The PSU-AAUP Executive Council recently voted in favor of adding our signature in support of the following statement from AAUP Oregon regarding its guidance for resuming campus work for faculty, graduate employees, and academic professionals. This will be shared with institutional leaders in higher education throughout Oregon.
June 26, 2020
Faculty, Graduate Student Employee, and Academic Professional Voice in Campus Reopening Decisions
Higher education is central to the public good, and academic workers are central to the mission of higher education. As Oregon’s institutions of higher education contemplate re-opening, we affirm the AAUP’s Guidance for Reopening Campuses; in particular, we call attention to these points:
The health and safety of students, faculty, and staff should be the primary consideration in decision-making about when to reopen a campus.
The faculty and academic staff—through their shared governance bodies or, when applicable, their unions—should accordingly participate in decisions related to how best to implement a return to on-campus instruction. In order to ensure full participation, administrations should be transparent, should keep the faculty fully informed, and should consult meaningfully with existing faculty governance bodies.
The health and safety of faculty, staff, students, and surrounding communities can be best secured when decisions about when, how, and to what extent to reopen consider the best available science and public health expertise, including the expertise that exists within our universities.