Sexual Harassment
During the November 1979 Council meeting, the Chair of Committee W reported that she had been asked to work on the problem of the sexual harassment of female faculty members. At the 1980 Annual Meeting she presented a resolution urging local AAUP chapters to labor on their campuses to develop and strengthen "policies which prohibit sexual harassment, providing effective mechanisms for complainants to seek redress, and assuring due process protections for those accused." (Academe, March 1980, p. 95; and Nov. 1980, pp. 390-391.)
Defining and condemning sexual harassment, Committee W authored a statement which was adopted by the Council in 1985 as Association policy. "Applicable Procedures" were proposed for registering and resolving complaints. The statement declared that "all members of the academic community should support the principle that sexual harassment represents a failure in ethical behavior and that sexual exploitation of professional relationships will not be condoned. (Academe, March-April 1983, pp. 15a-16a, and November 1984, p. 15a; and Redbook, pp. 113-115.)
Although, as Mary Gray has pointed out, few plaintiffs have won faculty discrimination cases in recent years, the Association remains committed to the pursuit of legal remedies for violations of anti-discrimination laws whenever litigation appears to promise success. (footnote, manuscript p. 54). Meanwhile, it proceeds on other fronts, publicizing its policies, urging action on campuses, including use of grievance procedures, bringing recent scholarship on the status and accomplishments of faculty women to the attention of the professorate (see, for example, Academe, July-Aug. 1987, pp. 51-52, and Jan.-Feb. 1988, pp. 47-48) and, of course, continuing to list current faculty appointments and salaries by school and by sex in its annual Committee Z compilations.
One Association member who was one of the first to recognize that the social circumstances of the 1970s made "collective bargaining a new and powerful vehicle for remedying sex discrimination on campus," was Georgina M. Smith. Noting in an important article in the AAUP Bulletin that non-discrimination legislation applied to unions as well as to employers, she detailed how at Rutgers University faculty women had worked through their AAUP collective bargaining chapter to obtain significant gains in status, pay, and influence. In 1977 the AAUP established an award named after Professor Smith, "to recognize extraordinary leadership in improving the status of women in the academic profession or in academic collective bargaining." (AAUP Bulletin, De. 1973, pp. 402-406, and Aug. 1977, p. 122.)
Committee Z on the Economic Status of the Profession
The importance of Committee Z is indicated by the title on the front cover of the March-April 1989 issue of Academe: "The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession 1988-89." Virtually this entire issue each spring, and portions of at least two other issues which report on meetings of the Council and the Annual Meeting, are devoted to the work of this alphabetically last but not least of the AAUP's standing committees. Widely cited as the best authority for accurate comparative data on average institutional faculty salaries and overall compensation, listed both by rank and by gender within each institution, the annual Committee Z report also contains tables listing average salaries nationally by types of institutions, by disciplines, by regions, and by gender. Data regarding percentages of faculty members on tenure track appointments, or tenured, by rank are frequently provided as well. And the relationship of faculty pay raises each year to the rise in the consumer price index for the same period is always depicted.
In recent years this report has been published early to enable conference and chapter leaders to use the statistics therein presented to support representations to legislators, governors, and governing boards in favor of increased compensation for faculty members. Lobbying leaflets, brochures, and presentation charts and slides are easily produced using Committee Z data. And professors wishing to compare their own salaries with those of others in the same rank or discipline or a similar type of institution have the means of doing so, while those contemplating a change of scenery can arm themselves prior to initiating negotiations with information about average salary levels at the institution to which they are considering a move.
Although Committee Z, according to the Redbook (p. 171) "formulates standards relating to the economic status of the academic profession," these standards heretofore have related largely to issues of institutional finance, retirement, insurance, outside employment, and other economic interests of faculty members, besides the contractual compensation of individual professors.
CHAPTERS
History and Function of Chapters
When first organized, the AAUP had no chapters. But the 1916 by-laws authorized the organization of "branches" consisting of seven or more members of the Association in the same institution, and these were changed to "chapters" in 1921. In 1916 there were 31 "branches"; in 1926 there were 119 chapters; in 1936 there were 253; in 1946 there were 326; in 1956 there were 474; in 1966 there were over 800; and by 1986 there were approximately 700 chapters, the great majority in universities and four-year colleges.
An essential role of a college or university chapter is to promote understanding and acceptance of AAUP principles by faculty and administration. Since institutions of higher learning carry, the task of chapter leaders is specifically to apply Association principles to the conditions existing in their own particular setting. Another important function of the chapter is to provide AAUP's Washington headquarters with information about institutional problems and data that will both aid in servicing members and contribute to the formulation of policy. This would include news of chapter activities, and new officers names and addresses. A responsibility of chapter leaders also is to enlist new members. Membership recruitment should be a perpetual concern and frequent occupation of all AAUP chapter members.
Other areas in which chapters should play active roles on their own campuses are (1) promoting improvements in curricula and in the quality of teaching; (2) sponsoring discussion and action regarding campus-wide problems, issues, and priorities; and (3) seeking ways to improve and reward advances in the quality of the work in the faculty.
Of the functions and responsibilities of chapters mentioned in this handbook none can be accomplished better than with frequent local newsletters, distributed not only to local AAUP members but also to national and state officers, the Washington office, and local non-members among professors and administrators. Such newsletters can be mimeographed single sheets or more elaborate productions; in any case they should convey not only local news, but also state and national AAUP news and communications of importance to members.
Chapter newsletters may contain material extracted or photocopied from national or state AAUP publications or digested from such sources as The Chronicle of Higher Education. They may contain essays, drawings, or other creative or analytical material contributed by faculty members, and they may also be used to bring the attention of the campus community news about the activities and achievements of professors or the actions of administrators at various levels which bear on faculty concerns.
How to Form a Chapter
In establishing a chapter of the Association on his or her campus, one must first realize that only active, graduate student, and emeritus members of the AAUP may belong to a chapter at an institution of higher education. Associate members may attend meetings by invitation but have no voting privileges thereat; emeritus and graduate student members may vote at the discretion of the chapter.
There must be at least seven active AAUP members employed on a local campus. Upon adopting a suitable constitution, which must be in harmony with the principles and procedures of the Association and which provides, for the election at least biennially of officers including a president, a secretary, and a treasurer, or a secretary-treasurer, the founding chapter members may receive a charter from the Association to operate officially as an AAUP chapter. Such a charter may be revoked by the Council, under Article VII of the Constitution of the national Association, for malpractice, impropriety, prolonged inaction, or violation of AAUP standards or policies. A charter may also be revoked if active membership in the chapter drops below seven.
Duties of Chapter Officers
The primary duty of a chapter president is to call and preside over chapter meetings and to energize the chapter. He or she should resolve to give chapter business a high priority in allocating his or her time during the time served as president.
The primary duty of a chapter secretary is promptly to inform the secretary-treasurer of the national Association of the names and addresses of chapter officers and to conduct the correspondence of the chapter with representatives of various components of the AAUP. The secretary keeps minutes of chapter meetings and, working with the president, sees that proper files are maintained.
The chapter treasurer should keep meticulous records of receipts and expenditures of chapter funds, and an accounting of all financial transactions should be regularly reported to the members, along with a statement of the current balance, money due but not yet collected, and obligations not yet fulfilled. Chapters may collect voluntary or mandatory dues; the latter makes budgeting much easier than the former. Large sums of money should earn interest for the chapter, and special accounts (such as legal aid funds) should of course be used only for the purposes for which they were established.
Payroll deductions for AAUP dues is available on many campuses and should be sought at institutions where no insurmountable obstacle to such a provision exists. If a chapter participates in a payroll deduction program, the Washington office of the AAUP must be provided with current lists of all those members whose dues are being deducted. Those lists should include members' names, preferred mailing addresses, and disciplines. The national office should be notified monthly of any changes that occur, so that new members may be placed on mailing lists, and records corrected to show members no longer participating.
To discontinue participation in a payroll deduction program does not necessarily mean discontinuation of membership in the Association. For example, a member may change institutions without relinquishing membership. In such cases chapter secretaries should try to send a forwarding address, so that the national office may track the member who has moved.
Whether the school business officer or the chapter secretary forwards payroll deduction dues to the national office, they should be sent on a regular basis, at least quarterly. Many chapters remit payment monthly.
A chapter's dues may be collected as part of the national billing program. This is known as integrated dues. For a chapter to participate on this program, the president must send a written request stating the amount of dues to be collected. The request must be received by July 15 in order for dues to be collected in this way the following year.
The funds collected for chapters via the integrated dues program is forwarded to the chapter treasurer quarterly, unless the amount involved is less that $25.00, in which case there is a wait until that amount is reached. (If there is no treasurer, the money is sent to the president.)
Other Relations with the National Office
Among many possible relationships, chapter contact with the national office of the AAUP is the most important. For the most efficient use of this resource, chapter leaders should know the specialties of staff members, so that the proper person may be quickly contacted in the first instance, without wasted time or effort.
Before communicating with the Washington office, have complete and accurate factual information and have some idea of the bearing of AAUP policy on the issue at question. Remember that help is probably also available from your state conference officer; from the Conference lobbyist or executive secretary, if there is one; perhaps also from one of the officers of the Assembly of State Conferences or the Collective Bargaining Congress (if yours is a CB chapter); or from one or more of your three national Council members. Keep an up-to-date list of contact people connected with the national and state AAUP organizations. Promptly respond to incoming messages and be thorough and accurate in your answers.
In the chapter president should keep a current file of school policies (including catalogs, official directives, and student handbooks); lists of names, addresses and telephone numbers of important contacts both in the Association and without; and chapter rosters with information of local interest added as needed. Ideally, the chapter secretary should also have most of this information. Once established and routinely maintained, such a file tends to reduce rather than increase work of chapter officers.
None of this can be done without thorough, accurate information from the Washington office which, in turn, depends on what is forwarded to them. The following information not mentioned above should be routinely forwarded to the Washington office.
1. Changes of Address. The Washington office should be notified as soon as possible if a member's address changes. For most members the only AAUP contact is through the mail, and an incorrect address means a lost member.
2. Chapter Officer Changes. When chapter elections (required biannually by the National Constitution) take place, the new officers' names and AAUP membership numbers, if available, as well as the other terms of office, should be sent to Washington by the retiring chapter president or secretary. Without this action, Association materials cannot reach the proper parties. All chapter officers must be national dues paying members.
3. Corrections in a Member's Record. If chapter rosters do not show the correct information, including subject areas, for members, the secretary should so inform the Washington office. Obviously, the national staff would like to be informed promptly of the death of a member.
4. Transfers of Membership. If an individual member would like to alter the nature of his or her membership (e.g., from part time to full time, or from active to emeritus membership), he or she should notify the Washington office in writing of this desire so that proper records can be kept and correct billings sent.
Chapter Rosters
The national office provides each chapter with a roster of its members four times annually. These quarterly rosters are mailed to chapter secretaries in mid-January, mid-April, mid-July and mid-October. If there is no record of a chapter secretary, the rosters will be sent to the president. The roster contains records of those who have paid national dues directly to the Washington office. An "I" to the left of a person's name indicates that he or she has not renewed membership in the Association and will be dropped from the next roster if dues are not remitted promptly. Chapter officers should attempt to obtain a dues payment before this happens.
Further Responsibilities of Chapter Officers
The basic duties of chapter officers should be specified in the chapter constitution. A model chapter constitution appears in the appendices to this handbook. Each officer should possess a copy of this document and a copy of the AAUP Redbook, the Association's policy manual.
Chapter officers are usually elected toward the end of the spring term to assume their duties during the summer of fall. This normally provides an opportunity for orientation before plans have to be made for the coming year and decisions reached about how to cope with problems that may arise. As soon as possible once the spring term is over a new chapter president should take the following steps.
First, thoroughly familiarize yourself with the nature of the work of the Association, so as to form a clear conception of its vital role in the world of higher education. Spend some time thinking about AAUP precepts and their evolution and application in relation to your own ideas and experience.
Second, incorporate this knowledge into a coherent written description of what the Association's contributions have been and are to higher education and indeed to society in general.
Third, publicize this knowledge widely and persistently, and ask colleagues who know you and respect your judgment to assist in the work. Point out the importance of sustaining the Association.
Fourth, as you continue to remind faculty members at your institution of the values, precepts, and achievements of the AAUP, see that they are kept supplied with information about current developments in which the different levels of the Association are involved. Scrutinize Academe, Footnotes, the Chapter/Conference Newsletters and The Chronicle of Higher Education for items of interest. Exchange information and, if possible, newsletters with other chapters.
Fifth, use your conference for information and support. Become active in it and encourage your colleagues to participate as well.
Sixth, encourage increased interest and participation in faculty governance according to AAUP principles on your campus. Become familiar with governing board and local administrative policies, and with state and local laws that apply to higher education, and test those edicts and ordinances against the AAUP Redbook. Divide up the research among your colleagues, encourage each other to do it within a stated period of time, and report the results at chapter meetings.
Seventh, publicize your work and its fruits among the faculty at large, as well as on other campuses. Be factual, practical, and collegial.
Eighth, seek a wide acquaintance among higher education officials and those with whom they regularly work, such as administrators, governing board members and their senior staff people, key government officials, and alumni leaders. Be courteous and responsible, and above all when you speak in such circles be truthful and well informed. Do not lose track of where your primary loyalties lie; you colleagues are you constituents, not those who might try to neutralize you.
Ninth, on campuses which have faculty senates, work to insure that a significant proportion of the members, and especially of their officers, are active AAUP members.
Finally, remember that you can do most of these things and still have time for teaching, scholarly accomplishment, recreation, and family life. Examples of dedicated professors who have done so are to be found at all levels of the Association. It is largely a matter of values and priorities. Those who have made the commitment rarely complain later that they made the wrong choice. Never forget that "Academic freedom is not free."
Chapter Activities
A healthy chapter is a active and productive chapter. But this takes both effective leadership and expenditure of time and energy. Divide the work. This can be done by using a committee system, either an adaptation of the national AAUP committee system from A to Z, or one with a different structure and somewhat altered functions. Decide what is to be done: set a realistic timetable for doing it; give it a high enough priority to assure completion on time; and remember to see that those who labor for the chapter receive appropriate credit.
Although AAUP chapters should not duplicate the work of faculty senates or usurp their prerogatives, such representative bodies must usually function under decided limitations which do not apply to local affiliates of the Association. In dealing with questions involving academic freedom, tenure, governance ideals, and professional principles, AAUP should work closely with senate officers to insure that all who speak for the faculty at large understand and consistently uphold AAUP doctrines in dealing with institutional problems and the concerns of administrators, professors, students, and the general public.
A well-organized Committee A is needed at each chapter. All complaints of academic freedom violations or of serious unprofessional activity on the part of faculty members or administrators should be investigated. Accused parties should have the opportunity to hear and reply to the charges against them. Written evidence should be sought and school policies relating to the matter at hand carefully consulted. Conversations with parties to the dispute should be carried on by two or more chapter representatives, and memoranda of what was said--set down in timely fashion--kept for the record. Although it is not desirable for investigators to act alone in conducting interviews, the number of persons participating in a chapter's academic freedom, responsibility, or tenure inquiry should be kept small, and confidentiality should be rigorously maintained.
The first object of the investigation is to determine if violations of school policies by-laws, and/or AAUP policies have occurred. If so, those handling the matter for the chapter should attempt to resolve the problem quietly on campus by mediation, utilizing whatever grievance procedures exist. If a satisfactory grievance policy is lacking, chapter leaders should try to get one established. A sample of such a policy appears in the appendices to this handbook.
If the chapter's investigations indicates that no violations of law or policy have occurred, the complainant should be informed of that conclusion, the case dropped, and the record of the investigation secured in such a way that confidentiality will be maintained.
If attempted mediation by the chapter proves unsuccessful, or if chapter officers have good reason to believe that efforts to pursue that course would be unadvisable, the party claiming a grievance may be put in touch with a member of the Committee A staff of the Washington office, which will then assume jurisdiction of the matter for the Association. From that point onward, the chapter should not act in regard to the matter unless or until asked to do so by national office.
Because Committee A inquiries are so numerous, it may be desirable at times, particularly when an administration which has apparently wronged a faculty member, while locally ruthless and recalcitrant, is also susceptible to outside pressure or unfavorable publicity, to draw on the resources of a state conference which has an effective Committee A and might even be in a position to furnish legal aid. The decision to request assistance from this source should be carefully considered and any doubt of its wisdom should be resolved only after consultation with a representative of the national staff of the AAUP.
When faculty colleagues approach AAUP members for advice about grievances, they should not normally be encouraged at the outset to employ an attorney or to threaten a lawsuit. Rather the dissatisfied professor, utilizing AAUP help if requested, should study applicable institutional policies and comply with all legitimate requirements for exhausting administrative remedies, including available grievance procedures. A documented record of such actions can later be used in a lawsuit, if one becomes desirable, but complainants should be aware that legal action is time-consuming, and normally very expensive. Moreover, most administrators, when faced with possible legal action, will become rigid and non-communicative and immediately place the issue in the hands of their attorneys. The dispute then is likely to become a kind of warfare, with a single faculty member either confronted by the entire power of the state (if employed at a public institution), or facing a united administration with its battery of prominent lawyers (in the case of a private school.)
In academic matters, as in statecraft, diplomacy is almost always preferable to war and should therefore be pursued first, for lawsuits usually preclude subsequent diplomacy. When is becomes apparent to chapter leaders that diplomacy has failed, it is probably time to advise the aggrieved party to contact the Washington office of the AAUP, if he or she has not already done this. Such a contact should be occasion for sending the national office whatever information the local chapter has compiled on the matter at issue.
Membership Development by Chapters
The national membership of the AAUP in all categories at the beginning of 1991 was approximately 50,000. About twenty percent of those enrolled at that time in the Association were women, and a smaller number were minorities. Younger faculty members were underrepresented, proportionally, as were faculty members in two-year institutions.
Most AAUP members belong to one of the approximately 1,500 chapters of the organization. In turn, many chapters belong to state conferences. The level of activity in both chapters and conferences varies considerably; in dormant or ineffective chapters new leadership is needed before any appreciable membership development can take place.
Collateral Benefits
Many faculty members through professional societies in their disciplines obtain special rates for insurance, travel, and other occupational necessities, but for those whose needs are not thus met the AAUP offers a variety of benefits. Available to members are the special introductory subscription rates to The Chronicle of Higher Education and the The New York Review of Books, group term life insurance, excess major medical insurance, disability income protection, hospital indemnity insurance, low cost automobile rentals, and a special travel program. Of special interest to many faculty members conscious of the increasing incidence of lawsuits in academia is the AAUP's professional liability insurance, still available at competitive rates.
Publications
An obvious return-on-investment is the subscription that all members receive to the award-winning bi-monthly journal Academe, with its authoritative articles and reports on serious and complex questions of vital concern to college professors and administrators; its records of Association activities and statements of policy; and its annual compensation surveys, which have established and maintained standards of substantial utility to virtually every faculty member in higher education. As one observer has noted, the annual compensation surveys alone have "done as much as any other single thing to bring out the steady increases in faculty salaries which have characterized higher education in [recent] ... years." (Lewis Mayhew, Higher Education in the Revolutionary Decades, p. 467.) For many years these figures have been widely used in dealing with budget issues, in justifying pay increases, and in correcting imbalances. Every professor who receives a salary has an "AAUP dividend," which is far larger than yearly AAUP dues.
Although non-members may freely use the information and ideas published in Academe, and many do, those who pay due to support its publication have first access to its pages. And they also enjoy the opportunity exclusively to receive the Association's newsletter Footnotes, containing information of general professional interest, and to keep up with state and local academic news with conference and chapter publications. Officers receive a bi-monthly Chapter-Conference Newsletter, updates on the Association's extensive litigation activities, and frequent, detailed reports on the status of legislation affecting higher education. Also available is the 1990 edition of Redbook, a compilation of the AAUP's major policy documents and reports which set forth the most authoritative standards for academic procedures and governance. No faculty member should lack one. Chapters engaged in collective bargaining receive a special newsletter containing the latest information on CB legislation and court decisions, as well as developments in other AAUP collective bargaining units.
Legislative Alerts designed to activate the Association's national governmental relations network, when problems arise that need attention, are sent to chapter members who request them. A toll-free legislative hotline supplies all members with information, revised daily, about the current status of bills in Congress, as well as government activity in general related to higher education. And an AAUP Handbook on Lobbying at the State Capitol is available to those who seek guidance in carrying on such activities.
Government Relations
The AAUP continues to maintain a close watch on legislation affecting higher education and participates in organized efforts to obtain improvements in laws and government policies. Faculty members and administrators have benefitted from this strenuous activity, which has kept students in school whose absence would have cost professors their jobs, and which has prevented the loss of billions of dollars of support for higher education research, libraries, and laboratories.
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