental
in approving by substantial majority votes of no confidence in two University
presidents and one UIUC chancellor, which eventually led to their terminations
in their respective offices.
We
have had a hyper active Board of Trustees (BoT) lead by chair Chris Kennedy in
several academic matters that up to now have been routinely approved by the
Board. The most notable among these are BoT’s refusal – lead vigorously by
chair Kennedy - to grant earned emeritus status to Professor Ayres of our
Chicago campus and to delay for a year non-tenure track UIUC Professor
Kilgore’s reappointment. He was
eventually reappointed. Kennedy has since left the Board.
Although
I have no proof what so ever, it is my firm personal belief that chair
Kennedy’s heavy hand is behind the Salaita non-appointment. I strongly suspect that chair Kennedy ordered
our chancellor Phyllis Wise not to recommend Dr. Salaita’s appointment to the BoT. Eventually upon the chancellor’s
recommendation, BoT voted not to approve Dr. Salaita’s tenured appointment
offer.
There
is no question that State of Illinois law confirms the UI BoT as the sole entity
to govern the University including approving all appointments. In the past, the Board has been content,
except for the two instances noted previously, of letting the academic and
administrative appointment process run its established courses and then twice a
year routinely approve such appointments en masse. Of course, this procedure established an
extremely bad practice, particularly when the Board switched to by-monthly
meetings, where individuals would start their resident duties prior to
receiving a legal contract. This
deplorable BoT custom has been terminated and proper time schedules and
procedures have been codified and adopted to prevent such aberrations in the
future.
There
have been on and off campus conversations regarding phone calls, letters,
emails, etc. from donors promising to cease their contributions if Dr. Salaita
is hired. It has been our experience
during the Chief Illiniwek 12 year prolonged episode that such threats or
promises are totally ineffective, as donors tend to soon return to the fold.
Stanford and other major universities have had similar experiences. It is,
therefore, doubtful that such alleged communications had a significant impact
on the current decision process.
A
number of improvements have been implemented on the UIUC campus but additional
actions need to be taken in some areas. Notably among these are:
·
New
hiring procedures including timetables have been issued by the provost and
discussed by the campus Senate. These items need to be further refined and
codified in campus operation manuals.
·
The
appointments and duties of adjunct and similar non-tenured professors have been
codified but further campus improvements regarding uniformity of duties, voting
rights, etc. need to be implemented.
·
Further
attempts by all parties need to be made to reach a negotiated settlement.
·
While
official statements have been issued by the chancellor regarding civility
issues vis-à-vis academic freedom, promotion, retention, etc., additional ones
need to be made by the provost, president and the BoT.
·
Finally,
the university statutes will need to be revised as needed to incorporate the
above and other improvements and changes.