September 2003
Meeting Announcements
The APSU Chapter of AAUP will meet at 3:30 pm, Thursday, October 2, in UC 306. The agenda will include current issues, some of which are discussed in this newsletter, and plans for chapter work this academic year.
The Tennessee Conference of AAUP will meet at APSU in the University Center on Saturday, November 1, from 9:00 to 3:00. There will be a luncheon. Come meet your statewide colleagues and a representative from the national office. Details will be sent to you via the Conference newsletter soon and through this listserv.
Chapter Officers:
President: Dick. Gildrie, History and Philosophy
Vice President: Pete Stoddard, Social Work
Secretary: Jim Thompson, Biology
Treasurer: Phil Kemmerly, Geology and Geography
Current Issues and Projects:
Several issues have been raised already this Fall Term which are being addressed by the chapter executive committee.
1. The DSP Office Hours Question: The following statement was prepared by the Executive Committee and was sent to the principals involved, including the President of the Faculty Senate. To date there has been a compromise but the principles at stake have not been adequately discussed or resolved. The matter is to be "revisited," according to VPAA Bruce Speck. The Executive Committee believes that these issues have serious ramifications for academic freedom and workload definitions that transcend the particular circumstances of DSP.
DSP Office Hours: Preliminary Observations
Richard P. Gildrie, President APSU chapter of AAUP
Peter Stoddard, Vice President of APSU chapter of AAUP
Phillip Kemmerly, Treasurer of APSU chapter of AAUP
27 August 2003
The Issue:
This chapter of AAUP has received a formal request for discussion on the question of administrative re-assignment of office hours and location from faculty members in the DSP program, other than Meredith Gildrie. Following AAUP guidelines, the chapter will initiate such a study. However, due to the need to address some of the principles prior to a scheduled Faculty Senate meeting this afternoon, members of the chapter executive committee wish to offer some preliminary observations in hope of furthering fruitful consideration of the issue, using what documents are currently available to us, APSU and TBR Policy statements, and published AAUP standards.
APSU VPAA Bruce Speck has ordered members of the DSP faculty "to maintain 5 hours of their scheduled office hours in the Learning Center Lab" (memo, Stan Groppel to DSP faculty, 21 August 2003). Their function will be to provide tutorial assistance to students.
In effect, faculty are being forced to provide the rough equivalent of an additional 2-3 hour course for no compensation, financial or otherwise. The strain on workload is aggravated by the fact that, due to financial constraints and enrollment pressures, members of the DSP faculty frequently teach 15 hours a term when the University standard is 12. This term 5/8 of these people will now be teaching 15 hours of regular teaching plus the equivalent of 2-3 more. There is some intent to lessen the load on the regular course assignment next term. Nonetheless, involuntary "overloads" are not unusual in this department.
Because there is little expectation that the work usually done in faculty offices will be appreciably diminished, this new assignment is an added burden to the work week. Most DSP faculty have a minimum of 8 hours of office hours, as usually understood, but now, in effect, the DSP faculty will have 13. A reasonable person might suspect that the quality of work done in class rooms, offices, and labs will suffer under these pressures.
Policy:
VPAA Speck justifies this power to redefine the locale of "office hours" and dictate the content of work done during these hours by referring to TBR policy No. 5:01:00:00, C, 3. The relevant portion of which reads:
"All full-time personnel, including faculty, shall be required to devote a minimum of 37.5 hours per week to the institution or center, and shall maintain appropriate office hours as determined by the president (or his or her designee)."
Clearly this policy allows the administration to determine the number of office hours within the parameters of a 15 hour load (teaching, plus research etc) and a 37.5 hour work week. However, it does not even suggest an administrative power to determine a locale other than the commonly understood word, "office." VPAA Speck claims (memo to DSP faculty, 25 August 2003) that the usual understanding of the phrase "office hours" is too narrow and implies that he has the power to shift the meaning of such phrases at will. If true, then faculty members have an equal right to redefine the phrase so as to include any work done at home grading papers and reading for courses. In which case, many would have little incentive, other than a sense of duty, to come to campus other than to teach classes and attend meetings. If the meaning of words in a policy statement can be changed arbitrarily, then there is no point in reading or using any policy.
An even more direct threat to academic freedom and faculty effectiveness is the asserted right of administrators to define the content or nature of work done during "office hours," in this case, tutorial instruction.
Implications:
Leaving aside the usual administrative appeals - "Trust us" and "This an emergency" - the work conditions of DSP faculty, including the recent imposition, create precedents for this and subsequent administrations to do the following to any or all APSU faculty.
1. Demand extra services at locales of administrative choosing, and without compensation, by re-defining "office hours." For instance, Psychology faculty could be ordered to provide professional assistance in a counseling center.
2. Determine what types of work will be done during office hours in any location.
3. Decide the content and method of instruction in any department or class.
4. Impose 15 hour teaching load when administratively convenient.
There is an apparent irony in this proposed use of policy. The APSU and TBR versions are introduced with the observation that the purpose of these rules for faculty is to "allow them maximum freedom of instruction, research, and artistic production within their area of expertise." The proposed assignment heads in the opposite direction.
TBR policy explicitly endorses AAUP standards "in general as a useful philosophic and practical guide to academic rights and responsibilities." Those standards insist repeatedly that faculty, with expertise in an area, have primary responsibility for determining such matters as "method of instruction, subject matter to be taught, maintenance of a suitable environment for learning." The AAUP "Statement of Faculty Workload" asserts that "faculty should participate fully in the determination of workload policy, both initially and in all subsequent reappraisals." We strongly urge all concerned to observe the letter and spirit of that concept.
On that point, we understand that serious discussion is occurring between DSP faculty and administrators to find alternative means of serving students while preserving academic rights. We applaud that fact and wish to assist these deliberations by noting basic principles of academic freedom and faculty effectiveness.
2. "Collegiality" in Personnel Decisions, especially Tenure. The Executive Committee received an informal request from an AAUP member to look into the question of the use of "collegiality" as a criterion in personnel decisions.
In essence, the problem is a recent tendency among administrators and faculty to use collegiality as a category of faculty evaluation equal to and separate from the traditional areas of teaching, scholarship, and service. In response, the Council of the National Association adopted in 1999 a policy statement, "On Collegiality as a Criterion for Faculty Evaluation," which can be found in AAUP, Policy Documents & Reports (2001). On the whole, the authors of the statement "view this development as highly unfortunate, and we believe that it should be discouraged."
However, as the statement notes, the issue is not a simple one. On the one hand, it is obvious that some degree of cooperation and civility are essential to the vitality of any academic institution. On the other hand, it is equally obvious that charges of lack of collegiality occasionally mask various forms of discrimination and efforts to suppress unorthodox opinion. Also, collegiality is often confused with excessive deference to administrative and faculty decisions which, for the good of the institution, ought to be openly and rationally debated. Thus, collegiality, when misused or misunderstood, can be a direct threat to academic freedom.
These questions have been tested in federal courts sporadically since 1972. These cases and the AAUP policy statement are discussed in an article, "Does Collegiality Count?" by Mary Ann Connell, general counsel for the University of Mississippi, and Frederick Savage, deputy counsel for Johns Hopkins University, Academe (November-December, 2001). The courts have consistently upheld the use of collegiality as a factor in personnel decisions, but not necessarily as a separate criterion of faculty evaluation. The courts have, however, regularly agreed with the AAUP that collegiality must not be a form of covert discrimination or as a means of suppressing academic debate on and off campus. It is clear to the authors of this article that, "The posture of the courts is really not that far philosophically from the position of the critics of collegiality, particularly the AAUP." "In the legal realm," they conclude, "consideration of collegiality in higher education employment decisions appears to be valid as long as institutions exercise the same caution against the misuse of collegiality that they apply to any other subjective evaluation."
3. Intellectual Property Rights and Academic Freedom: Over the last calendar year a couple of incidents have raised questions about intellectual property rights of faculty. TBR Policy 5:01:06:00, which governs this issue, is in full accord with AAUP standards. In essence, the University "shall not assert ownership of scholarly works, which "include, but are not limited to, articles written for publication in scholarly journals, textbooks, works of art, musical compositions and literary works."
However, "those copyrightable works which could reasonably be expected to have commercial value" must be disclosed to the President of the University. And, if significant elements of University support were necessary for the production of such works, then the University has a right to ask a percentage of the income. That percentage, under 40%, is subject to negotiation, depending largely on the extent of University support to the project.
Last updated on September 22, 2003.