Annual Meeting Celebrates Decade of Challenge

Panelists, speakers, and participants in the 2004 AAUP annual meeting, held June 10-13 in Washington, D.C., celebrated the Association's successes and explored its challenges over the past decade. The conference also served as a farewell to general secretary Mary Burgan, who led the AAUP's staff for ten years, and a welcome to her successor, Roger Bowen.

Keynote speaker Robert O'Neil, founding director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, analyzed the relationship between academic freedom and national security. He discussed transcripts, released last May, of closed-door hearings led by U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy as part of McCarthy's large-scale investigation of potential communists in the 1950s, and he described the reaction of two current senators to the question whether similar investigations could occur today in the atmosphere of heightened concern about national security that has arisen since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

O'Neil said that Senator Carl Levin argued in an interview with National Public Radio that an awareness of the dangers of McCarthyism made similar investigations unlikely to occur today, while Senator Russ Feingold disagreed, saying that a climate of fear persists. O'Neil concluded that "the jury's still out," although he said developments since September 11 suggest that Feingold's view may be overly bleak. O'Neil also said, however, that "all bets would be off if there were another terrorist attack like that of September 11, 2001."

O'Neil chronicled several cases in which academic freedom was threatened because of national security concerns, including one in which a historian at the University of New Mexico told his students after the September 11 terrorist attacks that "anyone who can blow up the Pentagon gets my vote." In another case, a professor at Columbia University, commenting during a teach-in on the war in Iraq, wished for "a million Mogadishus," a reference to a 1993 encounter in Somalia in which U.S. troops were killed. Despite pressure from citizens and legislators to dismiss the professors, their universities declined to do so. After carefully investigating the case on its campus, the University of New Mexico administration issued a letter of reprimand to the professor in question and temporarily removed him from teaching first-year classes. The president of Columbia University insisted that "under the principle of academic freedom, it would be inappropriate to take disciplinary action" against the professor who made provocative comments at the teach-in.

O'Neil noted the central role the AAUP has played in preserving academic freedom since September 11. In particular, he praised the Association for establishing the Special Committee on Academic Freedom and National Security in a Time of Crisis to assess risks to academic freedom and free inquiry posed by the nation's response to the September 11 attacks. (The committee issued a report published in the November-December 2003 issue of Academe.) O'Neil concluded his presentation by commending Mary Burgan for "leaving our Association much stronger today than I believe it ever has been."

Plenary speaker Debra Castillo, Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow and professor of Romance studies and comparative literature at Cornell University, gave an address titled "The Trouble with Tenure" in which she raised concerns about the tenure process. She described the emphasis on publishing in order to gain tenure, often called "publish or perish," as a situation in which academics are motivated to write not by "a desire to increase and share human knowledge but by a fear of academic death." Yet, she said, despite frequent discussion of this problem, tenured professors continue to view publishing as their "real" work and teaching as secondary. "How often do we speak condescendingly to each other about teaching?" Castillo asked the audience. "How often do we speak poorly of teaching, but then get excited about our 'work'?"

Castillo noted that a disproportionate number of the many faculty members today who hold contingent positions are women and minorities. She said that attaining tenure has become unreasonably difficult and complex, so that it is available only to a subset of the population. To address the problems with the system, Castillo recommended that institutions ensure that women and minority professors receive appropriate mentoring from their colleagues and establish mechanisms to foster appreciation for excellence in teaching. She called on the academy to launch serious, high-level gender and race bias studies of hiring, promotion, and tenure.

Censure Actions

Delegates to the annual meeting voted on June 12 to place Philander Smith College in Arkansas on its list of censured administrations. Censure by the AAUP informs the academic community that the administration of an institution has not adhered to generally recognized principles of academic freedom and tenure. For additional information about Philander Smith, see the investigating committee's report in the January-February 2004 issue of Academe.

Annual meeting delegates also voted to remove from the censure list Amarillo College in Texas, which had been on the list for thirty-six years; Houston Baptist University, which had been on the list for twenty-nine years; and Mount Marty College in South Dakota, which had been on the list for five years. They voted to remove Olivet College in Michigan, which had been on the censure list for twenty-four years, contingent upon governing board ratification of revised policies, which occurred the week following the annual meeting. For further information on these institutions, see the investigating committee's report in the autumn 1967 issue of the AAUP Bulletin for Amarillo College, the spring 1975 issue of the Bulletin for Houston Baptist University, the April 1980 issue of Academe for Olivet College, and the May-June 1999 issue of Academe for Mount Marty College.

The annual meeting voted to defer a decision about censure in the case of Medaille College in New York until next year because of recent encouraging developments at the institution. Nonetheless, delegates voiced the need for an AAUP response at this time, and they voted to condemn the actions of the Medaille administration and board of trustees against two dismissed professors. The delegates urged the Association's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the New York State conference to monitor closely on-going developments at Medaille College. For additional information about Medaille College, see the investigating committee's report in the January-February 2004 issue of Academe.

Forty-six institutions are now on the censure list. Last year, the AAUP removed four institutions from its censure list without adding any.

Capitol Hill Day

Conference attendees participated in Capitol Hill Day on June 10. After an orientation session organized by the AAUP's government relations department, groups of AAUP members from different states visited their senators and representatives to discuss the importance of federal funding and support for higher education. The meetings focused on legislative threats to academic freedom and civil liberties, student and institutional aid, and research funding. Each of these issues has implications for the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The day ended with a reception in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill to honor U.S. Representative Bernie Sanders of Vermont with the Henry T. Yost Award. The award recognized Sanders's leadership on higher education issues, specifically on matters related to the impact of the USA Patriot Act on academic freedom and civil liberties. In his remarks, the congressman said that academia is under attack and that it is "imperative for serious people to get actively involved in the [political] process." He further stressed that it is not good enough for people of good faith to "moan and groan" on the sidelines. Sanders, one of only sixty-six members of the House to vote against the USA Patriot Act, was the first to introduce legislation in the House to amend the act. Known as the Freedom to Read Protection Act, the congressman's bill has bipartisan support from more than 140 members of Congress, as well as the grassroots support of over seventy newspapers and fifty organizations committed to civil liberties. The bill challenges the ways in which the Patriot Act has infringed on civil liberties on college campuses. In May 2003, it was referred to the House's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, and it continues to gain signatures in the House.

Honors and Awards

The AAUP presented the Georgina Smith Award to Linda Backus, research faculty member at the University of Vermont, and to Margaret Quan, part-time history instructor at Diablo Valley College in California. The award recognizes exceptional leadership in im-proving the status of academic women or advancing academic collective bargaining. Backus was honored for her work in organizing fellow contingent faculty members during an intense collective bargaining campaign in 2000-01. After a contract was ratified in February 2003, she continued her work with non-tenure-track faculty members. Quan, a former member of the AAUP's Committee on Contingent Faculty and the Profession, was honored for her work with the California Part-Time Faculty Association and the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, particularly her legislative advocacy on behalf of contingent faculty.

Karen Rivedal of the Wisconsin State Journal accepted the Iris Molotsky Award for Excellence in Coverage of Higher Education for her three-part series titled "Funding Higher Education." The articles, which ran in September 2003, investigated the funding of the twenty-six-campus University of Wisconsin system. Rivedal examined how the public university system handled budget cuts made by the state legislature and how it subsequently pressured the state for increased autonomy.

This year, Konheim Travel Grants went to the Affiliated Faculty of Emerson College, the part-time faculty union at the Boston institution, and to the AAUP chapters at Louisiana State University and Seminole State College. The grants help chapters send delegates to the AAUP annual meeting.

State Conferences

Glenn Howze of Auburn University was re-elected secretary of the Assembly of State Conferences (ASC). George Lang of Fairfield University was elected treasurer, and Beulah Woodfin of the University of New Mexico was re-elected ASC liaison to the Committee on Government Relations.

The ASC presented its annual awards, recognizing exceptional service to the AAUP and to the profession. The William Tacey Award, presented to an individual for outstanding service to a conference over a number of years, was given to Francis Higman, professor emeritus of mathematics at Niagara University and past president of the New York State conference. Morton Tenzer, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Connecticut and a member of the AAUP's Connecticut conference, received the Al Sumberg Award for his effectiveness in lobbying on issues furthering the interests of higher education. The John Hopper Scholarship, awarded to individuals to facilitate their attending their first annual meeting, was presented to James Dennison of McNeese State University.

The Radford University chapter won the ASC Award for the Outstanding Chapter Newsletter; the University of Washington chapter won the first ASC Award for the Outstanding Chapter Web Page; and the Michigan conference won the ASC Award for the Outstanding Conventional-Style Conference Newsletter. The Illinois conference received both the ASC Award for the Outstanding Tabloid-Style Conference Newsletter and the ASC Award for the Outstanding Conference Web Page.

Collective Bargaining

Deanna Wood of the University of New Hampshire was elected treasurer of the Collective Bargaining Congress, and Louis Kirschenbaum of the University of Rhode Island was re-elected secretary. Both ran unopposed. Sally McCracken of Eastern Michigan University, Daniel O'Connor of Rutgers University, and Carl Schaefer of the University of Connecticut were elected to at-large positions.

Susan Meisenhelder received the Marilyn Sternberg Award, given annually to the AAUP member who best demonstrates a concern for human rights, courage, persistence, political foresight, and collective bargaining skills. Meisenhelder, an English professor at California State University-San Bernardino, served from 1999 to 2003 as president of the California Faculty Association. In the last contract negotiated under her leadership, lecturers with six or more years of service gained the right to receive three-year contracts.

Resolution

Members approved the resolution that appears below during the annual meeting.

Mary Alice Burgan.

We pay tribute today to Mary Alice Burgan, gifted teacher, insightful scholar, wise administrator, and courageous public intellectual, on the occasion of her retirement from the position of general secretary of the American Association of University Professors.

Born in Charleston, West Virginia, Mary pursued her undergraduate studies at Seton Hill College in Pennsylvania, where she graduated magna cum laude, and her graduate education at the University of Illinois, Urbana, where she earned an MA and a PhD. For thirty years, Mary served at Indiana University as assistant professor, associate professor, and professor of English, chair of the English department, and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. She was actively engaged in faculty governance at IU, and was elected leader of the IU-Bloomington and University Faculty Councils.

Mary's scholarly writing encompasses broad areas, including nineteenth-century English and American literature, children's literature, women in literature, and nineteenth-century social history. Her book, Illness, Gender, and Writing: The Case of Katherine Mansfield, was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in fall 1994. Mary has served on the editorial board of Victorian Studies, and as a referee for numerous university presses and prestigious journals.

Mary was a member of the faculty of the Lilly Endowment Workshop on the Liberal Arts for seven years, was twice elected to the delegate assembly of the Modern Language Association, sat on the executive committee of the Associa-tion of Departments of English, and served a one-year term as a member of the board of directors of the American Council on Education. Her awards include a Danforth Associateship, Indiana University's Distinguished Service Award, and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Marquette University.

In 1994, Mary was chosen to lead the American Association of University Professors. She has served in that post for ten years of historic change in the academic profession. During her decade as general secretary, Mary led the AAUP in many battles: the tenure wars at the University of Minnesota, the attack on affirmative action at the University of California, and, most recently, the post-September 11 threats to academic freedom. During this time of national crisis, Mary has spoken publicly and courageously in defense of free expression and free inquiry on our nation's campuses. In addition, she has brought to the office of general secretary a deep commitment to the values of shared governance, a special sensitivity to faith-based education, an understanding of the complexities of medical education, and a marked empathy for the plight of part-time instructors and graduate students.

As the Association of Departments of English so aptly described Mary when it awarded her the Francis Andrew March Award for Distinguished Service: "Sometimes gentle, sometimes forceful, always resolute, she has worked successfully to instantiate the life-affirming principles and values of humanistic study in our institutional lives as scholars, teachers, and students. She has made our profession a better place to be."

Fifty-Year AAUP Members Honored

At the 2004 annual meeting, the AAUP recognized the fifty-year members listed below. They have given countless hours to the profession and the Association. Through fifty years of hard work and dedication, these members have provided a foundation upon which their colleagues will continue to build, both in and outside the classroom.

 Printer-Friendly Page