Volume 2 Number 3 Fall 1991

PRESIDENT'S NOTES By Conrad Ross

Good faith. When it comes to leadership at Auburn University we have had altogether too little good faith, or even acts of good faith, on the part of university's administration.

The issue of leadership promises to be uppermost among our concerns as we enter a new academic year. At present, there is no leadership. Decision making has been put on hold, caused by President James E. Martin's announcement of his resignation as of April 30, 1992, his failure to stimulate a dialogue between the President of the University Senate and the Board of Trustees, and the confirmation of new trustees swamped by petty politics in the Alabama state senate. The situation has been exacerbated by the resignation of several key administrators, including the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, the usual attrition of faculty at the end of the school year, and the fiscal constraints of proration. It takes little imagina tion to see that we are at a critical juncture.

In an open meeting this summer, Professor Eugene Clothiaux, President of the University Senate, spoke to the Auburn Chapter of the AAUP about the progress that had been made toward resolution of some of the governance issues facing the university. In what some considered a breakthrough in the current lack of dialogue among the faculty, administration, and Board of Trustees, Clothiaux announced that five Board members would come to the campus to speak with small groups of faculty--fifteen or twenty at a time. Here, at last, was a sign of good faith. But it turned out to be little more than a vain fancy, for when we extended an offer to have the trustees meet with a small number of AAUP representatives, they turned us down. Learning that the anticipated meeting had been reported in the press, the board members reneged, stating that they did not want it to appear as if they were going around the presi dent. Thus was lost another opportunity to create a climate conducive to good university governance.

If the AU administration continues to act in ways that thwart academic freedom, insists upon a hierarchical organization devoid of provisions for participatory decision making, and refuses to encourage communication and dialogue among the faculty, administra tion, and Board of Trustees, then the faculty has but one recourse at this time--to withhold our acceptance of the Board's choice for the next university president. Perhaps this action should have been taken after previous searches for a university president. Maybe we deserve the leadership we get.

Because the Presidential Search Committee has yet to make a report, and presumably there is still time for the faculty to be heard, some will reject this suggestion as overly alarmist and argue that it is premature to resort to such extreme measures. But surely, if the history of governance at AU has taught us anything, we must have learned that the faculty does have the power to reject university leadership it finds unresponsive. It is a perilous course to follow, but we have done it in the past and we can do it again.

Meanwhile, there is still a chance for acts of good faith to increase the input of the faculty in the governance process and to upgrade the quality of decision making at this university. Involving the faculty in good faith in the choice of our next president is the best place to start.

FALL MEETING: The AU faculty is cordially invited to attend the Fall quarter meeting of the Auburn chapter of the AAUP. It will be held on Monday, October 14, 1991, at 7:00 P.M. in Haley 2116. Patrick Green, Professor of Religion at the University of Alabama, will speak on governance issues as they have affected the faculty and administration at that school. Please try to be there.

VIEWPOINTS By Bill Trimble

Elsewhere in this newsletter Conrad Ross has decried the lack of leadership at AU and suggested that the faculty must take a more active role in governance at this critical point in the development of the university. I agree completely with his suggestion that it may be necessary to reject the Board of Trustees' choice for the next president. But it bothers me that the faculty over the last decade has been placed in situations where it is forced to react to developments instead of moving ahead with creative new ways to enhance communication at the university.

The image of the "Auburn Family" has bothered me for some time. On the face of it, it sounds good--folksy, informal, everyone work ing together toward a common goal. But in this case, the "family" has been strictly patriarchal, with the faculty and students relegated to the role of children who are not sophisticated enough to know what is really good for them and who occasionally must be chided for not toeing the line. The "Auburn Family" may have been fine decades ago, when this institution was less diverse and did not aspire to anything greater than meeting the immediate higher education goals of rural east Alabama. But those days are long gone. President Martin has told us time and again that he wanted to build up a real university, with a world-class faculty, first- rate facilities, and aspirations toward national recognition in research and teaching. I believe that is exactly what he wanted to do, and I applaud his farsightedness. But neither he nor the Board of Trustees had the inclination or wherewithal to break away from the "family" form of governance. They wanted the prestige and power that came with a nationally recognized university but could not see that that power and prestige grew from the faculty and students. A real university must have truly shared governance, or it is nothing more than an image, without substance or meaning. Now is the time to do away with the image and to replace the "Auburn Family" with a body of rules mutually agreed upon by the faculty, students, and administration, all acting together in an honest and professional manner.

NATIONAL MEETING: By Charlotte Ward

The 1991 annual meeting of the AAUP was held in Washington, D.C., from June 12th to the 16th. I attended in two capacities: as a newly-elected Region V council member; and as a delegate from the Auburn chapter. I sat in on some of the deliberations of Com mittee A (Academic Freedom and Tenure) and attended the Council session.

The topics discussed in both the Council and general sessions should be familiar to us at AU:

During the membership session, no new censures were voted on, and several long-term censures were removed. Most notable was the lifting of the 25-year censure of the South Dakota state university system. The problem was resolved by payments to one man who had been fired without due process in the 1960s and to the heirs of another professor similarly dismissed. Officials at AU should take note!

Generally there is frustration at the national level, as there is at the chapter level, about how little a nonunion group can do in the face of such overweening problems. The only apparent answer is in numbers, which means that recruitment is vital. It is easy for AU's Board of Trustees to ignore a 100-member chapter, but a 500-member chapter would be heard.

PRESIDENTIAL CRITERIA: By Curt Peterson

With AU in the midst of a search for a new president there is interest among the faculty about the criteria that are desirable in our next president. My ideas represent thoughts on qualifications and criteria as a consequence of my experiences on the advisory committee that was a part of the presidential search committee in the selection of Dr. Martin in 1983, and readings and reflections on this process.

There are many components to an effective search for a univer sity president. In addressing what I perceive to be important selection criteria I have not attempted to impinge upon the current search process or to critique the criteria in use by the present search committee. As a matter of fact, I avoided requesting any information about the current search process. Rather, my views on selection criteria represent the opinions of a former faculty chairman at AU who has more than 20 years of experience in higher education, most of them spent at AU, and who would like to see this university provide a quality environment for academic achievement, scholarship, and effective leadership.

There is no one set of criteria for selecting the president of an institution of higher education. Joseph Kauffman in the Selec tion of College and University Presidents suggested that situa tional rather than personal criteria should serve initially as the basis for selection. In other words, the personality of the institution should be determined by precisely defining institu tional goals. Then the qualifications of a leader to best meet institutional criteria can be identified. Institutional goals are available to the current Search Committee in that the university has been working on a strategic plan since 1986. This plan in cludes statements of goals for departments, schools, and colleges.

The following criteria should be used: In addition to these principal criteria, thereare many other qualifications that are desirable in a new presi dent. For example: