Minutes of the AAUP Executive Committee Meeting of May 23, 2007

Present: D. Burns (Chapter President), E. Chudacoff, M. Crichton, W. Ensminger, W. Kaplan, K. Kearfott, J. Lehman (SACUA Liaison), R. Lomax, C. Smith

D. Burns called the meeting to order at 12:15 p.m.

Agenda. The proposed agenda was adopted as submitted.

Election of Members-at-Large. The Executive Committee by secret ballot unanimously elected J. Lehman and M. Thouless to serve one-year terms on the Chapter Executive Committee.

Minutes. The minutes of the May 9, 2007 meeting were adopted unanimously as submitted.

Treasurer's Report. M. Crichton reported that the Chapter has received $170.00 in donations and $246.95 in payroll deduction dues since the last Executive Committee meeting. She said that the Chapter paid $414.10 for airfare for the Annual Meeting speaker and that the balance in the Chapter's checking account is $1,046.44. The Committee voted unanimously to accept the Treasurer's report.

Active Cases. J. Lehman reported on two active cases. First, he said that Deputy General Counsel D. Sharphorn is proceeding with an inquiry of academic misconduct in the case of the faculty member, who is being charged by the dean of his unit with academic misconduct in a dispute over authorship. Second, J. Lehman reported on a case in which a tenured professor has been given a seven-course teaching load and has been denied sabbatical leave although ten years have elapsed since that professor's last sabbatical. W. Kaplan commented that the Chapter traditionally has provided assistance in such cases. He offered to work with members of the Committee who might wish to help faculty members who plan to file grievances.

Faculty Governance. The Committee discussed the process by which the Provost was selecting the central, faculty ombudsperson. C. Smith reported that there were several problems with the manner in which the selection was proceeding. He said that a) although a SACUA member was part of the team that reviewed the ombudsperson's office, designed the selection procedure, and conducted the identification of a shortlist, that individual was not chosen by SACUA and did not report to SACUA until a list of four names had been generated. SACUA then insisted that it interview all four candidates and make its recommendation(s) to the Provost. C. Smith noted that when Provost Paul Courant selected the previous ombudsperson, B. Metzger, he told SACUA that he would not select someone for that position unless that person was supported by the faculty (i.e. by SACUA). W. Kaplan suggested that if the current Provost selects an ombudsperson, who is not supported by the faculty, the AAUP Chapter will be obligated to provide the necessary mediation services in grievance cases, as has been the case in past years.

C. Smith reported on a meeting of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) that he had attended at Stanford University as Chair of SACUA. He said that he had learned that the University of Michigan conducts its intercollegiate athletic program neither in the manner proposed by COIA nor in accordance with the bylaws of the Big Ten Conference.

Chapter Annual Newsletter. The Committee discussed briefly the problems that occurred with the distribution of the Chapter's 2007 Annual Newsletter. C. Smith said that he would look into ways in which those problems might be avoided in future years.

Chapter Annual Meeting. Committee members commented on the great success of the 2007 Chapter Annual Meeting and the excellent talk by University of Texas-Austin Professor Mary Steinhardt on grievance procedures at her university that took place on Thursday, May 10, 2007 in the Michigan Room of the Michigan League. The Committee discussed Professor Steinhardt's comments that a) there should be a university-wide, rather than a unit-specific, grievance review board (GRB), b) that the chair and the members of the GRB should be elected by the faculty-governance system, and c) that for success a central, faculty ombudsperson must be chosen by the faculty and not by the administration. C. Smith noted that the attendance (45) was the highest in recent years. He added that representatives from the Provost's and General Counsel's offices were present. J. Lehman said that he would attempt to get a copy of Professor Steinhardt's presentation for posting on the Chapter website. E. Chudacoff observed that there should be a flowchart of the various steps in the grievance procedures as they exist at the University of Michigan. J. Lehman said that such a flowchart had been prepared for the report of the special SACUA Taskforce on Grievance Procedure Revision that had reported to the Senate Assembly at its January 2007 meeting.

State Conference. Several Committee members remarked that they had filled out the survey prepared by Michigan Conference Executive Director J. Lee and mailed it to the Conference headquarters in Lansing. C. Smith reported that the Michigan Conference Executive Board would meet on Saturday, June 16, 2007, at the Eastern Michigan University AAUP headquarters in Ypsilanti.

National Headquarters Developments. D. Burns reminded the Committee that he would represent the Chapter at the 2007 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. and would make a report on that event at the next Executive Committee meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

C. B. Smith

Chapter Secretary

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