How to Talk to Strangers

Guest blogger Nicholas H. Wolfinger (@NickWolfinger) is a professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Studies at the University of Utah. Academia doesn’t always do a good job of communicating its findings to the outside world.  Far too often, interesting and important results never get farther than the pages of a scholarly journal, in all…

The Most LGBT-Friendly and -Unfriendly Colleges and Universities in the United States

The Princeton Review’s list of the 20 most LGBT-friendly colleges and universities in the U.S.: 1. Emerson College (Boston, Mass.) 2. Warren Wilson College (Asheville, N.C.) 3. New College of Florida (Sarasota, Fla.) 4. Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.) 5. University of Wisconsin-Madison (Madison, Wis.) 6. Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio) 7. Franklin W. Olin College of…

AAUP and CUCFA Announce Partnership Agreement

The following is the text of a media release issued this morning by the American Association of University Professors and the Council of University of California Faculty Associations. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) today announced that they have agreed to work together as…

An Open Letter to High School Seniors

It’s October. For millions of American high school seniors, choosing what to do after receiving the high school degree begins now. It represents the first life-altering decision made by you about which you get to call the shots. Here are some important points to think about as you move into the decision-making season. The first…

Adding to the Armamentarium of Academic Freedom

Robert Kreiser, a former staffer of the American Association of University Professors Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance, spoke at an Illinois Conference annual meeting. I expressed an opinion that one of the AAUP’s most eloquent and powerful statements on academic freedom appeared in one of its lesser known Redbook documents: Academic Freedom in the Medical School. He…

Gaming Academic Freedom

Last week, at a meeting of the Academic Freedom Committee of the Professional Staff Congress (the CUNY faculty union), the name Anita Sarkeesian came up. Though she is not an academic (in the sense of being employed by a college or university), she felt forced to cancel an appearance at Utah State University due to threats…