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AAUP Briefing Document for the faculty at the California Institute of the Arts

1. What does AAUP membership mean to an individual faculty member?
Membership is the only meaningful way to connect individual academic professionals to the AAUP's broad defense of academic freedom, shared governance, and faculty authority. Because we are dedicated to protecting the academic enterprise in toto, the AAUP investigates alleged violations of academic freedom or sound governance principles regardless of the membership status of aggrieved individuals. As a business model, this would probably be disastrous; however, the AAUP is not a business and does not behave like one.
Our tax status is that of a 501(c)(3) educational charity and so our members and chapters voluntarily place themselves to the fore in the fight to ensure higher education's contribution to the common good. We need you to support our principled defense of the Academy. You need us when academic rights and responsibilities at your institution are threatened, diminished, or abrogated. Joining the AAUP affirms your dedication to the education profession and to your colleagues everywhere by maintaining the Association's capacity to respond to challenges as they arise.
The AAUP has always relied on the brains and savvy of our members to formulate policy, develop model practices, and spearhead faculty advocacy at the national, state, and local level. When your membership comprises 45,000 of the smartest people in America, this isn't a bad way to get things done! To facilitate member activism, the AAUP maintains an elite professional staff of academics and lawyers whose collective knowledge of higher education institutions and practices is enormous.

2. What would AAUP membership do for the Faculty Association?
AAUP chapters provide local members with an efficient conduit so that they can tap into the resources available through the AAUP to press for changes and improvements on their own campuses. At the local level, the Association becomes the framework upon which faculty members can build a more effective advocacy organization. By working in concert with the faculty's existing governance bodies, AAUP chapters are able to pursue effective "inside/outside" advocacy strategies. Moreover, by becoming an AAUP chapter, the faculty association would position the weight of the national organization behind the faculty's voice at the University.

3. What is the status of the AAUP in California?
The AAUP is well represented on California’s campuses. The AAUP has members on over 100 of California’s colleges and universities and functioning chapters at 24 campuses. We have an organizational affiliation with California Faculty Association (CFA) chapters throughout the state, and have this year established chapters at UCLA, Santa Clara University, and the California Institute of the Arts. The California Conference of the AAUP (CA-AAUP) has also recently embarked on a chapter service program, which will augment the organizing and advocacy work of faculty at campuses where chapters have been recently established or where chapter revitalization efforts are in place.

4. What is the status of the AAUP in the Private sector?
While the AAUP has represents faculty at two- and four- year institutions across the country, the Association disproportionately represents faculty at private colleges and universities. With the precedent of the 1980 Yeshiva decision full-time faculty at private institutions have lost the collective bargaining protections offered by the National Labor Relations Board and therefore many (although by no means all) of AAUP’s chapters at these institutions are advocacy chapters. In California, the AAUP currently has chapters at institutions similar to your own, including a well established chapter at the San Francisco Art Institute.

5. What legal services does the AAUP make available to its members?
The Association maintains a database of attorneys around the country who have some experience with higher education litigation. On request, AAUP members seeking legal counsel can make use of our Attorney Referral Service to help find suitable lawyers in their area. The Association also makes available low-cost professional liability insurance to its members. No matter how well you perform your professional duties, you can always be sued. And regardless of whether the suit is unfounded or not, you'll spend time and money to defend yourself. The AAUP Professional Liability plan helps counter these risks. Among other things, it covers suits pursuant to the dismissal or disciplining of other faculty member (tenured or not); evaluations of students; judgments regarding the salary, promotion, or work assignments of colleagues; and issues arising from publications for which compensation did not exceed $3,000.
Although the AAUP's legal office cannot represent individual members, it responds to informational inquiries, monitors legal developments around the country, leads workshops, and offers presentations on higher education law. In support of AAUP principles, our legal department submits friend-of-the-court briefs in key appellate cases and this has helped give AAUP policy added legal weight over the years.

6. What can the AAUP do to help with governance?
Along with the Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the AAUP's prestigious Committee on Governance develops policy guidelines to help institutions conform to sound academic practices. Both Committees investigate substantive violations of AAUP policy with consequences that extend all the way to on-site investigations and the formal censuring (for academic freedom cases) or sanctioning (in governance cases) of institutional administrations. Often, of course, the threat of such actions can have a salutary effect and AAUP staff work hard to resolve problems long before such public exposure becomes necessary. Nonetheless, it took AAUP censure to restore suitable academic freedom protections to faculty in the Virginia Community College system.
The AAUP assists local chapter leaders in a variety of ways and a great deal can usually be accomplished simply through consultation with our policy and organizational experts: the former providing guidance on best practices and the latter specializing in more tactical advice about what can most likely be accomplished given circumstances at the institution. On request, AAUP staff will conduct a thorough review of specific policies up to and including full review of the faculty handbook.

7. How does the AAUP help advocacy chapters with recruitment and chapter development?
The AAUP holds various training events for faculty leaders of which the most popular by far is our annual Summer Institute which typically draws 150-200 faculty leaders from across the country for three days of intensive workshops. This year's Institute--held at Portland State University--included sessions on higher education data sources and analysis, strategic communications, negotiations, and government relations.
One of the hardest tasks of any volunteer organization is identifying, recruiting, training and holding on to individuals committed to the organization and its ideals. The AAUP’s Assembly of State Conferences sponsors an intensive training session geared specifically toward faculty activists in advocacy chapters. Our next training session will be held in the Washington, DC office of the AAUP on Friday and Saturday, October 6th and 7th. The workshops at this session range from an introductory course on the AAUP to courses on designing and implementing a membership drive and the basics of chapter management, as well as a workshop on a current issue of importance.

8. What is the cost of joining the AAUP?
In California, full AAUP dues are currently set at $173/year for full-time tenured faculty. First-time members without tenure are eligible for half dues ($87 per year) for four years (the so-called "entrant" rate). Comprehensive (Mandatory) California Conference dues of $6 are included.

9. Why should a local faculty association become an AAUP chapter?
Along with the reasons mentioned above, organizing a chapter is perhaps the only way for faculty to move beyond the typical outrage-response cycle that typifies the faculty experience at all too many institutions. In the AAUP world, we recommend building and maintaining the collective strength of the faculty precisely to avoid the need for dramatic responses to fresh crises. One might call this the Swiss approach, but we just call it common sense.
Practically, we recommend using AAUP member incentives (described above) as a way to establish a local treasury. By setting local dues at a rate just above that of the full national dues, the chapter can be assured of relatively rapid treasury growth as members join under the entrant rate, and will avoid the problem of "sticker shock" when membership dues increase to their normal rate as faculty reach their fifth year of membership.

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