rofessor Don Flournoy erroneously claimed in a Post guest commentary Thursday that a few of his colleagues are planning to replace the Faculty Senate with collective bargaining.
In reality, a large group of faculty from every college and regional campus at Ohio University has been meeting this summer to organize a card drive in support of collective bargaining under the auspices of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
The AAUP principles of shared university governance provide the foundation for the Faculty Senate; Professor Flournoy can find this explained on the first page of the Faculty Handbook.
The faculty who are advocating the establishment of collective bargaining at Ohio University are doing so for three reasons: First, to protect with a legally defensible contract the rights, privileges, and compensation of faculty from the whims of administrators; second, to maintain and strengthen the Faculty Senate, shared governance, and traditional faculty control of academic programs; and third, to maintain the quality of instruction at Ohio University.
Far from replacing the Faculty Senate, a faculty organized through the AAUP will allow our current Faculty Senate to focus exactly on what Professor Flournoy endorses: the quality and credibility of our academic programs
innovation and productivity and the student experience at Ohio University.
At every other Ohio public university, collective bargaining has freed faculty senates from haggling powerlessly with administrators over salary, benefits, and grievance proceedings ' haggling that has distracted the Faculty Senate at Ohio University, to a great extent, from its academic responsibilities for the past decade.
Joseph Bernt is a professor of journalism and secretary of the OU AAUP chapter.
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