AAUP Response to the letter from Henry Powell & Daniel L. Simmons

AAUP general secretary Gary Rhoades and AAUP president Cary Nelson respond below to the Sept. 9, 2009 letter (http://senate.ucr.edu/An%20Open%20Letter%20to%20UC%20Faculty%20From%20the%20AAUP.pdf) from Henry C. Powell, Chair, UC Assembly and Academic Council, and Daniel L. Simmons, Vice-Chair, Academic Council:

September 21, 2009

Henry C. Powell, Chair
Assembly and Academic Council, University of California
henry.powell@ucop.edu

Daniel L. Simmons, Vice-Chair
Academic Council
daniel.simmons@ucop.edu

Dear Professors Powell and Simmons,

Thank you for taking the time to provide an extensive response, as Chair and Vice-Chair of the UC Academic Council, to our open letter (to University of California faculty, entitled “Faculty Taking the Lead at UC.”  Let us start by indicating that there is more common ground between us than you may realize or than perhaps was evident in our letter. Such common ground is essential to the future not just of the UC system, but of public universities writ large. For the University of California is arguably the signature, most successful example historically of what public research universities can be, in their academic work, and in the faculty’s role in shaping that work and the institution at large.

As you say, the prominent nature of the faculty role in governance at the University of California is a model. As we noted in our letter, it has exceeded the role of faculty in most U.S. universities and colleges. It is precisely because of that role that the Office of the President’s recent actions with regard to implementing furloughs, were, as you put it, “wrong-headed and ha[ve] led to unfortunate consequences and disillusionment among faculty.” The wording in our letter was not so very different in speaking to an “at best unwise” and “at worst dismissive” decision. I think you must grant us that a unanimous vote is, after all, a unanimous vote, regardless of what debate preceded the vote. I think you must also grant us that although a President is not obliged to accept the faculty’s advice, in a situation of this magnitude, in which the faculty had worked so hard, in some of the ways you detail, to fashion a position in concert with the administration, and in a situation in which their advice was unanimous, the President’s actions no doubt have their rationale but were nevertheless, in your words, “wrong headed.” Indeed, many other faculty members in the UC system share that view, which was also articulated in a September 1 open letter to President Yudoff by the Chair of the Davis division of the Academic Senate, Robert Powell.

Here, we would reiterate what is not addressed in your letter, and which we would hope would be common ground. What confronts the University of California, as with so many public research universities nationally, is (a) a long standing and problematic set of financial and resource allocation trend lines, (b) a choice about what direction to pursue in the future, and (c) the role of an independent faculty voice in shaping that choice and future.

With regard to the first point, the issue at hand in the UC is not simply furloughs, but long term patterns of reduced shares of institutional funding from the state (shifting greater burden to the students), reduced monies per student over time, and shifting greater shares of institutional resources within the system to administrative expenditures relative to educational ones. The first two patterns are connected to state level decision making that the UCOP obviously cannot determine, but certainly can speak to. The latter pattern is an internal one, that has played out in good times and bad in U.S. higher education. Such patterns are not idiosyncratic to the UC or to any particular president; they are national trend lines. At a descriptive level, the Delta Project has compiled national data on this; but there are also numerous scholarly analyses of higher education finances and governance (from scholars ranging across the theoretical and ideological spectrum) that point to these patterns. Such patterns are being accelerated by the current responses to the current economic environment. Thus, we cannot agree with your statement in regard to shared governance surrounding the implementation of furloughs: “Sometimes we agree, sometimes we disagree. At the end of the day, we must respect each other’s exercise of judgment and decision making authority and move on to the next issue based on our collective judgment of what is good for the institution, and for the good of our students.” We believe faculty members need to take the lead in highlighting and addressing the long-term issues, which are the enduring issue.

With regard to the second point, what direction to pursue in the future, there are several examples of faculty members in the UC system, individually and collectively, critiquing the direction being contemplated for the future, which in various forms is referred to as privatization of the University of California. By way of example, the Chair of the UC Davis Division of the Academic Senate, the officers of the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA), and scholars such as Chris Newfield (of UC Santa Barbara), George Lakoff (UC Berkeley), and a group of faculty at UC Irvine (including Glenn Levine, Mark LeVine, Jack Miles, and Jane O. Newman) are all critical of the newly created commission on the future of the University of California, in its composition (in regards to faculty representation), in the direction it is taking, and in its failure to challenge longstanding patterns of state funding of the UC. We believe that the faculty of the UC are identifying a fundamental challenge that public higher education faces, and that they are articulating a commitment to not further reducing the public support and role of the UC. Indeed, they see this moment as crucial to educating the public about the profound importance of those roles. We support those faculty voices, as does a large body of empirical work that points us to a three-decade-old pattern of public universities becoming more private, and indeed more businesslike in their funding streams and in their practices. Such work also points to the profound public costs of such a model, articulated a few years ago in a report by the Education Trust entitled, “Engines of Inequality: Diminishing Equity in the Nation’s Premier Public Universities.” It is not simply a matter of not going down the road of privatization; rather, it is a matter of needing to reverse a pattern of having already gone a good ways down that road. And faculty voices will be crucial
in accomplishing that.

Finally, with regard to our third point, the role of an independent faculty voice, we believe it is the appropriate role of the faculty to take a greater lead in these matters about the core mission and character of a university. Our aim was and is not to attack a particular president, chancellor, or provost. You state in your letter that, “We as faculty can do as much damage to this precious institution by throwing sticks and stones at our administrators, as they may do to us by ignoring the unique principles of our shared governance.” Let us reiterate: our aim was and is to address a systemic pattern. We encourage a strong faculty voice because currently, nationally, presidents and provosts are not taking this lead, and because historically, as in the UC, the greatness of our institutions, and the strength of their commitment to public purposes, has, as you have noted, been grounded in a strong faculty role in shared governance. Part of that voice involves educating a public about the fact that at some point, you cannot keep doing more with less.

We would be very happy to work with you in the future along the above lines. Indeed, we are shortly coming out with an important report on academic freedom and shared governance, speaking to the profoundly important matter of protecting faculty speech about institutional matters. Like you, we are deeply committed to the value of shared governance, and we admire and support your commitment to that work. In our view, as strong as that role has been in the UC system, it is time for faculty to take the lead in defining the university’s future. We support our colleagues in and outside the various structures of shared governance (e.g., campus divisions of senates and the system academic council) and faculty representation (e.g., CUCFA) who are exercising their voice to challenge existing patterns that are threatening a truly great system of public higher education, and who are working to shape the future direction of their university.

Yours,
Gary Rhoades, General Secretary, AAUP
Cary Nelson, President, AAUP