November-December 2006

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AAUP Special Committee Preparing Report

By Jordan E. Kurland

In mid-August, members of the AAUP’s Special Committee on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans Universities, two or three at a time and with staff assistance, went to New Orleans to hold over fifty interviews with faculty members from several universities. (For information on the creation of the special committee, its membership and charge, and its plans for proceeding, see “AAUP Special Committee to Examine Deepening Post-Katrina Concerns” on pages 12–13 of the July–August issue of Academe.)

The full nine-member committee then convened in New Orleans on August 28–30 with a four-fold purpose: to hear about the interviews that had been conducted, to hear from the leaders of the Louisiana AAUP conference and its chapters in the city and nearby, to meet with the chief officers of the universities, and to discuss the preparation of its report.

The information obtained through the interviews, added to information that had been compiled and examined earlier, was sufficient to convince the AAUP’s general secretary that important unresolved issues of academic freedom and tenure at five New Orleans universities warranted formal investigation by the special committee. Accordingly, the committee is both assessing the response of the New Orleans universities generally to the crisis that Katrina brought about and investigating issues of concern at particular institutions.

Louisiana’s commissioner of higher education, E. Joseph Savoie, accommodated the committee’s desire to proceed, as is usual for AAUP investigating committees, through face-to-face meetings and informal inquiry rather than by a previously expressed preference for a formal exchange of questions and answers as a prelude to public hearings. Savoie also arranged for a committee tour of the devastated areas, conducted by the Louisiana National Guard. Members of the special committee and its staff traveled for two hours on August 28 through vast stretches of largely deserted localities in the city and neighboring jurisdictions, viewing the enormous amount of rubble still not removed and the occasional edifice being built or repaired next door to edifices still continuing to collapse because of untreated rot. The two hours certainly helped the AAUP visitors gain a deeper sense of the tragedy, and their thanks go to the commissioner for having provided the opportunity.

During the evening of August 29, Katrina’s first anniversary, the special committee met with Louisiana AAUP conference and chapter leaders, who provided accounts of what the city’s faculty have endured. The committee the next morning met with top officials in Louisiana public higher education; in addition to Savoie, among the participants were the chancellors of the three public New Orleans universities: Larry Hollier of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center; Timothy Ryan of the University of New Orleans, and Victor Ukpolo of Southern University at New Orleans. Also present were other officials from the statewide board of regents, the Louisiana State University System, and the three universities. It was generally agreed that the discussions had produced a more complete understanding of respective viewpoints, that no public statements would be made at that juncture, and that informal communications should continue as the special committee proceeded with the preparation of its report.

In contrast with the chief officers for public higher education, the presidents of the city’s two large private universities, Rev. Kevin Wildes of Loyola University and Scott Cowen of Tulane University, have declined, as of this writing, to meet with the committee. Each has stated that he prefers to await receipt of a draft of the special committee’s report, a prepublication text that the Association regularly sends to the principal parties with an invitation for corrections and comments, before deciding on whether to participate in a meeting. Scheduling conflicts made it unfeasible for the president of a third private university to meet with the special committee during its visit.

The special committee is currently preparing a report that will encompass both the specific issues of concern under AAUP-supported standards at the particular institutions where investigations were authorized and the overall response of the universities to Katrina’s aftermath. Once an investigating committee report is drafted, its approval by AAUP’s standing Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure precedes its release to the principal parties. After the principal parties’ comments are taken into consideration, a final version is prepared for publication. The special committee hopes to have its report published this spring.