Notes taken at the forum of the Tulane University Chapter of the American
Association of University Professors held on March 8, 2006 in Room 101 Stanley
Thomas Hall with General Secretary Roger Bowen. The notes represent what was
said at the meeting; no further research has been undertaken to verify
statements.


The meeting began at 4:30. Dr. Bowen was introduced by Chapter President Parviz
Rastgoufard. The purpose of the meeting was an exchange of ideas and
information about the current Tulane situation and AAUP standards.


Dr. Bowen reported that he has had two conversations with President Cowen
[secretary's note: the chapter contacted President Cowen about a meeting with
General Secretary Bowen while he was in New Orleans; he responded that he would
be happy to meet if he was available but later was called out of town.] Dr.
Bowen discussed the importance of joining the AAUP, which keeps individual
faculty members from being picked off in difficult times. He decried the
corporatization of higher education in the last generation, which has
transformed faculty from engaged professionals to workers, students from
learners to consumers, and presidents to managers. He wondered if the American
Council of Trustees and Alumni and its governance arm the Institute for
Effective Governance might be insinuating itself into the Tulane campus. He
cited its influence in Colorado in keeping faculty out of searches and
governance and in promoting a growing reliance on contingent faculty,
contingent labor who are not even full time. In the end, in such a system, the
bean-counters are looking at how many widgets you produce, how many students
pass through your classroom and graduate, not at the quality of the learning
experience.


Dr. Bowen stated that Tulane, the Louisiana State University Health Sciences
Center, Xavier University, and Southern University-New Orleans, are all being
looked at by the AAUP. He then explained the body of common law that has been
developed over nearly a century by AAUP, which provides a guide to how problems
may be dealt with. He summarized the details of the Tulane Renewal Plan [add
link here]. He stated that President Cowen had called him on the morning of the
day that the plan was going public and wanted AAUP support, not its opposition.
President Cowen told him that the university would have to terminate over 200
faculty members, most of them in the School of Medicine and some in
Engineering. He presented it as an opportunity to strengthen Tulane in the face
of a terrible disaster. Dr. Bowen replied that the whole world feels Tulane's
pain, but that he wanted to know how many tenured professors would be let go,
that he needed details. President Cowen said that he would give them, noted
that Tulane's $600 million endowment would remain untouched [Secretary's note:
on March 21, 2006, President Cowen reported to a meeting of the Faculty of the
Liberal Arts and Sciences that the Tulane endowment stood at $850 million], and
said that he was not going to declare financial exigency [secretary's note:
Tulane did declare financial exigency]. Dr. Bowen, noting that the initial
number of terminations subsequently changed, asked: should you be making
decisions before an accurate assessment is available; are you going to dip into
the endowment to save jobs. He said that President Cowen phoned again in late
January; earlier in the day, Dr. Bowen had phoned him to let him know in
advance that the AAUP was going to be sending him a letter. President Cowen
later said that he had not been called; he called Dr. Bowen the next day and
said that he didn't know about the letter; Dr. Bowen said that he had left a
message for him. Dr. Bowen again emphasized that the picture was a moving one,
constantly changing, and asked when should critical decisions be made and noted
that it was possible to make them too quickly. An honorable way of looking at
subsequent modifications is to underline the continually evolving nature of the
situation. He emphasized that the AAUP always tries to resolve conflicts behind
closed doors in a way that provides an improved outcome, i.e. bringing an
institution's documents into alignment with AAUP standards. The AAUP is not
eager to investigate and to censure; rather, it prefers a good outcome. The
AAUP's reputation rests on its integrity, on being true to the facts that have
been gathered. AAUP investigative reports cannot be questioned because they are
thorough, complete, scholarly, and footnoted at a professional level.


Returning to his account of his interaction with President Cowen, General
Secretary Bowen stated that after the second phone call, he was given more
information: that the engineers would have a year and a half severance pay and
that the faculty members in the Medical School would also get severance pay.
President Cowen emphasized that New Orleans was depopulated and could not
support a medical population. Dr. Bowen asked many questions: was there prior
consultation with the faculty in identifying not only a process that would be
fair according to AAUP standards but in identifying the individuals who would
be terminated. He said that he found President Cowen's responses weak, in a
word. President Cowen promised that he would provide a full letter of response,
which is currently posted on the Tulane AAUP chapter's website
[<www.tulane.edu/~aaup>]. Dr. Bowen said that he found the letter troublesome,
quarrelsome, with hints of a legal battle that Tulane would win.


Summarizing the change in the number of terminated faculty members over time:
more than 200, 172, 166: the direction is a good one but the numbers are still
deeply troubling. He said that he had learned today that it appeared that the
process of selecting the faculty to be terminated did not involve faculty
members and that it also appears that there was not a pattern, that it was
capricious, that it was hard to identify the logic of who should stay and who
should go. He indicated that his questions and concerns are greater than they
were yesterday because of the sense of capriciousness, and this has to be
explained to AAUP's satisfaction. He went on to explain the standards: that
exigency must be real, and that the burden is on the university to prove that
it is and to show that the process comports with AAUP guidelines. He said that
private universities sometimes say that they do not have to open the books; the
AAUP responds by asking how they can say that they are in exigency. The Senate
or the faculty has to find out what the financial condition of the university
is, and over 50% of the faculty have to belong to the AAUP for this to be
effective.


The questions for the faculty to ask are: did the faculty play a role; which
faculty body was involved in deciding which departments and schools would
suffer from terminations; did the Senate delegate its authority? He noted that
that happens, that sometimes faculty members don't want to be involved in such
a terrible responsibility. He noted that the faculty can give up that authority
but that it is theirs to give up. Were the affected faculty given the
opportunity to follow a grievance process? He noted President Cowen's statement
that anyone who asks has been given the opportunity to present a grievance. He
asked if faculty members were given the chance to present the grievance before
the termination occurred. Were tenured faculty terminated and non-tenured
faculty members retained in the same school? This is important because tenure
is your guarantee of academic freedom and economic security. If you don't have
tenure, you don't have freedom and security. Another question to ask is if the
university is getting rid of expensive faculty to substitute them with cheap
ones. Has the institution made good-faith efforts to find other positions
within the university for those terminated? Have the separated faculty received
termination packages, particularly compensation, for one year? The factual
information must be exhaustive and persuasive to the entire external world that
reads it.


Dr. Bowen cited as an example in which  AAUP intervention was decisive a
1991-1992 plan for restructuring San Diego State University that called for the
elimination of 200 tenured faculty members. The AAUP sent a committee of inquiry
and the number was reduced to one tenured faculty member. Dr. Bowen was at San
Diego State recently to debate academic freedom in front of a huge audience,
and AAUP is a legend there, and this is because of the embarrassment caused by
the publication of the committee of inquiry's report.


He indicated that the national office of the AAUP has questions about the
Renewal Plan: how much is the insurance money, to what use is it being put; how
much FEMA and other money is coming in? All of these issues have to do with
openness and transparency; if they are asking you to suffer the consequences of
a terrible disaster, they have to be honest. Open the books. At this point, he
concluded his remarks and took comments and questions from the audience. One
faculty member said that she had met with a former chairman of the Board and
told him that in her school, 21% of the tenured faculty and 7% of the junior
faculty had been terminated, while adjunct faculty remain in numbers that are
difficult to determine because of the lack of reliable information. She
informed him that this is a violation of AAUP standards and asked him if he
understood. He thanked her for educating him and said that he would speak to
the president but also noted that it is difficult to run a university. Another
member of the audience recommended starting a class-action suit. The first
faculty member indicated that none of the decisions have immediate effect and
that they can be reconsidered. The trustees are all over the country and their
knowledge of the faculty is limited to what they hear from the president. Dr.
Bowen noted that the AAUP
is looking into a joint effort with the Association of Governing Boards to
develop a document recommending that faculty have unmediated contact with the
governing board. He noted that the challenge is to ask the Senate to meet with
the Board of Administrators. The first faculty member responded that she had
gotten her dean to meet with the faculty and asked if a board member could be
invited, but the dean had rejected that as micromanaging. Dr. Bowen encouraged
the meeting but said to invite colleagues from other schools. The faculty
member agreed that this was a good idea, but said that her school's faculty has
yet to meet as a faculty. Dr. Bowen responded that this was a morale issue, that
faculty members in other schools will predictably be pleased for that school but
wonder why they were left out. He noted that administrations depend on divided
faculty, so now is the time for the faculty to be united. The faculties of the
various schools have to unite to get Board members to come, because they will
not meet with each individual faculty.


On the issue of grievances, one member of the audience expressed his skepticism
about the usefulness of filing one, claiming that the president has disregarded
the Faculty Handbook; so what to do? Dr. Bowen emphasized that those failing to
file a grievance have nothing to say and that President Cowen's calls to the
AAUP show that he does not want to fight. He cited President Cowen's letter
saying that he wants to comport with AAUP standards, and advised the faculty
member that if that promise is not followed, he should come to the AAUP with
notes and documentation.


An audience member asked if President Cowen had provided the further information
that he promised between December and January. Dr. Bowen responded that he had
not. In the second conversation, President Cowen said that there were mistakes
in the AAUP letter, and that he would have to have the lawyer look it over. But
he did not provide further information and Dr. Bowen thought that the letter
that the president subsequently sent gave little response. The audience member
noted that this unprecedented situation poses the question of the scope of
action that a university administration can take after declaring financial
exigency and the extent to which it has to show that the steps taken are taken
in connection with finances. He pointed to the suppression of the current
undergraduate colleges, the imposition of a new curriculum and the splitting of
the Faculty of the Liberal Arts and Sciences into the School of Liberal Arts and
the School of Science and Engineering, noting that administration
representatives did not even attempt to demonstrate that this would save money
or bring in new money. He asked: does the declaration of financial exigency
give the administration the right to do whatever they want? Dr. Bowen responded
that that is the appropriate approach: don't let them off the hook. It was noted
that a number of new positions have been created in the same schools in which
faculty members are being terminated. Another faculty member noted that at the
end of the president's meeting with the faculty of her school, he had said,
don't worry, there will be no more cuts, you will get raises.


An audience member from the School of Medicine noted that there had been no
advance notice to those terminated, that they had been told after the fact. He
also noted that those terminated were not informed in any formal way of any
grievance process. When he inquired in January as to procedure, he was told to
write to the senior administrator of the downtown campus to tell him why he
wanted to remain; he was referred to the chair of the grievance committee, who
after a time responded that there was no grievance committee because the number
of terminations and departures had left it without a quorum and that he proposed
to create a new one by having a staff member pull names out of a hat. He was
further told that grievants needed to develop a defense with witnesses and a
portfolio to present to the grievance committee and that the burden of proof
rested with the faculty member. He said that he had no idea what he was
defending himself against as there was no statement of the criteria used for
choosing those to be terminated; he was told that if you do not like this
system, wait until June until the committee is reconstituted, then go to the
Senate Committee on Faculty Tenure, Freedom, and Responsibility [secretary's
note: information was given to the secretary individually after the meeting by
a downtown faculty member indicating that, while this account was accurate for
early January, the situation has been rectified and the normal grievance
procedures are now in place]. Another member of the audience said that her dean
has told terminated faculty members to not even bother to file a grievance, as
there is nothing to grieve. Dr. Bowen said that terminated faculty members must
file a grievance because if they do not the administration will be able to say
that nobody grieved.


A member of the President's Faculty Advisory Committee, the only faculty body
with which the plan was discussed prior to its announcement, said that the
committee was presented with financial information that to her satisfaction
showed that the university was in a state of financial exigency. On the other
hand, she said, there are elements of the Renewal Plan that have nothing to do
with financial exigency: the merging of the undergraduate colleges, the
separation of the Faculty of the Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the suspending
of so many graduate programs. This was done because the faculty was not
present, she said. The PFAC is a faculty committee and acts in lieu of the
Senate at times, "but I would not say that consultation took place because it
[the Renewal Plan] was presented as a fait accomplis." Dr. Bowen responded
that, given the information that the committee members had then, they did the
right thing. It was a changing situation. The committee member said that at
that point, the university was in a dreadful situation, that its credit was
maxed out. Dr. Bowen asked about the endowment. The committee member said that
it is very small; a member of the audience said that there was $65 million in
unrestricted funds. The committee member reminded those present that the
university paid faculty members in the fall while it was closed and that it
continued to cut staff  but could not reach the bottom line that was needed.
She noted that she did not know how the situation was now changed. An audience
member asked how important it was to know how many faculty members had actually
been terminated and how could that number be obtained. One suggestion was that
the AAUP chapter should send out an e-mail asking people to communicate who was
let go and to compile a list. The committee member said that PFAC was told that
it was 180 at the School of Medicine and 50 elsewhere [secretary's note: this
is the initial figure presented in the Renewal Plan, but President Cowen's
later letter put the figure at 166].


The question was asked as to what information the President had presented on how
much money the University expects to get from insurance. The committee member
said that there had been reference to insurance but she did not have a clear
memory of figures. A member of the audience had heard that money from FEMA went
into nine figures [secretary's note: President Cowen has subsequently said
publicly that the university has not received FEMA money but is seeking it].


The committee member noted that the patient base for the School of Medicine and
the hospital is gone, to which the Medical School member responded that it has
not been made known what criteria were used to choose which faculty members to
terminate. In his case, for example, he has academic endeavors that are
separate from medical work and provides a service that no one else does. He
noted further that he was largely paid by Medicaid and Medicare. The committee
member responded that the problem is how the decision was made and what the
criteria were, and that no faculty body was allowed to deal with that question.
Another downtown person asked to what extent is it the faculty's right to have a
list of people who were terminated. She said that they have asked and have been
told that it is private. They then asked if they could have a list of those who
stayed because they do not even know to which colleagues patients can still be
referred. Downtown faculty members have heard that Ph.D.s and basic scientists
were let go, not clinicians; she asked if this was true. Dr. Bowen indicated to
look to the Faculty Handbook to see if it gives the room to ask for the names of
those affected and added that saying it is confidential is ridiculous because it
is not. Aggregate figures have been given as to how much was saved. But he
emphasized that the burden of proof is on the administration to say that by
terminating these people we are saving money, to which we have to say, "How are
you saving money?"


The question was then asked: Who can ask? If individuals ask, they will be
turned down. Members of the audience replied that the Budget Review Committee
of the University Senate can ask the administration and be asked by the
faculty. Faculty members can collect the names of those who have been
terminated, as is happening in the School of Medicine. A copy can then be given
to the administration and they can be asked to fill in the blanks. This has been
done for another school in which the terminations were fewer.


Another audience member noted that at first it was believed that only 60% of the
student body would return but that now the university had announced that it was
just under 90%. Dr. Bowen noted that that meant a lot more revenue. It was
noted in the audience that the administration has stated that only 35% of the
university's revenue comes from tuition, which creates some lack of clarity as
to why the exact number of returned students is of crucial importance.


Another member of PFAC noted that the committee members were presented with
budgetary information each time they met showing the changes in the situation
as more information became available, and that that included the increase in
enrollments, and insurance. As a result, the projection of how much money the
university was losing shrank. She indicated that she too was convinced that the
declaration of financial exigency was appropriate and that they were not asked
to sign the document but that one of them asked the president if it would be
useful to him, if they did believe it was true, for them to say so. Another
question is what is the right time for those decisions to be made? Do you want
to have people come back and get their houses repaired and then find out that
they have been terminated? Dr. Bowen responded that these were important
considerations. That people want to know if everyone was acting in good faith.
The committee member then stated that the committee had nothing to do with what
was cut, the impact on the graduate programs, the impact on the curriculum
[secretary's note: a new required curriculum was created for the entire
undergraduate student body, including several new required courses], that they
expressed their concerns but had no part in these decisions.


Dr. Bowen inquired if, after the committee proposed the statement of financial
exigency, the members asked what would happen next. The committee member
responded that they knew, because they had seen the plan and that they voiced
concern over various aspects of the plan. It was her view that sometimes the
president heard the same concerns both from the committee and from the
consultants and then made changes but that she did not think that the committee
alone convinced him of any changes. She indicated that better and more valuable
than lists of people terminated would be to know what guidelines were used at
the School of Medicine and at the Business School; in Engineering it was clear
because three entire departments were cut but not in the other cases.


An audience member from the School of Medicine said that they were told that
there were difficulties even finding instructors to teach this semester's
courses. At the beginning of the semester, from Monday to Wednesday, it was not
known who was going to teach, so the faculty members involved were not
clinicians but teaching faculty. She knows two funded research faculty members
who were cut and do not know why. She said that another problem that has arisen
is that the lack of instructors has meant that some of those who are funded
through research are being required in addition to teach numbers of courses
that result in their working more than 100% time, as determined by federal
grant formulas, which is against the law. At Tulane, a course is equal to 20%
of full-time effort, so if 80% of a person's time is dedicated to research and
that person is also being required to teach four courses, that is 160% time.
The audience member further stated that the president says that faculty members
have been told that this will continue for some period. The audience member
cited the case of a faculty member at another institution who was fined
$400,000 for working at more than 100% time [secretary's note: another member
of the audience remembers that the institution was fined].


Another factor reducing the drain on university finances was the number of
faculty members who did not return at mid year, of which the PFAC had not been
aware [secretary's note: it is not clear when all the resignations occurred,
whether during the fall or in December].


The question of whether PFAC is representative was raised and whether the
communication between the committee and the president was one-sided or whether
the president listened. A faculty senator in the audience mentioned contacting
another senator on PFAC and being told that the PFAC member could not share
what was going on. There is a real question as to whether the committee
represents either the faculty or the Senate, the latter in that it serves in
lieu of the Senate when the Senate instructs it to do so, which did not happen
in this case [secretary's note: the Senate Committee on Faculty Freedom,
Tenure, and Responsibility, when asked by the Senate to respond to the AAUP's
January letter to the university, expressed the view that the consultation with
PFAC did not appear to meet AAUP guidelines for faculty involvement in dismissal
decisions and that it had not been "designated or approved by the faculty" for
that purpose]. Dr. Bowen reiterated his suggestion to get a meeting with the
Board and to tell the Board that we were told that a certain amount of money
would be saved and to ask that, if that is the commitment, let's monitor it and
find out what savings have been made every six months. If nothing else that
would persuade a skeptical Board.


An audience member expressed her view that the suggestion overestimates the
willingness of the Board to do this. In her view, they see the situation as one
in which they have a man on site who is saving the university and they are so
happy about this that they will let  him do anything. Dr. Bowen responded that
there seems to be a lot of destruction to save anything and that the key for
the AAUP is who was responsible for making these decisions.


Another audience member noted that one gets the impression that the
administration is expending a lot of money in the process for consultants and
asked if this is normal. Dr. Bowen that it seemed to him that there was a heavy
reliance on the rumor mill on campus because there is not sharing of information
and that the faculty have to insist on information.


The first PFAC member noted that the committee represents the Senate, which is
not a completely faculty body [secretary's note: the Senate is a University
Senate and includes administrators and representatives of the staff and student
body]. She indicated her view that the list of academic features to the Renewal
Plan that she had earlier enumerated as not necessary was not a personal
conjecture but that the president told the committee that certain measures in
the Renewal Plan were not connected to finances.


The second PFAC member noted, on the subject of consultants, that there were two
groups: one of unpaid consultants who were academic experts and another of paid
consultants. She expressed her view that the administration was not
ill-intended but that, on the other hand, with things that were included in the
plan that were not strictly financial, there is room to question why they are
there. Dr. Bowen quoted a Louisiana legislator who observed that a disaster is
a terrible thing to waste. The PFAC member allowed that that element was there.


A member of the audience wondered why those particular three departments of the
School of Engineering had been chosen for termination. The PFAC member said
that that was not clear but that she thought that it hinges on an expectation
of the ability to generate revenue. The audience member contended that one of
the terminated departments has the highest revenue in the school.


An audience member noted that in the very first meeting of her faculty with
their dean, at which the president was not present, the dean said that the
deans across the university got together on the issues being discussed but that
the president had not listened to them [secretary's note: at the January chapter
forum, a different audience member stated that she had been told the same thing
by a different dean].


The question of exigency arose again and how the university's situation can be
termed that when university e-mails are still being sent out telling university
researchers to apply for various types of funds such as the program for bridge
research support. Many professors who lost years of work because of loss of
refrigeration are now separated and cannot come back. He believed that Tulane
could have waited to make final decisions concerning termination.


The question of insurance arose again; a PFAC member responded that because PFAC
members had not been permitted to take written information with them from the
room, it is difficult to know exactly what discussion took place during the
meetings. One audience member reported that a question asked at the February
Senate meeting elicited the response that the university has a total of $450
million in property and business interruption insurance, in addition to which
it has further policies on such building contents as art works, research
materials, and computers. Another question was asked about the financial and
insurance relationship between Tulane University, the School of Medicine, and
Columbia Health Care: Columbia Health Care is well insured; did Tulane get any
payments from their insurer? The questioner noted that the president must have
some idea, but deduced that this was not shared with the PFAC. Another audience
member asked if the PFAC was given financial data for past years. The university
was not in good shape last year, before Katrina. Was that comparison made? In
response to a question of what difference that made, the audience member said
that it does if there is a small difference between two years. Dr. Bowen asked
if anyone had the university's publicly-available tax return.


A downtown person asserted that last year the university had not been in a
desirable position when it came to determining indirect cost rates on grants.
It was stated that the raise pool this year was 3%, which is identical to last
year's. The issue of the number of patients was raised by an audience member,
who said that depending on whom you talk to you get different numbers but that
one important issue is that the number of very poor in the city has dropped.
This means that a greater percentage of patients is covered by private
insurance. It was asserted that some of the other medical care providers in the
city are having a boom and hiring Tulane faculty members.


The second PFAC member spoke again, saying that there are a number of serious
faculty issues that need to be addressed, that the faculty needs to feel that
they can file a grievance and needs to know how to do that. She asked how the
AAUP can help. She also indicated that the disclosure of financial information
is important and asked if there is any way that we can acquire that. She asked
what the means would be for the faculty to try to continue the dialogue with
the administration and make the best of the situation. Dr. Bowen responded that
the AAUP can help with both, that the staff in the national office has the
Tulane University Handbook and can compare it with AAUP standards and that the
national office can write the administration and say whether or not the
university's grievance procedure comports with AAUP standards and if not how to
amend it. He also suggested that the faculty obtain a copy of a recent annual
report or audit, which the university must have to take to foundations from
which they seek funding. If there is trouble obtaining it, the faculty can turn
to the national office for help, as there are staff members who are expert at
finding publicly available financial information.


Dr. Bowen concluded by saying that as Tulane goes forward, the whole country
wants it and the president to succeed; with a good president, it can work.




 minutes March 2006 forum.