AAUP MINUTES
April 27, 2006
Members Present: Paula Hinton, Jessica Joy, Kristin Walker, Tony Baker, Katherine Osburn, Wali Kharif, Andy Smith, Sharon Whitney, Josie McQuail, Mona Wells
Agenda, and Minutes from previous meeting, were approved.
Old Business:
Kharif—Membership—No change. Week prior to Fall Faculty Meeting he will send out information regarding payroll deductions. This is much easier for chapters. He encourages everyone to do so.
Walker—She will check with Leo McGee regarding New Faculty Orientation, to see if AAUP can come and inform new faculty about who we are.
Jonakin [via email of 4-26-06]—Treasurer’s Report—“…as of today—April 25th—we have $3,023.27 in our checking account. We have just received our 1st quarter dues statement which will be about $1,600 dollars. . . and a new check will be ‘cut’ for us in the next day or so. . . .”
Programs—Walker—Later, under ‘New Business,” we will talk about ideas for the fall forum.
Committee A—No report.
Committee R—No report.
Committee W—no report
Walker—Report re: Spring Conference—The first half of the conference focused on Lewis Laske who is legal counsel for the state AAUP. He talked about several issues, one of particular interest being whether professors can be sued by students for misadvisement, etc… We talked about the differences between public and private institutions. As employees of state institutions we have a kind of sovereign immunity from this because we are part of the state and the government cannot be sued (except under special circumstances). He made it sound like we don’t need that supplemental insurance that AAUP offers. For those working at private colleges, it is a different story.
We then broke for lunch. In the afternoon we had the business meeting where we heard reports from chapters.
Kharif—Anybody can sue anybody, although it would be thrown out at some point probably. There would still be a lot of fees, costs, etc… so we should probably keep the liability insurance.
Osburn—Wishes more people from our chapter had been able to come, although overall attendance was really good (about 20 people).
New Business:
Walker—Elections—She determined that we had a quorum with those present in addition to having three proxies. She read out the slate of nominations for the seven positions.
President: Dr. Kristen Walker
Vice President: Dr. Katherine Osburn
Secretary: Dr. Paula Hinton
Treasurer: Dr. Jon Jonakin
Executive Committee Members at Large:
Dr. Colleen Hays
Dr. Christine Miller
Dr. Wali Kharif
Asked for any nominations from the floor for any of the positions.
Whitney—moved that nominations cease and for approval by acclamation.
Baker—seconded the motion.
There was no discussion, no questions.
Vote was taken—unanimous approval of the entire slate.
Walker—Ideas for Fall Forum—For the past couple of years we have shown a video clip and held discussions pertaining to issues of interest to faculty, students, and administration. This has worked well, but are there any other ideas regarding the format?
Whitney—Thinks the format has worked well. Something controversial always seems to bring people out. One suggestion at a previous meeting was that we discuss our investments. This would not bring a lot of students out but would attract a lot of faculty and may help boost AAUP membership.
Baker, Whitney, Osburn—Discussed the topics of the last two forums and the format. Pointed out that we have had political and legislative forums too—taxes, the lottery, church and state.
Osburn—a tie in with Campus Equity Week is another idea proposed earlier.
Smith—Can we use our funds to bring in a speaker? If so, we could bring in someone of interest to the entire campus—someone to speak on a topic that will bring out students, faculty, staff, and administration.
Joy—Maybe our investments is a good topic for the spring forum and perhaps Andy’s [Smith’s] suggestion would be better for the fall.
Osburn—In the fall, the Public Policy Institute will be doing something of public interest. The state office is bringing in someone from the Islamic world to discuss academic freedom in an international context in the post 9-11 world. Maybe we could coordinate with the state and bring him here as well. Academic freedom is a major issue right now. Intelligent design is another possible topic—it also falls under the umbrella of academic freedom. We could bring in someone to discuss “What is science?”
Smith—How about Jimmy Carter?
Osburn—We could try, but it’s doubtful. He’s very expensive.
Whitney—Is there any one thing that seems to be mobilizing people here on campus?
Osburn—Science as a topic would bring out a lot of people, defining what it is.
Kharif—A panel might be a really good idea instead of one speaker.
Smith—Issues dealing with science are a hot topic with students.
Whitney—It is a hot topic now. There are a lot of books out too.
Osburn—Stonecipher is doing something on psuedo-science. They are bringing in someone from the Skeptic Society. That might be a nice fit.
Wells—There is also the Harvard student accused of plagiarism, and the suspension/expulsion of players at Duke who have been accused of a felony.
Osburn—Let’s do a little research regarding intelligent design and then discuss it more in the fall and decide what to do then.
Walker—Tennessee Alliance for Progress—Did you meet?
Osburn—It is meeting this Saturday.
Walker—AAUP Meetings for 2006-2007—Proposed scheduling meetings for Thursdays only in an effort to cut down on confusion. Some members have expressed that they would like us to alternate again though. Others have scheduling problems if we alternate. Any ideas?
McQuail—Fridays are best for her, but likes the alternating schedule.
Kharif—The only problem with Friday meetings is that the new class schedule creates strange times for meetings on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Baker—brought up the issue of where to hold the meetings…
Walker—It has been mentioned before that we should meet in a neutral location.
[Those in attendance agreed that is was best to keep the meeting location neutral and that we will meet in the RUC. We also decided to hold an email survey regarding whether or not we want to meet on Fridays, Thursdays, or alternate the two.]
Such Other Matters:
McQuail—[She distributed copies of “Distribution of Faculty by Gender and Employment Status, 1976-2003”] The disparity between men and women in part-time vs. full-time positions is apparent in the charts. Many more women than men are working in part-time positions.
Baker—This is another topic to consider for the fall, along with the under representation of women in engineering, pay inequity, etc…
Meeting adjourned at 11:39 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Paula Hinton
TTU AAUP Secretary