AAUP@KSU

Chapter Meeting 1/16/08

Minutes

Minutes of October 17 “approved.”

1. Chapter Pres. T. Keene called meeting to order at 12:30 and dispensed with introductions. Attending: Tim Hedeen, Tom Keene, LeeAnn Lands, Sarah Robbins, Susan Rouse, Ulf Zimmermann; visiting: Valerie Whittlesey (Provost’s Office)

2. Membership Report (L. Lands): 62 current members.

3. Treasurer’s Report (T. Hedeen): $694.32 balance.

4. Criminal Background Checks: Faculty will be more fully represented on committees conducting such checks on faculty in question.

5. C/DFCs: Focus group planned for next week. Hedeen and Keene taking the lead. The aim is to establish an ongoing network of CFC/DFC leaders. Bylaws due 2/15/08.

6. Salary Compression/Inequity: See T. Hedeen’s e-mail and attachment detailing HSS faculty salaries by rank, with medians, means, and ranges. These data indicate that HSS is in fairly (so to speak) equitable shape. But where HSS has relatively small gender inequities, other colleges have significantly larger ones. This may be owing to a general gender bias in certain colleges/disciplines and could be used for some proactive hiring procedures, particularly in Business and Sciences & Mathematics. There also seem to be disproportionately many women stuck at the associate professor level—perhaps because they have traditionally done more of the service. Then, too, the number of women with budgetary authority (i.e., deans and department chairs) has declined in recent years. Interestingly enough, data such as these have not previously been produced or analyzed at KSU. (A more fine-grained analysis—accounting for, for example, years in rank as related to salary—is needed.)

7. Administrative Review: The Faculty Senate Executive Committee has made its appointments (L. Lands & P. Laval); one additional faculty appointed is needed from the Provost’s Office.

8. Parking: For Phase III the Parking Committee will publish a proposal, follow this with fora; the various senates will take it up and send their recommendations to the Provost and President.

9. Emeritus Status: This policy was passed by the Faculty Senate 1/14/08.

10. Academic Bill of Rights (S. Robbins): KSU should demonstrate to the state legislature that the policies if has (or will have) work. Some student focus groups will help in fine-tuning such policies. Scott Reese and Gab Ramirez were mentioned as possible AAUP faculty to assist in setting up focus groups.

11. C/DFC: Implementation and best practices—see above, #5.

12. The T&P Muddle: The constructive role that the AAUP can play is to stress as strongly as possible the primacy of departmental guidelines (which, it is important to remember, are/will be guidelines that have been agreed upon and approved by the deans, the Provost, and the President). Given that, if there is a disagreement between a departmental T&P decision and the Provost, the Provost should consult with the departmental T&P committee. The AAUP should stress equally emphatically that such guidelines be conscientiously applied. The AAUP also believes that those guidelines should reflect the University’s mission, i.e., KSU is not and is not planning, in the near future, to be a Research I institution but one with a professional mission and professional (not academic/scholarly) graduate degrees. Such departmental guidelines should, moreover, be shared and be accessible University-wide via departmental/college web links. (Guidelines should also be posted by 2/15/08.) The AAUP may publicize “best practices.”

Respectfully submitted,

Ulf Zimmermann, Secretary