For many years, the Indiana State University chapter of the American
Association of University Professors (AAUP) has defended academic
freedom, tenure, due process, and shared governance as well as
professional standards in the treatment of non-tenure track faculty.
Nonetheless, the AAUP is not very well known to many faculty, and a
broader awareness of its advocacy work is necessary to expand our
chapter's active membership. A strong and visible AAUP presence at ISU is
needed more than ever at the present time, when questions of shared
governance and administrative accountability have reached a boiling point
on this campus. By applying AAUP's core values to important developments
at ISU, we hope to generate an enlightened campus-wide dialogue on the
real policy choices facing this university. Comments and contributions are
most welcome. Send them to Paul Burkett,
ISU-AAUP Newsletter Editor, c/o Department of Economics (campus mail) or by email to
pburkette@isugw.indstate.edu
The Governance Crisis at ISU
Although the immediate impetus for the University Senate's vote of no
confidence in President Benjamin's leadership was his acceptance of a
major salary increase immediately after his public statement that no ISU
employees would be receiving pay raises, this was merely the last ounce
that tipped the scales. Nor was it only that the President had made several
public and semi-private remarks showing an unacceptable disdain for
students and other ISU stakeholders, although this too contributed to the
no confidence vote. The main faculty grievance was the demonstrated
tendency of the President and Provost to bypass and/or manipulate shared-
governance bodies, including the Senate and its Executive Committees, so
as to pursue a unilateralist mode of administration, attempting to conceive
and implement major initiatives in substantively autocratic fashion.
Examples abound: from the folding of the Center for Teaching and Learning
into the Office of Information Technology, to the proposed merging of the
Nursing School into the College of Health and Human Performance, to the
Notebook Computer Initiative, to the costly evaluation of prospects for a
Law School, we see a recurring pattern of reliance on administratively
appointed external consultants, ad hoc committees, selected faculty and
faculty-administrative fellows, and on peremptory pronouncements to
narrow the menu of policy options prior to the involvement of established
faculty governance institutions. Any faculty or student opposition to the
administration's initiatives is then countered with scare tactics ("if we
don't do this, bad things will happen" or "we don't want to miss this
opportunity") and labeled obstructionist.
Several actions and outcomes subsequent to the no confidence vote have
made it clear that the administration does not intend to seriously modify
this pattern of unilateralist and poorly justified management decisions. We
have witnessed the apparently forced resignation of a popular and
respected Business School Dean (with no real explanation), and the
continued top-down pursuit of the Nursing - Health and Human
Performance merger in the face of strong grassroots opposition among
nursing faculty and students.
However, an additional feature of this unilateralist management style has
now become much more clear: the lack of administrative accountability.
The Board of Trustees responded to the Senate's no confidence vote not
only by refusing to cancel President Benjamin's salary increase, but also by
giving him a rousing vote of confidence (and use of a new Lincoln Town
Car). Moreover, to date no administrator has been held accountable for the
estimated $1.5 million loss incurred on a purchased building for lack of a
simple inspection. Tens of thousands of dollars have been spent on
consultants for initiatives like the proposed Law School (apparently now
archived), without any evaluation of the costs and benefits of these
expenditures.
Perhaps most troubling is the apparent spread of administrative
unilateralism downward to the college level. A prime illustration is the
September 2006 announcement by the Dean of Arts and Sciences of a
wholesale reorganization initiative involving the merger of all departments
having less than ten faculty into larger departments. This proposal,
complete with various interdepartmental merger scenarios constructed by
the Dean, was distributed without any prior input from, or discussion
among, the departments involved. It was accompanied by a statement from
the Dean suggesting that the "status quo" (i.e., maintaining the current
department structure of the college) was unacceptable.
The ISU-AAUP supported the Spring-2006 Senate vote of no confidence in
the current President. Nonetheless, given ensuing developments, it seems
appropriate to ask whether it is possible to maintain any viable form of
faculty governance at ISU under the current set of institutional
circumstances. It may be that the traditional governance bodies -
University Senate, College Councils, etc. - need to be supplemented with a
more autonomous and solidaristic form of organization by and for the
faculty. This issue was the focus of the ISU-AAUP's Fall Forum.
Report on Fall Forum
The theme of the ISU-AAUP's Fall Forum on October 18 was "Collective
Bargaining at ISU: What If? Why Not?". Featured guests were Patrick Shaw,
Esq., Associate Secretary of the national AAUP, and K. Vinodgopal,
President of the Indiana Conference of the AAUP. The program began with
a brief discussion by Dr. Vinodgopal of the potential advantages of
collective bargaining, and of recent efforts by the state AAUP to improve
faculty representation especially through the appointment of faculty to
university boards of trustees. Mr. Shaw then led a more extended
discussion of unionization and collective bargaining in higher education.
The AAUP's position is that collective bargaining can be a useful
complement to shared governance institutions such as university senates.
Collective bargaining can increase the effectiveness of faculty governance
by extending its area of competence, defining its autonomous institutional
authority, and strengthening the faculty's voice in areas of shared authority
and responsibility. So far as public universities are concerned,
approximately 30 states have enacted laws sanctioning faculty collective
bargaining, and more than 300,000 faculty at public institutions are
currently represented in collective bargaining nationwide. The AAUP is one
of several organizations that acts as a collective bargaining agent -
sometimes jointly with other organizations such as the American
Federation of Teachers or the National Education Association. AAUP
collective bargaining chapters include ten colleges and universities in Ohio
and seven in Michigan. There was some discussion of prospects and
strategies for the legal sanctioning of collective bargaining in Indiana, but
Mr. Shaw emphasized that such legislation is not necessary for collective
bargaining. Shaw's presentation included two accounts of faculty
unionization in states that did not at the time have public employee
bargaining laws: Eastern Washington University and the University of
Cincinnati. Some of the discussion following Shaw's presentation
contrasted the institutional power of collective bargaining with the largely
advisory role of shared governance alone, the latter being illustrated by the
lack of constructive administrative response to the ISU University Senate's
Spring 2006 vote of no confidence in President Benjamin.
The Erosion of Faculty Salaries at ISU
One reason why many faculty, and the ISU-AAUP, have begun to consider
collective bargaining options is the recent trend in faculty salaries at this
university. As the accompanying table shows, annual changes in ISU faculty
pay have declined from an already low 2.0% in 2004-2005 to zero in 2006-
2007. When one allows for annual increases in the cost of living of
between 3% and 4% (conservatively estimated), plus increases in faculty
medical insurance costs, it becomes apparent that the real, inflation-
adjusted salaries of ISU faculty have declined by a cumulative 10% or more
over the last three academic years. Meanwhile, faculty at the four other
institutions shown in the table have at least been granted salary increases
that come much closer to offsetting recent rises in the cost of living. The
recently announced $1000 one-time payment (before taxes) for ISU faculty
and staff does not counteract these trends significantly.
