BY HANK REICHMAN
Slowed down a bit by a lingering cold, and reflecting a bit on the past year, I decided to go back and review my various posts to this blog over the past 365 days. Some of the 229 items I posted to this blog were largely ephemeral; others simply reposts of items written by others. But I found that rereading many of them led to a helpful reflection on the issues that concern both me as an individual and the AAUP as an organization. So I decided to try to identify which posts I liked best and which had, so far, stood the test of time. I came up with a list of sixteen, which I present below with a few brief comments on each, in the order in which they appeared.
1) On David Cole’s “The Trouble at Yale” (January 4)
This was my first post of the year. I had previously posted about the late 2015 controversy at Yale over a Halloween message and returned to the subject in a comment on an essay by Georgetown Law Professor David Cole, now litigation director for the ACLU, that appeared in the New York Review of Books. I largely agreed with Cole, but raised some important caveats about issues involving the names of buildings, the role of student protest, and the extent of academic freedom at Yale. Cole’s response offline, by the way, was quite gracious and I’m thrilled to see him take up his new position at the ACLU.
2) A Crisis in Civic Education (January 19)
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), a conservative group that has advocated increased activism by college and university trustees and a “return” to “traditional” curricula in Western Civilization and American military, constitutional, and diplomatic history released a report, A Crisis in Civic Education, which argued on the basis of a survey “our schools—and especially our colleges and universities—have done a poor job of ensuring the civic literacy on which our nation depends.” This was the famous survey that claimed many college students think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court. Needless to say, I took issue with this, concluding that “while it may be shocking to some that 9.6% of a small group of college graduates aged 18 and over think Judge Judy sits on the Supreme Court, I am comforted by the likelihood that most graduates will recognize this revelation for what it is: meaningless and empty propaganda for a tired and dated political agenda.”
3) The Accreditor Barked (March 1)
Readers may recall the ill-fated Mt. St. Mary’s President who wanted to boost completion rates by “drowning” unsuccessful freshmen “like bunnies.” What was remarkable about the episode (in addition to the stellar role played by student journalists in exposing it) was the response of the accrediting agency. For some time I’ve been concerned about accreditation. This response was a hopeful sign, but we have a long way to go.
4) My Questions for Chancellor White (March 13)
Contract battles between faculty unions and administrations were big stories this year (nothing new there). Among the biggest was that between my own union, the AAUP-affiliated California Faculty Association, which represents 25,000+ faculty members in the California State University system, and the CSU administration headed by Chancellor Timothy White. White came to my campus in March but I was unable to ask the questions I wanted to before time ran out, so I published them here and in the campus newspaper. This post was the fourth-most popular among all my posts last year, viewed as it was nearly 2,000 times. I would later confront White more directly when he spoke in Washington DC later in the spring. Eventually, the CSU administration saw the light and agreed to CFA’s demand for a 5% raise.
5) Academic Freedom: Challenges and Opportunities (April 5)
On March 30 I was honored to deliver the keynote address at the annual plenary of the University Senate at the University of Pittsburgh. In the speech, the text of which I posted to the blog, I took the opportunity to lay out some broad themes, which have hardly lost their relevance.
6) On the University of California, IV: Sexual Harassment, “Respect,” and Tenure at Berkeley (April 18)
I live less than two miles from the University of California at Berkeley campus and earned my Ph.D there, so I like to follow UC affairs. In the spring I wrote a series of five posts on the UC system. At Berkeley sexual harassment and its handling by the administration has raised serious and difficult questions for both faculty and the administration. Here was my take on the subject.
7) Don’t Blame the Students (June 10)
This piece returned to some of the themes I raised earlier in the year in my response to David Cole. This one was sparked by an article by Jonathan Cole (no relation to David), former provost at Columbia University, my alma mater. As with David Cole’s take on Yale there is much to agree with in Jonathan Cole’s essay, but I took issue with one of his central premises, that “core university values [of academic freedom and free expression] are being questioned again, but from a new source: the students who are being educated at them.” I will surely return to this theme again in 2017, for I fear that one of the greatest dangers we face is the tendency to act in ways that invite university administrations, trustees, and politicians to divide faculty and students, who should be natural allies in the fight for higher education as a public good.
8) More on the Hypocrisy of the University of Chicago Administration (August 27)
Essentially on the same theme. Here, building on an excellent post by John Wilson, I responded to the much-publicized letter to incoming freshmen from a Chicago dean, who disavowed any support for “so-called trigger warnings” and “safe spaces,” concluding that the letter itself was a kind of “trigger warning” and that its motivation was less dedication to free expression than it was to conservative “political correctness.”
9) An Open Letter to Columbia Provost John Coatsworth (August 29)
As a Columbia alum I felt duty-bound to respond to the shameful campaign against unionization by graduate student instructors waged by Columbia under the leadership of its provost, himself a former graduate student “radical.” In the end, the student employees voted overwhelmingly to unionize, although the struggle continues. This post attracted nearly 2,000 views and was the fourth most popular of my posts to the Academe blog.
10) The Disappearance of Thomas Riha: An Unsolved Academic Mystery (October 6)
This was classified under “diversions.” If you enjoy a good mystery and haven’t yet read it, I think you’ll enjoy it. Any theories about what really happened here and where Thomas Riha ended up?
11) UC Workers Struggle to Eat; Harvard Food Workers Remain on Strike (October 17)
The problem of hunger on campus, both for students and for many university employees, is real, as I noted in several posts, including here. In this post I paired a study at the University of California with the strike then underway by Harvard University cafeteria employees, a battle that they ultimately won.
12) Remembering Tom Hayden (October 31)
Several of my personal heroes passed away this year, including legendary AAUP staff member Jordan Kurland. Tom Hayden was another. He should be remembered, especially now as student and faculty activism will need to meet the challenge of the Trump years.
13) A Playlist for the Trump Presidency (November 29)
Speaking of Trump it is my hope that this modest playlist of 30 songs will help provide “solace, inspiration, and fortification.” It’s been viewed nearly 1,500 times and I hope folks are returning to it. I classified it under both “politics” and “diversions” because I don’t want it to divert anyone from the political tasks ahead.
14) The Oakland Fire Tragedy and Higher Education (December 7)
The terrible “ghost ship” fire in Oakland, California, not far from my home, took 36 lives, many of them students and former students. It affected me deeply and I felt I had to honor the memories of those who perished by standing up for the young artists who are fighting to survive amid a gentrifying town. I may be more proud of this post than of any others on this list.
15) Charles Reed, Assessment, and the “Great Mistake” (December 10)
As a faculty leader in the California State University system I often tangled with Chancellor Charles Reed, who died last month. Here I offered an assessment of his role in the CSU and tried to situate his reign as Chancellor in the context of the corporatizing trend toward ever greater and more trivial “assessment” as well as in the context of the “great mistake” that Christopher Newfield has analyzed in his terrific and essential book of that title, which I will be reviewing in Academe.
16) On Extramural Expression: A Response to Jonathan Helwink (December 27)
AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum found a piece on the Joy Karega case at Oberlin on the website of The Federalist, which misrepresented the AAUP, and wondered if I’d like to respond. I did. It was a great opportunity to explain more carefully the AAUP’s position on faculty members’ rights to free expression as citizens and the relationship of this to academic freedom. The post has yet to attract a lot of readers and I await a response to my request that The Federalist publish it as well. Hopefully, including it on this list will encourage those who might have hesitated to read such seemingly weighty stuff during the holidays to do so now.
Happy New Year, everyone!
