Dear Truman AAUP Members,

This note is to you, the actual members of the American Association of University Professors who work at Truman State University. We have received a recent membership list and you are on it. Our chapter has thirty-one members. Two are emeritus members. Because our chapter grew by 12 dues paying full-time members last semester, national AAUP reimbursed us a hundred and five dollars.

I hope that everyone's semester is starting well. I would like to review our work last year and announce plans for the upcoming year. Last year we held monthly meetings on Fridays at 7:30 AM at Washington Street Java Co. These meetings were productive, and the conversation was friendly. We also hosted two pot-luck suppers at the University Club. Deadwood played at one of these. We also constructed a Web page on which faculty can find AAUP membership information, the State of the University Survey Results, and our under-used Faculty Discussion Forum. The address is http://members.socket.net/~susand The University has not replied yes or no to our request for a site on the University server. Last year, we also conducted a second State of the University Survey and posted these results with the comparisons to the previous year on our Web site. We also held a Town Meeting on reading day to discuss the information from the survey. Finally, at the request of the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Team,the AAUP President meet with the Visiting Team along with the President of Faculty Senate and the Undergraduate Council Chair.

There have been many positive developments, but I have two concerns. At our last business meeting, we had trouble filling officers positions. A few were left vacant. Also, at our Town Meeting, I heard high expectations of AAUP from faculty without the recognition that there are only a few members in our chapter doing a lot of work. These few members, moreover, are heavily involved in other areas of the University. AAUP has an excellent reputation, and it provides an exceptional service to our profession. If Truman faculty, however, are going to benefit from this reputation and service, our chapter needs to become stronger. Our chapter, after all, is the bridge to the larger, AAUP organization. Faculty at Truman are beginning to recognize their need for AAUP. They are beginning to recognize the importance of AAUP, not only for their sake, but also for the Universitys.

Let me then announce some plans for the coming year. I recognize that early morning meetings are not popular, but they work. Nobody last year responded to our query asking after alternative meeting times. Thus, we continue to meet the first Friday of each month at 7:30 AM at Washington Street Java Co. in downtown Kirksville. Our slogan is the same: Strong Coffee, Baked Goods, and Serious Conversation.

It is important, though, not to isolate ourselves from the campus community. I think that it would be a good idea to host town meetings or colloquia on campus on topics of faculty interest. One pressing subject is faculty attrition. A remarkable number of high quality faculty left Truman this year. More faculty, in fact, could have left this year than did. While attrition can be healthy for a social system, excessive attrition can represent a dysfunction system. If the system is dysfunctional, can we discuss it in constructive and helpful ways? What are the problems that lead to high attrition? Can these problems be fixed? Is our administration asking and addressing these questions? One idea that AAUP might pursue is to develop a handbook for new faculty members. The handbook could provide useful information and insiders tips on both the University and the Kirksville community.

Another initiative that we need to undertake is a membership drive. Our chapter is small, which makes it difficult to sustain the initiatives we already have. We need to increase our membership to continue what we already do do and to grow. Our chapter needs to sustain its development from last year and to pursue new opportunities; we can make a positive difference at Truman, which would be good for faculty, students, and administrators.

First Meeting -- Friday September 3, 1999, 7:30 AM Washington Street Java Co., Downtown Kirksville

Agenda

Membership Drive

New Faculty AAUP Handbook

Town Meeting on Faculty Attrition

Fall Pot-Luck Supper with Deadwood

Web Site Update

-- Anonymous, August 28, 1999

Answers

Reply to Keith's inaugural message for 99-2K:

You make some excellent points about AAUP membership and activity. Speaking from my experiences as a relatively new faculty member, here are some of the reasons that I, and perhaps more new faculty, have been less involved with AAUP than we should.

Within my first semester at NMSU, a senior faculty member advised me to keep quiet about any interest in AAUP as it could be damaging to me during the pre-tenure process of establishing my credibility on campus. Here is what I would have benefited from at that time: >A welcoming chat with an AAUP member to explain in person the role of the organization on campus >An in-person invitation to attend a meeting to see how the group conducted meetings (the written notice took 3 years for me to have the courage to attend a meeting). At the time, I was a member of the national, but still felt unsure of the political ramifications of local membership >A brochure about member activities and local organizational goals >Written and oral guidelines about interpreting the university's faculty handbook re the statement supporting the 1940 AAUP National statement on academic freedom. This summer, in preparing documentation to apply for tenure, I checked the web and down loaded that statement. It is remarkable.

Goals for the local AAUP

I strongly recommend that we develop some sort of guidelines for tenure that each division could adopt with or without modification. To not have such a document leaves both the division head and the new faculty member in a state of limbo and in positions which could implicitly or tacitly violate the university handbook. At the very least, it leaves some of the interpretation - perhaps much - open to whim. Professionalism is not defined within such an open scenario.

On a more practical, but related local matter, I at one point volunteered to be secretary for the local chapter this year. In the meantime, my job assignment has been changed to remove me from the Coordinator of field Experiences role and instead reassigned to supervise 5 elementary interns in the St. Louis area and teach a Monday night class on campus. This new schedule means that I will unfortunately miss most or all of this year's AAUP meetings. I hate that since I've always found the meetings to be intellectually, professionally, and socially worthy.

Joyce Ragland

PS Another good thing for new faculty is to occasionally invite them to lunch or even dinner. Being new on this campus is often a lonely business.

-- Anonymous, September 01, 1999