Leaders of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) discussed several topics at the group’s annual June 2016 conference in Washington, D.C. One of the agenda items included the censure imposed on Metropolitan Community College in the 1980’s.
The academic association unanimously voted to lift the censure from 1984, which had been enacted over the termination of eight tenured faculty appointments.
Removal from the list “is welcomed by MCC administration and faculty leaders,” said Kathy Walter-Mack chief of staff in the chancellor’s office, who worked for a year with AAUP to get the censure removed. “Nobody wants to be on a censure list,” she said. “It is not the way we do business.”
The AAUP said in lifting the censure that Metropolitan Community College has since made amends to the affected faculty members and adopted new policies intended to protect faculty rights.
At the time the censure was imposed, MCC leaders said they needed to eliminate the positions in response to financial difficulties and declining enrollments. The AAUP argued that enrollment had stabilized and that no state of financial exigency existed, and that the college’s real motive was to reduce the number of full-time faculty members.
Walter-Mack explained that being on the censure list blemished the College’s reputation. Not to mention, the College since successfully navigated through one of the deepest recessions in U.S. history and managed state reductions in higher education funding without layoffs.
“This was a legacy we did not need to leave on the books,” Walter-Mack said. “It didn’t seem right to have a legacy hanging out there that didn’t now accurately reflect the way we do business.”
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Kathy Walter-Mack 