Good Friends,

Step two of requesting an investigation begins!  We received a response from AAUP national urging us to send in documentation concerning the problems we cited in the letter to Knight.  AAUP-USM will be working on this through the break and early in the Spring semester.  I will be announcing the next AAUP-USM meeting either later today or on Monday (waiting on room confirmation).  Below is a reminder of the topics included in that earlier letter for which AAUP national awaits documentation.

Peace on Earth,

Amy Young, President

AAUP-USM

1. Thames appointed high-ranking administrators without searches and without faculty input.  Recent appointments include Cecil Burge, Vice-President for Research and Economic Development; Ken Malone, Chief Operating Office, Gulf Park Campus; Joan Exline, Assistant to the President for Planning, Accreditation and Articulation; and Gregg Lassen, Vice-President for Business and Finance.


2. Dr. Susan Siltanen, who resigned her post as Assistant to the Provost for Graduate Studies in the wake of an inflated enrollment scandal in fall of 2003, was recently reinstated to the same position on an interim basis.  (The chapter had a lead role in exposing the inflated enrollments; the matter was “resolved” by Dr. Siltanen assuming blame and resigning following an inquiry by the system’s board of trustees.)


3. Without informing the faculty, the administration implemented and reported to the board of trustees on the performance of tenured faculty at the university.  The procedures used for faculty assessment did not conform to the post-tenure review policy that the faculty drafted in 1998.  Nor did the faculty know that their draft policy had evidently been approved by the administration and submitted to the university system’s Board of Trustees.  The chapter believes that this action constituted a secret post-tenure review based on unspecified criteria of evaluation.


4. Annual merit raises were awarded at the start of the current fiscal year without following the faculty handbook-prescribed procedure of considering recommendations of departmental personnel authorities.  Despite requests, no explanation of how raises were determined has been provided by the administration.


5. At the close of the fiscal year departmental “carry over” accounts were centralized (“swept”) without notice to department heads or faculty.  It had been historical practice for departments to retain any money they managed to save for larger expenditures or for inadequately funded activities, including faculty development.


6. Another round of university restructuring took place without meaningful discussion with the faculty impacted.  Administrative action moved and created departments, significantly altering three of five colleges. 


7. Dr. Ken Malone, the Chief Operating Officer at the Gulf Park Campus, entered a classroom, without permission of the instructor, to “correct” alleged misinformation about the future direction of the campus given by the instructor to the students.  Dr. Malone is not in the instructor’s chain of command, and the matter was not discussed with the instructor before Dr. Malone addressed the students.