Few things are more important to faculty members than the right to free speech. However, new reporting requirements from the state of Michigan and fallout from dozens of state and national cases of sexual misconduct prompted a visit from NMU’s General Counsel Kurt McCamman to help review what conduct or speech could pose legal trouble for NMU employees and the entire university.

According to Janet Koski, Equal Opportunity Officer and Title IX Coordinator at Northern Michigan University, less than five percent of NMU’s 1,200 plus employees attended five sessions from October 29-31. During the sessions, McCamman highlighted boundaries for speech and conduct in and out conduct out of the classroom. He stressed the First Amendment and academic freedom must not be used to shield the abuse of a “captive audience” from racially or sexually derogatory epithets. Within the confines of the classroom, faculty members were advised to keep comments relevant to the subject. For example, repeatedly commenting on politics would in most cases be appropriate in a political science class but not necessarily in a math class. Faculty and staff learned that even making negative comments about the United States military could be used in a lawsuit if a member of the armed services files a discrimination suit under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act.

McCamman emphasized that whether comments or actions are considered harassment, discrimination, or retaliation is strongly dependent on context. And that context is created by the sum of our actions over many years, not just the immediate situation. “We create a record with every statement we make, every poster we have in our office, every video we show,” said McCamman. He said this record could potentially be used against a faculty member and the university if a student feels they were discriminated against. Professor Andy Poe (Mathematics and Computer Science) expressed concern that such an environment might cause faculty to be overly cautious with regard to speech in the classroom. “Asking us to restrict our lectures to the subject matter and not to refer, even casually, to current events (or other matters) may negatively affect our teaching more, perhaps, than is realized, inasmuch as a lot of us use our personalities as a teaching tool. Indeed, those of us who were on faculty during 9/11 may recall that on 9/12 we were encouraged to talk about current events in the classroom no matter our discipline,” said Poe.

Beyond the issues of free speech, McCamman’s presentation covered sexual misconduct. NMU policy is clear that even consensual relationships between supervisors and subordinates are not allowed.  Furthermore, whether unwelcomed or nonconsensual conduct has occurred can sometimes come down to a matter of perception. English professor Kia Richmond attended the presentation and stressed the need for faculty to understand that students might perceive a situation quite differently than a professor. “We should regularly review NMU policies and remember that when positions of power are involved (e.g., professor with supervisory duties or responsible for a student’s grade), students might not be able to easily differentiate between a comment or a suggestion made and a requirement for an assignment or a grade,” said Richmond.

NMU-AAUP president Brent Graves also attended the session and strongly urges faculty members to avoid situations that could result in complaints of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation. “Mr. McCamman’s list of suggested dos and don’ts are excellent. I also emphasize that meeting behind a closed door with a student is likely to lead to problems. Even if someone is crying in your office, you are putting yourself at risk if you or a student shuts your door,” said Graves. Based on years of experience as a union officer, Graves strongly encourages faculty to avoid the following situations: 1) giving personal contact information to students; Graves said it is rare that they really need to phone, text, or email you via personal, rather than, work contacts. He added, this just doesn’t look good and can facilitate overstepping of professional boundaries; 2) meeting off campus in social situations, especially one-on-one; and 3) provide counseling about non-academic issues; you are almost certainly not qualified to act in that capacity, you may say the wrong thing, or your comments may be misinterpreted.

Graves said he has seen faculty lose their jobs and careers as a result of all of these situations. Mr. McCamman also emphasized that you can be personally sued for violations of discrimination/harassment/retaliation laws. “If you are simply accused, you are very likely to be banned from campus until investigations are completed. If allegations are deemed more credible than denials, you are likely to have your employment terminated. I may sound alarmist, but times have changed and all faculty would be wise to be careful and to protect themselves, as our society learns better ways to protect vulnerable individuals from acts of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation,” said Graves.

Slides from the Kurt McCamman’s presentation can be viewed by clicking here. The NMU-AAUP strongly advises you to review these slides for your own protection against legal activity.

It was great day for a picnic, and this year’s turnout was excellent. Whether you missed it or made it to the picnic, here is a video to recap a near perfect day at Presque Isle Park as we celebrated a new academic year and the new members of our faculty.

AAUP Picnic 8-30-2018 from Dwight Brady on Vimeo.

With state funding and student enrollment in decline, managing limited resources has become critical for NMU and many other institutions of higher learning. To help NMU address budget and planning for the future, the administration has hired consultant Larry Goldstein from Campus Strategies. Goldstein was on campus from January 31-February 1 to hold several Strategic Resource Allocation sessions for faculty and staff.

Goldstein is a certified public accountant who worked as a tax associate with Touche Ross & Company and later served as the chief financial officer at the University of Louisville. Goldstein’s model for strategic resource allocation is based, to some degree, on the work of Dr. Robert Dickeson who’s book Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services has been used by hundreds of colleges.

During the February 1, session from 12-3 pm, Goldstein began with a ten
minute Q & A with audience members. He then launched into the program he summed up as “reducing and redirecting resources.”

He began with an assumption, based on the Dickeson model, that higher education adds programs but rarely subtracts them, and that universities try to be too many things to all people. He also feels across the board cuts do not work. In other words, “Fair does not mean equal,” said Goldstein. Programs within this framework are defined as any major, sports team or service that requires resources (not just academic programs). “People are resources,” said Goldstein.

The process Goldstein has used at other universities includes the creation of two task forces. Goldstein recommends the Academic Task Force be made up of 75% faculty and 25% middle management (no higher than department head). The Support Task Force should be comprised of 25% faculty and 75% staff. “We don’t want upper management in the room, we want lower level people to contribute to the process,” said Goldstein.

Once the task forces are assembled, they will be charged with putting a “program” into one of five categories: 1) candidate for enhanced resources; 2) continue with current resources; 3) continue with reduced resources; 4) requires transformation; and 5) candidate for phase-out: subject to additional review by senior leadership.

The criteria the respective task forces will be using will likely come from a template of ten criteria including “What negative consequences would take place if a program were to be phased out?” For a complete list of these criteria, go to the 13:00 mark of the 12-3 session on Feb 1. You can find it at http://bit.ly/2kAptC6.

While the process will be based largely on a snapshot of where all of these programs are right now, Goldstein cautioned against using just one year as a means of evaluating programs. For instance, a department might have purchased a new piece of expensive equipment in one year, and this would make it look more costly in that one year when the average cost is much lower over ten years.

Goldstein covered eight items that lead to successful resource allocation. At the top of the list was transparency. “Credible participants are essential for the process to be trusted. Transparency is also critical, ninety percent of you are going to judge the process as soon as you see the list of who is on the two task forces. Not on person should be appointed to the task force by virtue of their title,” said Goldstein.

While Goldstein’s model has sizeable faculty involvement, he strongly recommended that non-tenured faculty not be placed on the task forces. He feels the service required in this process will take time away from the other demands of earning tenure. He also felt they would be exposed to potential retribution when they go up for tenure if they were part of a task force that recommended eliminating programs affecting faculty members who might be sitting on promotion and tenure review committees.

Goldstein also cited eight reasons the process fails. This included “Sacred Cows” and “Corrupt Data.” He did indicate that departments would have the opportunity to review data that is being used to represent them in order to verify numbers on major counts and other critical data are not way off. However, he said departments will not get to see their ultimate score based on the criteria.

Goldstein estimated the process will take 7-12 months to complete, and he said the task forces would work intermittently during the summer and complete its work by the end of the fall semester.

The ultimate goal is create what Goldstein calls an opportunity analysis that can help guide the university toward initiating new programs, augmenting successful programs and phasing out under performing programs.

Again, to view the sessions, you can go to http://bit.ly/2kAptC6

You can nominate yourself or a colleague by clicking here.

It has been four years since “Right to Work” legislation was signed into law in Michigan. Fortunately for the NMU-AAUP, our membership has remained quite strong in the face of this effort to break unions in Michigan and other states. The overall percentage of union participation in the NMU-AAUP is 91.6 when considering all ranks (319 out of 348 faculty members). Contingent faculty had the lowest rate of participation at 82%, while instructors had the highest rate of participation at 100%. The following chart breaks down the total number of NMU faculty by union membership and rank.

Ninety-four percent of all full-time NMU faculty members are currently dues paying members of the NMU-AAUP. While this is quite good, we certainly would like to see that percentage increase to 100.

To review a list of all NMU-AAUP members as of November 27, please click here. If you are not on this list, and you are a dues paying member, please contact the NMU-AAUP office at 227-1602 so we can update the list.

The pie chart below offers a quick profile of our current membership by rank.

Health care refunds, pay increases and reducing paper copies for the promotion and tenure applications were just three of the main accomplishments of the NMU-AAUP for its members in Fall 2016.

Even before the semester began, our Grievance Officer Leslie Putman held a promotion and tenure workshop. If you didn’t attend, the PowerPoint slides can be found here.

We started the semester with our Fall Chapter Meeting on August 17, and we followed that up with the 2^nd Annual Fall Semester Party at Presque Isle on August 25, and the Labor Day Parade on September 5. We held three Faculty Council meetings and two Ore Dock socials during the semester and distributed coffee and cookies to students on December 6, at Jamrich Hall.

The Executive Committee voted to redefine the duties of the NMU-AAUP vice president to include outreach through events and attendance at Marquette area Labor Council meetings. In order to use union dues more efficiently, the Executive Council voted to eliminate the EC’s secretary position. The NMU-AAUP office secretary Andrea Jordan attends all EC and FC meetings anyway, and she will serve as our meeting secretary.

Thanks to the careful review of health care payments, Brandon Canfield determined NMU-AAUP members had overpaid, and we were able to secure a $262 dollar refund for faculty who paid into the plan during 2015. BTW, Brandon has accepted the position of data analyst for the NMU-AAUP. He will replace George Wilson who had previously served in that role.

Brandon also used health care records as a way to clearly show the number of employees receiving benefits increased for administrative positions, while it decreased for faculty members. If you haven’t read this article, you can find it here.

The Faculty Salary Inversion Review Committee examined the list of fall 2016 faculty salaries for inversions that may have occurred due to promotions. (See 9.1.2.3 in the Master Agreement.) Eleven full-time faculty were given salary adjustments that totaled $28,457. There are some faculty who were “exceptional hires” and therefore fit into the “exempted faculty” mentioned in 9.1.2.3. When they are promoted they do not trigger salary inversions.

After all these years of making 10 copies of our promotion and tenure documents, we are finally formally moving to electronic submission of tenure and promotion documents. Of course it is not that easy, so those involved have prepared instructions for electronic submission. You can view the instructions here.

The College of Business has been operating without a department head for about 2 years. Since Marge Sklar retired, they have been functioning by having department chairs (faculty members) presiding over disciplines they grouped together. We issued a “stop counting” memo to the administration to reconcile this situation. That means we will go through informal discussions to try to remedy this. Of course, everything is in flux with reorganization efforts, so it probably won’t be resolved until that is settled. This was done not with the intent to penalize the COB, but to remind the administration to honor the current contract that requires department heads.

The EC voted in November to contract with the NMU Archives to organize and preserve NMU-AAUP records. The $3,000 contract will pay for a student (working under the direction of Marcus Robyns) to make the records easier to find while also developing greater security regarding access to these documents at the same time.

Some of the issues we will continue to monitor into next semester include enrollment, retention, faculty numbers, contingent seniority, budget/spending, Academic Affairs restructuring, Heads vs. Chairs, program prioritization, programs online v. in-person teaching. A number of programs are looking to move on-line or have an on-line track, and some departments are utilizing companies that recruit students for the on-line program. There are more details to be worked out for this.

The main agenda item for now is for you and yours to have a relaxing and safe break. Happy Holidays from the NMU-AAUP!