Minutes – Meeting of March 5, 2009 – AAUP UNC-CH Chapter

Attending: Frank Dominguez, Mark Driscoll, Carl Ernst, Dominique Fisher, Cary Gillenwater, Ed Halloran, Glenn Howze, Diane Leonard, Liz Mason-Deese, William Race, Gerald Unks, Steve Wing

The meeting opened at 3:05 p.m. in 306 Dey.

1. Carl announced the upcoming annual meeting of the North Carolina Conference of AAUP, to be held in the FedEx Global Education Center on March 20-21, 2009. Programs and posters were passed around.

2. Discussion followed on the February 18 letter of Martha McCaughey, President of the North Carolina State Conference of the AAUP, addressed to Chancellor Holden Thorp of UNC, on the topic of the Bain & Company consultancy. This company has been hired, with a restricted private donation, to make recommendations to the University on budget efficiencies to address the current economic crisis in North Carolina. The sense of the meeting was approval of the principal request of the letter, i.e., "the need for transparency in budgeting and decision making and active, meaningful involvement of faculty in that process," as the letter put it. A resolution was moved and approved by vote that Carl as president of the chapter should write a follow-up letter to the Chancellor expressing the concerns of AAUP members.

In the discussion, questions were raised about the scope of work; the vagueness of the description of the company's task; whether the Faculty Exigency Committee will be convened (in the February 20 Faculty Council meeting Chancellor Thorp stated this would not occur); whether Bain controls statements made by UNC officials about their work; whether the report will be made public (the Provost has stated to the Faculty Executive Committee that the report will indeed be made public, and she has also indicated that the idea of consulting Bain took place some time before the current crisis); whether other companies were considered, and whether the donor restricted the choice to this company.

The following documents are relevant to this issue:

• 2/27/09 - "Final Agreement Between the University and Bain & Company, Inc." (Letter to Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Richard Mann from Vice President Richard Allison of Bain & Company, Inc.)
• 2/27/09 - “The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Efficiency and Effectiveness Project: Scope of Work, February 2009” (Bain & Company, Inc.’s description of study plans.)
• Faculty Council Meeting of February 20, 2009: Minutes
• NC-AAUP's Correspondance on Item of Concern: UNC-Chapel Hill's announcement of using an unstipulated amount from an anonymous UNC alumni to hire Bain Co., a global accounting firm, to suggest ways of "streamlining" UNC-Chapel Hill
• Article from Inside Higher Education, April 3, 2009
  

3. Carl pointed out that the current officers (president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer) are now in their third year, and it is customary to regularly rotate these responsibilities among the members of an AAUP chapter, a principle that Glenn Howze endorsed. Carl requested nominations and self nominations of those willing to serve as officers of the chapter; after one potential candidate was identified (Mark Driscoll), it was suggested that this process be tabled so that nominations and self nominations can be solicited from the wider membership with the help of an e-mail announcement. An election can then be scheduled in April.

Glenn offered to supply a complete list of current AAUP members to Carl in order to update the listserv.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:00.

Carl Ernst, president