Some of my notes (I’ve got to dig up the abstract):
On the topic of faculty governance, or shared governance, I’ve noticed the following phenomena as universities have gone to the entrepreneurial or “market” model:
- no departmental meetings (decisions made by chairs in consultation with administration, or by ad hoc, sometimes secret committees)
- no departmental peer review, evaluations made by chairs alone in consultation with administration
- faculty no longer vote on tenure, decision is made by secret, ad hoc committee
- no general rules for tenure, decisions made on “case by case” basis
- no reasons given for negative tenure or promotion decisions (as giving a reason could invite an appeal / a lawsuit)
- chairs do not support departments but follow orders given from above, and there is no clarity on who has given these orders
- Faculty Senate meets but is not listened to
- Strategic plans envision replacement of Faculty Senate with much smaller “University Senate”
- Hand-picked task forces, undertaking tasks formerly done by Senate, but this time following directives from above
- University committees charged with implementation of recommendations made by consultants hired by administration
- …and more along these lines.
All of this is still called faculty governance, you realize, but it does not allow faculty agency qua faculty members or as a faculty and treats them more like staff or administrative staff.
I think it is important to note since so much AAUP wisdom presupposes a different conceptualization of the faculty role, imagines that the senate still is serious as a governing body, and so on.
Thus, my question becomes, how AAUP advocacy chapters can be effective when the governing structures that existed up until about 2008 have fallen away?
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 