President’s Newsletter, January 25, 2020 – AAUP Louisiana Conference

Louisiana Conference AAUP
President’s Newsletter

January 25, 2020

Today we met at the LSU Law Center. 18 members attended, representing Tulane University of Louisiana, University of Holy Cross, LSU-Baton Rouge, Southern University-Baton Rouge, LSU-Alexandria, McNeese State University, and UL Lafayette. McNeese now has 7 members and will be formalizing a chapter this semester. With them, and the recent reactivation of the chapter at Centenary College, we will have chapters at 10 Louisiana institutions. I am grateful for the participation of members from institutions without chapters and I urge every chapter to work to increase membership this year. Materials and training are available, and AAUP presence strengthens faculty and campuses.

Monica Owens, political organizer from AAUP-national, gave a workshop on organizing strategies that was very useful. We worked with materials in the AAUP’s anti-privatization toolkit as examples of steps in an organization strategy, and we decided we need to hone our resolution to a more specific purpose before using it as part of an organizing campaign. Monica is available to consult with individual chapters by Zoom and can be contacted at mowens@aaup.org.

We formed a nominations committee for Spring elections. Chairing is Christof Stumpf (LSU-A), cstumpf@lsua.edu. Members are Jana Lipman (Tulane), jlipman@tulane.edu and Carrie Chrisco (McNeese), cchrisco@mcneese.edu. The committee is soliciting nominations for all offices, as well as to the state conference Committee A on academic freedom and tenure, which needs expansion. Members from institutions without chapters are particularly welcome on the state Committee A, since this connection can help support their faculty. We appointed Vipin Menon (McNeese) to the state conference executive committee as Media Manager.

The Spring meeting will be Saturday, April 25, 2020, 10AM-12N at UL Lafayette. I have requested a room in the Student Union. This is next to Cypress Lake with its graceful birds and charming alligators and turtles. Festival International de Louisiane, a major music, food, arts and crafts festival, will be in full swing from 12N to 11PM and later, so it will be worth staying the afternoon or longer.

We discussed a number of practical matters relating to governance and training. We may need minor constitutional revisions to enable maximum representation at the national level, and the Executive Committee will look into this. Chapters may wish to credential delegates to vote at the national meeting in June, and/or band together to form a “section” and credential a single delegate to deliver our votes. We will be communicating about this and also about the summer Institute, to be held in July either at San Diego State U or U of Nevada, Reno. The Institute is very much worthwhile, and there are some scholarships for first-time attendees.

We look forward to seeing you April 25, and to hearing from you before then.

In solidarity,

LESLIE

Leslie Bary
2018-2020 President
Louisiana Conference AAUP