Dr. Kevin L. Cope — professor of English at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; chair of the LSU Faculty Senate; and member of the AAUP’s national Council — has received the inaugural Outstanding Service to Higher Education award from the Association of Louisiana Faculty Senates (ALFS), who also named the annual award as the Kevin L. Cope Higher Education Award.

The organization cited Cope’s initiation of the statewide collaborative colleagues quarterly meetings, dedication to faculty governance and continuing assistance to individual faculty senates. ALFS is comprised of faculty senate leaders from all four systems of Louisiana colleges and universities.  Cope is probably best known to readers of this blog for his leadership of the LSU Faculty Senate’s 39-5 vote to censure three top administrators for their roles in the dismissal of tenured professor Teresa Buchanan for allegedly creating a hostile environment in classes with sexually explicit jokes.  When the administration responded with a misleading press release, Cope wrote reply, in the form of a letter to the campus newspaper, The Reveille, which I posted on this blog.

The award was created, out of personal funds, by faculty leaders who attend the quarterly statewide faculty governance summit that Cope initiated in 2010, which has hosted a couple of AAUP functions as well.

Congratulations to Kevin for this much-deserved honor!