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…