Local Highlights and Events

"A longer-term issue, brought into prominence now, is the university’s increasing reliance on lecturers to teach undergraduates, particularly in CLAS. Brutally put, lecturers are cheap and are treated by administrators as dispensable. Though any large teaching institution must have some short-term teaching staff to fill in when regular faculty are ill or on leave, current use of lecturers goes well beyond that. In seeking to achieve budgetary “flexibility,” CLAS employs scores of lecturers who undertake crippling teaching loads, work for low salaries, and who may then be cast aside with little or no notice. From a management point of view, the obvious attractions of that arrangement, along with the deep pool of talented and highly accomplished PhDs in the Iowa City area, have made over-reliance on lecturers too seductive to resist. Now CLAS administrators are exercising their flexibility by failing to renew lecturer contracts, without regard to the human cost or the gaps in the curriculum that will result. Yet as other colleges such as the Carver College of Medicine have demonstrated, ways exist of sharing the sacrifice more equitably, such as temporary salary reductions or reducing the salaries of highly paid faculty and administrators, without loss to the educational program.

"True, UI President Bruce Harreld and other representatives of the central administration met with Faculty Senate and Faculty Council a number of times to inform us of their deliberations and answer our questions. However, it quickly became clear that they had already decided to move forward on this risky scheme. [...]
The main concern which faculty raised at every meeting, and to which no one from president on down had a satisfactory response, was how this scheme would affect state appropriations. What’s to stop the Legislature from reducing them in proportion to the millions of dollars we will now be competing over in the coming years? The answer: Nothing. 

Indeed, insofar as the scheme was originally proposed by the governor, it would appear likely that such deappropriation was part of the plan.

Letter of Introduction from Chapter President Prof. Loren Glass


Dear chapter members, fellow travelers, and other interested parties,

 

It is a pleasure and a privilege to introduce myself to you as your new chapter president. This message is intended to give you an idea of how I understand my role and what issues I see as important to address in the coming year. I also hope to use this message as a recruitment tool. After finishing, if you approve of what you’ve read, please forward it to at least three people who you think might want to join the AAUP [...] click here for more
Highlights and events from around the academic world

"We are concerned that campus reopening plans do not take these racial disparities into account and will disproportionately expose BIPOC* workers, students, and community members to severe illness and death.Workers in custodial and dining services, for instance, will endure greater risk of exposure as they work in enclosed spaces for long periods of time. We are concerned for their families and communities when they return home, potentially spreading the virus from campus. Discussions of campus safety should be rooted in a commitment to equity for all students and campus workers. 
We are concerned that calls for austerity during the crisis will result not in cuts to high administrative salaries or new buildings, but in job losses for our most vulnerable employees. Austerity cuts are likely to affect the women and people of color who fill the ranks of non-tenure-track faculty and support staff. 

Yet in the midst of calls for austerity that increase burdens and risks for workers (including faculty) of color, we note that budget allocations for campus police remain untouchable.

AAUP Guidelines for Higher Education Response to Covid-19


We present the following document that reprints the PRINCIPLES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION RESPONSE TO COVID-19, currently being distributed by the national office along with some institution-specific guidelines endorsed by the University of Iowa chapter of the AAUP:


Guidelines for the University of Iowa's Response to Covid-19.pdf


Sign the 100% Fees Petition



While COGS has successfully negotiated reductions in fees through past contracts, the University continues to manipulate how fees are classified to keep increasing charges. Fees like those facing international and first-year graduate workers are not covered by this scholarship because, while required, they do not fall under the University’s official, but seemingly arbitrary, category of “mandatory fees.”


Academe blog