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Minutes for August 9 Meeting
Meeting: LA State Conference August 8, 2020 Present: Elected Board Leslie Bary (President) Sudhir Trivedi (Vice President) Thomas Miller (Secretary) Kevin Cope (Treasurer) Dave Reid (At-Large) General Membership Constance Balides, Amy Chafee, Wande Coleman, Brooks Elwood, Charles Figley, D. Gauthier, Michelle Glaros, Elizabeth Gross, Ilko Iliev, Authur Lustig, Michelle Massé, Vipin Menon, Judith Miranti, Stephen Rushing, Peter Siska, Christof Stumpf, Cheryl Taylor, Mathew Ware, Hugh Wilson Meeting begins: 10:00 am AGENDA: Item I: Protecting Lives, Promoting Education: Principles for Reopening Campuses – Statement from coalition of Midwest AAUP Chapters presented to the general membership of the Louisiana State Conference (SC) for consideration and possible endorsement. The statement prioritizes shared governance, faculty and staff economic security and protecting the rights of the most vulnerable within the academic community. The statement was previously endorsed by the SC at its meeting of June 29th, 2020. Result – After some deliberation, and with the understanding that endorsement did not imply complete agreement with every portion of the document, the General Membership elected to endorse the statement from the Midwest Conferences with: Yeas: 15/23; Nays: 2/23; Abstentions: 0/23. It was observed that endorsement of the Midwest statement should not be viewed as an end…
Use institutional e-mail for AAUP communications!
BY KEVIN L. COPE | AUGUST 15, 2020 Kevin L. Cope is the Robert and Rita Wetta Adams Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He served for ten years as president of the LSU Faculty Senate and of the LSU Council of Faculty Advisors and serves as the vice-president of the Association of Louisiana Faculty Senates. A former member of the AAUP national Council, he is treasurer of the Louisiana AAUP conference and chair of its Committee A. Anyone engaged in activism sends and receives a lot of email. Many of these letters might be considered confidential or provocative or controversial or just plain “hot,” for most colleagues doing a cold call on an experienced faculty leader are burning mad about something, whether bad policy or administrative persecution or workplace problems. A very large number of the agitated letters that I receive ask, encourage, or occasionally (politely) order me either to reply to a private, non-university address or even to use such an address myself. This request usually originates in a belief that a private email address is exempt from scanning by vindictive administrators who, the party believes, routinely reconnoiter faculty email. Whether…
President’s Newsletter August 9, 2020
The following was sent to all members, except for two administrators (associate members; can see the mailing here), and one member who does not wish to receive mail (but can also read here). Dear colleagues, The August 8 Zoom meeting had 23 participants at its highest point, but usually 22. Secretary Thomas Miller is preparing formal minutes and will have them to you soon. The next general meeting, originally planned for October 10 in Lafayette, will be virtual as well. Christof Stumpf (Prof. Biology, LSU-A) will serve as parliamentarian and timekeeper. We adopted as a conference the two resolutions already endorsed and recommended by the executive committee: “Protecting lives, promoting education,” on COVID-19 and reopening, and the open letter on higher education funding. We urge you to consider their principles and to keep them in mind, in whole or in part, in your own organizing. We also adopted the resolution by an ad hoc committee (K. Cope, J. Miranti, D. Sherman, M. Massé) asking the Governor for faculty representation on higher education boards in Louisiana. For reference I have archived the text here: https://aaupla.org/resolution-august-8-2020/. A task remaining for our next meeting, for Outreach and Communication or for the Executive Committee,…
Draft Resolution
SECOND DRAFT RESOLUTION FOR AUGUST 8TH AAUP MEETING: IMPROVING MANAGEMENT BOARDS, CONNECTING MANAGEMENT BOARD WITH FACULTY Whereas the citizens of Louisiana have established universities as repositories of expertise—as resources for the teaching of our people, for the betterment of our life, for the advancement of our economy, and for the discovery of truth and knowledge; Whereas Louisiana universities, per their mission statements, jointly cover a very wide range of disciplines and professional pursuits, from health care delivery to music history to astrophysics, and more; Whereas the leadership of institutions that are dedicated to the cultivation of expertise requires familiarity with the culture and expertise of those whose profession is the production and dissemination of knowledge; Whereas the management Boards of public institutions—the Boards of Supervisors for the University of Louisiana System; the LSU System; the Southern University System; and the Louisiana Community and Technical Colleges System along with the State Board of Regents—are the appointed deputies of the Governor of Louisiana, regulating higher education on behalf of the State executive branch; Whereas the membership of these five Boards is overwhelmingly comprised of persons drawn from a very small range of professions and vocations, most notably business, finance, and law, and…