Volume 8 Number 1 Winter 1997

WINTER MEETING: A Round-Table Discussion with State Representative Bill Fuller. February 10, 1997 5:00 PM Eagle's Nest North Haley Center An Open Letter to Auburn Faculty Who Are Members of the National Association of University Professors.

By Sonny Dawsey

Our recent membership drive, spearheaded by Glenn Howze and the Executive Committee, has been a great success. We have boosted the rolls of AAUP'ers on this campus by approximately 50 percent, and more of you are signing on every day. This commitment to an organization that has steadfastly stood for fundamental academic principles is heartening. Despite the increase, however, our membership is still but a small fraction of the total faculty on this campus. More work remains to be done.

I recently mailed a letter to all new members welcoming them (you) to this organization. The comments apply equally to those of you who have been faithful through the years, so I am incorporating it into this newsletter's regular notes from the President. If you have not yet joined, the time has never been better. Take advantage of our half-price offer, and get in touch with Secretary- Treasurer Ralph Mirarchi (4-9253). You will feel better in the morning.

Dear Members of the AAUP:

Welcome. You have put up a substantial portion of your hard- earned paycheck to join a select group of faculty who are committed to defending important academic principles. Though the local chapter is small (but growing), I believe that it has been an important voice on this campus; a voice listened to by faculty as well as administrators. Several of our members also hold prominent responsibilities with the state and national organizations of the AAUP.

You may be interested in some of our local activities. We publish a newsletter that is sent to all Auburn faculty, hold quarterly meetings, and co-sponsor informative events such as tenure and promotion workshops. The "Academic Freedom Award" is presented annually to an individual who has made significant contributions toward safeguarding this fundamental value.

A lot goes on behind the scenes as well. The Executive Committee meets regularly to chart the course of the local chapter. The officers are in frequent contact with each other, and they meet regularly with administrators and leaders of the University Senate to discuss matters of interest to Auburn University.

Some of our most important activities are the highly confidential deliberations of the (cont. on p. 2) local Committee A. This group is frequently called on to become directly involved in cases where disputes among faculty and administrators appear to include issues related to academic freedom and tenure. Though the local chapter is not part of the formal grievance procedure and has no judicial power, we often act as observers and mediators. Committee A can draw on advice from experts at the national office, and our opinions are usually influential in the resolution of conflict.

The AAUP serves all faculty, so joining this organization does not give you something that was not already available. However, without your membership commitment, and the commitment of others across the country just like you, the AAUP would cease to exist. Were that to happen, higher education and our nation as a whole would be a very different and much less attractive place to be.

WOMEN'S ISSUES: THE PERILS OF PAY EQUITY By Maita Levine

Yes, we're still talking about academic salary inequities between male and female faculty members. Has there been progress? Is there still a significant problem? These are some of the questions that the national Committee W on the Status of Women in the Academic Profession has been addressing during the past year.

I would like to present a summary of what Committee W has done, what has worked, what you can do to identify and correct inequities at your institution, and what barriers you are likely to encounter in your attempts to do so.

Bob Johnson, Associate Professor of Sociology at Kent State University and a member of Committee W, has developed a new set of procedures for flagging inequities. As in previously developed packages, he uses statistical regression techniques to analyze salary differentials. But unlike previous studies, he also focuses on inequities in rates of achieving tenure and promotions. Clearly, rank is one of the variables that affects salaries. And, because it is usually the same group of people who make the decisions in both areas, there is no reason to believe that there is less bias in retention-promotion-tenure decisions than in salary determinations. Directions for using Bob's inequities package are available from Committee W.

Unfortunately, thus far, we can report moral victories but not financial gain as a result of implementing Bob Johnson's study. At Kent State University, in spite of a positive recommendation by the regional office of the Department of Labor in Cleveland, the Kent State administration has refused to recognize the existence of inequities. And at the University of Cincinnati, where Bob Johnson's study and the Columbus office of the Department of Labor independently flagged salary inequities, a class action lawsuit is awaiting the federal judge's decision on certifying the class. A judge magistrate has already recommended against the certification.

So, is it worth attempting to gain equity? What is the strategy? What are the pitfalls?

Yes, faculty women who perceive inequities in salary and rates of promotion should certainly try to correct the problem. The first step, of course, is to identify and document the individual women whose compensation and/or rank are below those of their male colleagues. The next step--the more difficult one--is planning a strategy to gain equity. What works? Different methods are successful on different campuses. The support of male colleague, the threat of embarrassing publicity, proposals at the table in formal collective bargaining, faculty senate or university senate recommendations, lawsuits, and the power of rational arguments are among the possible roads to a remedy. The pitfalls? A considerable commitment of time and effort are necessary and there is often a significant emotional drain that requires both strength and solidarity.

Ed. Note: Maita Levine teaches mathematics at the University of Cincinnati and chairs Committee W on the Status of Women in the Academic Profession.

FUNDED RESEARCH AND FACULTY PRODUCTIVITY By Ruth Crocker

When Alabama and other states founded their state universities more than one hundred years ago and employed professors to teach their youth, few people dreamed that those teachers would be paid by and would come to work for entities other than the state.

The report of the committee chaired by Professor John D. Weete last fall demonstrates that a revolution has taken place and that our generally accepted concepts of what constitutes research are no longer valid. Professors in the sciences and engineering and in practical fields such as consumer affairs now receive funding from businesses and corporations, governmental bodies, and foundations, in addition to money from the state. This outside or "extramural" funding has become so common that if we adhere to the recommendations of the committee, the university administration will make "extramural" funding the measure of research productivity for all university faculty, whatever their field or specialization.

Millions of dollars are currently paid to the university each year by these "outside employers" for the time and efforts of professors, who, however, remain on the university payroll. These professors obtain contracts to perform certain specific tasks-- contracts of one, three, or more years duration. In other instances, they are paid as private consultants to produce research. It is not unusual, nor is it illegal, for such consultants to receive substantial fees--while continuing to receive state salary money for that day's work. The research performed by these consultants is "bought," in the sense that it is research designed to solve the problems defined by the funders. Yet some commentators have warned about the loss of the university's integrity when profit-making entities use the tax- supported university and its employees for research and development that returns to the employer (not the university, the students, or the public) as private profit.

Here I leave aside the question of whether the research performed in this way, so much to the financial advantage of those faculty who are able to obtain it as consultants, actually advances the interests of the state of Alabama or pushes forward human knowledge in useful ways or helps undergraduate students at the university.

I focus instead on the effect of funded research on university faculty themselves.

This effect has been significant. It has divided university faculty into haves and have-nots. There are those whose skills serve the practical, idiosyncratic, and/or profit-seeking goals of outside funders for whom they work as consultants. And there are those whose research--on ethics or philosophy, history or literature--will never help companies pave roads or the government build missiles.

Professors who teach Shakespeare or American history will be of little interest to textile companies engaged in the struggle to make profits in competitive markets, to timber corporations or to aerospace engineering firms. Yet these professors' work is nevertheless vital; it is to teach students about our civilization, our history, philosophy, art, and literature, as well as those of other peoples.

Research and teaching by faculty in the humanities and liberal arts are vital to the mission of the university, for they transmit American democracy and values as well as knowledge of the world, its peoples and cultures. Such research may not attract funding from the asphalt manufacturer, the textile company, or the defense contractor, but it enables faculty to give Alabama students the skills of critical thinking as well as the information they need to be citizens and voters in the 21st century.

The committee has suggested that it would be possible to use dollar amounts of "extramural" funding to measure faculty research "productivity" regardless of whether the research is into polymers or poetry, robotics or religion. You would not use a thermometer to measure air pressure, or a ruler to measure degrees of temperature. Neither should we use the dollar amounts of "extramural" funding to measure the amount of research effort and scholarly activity performed by faculty in the humanities and liberal arts.

Ed. Note: The administration has realized that gauging research productivity is a more complex issue than it has been presented in the report referred to above, and it is currently looking into more constructive alternatives that consider the unique aspects of research in the humanities and liberal arts.

Dr. C. Michael Moriarity, Vice-President for Research replies:

It is important when discussing a reward system proposal to capture it in proper perspective. This is particularly necessary when there is unwarranted but obvious divisiveness among participants. Such is the case involving a recommendation to provide positive rewards via salary supplements to faculty successful in obtaining competitive funding for their research.

Salary supplements were one of many improvement possibilities suggested by a group of eight senior individuals representing seven colleges and schools.--including Liberal Arts. Their proposal was in response to my invitation to explore positive strategies to improve Auburn's research efforts. I appreciate their efforts and their commitment to the spirit of strengthening Auburn's research program. However, we are not instituting the salary supplement proposal and at this time we have no intention of doing so.

The office of the Vice-President for Research has made a conscientious effort to identify--and wherever possible -- reduce barriers that faculty face pursuingtheir research and scholarly activities. Redesign of the entire contracts and grants administrative systems is one example, and it is only good management that improvement-seeking be a continual process. All sound programmatic improvement ideas will be given proper assessment.