AAUP of LSU: Policy Issues

	AAUP of LSU Louisiana State University Chapter American Association of University Professors Academic Freedom for a Free Society

Issues of Interest to LSU AAUP

"Academic Bill of Rights"

Here you can see the LSU AAUP stand opposing the unwarranted and counterproductive legislation, HCR 25, introduced to the Louisiana House of Representatives on April 26, 2005.

"Tenure Paths"

An essay by Dominique G. Homberger, Biological Sciences and Vice President LSU Chapter of the AAUP, and A. Ravi P. Rau, Department of Physics and Astronomy

The AAUP "Faculty Governance Forum"

The first forum was held on Wednesday January 26, 2005 and was entitled: "LSU Budgets and the Flagship Agenda: What the faculty need to know" The participants included Jim Fernandez, Vice Provost for Fiscal Management , Ravi Rau, Roy Paul Daniels Professor of Physics and Astronomy, and Thomas D. Lynch, Professor, Public Administration Institute . The topics discussed include, What is the budget process? How are priorities are set for faculty and administrative support

We would like to include the following sessions in the series:

A review of the "Post Tenure Review" issue
The "Rights of Postdocs and Graduate students at LSU" What protections are in place should students and faculty clash?
What can AAUP do for you? Does your position of authority make you legally vulnerable?

AAUP's purpose is to advance academic freedom and shared governance, to define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education, and to ensure higher education's contribution to the common good.

The two most important statements of the AAUP are:

1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure
1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings

For those who may wish to look up all of the statements and reports of the AAUP, you can follow this link.

There is an ongoing debate about LSU Policy regarding dismissal for cause and its connection to ongoing academic review of faculty. The important permanent memoranda (PM) and Policy Statement (PS) documents are:

PM-35 "Academic Review of Faculty Ranks"
available at this LSU Permanent Memoranda list.

PS-36 "Criteria for Evaluating Academic Performance ..."
available at this LSU University Policy Statement website.

PS-36 Addendum
Follow this link to the LSU Faculty Senate site and click on "Pertinent Reports" in the left menu to see a fairly comprehensive history (2004-2007) of many revisions to the proposed new PS-36, as well as a comprehensive history of the Senate's efforst (1999-2006) to get the administration to retract or replace PM-35 and PS-109 (= the PS-36 Addendum). .

PS-104 Dismissal for Cause
available at this LSU University Policy Statement website.

There is a statement from the faculty members of the PS-36 Committee.