The-Ave.US

Ann Marie Kimball comments in the AAUP listserv on faculty unhappiness about midweek football:

Frankly I think we are fiddling while Rome burns. The _UW financial straits are serious.- while televising a game only helps marginally we should be joining with our new interim administration to try to help….we frankly. Need solidarity of oir community now more than ever. Respectfullly. Amk

Ann Marie Kimball
Sent from blackberry; please excuse typos.

Response

Anne Maries is right, however the Faculty never does much about any issue …

Ana Marie’s comment is reasonable.  Hand ringing over the game is only matched by the triviality of the concerns the game is evoking in a time of much more serious issues.

Unfortunately, those more serious issues … the search for a President, the inevitable cuts, lack of representation of UW staff and absence of faculty or even friends of faculty amongst our legislators, … these much more momentous issues are rarely discussed outside the chambers of Gerb Hall.

How would Dr. Wise or the state legislators even know of our concerns?  Who speaks out for faculty issues?

The Seanate and its leadership have generally been invisible.  Only in extreme cases, as in the issues about the pay raise last Fall, does the Senate even debate openly.  I woukld bet that more faculty know who Jake Locker is than know who their Senator is.  I also suspect that few faculty know the names of the Chairs of even one Faculty Council.

The level of non-involvement in “shared governance” here makes the government of China seem open and democratic.

Whether each of us agrees with the  AAUP on every issue, the AAUP is the only campus organization that speaks for faculty.  I say “only” because I think the Senate works poorly and I know of no other organization that even makes an attempt.

One way the AAUP could help would be to develop itself as a political process.  If enough folks were elected as Senators who actually wanted those jobs, then perhaps the Senate would be more effective.  One way for the AAUP to do this would be to endorse candidates for Senate.

As a Jeffersonian, I would like to see the AAUP go further and actually function as a party within the Senate.