Thank you Dr Walter and the UPI leadership for pointing out
the grave impact of the decision by Anthony Young et al. on the Board of
Trustees to withdraw its recognition of the Faculty Senate. Thank you for
reminding them that university governance is not unilateral and that the best
university governance is not accomplished by fiat from on high.
From: Laurie Walter
To: Wayne Watson, "trustees@csu.edu"
Cc: Patrick Cage, Ellie
Sullivan; Steve Yokich; David Carpenter; Steven E. Rowe; Leslie Baker-Kimmons
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 5:30 PM
Subject: Demand for reversal of decision
Dear Dr. Watson and Trustees Young, Joyce, Curtin, Williams,
Zollar, Leak, and Smith:
We in the University Professionals of Illinois are dismayed
at the precipitous and unwise decision of the Chicago State University Board of
Trustees to withdraw recognition of the Chicago State University Faculty
Senate. Although the Faculty Senate is
not constituted by the CSU/UPI Contract, it was created by the Faculty
Constitution of 1965, which has not been superseded. The Senate is, furthermore, a crucial element
of university governance and faculty rights in such areas as academic
standards, curricular review, etc. Its
apparent suspension also has implications for faculty evaluation, an important
contractual matter; these are enumerated below.
We believe that the decision to withdraw recognition was in
retaliation for the Senate's votes of "no confidence" in the
President and Interim Provost on November 6, 2012, and February 6, 2014, and
that the alleged reasons for the action given by Trustee Young in his letter of
September 8 are pretextual, as demonstrated by numerous communications from Dr.
Bionaz. Further, aspects of this process
are under review by the Public Access Counselor; your withdrawal of recognition
prior to that office's rendering a decision is premature.
The contractual aspects of the lack of recognition of the
Senate are as follows: first, both
faculty senators and the members of numerous Senate-constituted committees use
their participation in meetings, writing of reports, etc., as University
Service, a critical element of Departmental Applications of Criteria
(DACs). Depriving them of these
opportunities will adversely affect their evaluations for the purposes of
retention, promotion, tenure, Faculty Excellence Awards, Professional
Advancement Increases, and Annual Evaluations of Tenured Faculty. Further, the Senate President receives 3 CUEs
of released time per semester (Appendix F, 13.) and suddenly removing those
CUEs from that person's assignment will impact his year-long schedule, without
the consultation mandated by Article 18.3.e.
In closing, for all of these reasons, we demand an immediate
reversal of the decision to withdraw recognition of the Chicago State
University Faculty Senate. The
University Professionals of Illinois plans to pursue this matter in all legal
fora available to us.
Sincerely,
Laurie Walter
CSU/UPI Chapter President
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