Record of the Council June 13-15, 2003

Academe, Sep/Oct 2003

The Council of the Association met on June 13, 14, and 15, 2003, in conjunction with the annual meeting at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C. The Council session on Saturday, June 14, ran concurrently with the annual meeting plenary session.

President Jane Buck presided. Members of the Council (with the exceptions of Patrick Cihon and Henry Edinger) were present, as were the AAUP's general counsel, David Rabban; the Association's general secretary, Mary Burgan; and other members of the staff. Kerry Grant served as parliamentarian.

Reports were presented by Robert German, Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure; Estelle Gellman, Committee on Chapters, Conferences, Members, and Dues; Jane Panek, Committee on College and University Government; Gerald Turkei, Committee on Government Relations; Jordan Kurland, Committee on Organization; and Jeffrey Halpern, Committee on Organizational Relationships. Thomas Guild and Ariel Anderson reported respectively for the Assembly of State Conferences (ASC) and the Collective Bargaining Congress (CBC). David Rabban delivered the reports of the Election Committee and the Office of Staff Counsel.

Nominating Committee

George Wharton, Curry College (District IX), was selected by the ASC as its representative on the 2003 Nominating Committee; Estelle Gellman, Hofstra University (District VIII), was selected as the CBC representative on the committee. The Council then elected, from its ranks, three additional members of the committee: Linda Carroll, Tulane University (District V); Sharon Ng, Yuba College (District I); and Lynn Tatum, Baylor University (District II). The nominating committee then elected Gellman to serve as its chair.

Association Budget

Secretary-Treasurer Jeffrey Butts reported that the Association ended 2002 with a general fund surplus of $45,294, decreasing the deficit balance in the general fund from $147,929 to $102,634. He explained that the Association is in the eighth year of a twenty-year amortization of its post-retirement health insurance liability for Association retirees, a future liability that accounts for approximately 793,000 "negative dollars" in the general fund balance.

Butts noted that at its November 2002 meeting the Council approved a general fund budget for 2003 with a projected deficit of $141,688. He added that continued efforts to reduce expenditures and increase revenue should reduce that projected deficit by year's end.

Martin Snyder announced that the authors of Steal This University (Benjamin Johnson, Patrick Kavanagh, and Kevin Mattson) wish to donate the royalties from their book to the AAUP to support issues of concern to contingent faculty. The Council approved the establishment of the Contingent Faculty Fund as a restricted fund for the purpose designated by the donors to promote the AAUP's charitable mission.

Academic Freedom and Tenure

The Council concurred in statements of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, as presented by committee member Robert German, making no recommendation to the 2003 annual meeting regarding the administrations of the University of Virginia, East Texas Baptist University, and the University of South Florida. Jeffrey Halpern read the text of a resolution to be presented to the annual meeting condemning the administration of the University of South Florida for its departures from Association-supported standards that resulted in serious professional injury to Professor Sami Al-Arian. The Council concurred in that resolution.

The Council also concurred in recommendations of Committee A to remove the following institutions from the Association's list of censured administrations: the Virginia Community College System, New York University, the University of Central Arkansas, and Southwestern Adventist College (Texas).

Membership Dues

Estelle Gellman, chair of the Committee on Chapters, Conferences, Members, and Dues, received the Council's concurrence in the committee's recommendations regarding the reauthorization of dues levels for the following state conferences under the comprehensive dues program: (a) West Virginia's participation in the comprehensive dues program to be discontinued; (b) the Washington conference to be reauthorized for the remaining two years of its three-year authorization period at tier II, with its next review scheduled for 2005; (c) the Georgia and Ohio conferences to be reauthorized for three years at tier I; (d) the New York conference to be reauthorized for three years at tier II; and (e) the Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, and Oklahoma conferences to be reauthorized for three years at tier III, with the Indiana conference authorized to continue its government relations surcharge, as approved in June 2002, until the next scheduled review.

The Council also approved the committee's recommendation that full-time dues for the highest tier (tier I) remain at the 2003 level in 2004 (to correct an inequity that resulted from rounding practices) and that the dues of the remaining tiers be raised by $1. As a solution to the rounding issue, the committee recommended that fractional dues hereafter be determined by first calculating the full-time dues rate and then taking the appropriate fraction of that rate.