ARIZONA FACULTIES COUNCIL

Arizona Faculties Council Meeting Minutes

Date: Friday, December 1, 2006
Place: Ventana Room, UA Student Union
Time Frame: 7:45 a.m.-8:45 a.m.

Present:
Marcus Ford, NAU, Arizona Faculties’ Council President (2006-2007) and NAU Senate Past President
Marsha Yowell, NAU Senate President
Susanna Maxwell, NAU Vice Provost for Academic Personnel
Liz Grobsmith, NAU Provost
Bill Verdini, ASU at the Tempe Campus Senate President-Elect
Betty Capaldi, ASU Provost at the Tempe Campus
John Brock, ASU Polytechnic Academic Assembly and Senate President
Susan Mattson, ASU Downtown Campus Senate President
Mernoy Harrison, ASU Downtown Provost
Wanda Howell, UA Chair of the Faculty
Robert Mitchell, UA Vice-Chair of the Faculty and Presiding Officer of the Senate
J.C. Mutchler, UA South Faculty Forum Past President
Bill Alexander, UA South Faculty Forum President
Jennifer Jenkins, UA Secretary of the Faculty
George Davis, UA Provost
Jerry Hogle, UA Vice Provost for Instruction
Juan Garcia, UA Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
Jacqueline Mok, UA Vice Provost for Academic Programs/Initiatives
Stephanie Jacobson, ABOR Associate Executive Director, Academic/Student Affairs
Pam Bridgmon, UA Faculty Center Program Coordinator

AFC Chair Ford called the meeting to order at 8:00 a.m. Members introduced themselves.

Topic: Academic Bill of Rights:
AFC Chair Ford introduced Megan Fitzgerald, Field Director of the Free Exchange on Campus Coalition and is also the Director of the Center for Campus Free Speech, one of the ten organizations that comprise the Free Exchange Coalition. Ms. Fitzgerald explained that the Free Exchange on Campus Coalition is made up of a variety of student, faculty and civil rights groups including the AAUP, ACLU, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Library Association/Association of College and Research Libraries, the Campus Progress/Center for American Progress, the Center for Campus Free Speech, the Free Press, the National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups, the National Education Association/NEW Student Program, People / Young People for the American Way Foundation / VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood and the United States Student Association.

Ms. Fitzgerald is in Arizona to help coordinate the state’s effort to defeat ideological agendas that threaten the free exchange of ideas on college or university campuses that are central to the learning process, such as David Horowitz’ “Academic Bill of Rights” (ABoR) and its various iterations. An important strategy toward this goal is to counter the negative message that Horowitz is putting forward. It is critical to educate the public, and to be sure that the media message on this issue is accurate, that there is no political bias in higher education and that bills like these distract us from our real focus. Although the ABoR bill has been introduced in twenty states, it has not passed in a single one. Pennsylvania’s legislature did a fact-finding study and found no bias in the classroom. The Colorado campuses adopted a version of it so that they could control it rather than the legislature. Arizona’s universities narrowly escaped such a bill by adopting versions of the UA’s syllabus policy with the “sensitive content” language. Fitzgerald has heard that Senator Verschoor may introduce an ABoR bill in the House later this year. Fitzgerald believes the best approach would be to kill the bill with finality so the universities don’t have to keep fighting it every year. Toward this effort, Ms. Fitzgerald will be working with the Arizona Students Association and the Arizona Public Interest Research Group as well as our higher education-friendly legislators, student leaders and faculty leaders who will become spokespersons for our state on this topic. It is important that faculty are free to discuss sensitive topics in class and not have to worry. Fitzgerald will provide a generic “kit” which she will adapt specifically for Arizona’s needs. Countering the negative media is an important strategy in defeating these bills.

Points of Discussion:

·         The students should take the lead and present a united front in Arizona. That will be much more effective and influential than faculty voices.

·         It is, nevertheless, important for faculty to voice a reasoned and positive opinion in a non-derogatory way.

·         It is not always ideal for liberal faculty to defend “liberalness.”

·         About 40% of Arizona legislators do not have a college degree.

·         Working with the house and senate subcommittees on higher education is a good strategy.

·         It is good that the Free Exchange on Campus Coalition develops a relationship with the public. We can use the help on that.

·         Question: Is there something formal we should do? It would be wise to organize yourselves for coordinating and strategizing. The students are quite excited about this effort and would welcome such an informal coalition with faculty.

·         A silver lining to this issue is that it presents a real opportunity to explain what higher education is, what it brings to the state, and why it’s important to keep it like it is. It’s a chance to really make the case for higher education, and in particular, for a liberal arts education.

·         Question: What about community colleges and the high schools? Have they been involved in this issue? Not as much but some have been in CO and PA. Horowitz’s website has been intimating that he’s going to introduce a K-12 bill but so far, nothing has materialized.

·         A simultaneous advantage would be to have every university and every college within the university post a clear, public statement of assessment of outcomes on its website.

·         With respect to the legislators, we can’t do much with the extreme conservatives, and the liberals can’t be much help on an issue like this, we must appeal to the moderate conservatives. For this group, the only catchable issue may be student coercion, that is, that the students are being coerced to write in a way to please a professor.

·         Students don’t generally have a lot of grievances about this bias in the classroom. In a study of one school’s student grievances over five years, only 13 complaints were handled for 80K students and all were resolved to the satisfaction of both parties. At UA, the Provost’s Office handles the cases and there have been about one per year for three years, including one student who admitted his parents made him file the complaint, but that he didn’t really feel that his professor was biased.

AFC members agreed that working with the students on this effort is a good approach.

Topic: Textbook Costs Task Force
R. Mitchell noted that UA has a local textbook task force similar to the Regents’ committee. It is fully participatory with all stakeholders invited. ASU has a similar committee, but faculty are troubled by a recent statement that the high costs of textbooks is the faculty’s fault. Textbooks average $500 per semester, with a 10% buyback for non-adopted books. Mitchell remarked that he learned that at all three campuses, the on-campus textbook adoption rate is 2%. UA’s BookStore can offer higher buyback rates if faculty are able to comply with “on time textbook adoption.” The deadline for fall textbook adoption is April 30. The deadline maximizes the BookStore’s profit. Last minute hiring of adjuncts makes it difficult to know what classes they’ll be teaching, but for large multi-section courses, it might be able to state the books for those courses. UA utilizes textbook coordinators in some departments who submit the department’s orders to the BookStore. If a department has 20 faculty members, and several are stragglers, that coordinator may hold the order up until all orders are in.

Topic: Plus-Minus grading
ASU reports that it is implementing (optional) plus-minus grading and will be conducting a qualitative survey of students and faculty about the system to see if it has had an impact. UA tried to implement this but the student information system could not handle the change. ASU had the same problem, so it took ten years to modify that system up to a level that could handle the extra load.

Topic:  Post Docs
UA Vice Provost Garcia said the tri-Universities vice-provosts and human resources departments are working on a clearer definition of Post-docs, which will include titles, notices, vacation, retirement and parental issues. Some Post-docs have been at that same level for sixteen years, which is not appropriate. Post-docs shouldn’t be considered students. The universities should not exploit Post-docs, and neither should Post-docs be acting as lab managers interminably. In some fields, however, it is entirely appropriate for an individual to remain a post-doc for his/her entire career. Some of the new categories for faculty, such as Professor of Research or Professor of Practice, might be appropriate for some of these Post-docs.

Topic: Merit reviews
NAU Provost Grobsmith expressed concerns about inflated annual performance/merit reviews and asked whether a category of “needs improvement” should be introduced between satisfactory and unsatisfactory. UA and ASU already have such a category with a performance improvement plan which ABOR would probably prefer to make it a system-wide approach. Provost Grobsmith would like to receive the documentation on UA and ASU’s system.

This meeting concluded at 8:50 a.m.

Submitted by Pam Bridgmon
Program Coordinator – UA Faculty Center

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