Close-up image of windows and signage at Mitchell Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

A Strong and Safe Return to Campus: UWM-AAUP Statement

BY THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–MILWAUKEE AAUP As faculty, staff, and students prepare to return to a newly re-opened campus this fall, UWM AAUP reminds us of the centrality of academic freedom and democratic governance in ensuring our collective safety and public health. The Covid-19 pandemic is not over.  Faculty, staff, and students must be free…

digital image of a graveyard with elevated tombs at night or at dusk with buildings in the background

Is the Managed Campus a Graveyard?

BY RACHEL IDA BUFF  This post is excerpted from the introduction to volume 11 of the AAUP’s Journal of Academic Freedom. The entire volume will be available on September 22.  The managed campus and the governed campus represent opposing visions of higher education. In practice and by definition, the managed campus is antithetical to both…

Empty classroom

Vanessa Guillen and the Ghosts of Sanctuary Campus: On the Schoeller Affair, Campus Protest and ‘Free Speech’

BY RACHEL IDA BUFF Last week, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee students organized a Peaceful Protest Against Professor Betsey Schoeller. On a warm summer evening, the event drew about 250 people, most of them young, many of them people of color. Most wore masks and stood in small clusters around Spaights Plaza, a gathering place in the…

barbed wire in swirled pattern atop fence

Of Predators and Police

BY BENJAMIN BALTHASER I didn’t think it could happen to a student of mine. I know the statistics: the United States incarcerates more people than any other country on the planet, both per capita and in total numbers. There are nearly two and half million people behind bars in our country; currently 65 million Americans…

banner for University of Wisconsin restructuring initiative

A Pyhrric Victory

BY NERISSA NELSON My campus, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, has had a tumultuous year of dealing with a budget deficit of $8 million over the next three years. It started as an announced administrative “document/plan” to cut 13 liberal arts majors, followed by a “reduced plan” to cut six majors and tenured faculty, and…

Higher Education in the Era of Swift Technological Evolution: A Response to the UW-System’s Dismantling of the Liberal Arts Curriculum

BY RENEE CALKINS, EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, UWM AAUP, University of WIsconsin-Milwaukee National studies have underscored the value employers place on the analytical and communication skills that training in the humanities and social sciences, cornerstones of a liberal arts education, is focused on developing. And the national press has repeatedly highlighted liberal arts education as particularly suited…