North Central College Chapter Report
By Steve Macek

The North Central College AAUP chapter has had a busy year. Last spring it hosted the IL State Conference meeting which was very well attended. At the around the same time, NCC's faculty governance finally ratified policy revisions to bring our grievance procedure into compliance with AAUP recommended institutional regulations, wrapping up a process initiated by our chapter's petition calling for action on the issue.

This fall, the chapter's energies were focused on North Central's search for a new Dean of Faculty/Vice President of Academic Affairs. Several AAUP members were on the search committee for the new Dean/VPAA which was chaired by a former member of the NCC AAUP Executive Committee. The chapter convened a special meeting to brainstorm questions to pose to the candidates when they met with the faculty and our entire membership was extremely engaged in the search from beginning to end.

Looking forward, the NCC chapter plans to convene a discussion about faculty workload sometime in the next few months. We also intend to organize some sort of public event about the importance of academic freedom to commemorate the centennial of the AAUP's 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.