April 14, 2012

Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Louisiana Conference of the American Association of University Professors. The meeting was held in the Lavin-Bernick Center of the Tulane University campus in New Orleans on Saturday, April 14, 2012. It was called to order by President Alvin Burstein at 10:00 a.m. Attending were faculty members representing about a dozen private and public institutions around the state. The first order of business was the election of a new executive committee, proposed by the nominating committee of Paul F. Bell (chair), Louise Bostick, and David Otto. The following slate was nominated: President                      Brooks Ellwood (LSU, Baton Rouge) Vice-President              Sudhir Trivedi (Southern University, Baton Rouge) Treasurer                      Nicole Greene (Xavier University) Secretary                      Linda Carroll (Tulane University) At Large                       Sandra Loucks (Southeastern Louisiana University, retired) The slate was approved unanimously. Treasurer Sandra Loucks next presented the treasurer’s report. The report is available on the Conference website. Briefly, it reflects a healthy cash balance of approximately $20,000. It was moved, seconded, and unanimously approved that the Conference would set up a legal defense fund to help faculty members obtain legal assistance. Requests for financial assistance to members of the AAUP State Conference in amounts…

April 26, 2011

The Annual Meeting convened at 10 AM in the President’s Conference Room at the University of Louisiana, Alexandria. The initial part of the meeting, shared with the Louisiana Statewide Colleagues’ Collaborative, began with a presentation by Belle Wheelan, President of the Southern Accreditation Commission on Colleges on the topic of Academic Freedom and Shared Governance. Dr. Wheelan’s presentation was followed by a question and answer period during which two main topics emerged. The first had to do with reports of diminished influence of faculty in institutional governance around the state. The second had to do with repeated urging that SACS accreditation teams should be required to meet with the elected representatives of the faculty. Dr. Wheelan appeared prepared to give serious consideration to that possibility. She also urged individuals who wished to report violation of the principle of shared governance to report those instances directly to her. Following Dr. Wheelan’s presentation AAUP members continued their meeting separately. President Bill Stewart announced that, because of Treasurer Paul Bell’s wish to resign, Sandra Loucks had been appointed to serve for the remainder of his term, and that Linda Carroll would serve as Secretary for the remainder of Dr. Loucks’ term. Paul Bell…

April 17, 2010

The Louisiana State Conference of the AAUP held its annual meeting on Saturday, April 17, 2010 on the campus of Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. The Conference expresses its gratitude to the SLU chapter for hosting the meeting, including arranging an excellent luncheon. Approximately thirty members attended, representing at least seven institutions. President Al Burstein opened the meeting by calling for reports from the institutions represented. Prof. Brooks Ellwood, president of the Louisiana State University chapter, reported on the two most important cases there, that of Prof. Ivor van Heerden, whose contract was not renewed by the university subsequent to Prof. van Heerden’s critique of the Army Corps of Engineers regarding the failure of flood-protection structures in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and who holds that he has de facto tenure and should be reinstated. His case is currently being considered by the national office as potentially reason for an investigation. To Prof. van Heerden’s case has been added that of Prof. Dominique Homberger, whose test grades were changed and who was subsequently removed as the instructor of a course because the administration believed that the grades were too low. The chapter has requested that the national…

April, 4, 2009

Louisiana State Conference American Association of University Professors Minutes of Annual Meeting April, 4, 2009 The meeting was called to order by President Alvin Burstein at 10:10 AM. The President then introduced Dr. Robert Kreiser, Associate Secretary of AAUP, who presented his scheduled talk, “Whatever Happened to Shared Governance? Academic Freedom and The Faculty’s Role in Planning Change.” A question and discussion period followed Dr. Kreiser’s talk. Among the points emphasized in the talk and ensuing discussion were the importance of having appropriate procedures for responding to financial exigency in place before the fact, as well as alertness to the possibility that some administrations seek to avoid agreed-upon procedures, even when they are embodied in a Faculty Handbook (or its equivalent), by citing new “exigencies.” “Force Majeur exigency” declarations in the post-Katrina period was one example of such avoidance; another more recent one is “enrollment exigency.” Mention was also made of the excellent work of the LSU Chapter in publishing a carefully reasoned and principled letter about how the campus should proceed in the face of any financial exigency, describing in detail the optimal faculty role in decisions. A key point was that furloughs, layoffs, salary reductions or the like…