March 2020 AAUP-SC Virtual State Meeting Cancelled (to be rescheduled)

In light of unfolding events, our need to transition to online instruction and to focus on families and teaching, the AAUP-SC Executive Committee has decided to postpone our virtual State Meeting originally scheduled for March 28. A new plan for the meeting will be announced in the coming weeks.

Along with monitoring decisions made by our state government and Governor, AAUP members should consider the following:

1. Remind the university that this exigence is not an opportunity to pursue long-term cost-cutting, whether firing adjuncts, cutting departments, or long-term salary or benefits changes.

2. Suggest canceling student instruction evaluations for this semester and allowing faculty to use their own survey mechanisms to give evidence for their files.

3. Suggest that faculty weigh in and participate on decisions of whether to stop/delay tenure clocks.

4. Push state legislatures to recognize that online learning used in this exigence is not as effective as in-person teaching, and that university faculty must be able to pursue learning strategies that are most effective.

5. Depending on each institution’s own constitution, faculty governance should be preserved in some form. For example, a faculty Senate should continue to deliberate by video-conference; or in the case of full faculty voting, a temporary structure (like a Senate or executive committee) should be created, whose decisions can be overturned at the first regular meeting after the crisis ends.

6. Any ongoing searches should either be cancelled, or mechanisms for faculty input retained through digital technology.

In addition, we hope you are receiving emails about joining the AAUP-SC Section and will send your chapter’s decisions to David Bruzina (davidb (at) usca (dot)edu), the AAUP-SC Section Coordinator, before the April 1 deadline.