Winter 2006 Newsletter
> Execitive Reports > Treasurer's
Report
Treasurer's Report
Jennifer Ballengee, English / Cultural Studies
Our local chapter membership is growing! We have nearly
100 members already this year (Last year Towson’s AAUP chapter
topped 100 for the first time in years). We have many new members—especially
new faculty—who have become a part of our organization for the
first time this year. Most of our current members have renewed, too—but
not everyone! Please make sure that you’ve renewed your membership
for this year. If you’re in doubt (it happens this time of year),
just send me an e-mail (jballeng@towson.edu)
and I’ll be happy to check our records for you.
But wait, there’s more!—If each one of
you chapter members would recruit just one additional member from your
department, we’d have over 200 members—approaching nearer
to 50% of the faculty. Since our university does not have collective
bargaining, our strength lies in the number of voices we can raise together.
The larger our membership, the greater our potential to help make sure
Towson remains the kind of productive and vibrant academic community
that we all want it to be.
But wait, there’s more!—In order to be
considered an active member of the national AAUP, one actually needs
to be a member of the national AAUP organization. Dues for the national
AAUP must be paid directly to the AAUP (not to me). They have many convenient
ways to do this, including automatic monthly debits. Click now on this
link to join the national AAUP: http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/involved/join/.
Why should you join the national AAUP? Here’s
why: “Joining the AAUP says that you’re concerned about
academic
freedom, and about the way that basic freedom protects
your teaching and research. It says that participating in faculty
governance is important to you, and that you are concerned about
career
issues, tenure,
and the overuse
of contingent faculty. By joining, faculty members, academic professionals,
and graduate students help to shape the future of our profession and
proclaim their dedication to the education community. In addition, there
are many practical
benefits--discounts, insurance programs, financial incentives--available
to AAUP members. Join your colleagues today to promote and protect your
profession.” Check the AAUP website (by clicking on any of the
above links) to see what actions they’ve been taking lately.
Finally, please consider serving as an AAUP departmental
representative. Departmental representatives serve as liaisons between
the AAUP and departments, encouraging colleagues to join and occasionally
spreading the word about meetings and other AAUP activities. So far,
only the departments of History, Foreign Languages, Music, and English
have volunteers to do this. Surely you'd like your department to be
represented, too, right?
