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NYS AAUP Meeting - Spring 2001 |
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(Our Annual Meeting was held at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York and nearby restaurants. What follows is a quick summary of the most newsworthy happenings on Friday, April 27 and Saturday, April 28. The minutes of official business will be presented for approval at the Conference's Fall Meeting.) About eighteen AAUP members were present at the business session(s) on Friday afternoon. For some years now, for convenience, the regular business sessions of the NYS Conference and of its Executive Committee have been run concurrently, an arrangement which so far has not led to any confusion. Visits to Campuses across the State On behalf of the Conference's Committee on Chapters, Members, and
Dues, Jane Dineen Panek (Molloy College) reported that AAUP activists
had made visits recently to campuses around the state: As of March 1, Professor Panek said, the New York State Conference had 5171 members, the number up significantly over last year's because of the addition of new members from SUNY--one result of our affiliation with United University Professions. She successfully moved that the Conference, at a cost of $1260, provide grants to help two people from each of two NYS campuses attend this year's Summer Institute at the University of Delaware. Funds from the Assembly of State Conferences (ASC) might supplement these grants. She also recommended that the Conference's "Chapter Service Brochure" be updated. Irwin Yellowitz (City College/CUNY) said that Conference Committee
A on Academic Freedom and Tenure had handled To protect the privacy of complainants, Yellowitz did not go into specifics. But he wanted further, regular, substantive Conference discussion of academic freedom and tenure issues. He also asked that the Executive Director survey other Conferences to find out how many complaints they process in a year. Jeffrey Kraus (Wagner College) reported that as Chair of our Government Relations Committee, he wrote letters to New York State legislators outlining our concerns re the State's 2002 budget; participated in CUNY Day (March 28) to support the effort to increase funding for CUNY's community colleges; and submitted testimony at the Assembly Joint Labor and Higher Education hearing. He also wrote text for the Conference's Government Relations web page. Professor Kraus asked that the Executive Director make appointments with New York's senators and representatives for Capitol Hill Day, Thursday, June 7. (On Capitol Hill Day, AAUP members from all over the country will pay a lobbying call in Washington on the legislators from their states.) Kraus also suggested that next year we consider holding a reception in Albany during the legislative session. "I believe this would raise our visibility in Albany and in the long run make us a more effective advocate for higher education in the state." Leonard Nissim (Fordham University), for the Conference's Committee on College and University Government, summarized the findings of its annual Governance Survey: the faculty role in New York state is more satisfactory in personnel matters than in financial (see New York Academe, Spring, 2001). He also briefly described the national Conference on Governance last October which the AAUP and the American Conference of Academic Deans jointly sponsored (Ibid, Winter, 2001). He welcomed volunteers to his Committee; one volunteer, Sandy Segal (University of Rochester), has been appointed a member. Professor Panek, who chairs the national AAUP Committee on College and University Government, added that there will be another AAUP-ACAD Conference on Governance on October 12-14 this year. It will be held at the Howard University Law School in Washington, DC. ASC grant money will again be available for some participants. On behalf of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Conference's Website--Phillip Smith (United University Professions), Jerry Grayson, and himself--, John Diehl (Syracuse University, Editor of New York Academe) reported on improvements that had been made in the site since October. The Meeting approved the Committee's recommendation that one person be charged with doing the technical work involved in regularly putting items on the web site and taking them off. That person would work in consultation with the Executive Director, the Editor of New York Academe, and the chairs of Conference committees and councils who had something of moment to make quickly and widely known. It was agreed that at least for the next two years Smith would be charged with continuing the technical work he has thus far so commendably performed. The question was raised as to whether it would be possible to determine the number of "visits" made to the site (yes). The Executive Director was asked to learn all the chapters that had web sites, so that the Conference's site could be linked to them. Elections, Selections, and Other Business Martin Kaplan (Queens College/CUNY) was re-elected Secretary of the Conference; and Patrick Cihon (Syracuse University), Treasurer. There were three nominations for two positions as Members-at-Large of the Conference's Executive Committee: Bernard Sylvester (Niagara University), Jeffrey White (St. Bonaventure University), and Virginia Fichera (SUNY-Oswego); the first two were elected. Delegates to the AAUP Annual Meeting (June 7-10) in Washington, DC were appointed by President Higman with the approval of the Executive Committee. They are Martin Kaplan and Jeffrey Kraus. Delegates to the ASC Annual Meeting June 8 will be Frank Higman and John Diehi. Other Executive Committee members-Estelle Gellman, Jane Dineen Panek, Eileen Burchell (Marymount College Tarrytown), Patrick Cihon (Syracuse University), Richard Boris (York College/CUNY), and Stephen Goldberg (Adelphi University)--were also to be in Washington in various national AAUP capacities It was decided to hold the Conference's Fall 2001 meeting at D'Youville College in Buffalo on October 26-27. Executive Director Grayson was asked to look into the possibility of holding the Spring 2002 meeting at St. Johns University. There were suggestions that workshop topics for our upcoming meetings
include Members from SUNY commented that they would be pleased to have a Conference meeting held at one of the SUNY campuses. The Conference has for decades not held meetings on campuses (such as SUNY's) where the administrations were on the AAUP censure list; but some of those present thought that this practice hurt the faculty members there, not the administrations. The Conference's Constitution was amended to make the Fall Meeting the one in which the Conference's budget for the next calendar year would be approved. The term "Annual Meeting" will no longer used about a Conference meeting. Dues changes can be recommended at either the Fall or the Spring Meeting, for ultimate approval by the national Annual Meeting. It was suggested that a copy of the revised Conference Constitution be sent to all Executive Committee members and chapter presidents, in addition to being posted on our web site. Professor Gellman, who is Chair of the AAUP's Collective Bargaining Congress, reported that interest in faculty unionizing has grown nationwide since the recent NLRB decision affirming the right of the Manhattan College faculty to seek collective bargaining. But she cautioned that no assumptions could be made about the legal right of faculty members at other institutions to do likewise. She mentioned CB election victories by the adjuncts at Emerson College in Boston and by the full-time faculty at the University of Vermont. Bargaining continues for a contract at Fort Hays College in Kansas She also reported that the Executive Committee of the AAUP Council, like the CBC, had endorsed the Fair Labor Code, which calls for various rights for all college and university employees (see New York Academe, 2001), and recommended it to the AAUP Council for approval. They also endorsed a three-year agreement with New York State United Teachers to jointly organize faculty unions in New York State. And they were sympathetic to the recommendation of the national Committee on Chapters, Conferences, Members, and Dues that Conferences would get full dues from any members coming in through new affiliations She also said, without elaboration, that the AAUP was seeking agreement with the Association of University Teachers (AUT) of Great Britain to engage jointly in various activities. In view of the recurring problems that chapters and Conferences often have in dealing with the AAUP national office, the Meeting passed a resolution to be presented to the Assembly of State Conferences, urging it to seek methods to improve communication between chapters, Conferences, and the national AAUP staff to improve service to our members and constituents. Saturday: Faculty Handbooks, Retirement Planning, and CB Advice On Saturday there were two workshops and a lunchtime discussion about faculty collective bargaining. The first workshop, featuring Robert Kreiser of the national AAUP office, was about faculty handbooks. Such manuals, he said, should list faculty rights and deal with governance matters and the handling of grievances. Details about program discontinuation, financial exigency, and emergencies should be spelled out; it is best if policies about such matters be put in place in nonemergency times. In some states, Kreiser said, faculty handbooks deservedly have recognized legal standing as part of faculty contracts. Manuals should contain provisions specifying how changes in it are to be made; and the faculty should be involved at every stage of making them. AAUP policies should be brought to bear--at best, quoted. It is good, Kreiser said, to specify a role for the faculty in the choosing of administrators. Trustees need to be educated in the ways of academe, to learn why it is better to use internal grievance procedures when possible rather than legal action. The second workshop, on financial planning for retirement, was based on a slide presentation by Jeffrey Gitterman of Gitterman & Sacks, L.L.C. While conceding the importance of personal goals and toleration for risks, and the impact of interest-rate changes, inflation, and larger economic conditions, Gitterman urged faculty members, particularly when young, to invest in stocks rather than in bonds or money markets. In the long run, he said, stocks outperform other income generators; think in and invest for the long term in spite of fluctuations. Invest regularly ratherthan all at once. Don't annuitize, he advised, handle your own money--with the advice of a financial planner after you have $100,000. Balance your investments; use different parts of your money for different purposes; choose mutual funds carefully. After the workshops, in a discussion at lunch, Conference members posed questions about organizing for faculty collective bargaining to a lineup of various leaders of CB chapters in New York and to Patrick Shaw of the Washington office. Maybe half of the 40-50 people present were Manhattanville faculty members, whose unionization campaign is in its early stages. They were advised to admit part-timers to their ranks since their interests are the same as full-timers', and to involve colleagues in CB activities they found congenial. They were also reminded of a union's access to an institution's financial records and of the importance of the activities of the union's president. Professor Goldberg said that the AAUP's CB chapter at Adelphi had helped that University survive the troubled Diamondopoulos times. |