Information provided by George Dimock.
The revival of an AAUP chapter on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro came about, not surprisingly, as a direct result of a serious threat to the rights and interests of faculty posed by an administration determined on managerial control in an era of budgetary constraint. There was a memorable faculty senate meeting on February 16, 2010 at which the Provost proclaimed Robert C. Dickeson’s executive guide to dismantling shared governance, Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services: Reallocating Resources to Achieve Strategic Balance, as his manifesto and blueprint for an immediate and wholesale Academic Program Review (APR).
The sudden and draconian imposition of APR, with manifestly unworkable timelines and assessment criteria devoid of empirical credibility, came close on the heels of the Administration’s reorganization and consolidation of a number of departments, programs, and schools against the advice and without the consent of their faculties. Under the leadership of Susan Dennison, Department of Social Work, a core group of some fifteen to twenty UNCG faculty constituted ourselves as an ad-hoc committee, Faculty for Shared Governance, and worked throughout the spring semester to expose many of the most glaring misconceptions, contradictions, and negative consequences of the Administration’s top-down strategies and procedures. Since then, Academic Program Review, while still remaining highly problematic, has become a much slower, more considered and consultative process.
By April 2010 it became the consensus of the group that our long-term interests and agenda were best served in common cause with AAUP at both state and national levels. With the support of both Chancellor and Provost, UNCG-AAUP held its official inauguration ceremony on campus on November 9, 2011. The provost made welcoming remarks as did Purification Martinez, president, NC-AAUP. A number of us on the Executive Committee spoke eloquently, if briefly, on our hopes and fears for the future of higher education at UNCG. David Ayers, School of Education, gave an erudite and inspired keynote address entitled, “On Shared Governance: Definition, Rationale, and Threats.” Some sixty faculty and graduate students from across the campus were in attendance with refreshments afterwards. It was a generous and hopeful occasion.
There is every indication that spring 2012 will be a difficult and contentious semester. APR proceeds apace without ever having been formally sanctioned by the faculty senate. A “final report” is due out on March 1. In the current fiscal climate, where state funding for the current academic year has been reduced by 16 percent with additional cuts threatened by a Republican state legislature, this can only mean drastic impoverishment for the curriculum, severe curtailments in research support, and intense pressures for an increased teaching load. The questions remain: Who will be making these decisions? With what kind of consensus? And in whose best interests?
The inauguration of UNCG-AAUP marks a return to a political and cultural moment not unlike the late 1960s when the world without was deeply troubled and the groves of academe were far from peaceful. Occupy Wall Street in September inspired Occupy Greensboro in November while Academic Program Review looks like serious trouble ahead no matter how many assurances are given that we will weather the storm. AAUP-UNCG gives us a real chance to come together as faculty members and as allies to faculty in order to make things better for all of us and consequently for the institution we serve.