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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN CHAPTER
Web site: http://www.aaup-ui.org/
DATE: November 17, 2015
TO: Policy Committee
FROM: Harry Hilton, UIUC AAUP Chapter President
RE: President’s Monthly Report to Policy Committee (Oct – Nov 2015)
In order to make the subject information more readily and generally available to the membership and other interest parties, I have decided to issue a monthly written report to supplement the customary oral one that has been past policy.
Background checks for new hires: The campus has not issued new local guidelines that were supposedly due on Nov 5, 2015. David O’Brien and I are meeting with Christophe Pierre (vice president for academic affairs) and Abbas Benmamoun (UIUC vice provost) on Thu Nov 19, on this topic. I find the BoT guidelines regarding possible non hiring for “harm to university” as too vague to stand muster.
Matt Finken gave an excellent and inclusive presentation on this subject at the Senate on 11/16/15.
I sent our resolution to the president, chancellor, provost, News Gazette and Daily Illini. I presented it to the Senate on 10/19/15. In separate emails and phone conversations Gay Miller (current SEC chair) and Joyce Tolliver (past SEC vice chair) strenuously objected to the resolution and my saying that there was no faculty consultation from BoT prior to their issuing their directive. BoT asked input from the SEC leadership and Senates Conference in April 2015 without any pertinent document from BoT. The BoT directive was formulated and issued with the help of HR and legal counsel with no faculty involvement with this group. In my estimation SEC leadership and Senates Conference dropped the ball by not insisting that BoT in accordance with well established shared governance principles include faculty members in its group that drafted their directive.
Incidentally, there is no state law mandating general background checks for University hires, except in a few sensitive positions. BoT did this on their own initiative.
Meeting with President Killeen and Policy Committee members: This meeting is scheduled for April 13, 2016, 11 am – noon. I have also invited the president to have lunch with us. I am working next to schedule a visit by Barbara Wilson. Once that date is fixed I will contact the provost.
Removal from AAUP censure list: I am closely monitoring university and campus events that eventually should lead to our removal from the list.
USSP presented for first reading at the Nov 16, 2015, Senate meeting a Statute amendment dealing with academic appointments in regard to timely approvals, BoT authority delegations to the president and chancellors for appointment approvals below deans, campus and university administrators, etc.
News-Gazette op-ed article: David and I wrote an article for the News-Gazette on what got the administration censured and what is needed for removal. It was published on November 8, 2015.
Tenure workshop: Invitations have been issued to the provost and vice provost for the event. Once their availability is confirmed I will contact past panelists Jim Imlay and Craig Koslofsky.
Formation of Policy Committee ad hoc committees: As discussed at our October meeting we agreed to form one or more ad hoc committees. I suggest that we consider the following
1. Selecting topics, charge, number of committee members, lifetime, etc.
2. The ad hoc committee(s) will report to the Policy Committee
3. The chapter president and vice-president shall be ex-officio non-voting members of each ad hoc committee, not necessarily attending each session
4. The Policy Committee shall revisit the issue from time to time to determine what additional ad hoc committees may be needed and what existing should be terminated, modified, etc.
5. The chapter president will invite AAUP Chapter members to volunteer for ad hoc committee membership
6. The chapter executive committee shall select a list of committee members and the president shall submit the list to the policy committee for approval. Subsequently the president will appoint the ad hoc members and charge the committee.
7. ???
