AAUP Establishes Development Committee

"The AAUP has applied for grants and asked for donations before—and we have, of course, been very grateful to those who contributed financially to our work—but until recently we have not really had an organized approach to fund-raising," says Martin Snyder, the AAUP’s new director of planning and development, who will be working with the development committee to plan such an approach.

Faced with a profession-wide erosion of tenure and increasing demands on its resources, the Association needs to raise funds now more than ever, according to committee chair V. Rama Murthy, professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Minnesota. He says that the committee will focus on three areas. It will research and redesign the goals and methods of the AAUP’s existing annual campaign. It will oversee a planned giving program in conjunction with the TIAA-CREF Trust that will allow donors to contribute to the AAUP while also realizing tax benefits themselves. And it will coordinate applications to foundations for money to cover specific projects and for multiyear funding.

Murthy notes that fund-raising will enable the AAUP to pursue its core goals of advancing academic freedom and shared governance and defining fundamental professional values and standards for higher education. It will also allow the Association to continue to pursue special projects such as topical conferences. Successful conferences on shared governance and medical education have been made possible by foundation support.

The committee, which held its first meeting in May, will develop a fund-raising plan and then make a formal proposal to the AAUP’s Council. In addition to Murthy, members of the development committee include Joseph Colombo, professor of theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego; Edward Marth, executive director of the University of Connecticut AAUP chapter; AAUP general counsel David Rabban; and former AAUP president Carol Simpson Stern.

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