1) Academic freedom is not to be compromised in collective bargaining agreements and faculty handbooks that perfunctorily affirm an institutional commitment to defend academic freedom, yet declare the faculty has a responsibility to be civil, accurate and professional in all matters. Conditionality in academic freedom statements is a ruse to sanction those who deviate from the…
It is often claimed that supporters of academic freedom and tenure, like the AAUP, are simply left-wing or liberal professors seeking to protect their own positions and privilege their own views. Those of us who know better realize how ridiculous this argument can be, but now, in the wake of Scott Walker’s attack on tenure…
Prepared by the Leadership of the Ohio Conference of AAUP: _________________________ Previous Posts in This Series: 2015 Ohio Higher Education Report, Part 1: https://academeblog.org/2015/06/20/2015-ohio-higher-education-report-part-1/ 2015 Ohio Higher Education Report, Part 2: https://academeblog.org/2015/06/20/2015-ohio-higher-education-report-part-2/ 2015 Ohio Higher Education Report, Part 3: https://academeblog.org/2015/06/21/2015-ohio-higher-education-report-part-3/ 2015 Ohio Higher Education Report, Part 4: https://academeblog.org/2015/06/21/2015-ohio-higher-education-report-part-4/
During the 2011 fight to repeal Ohio’s Senate Bill 5, I began to write op-eds on the many aspects of that legislation that would have reduced collective bargaining rights for all public employees in the state and would have completely eliminated those rights for college and university faculty. Initially the goal was to place op-eds…
The following paragraphs are taken from an article that Jill Barshay contributed to the Hechinger Report on June 1: “A team of academic researchers found that one third of colleges and universities underestimated actual living expenses by more than $3,000. Another 11 percent of schools overestimated by more than $3,000. In other words, almost half…
Ball, John. In the Heat of the Night. New York: Harper, 1965. John Ball’s most memorable creation, the African-American police detective Virgil Tibbs, was the protagonist of six novels and five films, most of which were not based on Ball’s novels. In the Heat of the Night, the first novel to feature Tibbs, was an…
The rampant exploitation of contingent faculty—in particular, of part-time or adjunct faculty—is one of the more disgraceful developments in American higher education over the last quarter century. It ranks with the rampant abuses committed by online for-profit colleges and universities as one of the most pernicious effects of the corporatization of higher education—and, more broadly,…
Conservative pundit Bill Kristol tweets: “The Left’s 21st century agenda: expunging every trace of respect, recognition or acknowledgement of Americans who fought for the Confederacy.” Well, no. The ‘stars and bars’ controversy has nothing to do with heritage. Today, that flag is simply a symbol of segregation and racism. For a long time, it did…
If you have been following the controversy over the proposed Cohen-Tucker fellowship program the following announcement, issued today by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), which brings the controversy to a positive end, will interest you. If you didn’t follow this story see my previous posts here, here, here and here.…
The headline of today’s op-ed in the Chicago Tribune by William G. Bowen and Eugene M. Tobin was wonderful: “Scott Walker’s test of academic freedom.” And the first half of the essay, tracing the development of the “Wisconsin Magna Carta” in defense of academic freedom, and the threat posed by Walker, is also wonderful. And…