This professional organization for faculty members of the Wisconsin State Universities is the fruition of an idea originating among the Milwaukee Normal School faculty in 1915. Its purpose was “to further the interests of normal school education in Wisconsin by the expression of the convictions held by the teachers and to facilitate...discussion...by all persons concerned with the welfare of the normal school.” Membership was limited to the teaching and library personnel of the state normal schools.
Originally called the Association of Wisconsin Normal School Teachers, the organization has undergone four name changes--first to the Association of Wisconsin Teachers Colleges, second to the Association of Wisconsin State College Faculties, third to the Association of Wisconsin State University Faculties in 1966 (AWSUF), and, after the dates of these records, to the Association of University of Wisconsin Faculties (TAUF)--thus reflecting the changing nature of the institutions themselves. The membership's interests, too, have changed, expanding to include promotion of improved education in Wisconsin and the nation, preservation of the economic and professional morale of the Wisconsin State University personnel, and special attention to the improvement of teacher education in Wisconsin. Their main areas of concern are: (1) conditions of service--salaries, academic freedom, teaching loads, rank, tenure, etc.; (2) retirement benefits; (3) bargaining and grievances; and (4) public relations, including relations with the legislature. They support an ongoing building program and an improvement of academic standards at the state universities, and have advocated increased faculty participation in policy making. Active in behalf of these goals, the association seeks coordinated political effort at the local level involving faculty contact with legislators and cooperation of parents, alumni, and other influential groups, as well as meetings with the governor, committees of the state legislature, the Board of Regents of State Colleges, and the Coordinating Committee for Higher Education.
The association has aided in raising certification standards for teachers, in securing faculty improvement, in developing a grievance procedure for faculty members, in gaining tax-sheltered annuities for faculty members, and in obtaining increased budgets for libraries, equipment, supplies, research grants, and travel. A salary schedule was adopted in 1920 and a Teacher Tenure Law in 1931, and the association aided in the development of the Wisconsin State Retirement System. Moreover, the near-culmination of a long-sought goal by the association occurred in 1971 when Governor Patrick Lucey proposed a merger of the Boards of Regents of the State Colleges and the University of Wisconsin.
The association has also represented the interests of individual members in special cases, such as the George Ball tenure rights case at Superior in 1957, and the case of Bogust vs. Iverson, concerning the suicide of a young coed on the Stout campus in 1960. The association's efforts, which consisted of moral support and partial payment of legal fees, are documented in the collection.
