Wittenberg AAUP Sends Open Letter to University President

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The following is an open letter sent by the members of the Wittenberg AAUP chapter to their university president. The Ohio Conference AAUP fully supports the chapter and their efforts to promote and enforce standards of shared governance.   June 9, 2020 An Open Letter to the President, Provost, Board of…

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University of South Florida Pandemic Principles

BY BRIAN CONNOLLY As universities across the country responded to COVID-19 with various austerity measures, including mass layoffs and furloughs, coupled with an insistence on returning faculty, staff, and students to campus, a group of faculty at the University of South Florida drafted a set of principles and submitted them to the administration. The aim…

In This Pandemic, Ohio’s Colleges and Universities Are Serving the Public Good

BY MARTIN KICH Ohio’s colleges and universities are contributing in uncountable ways to the state’s efforts to contend with the coronavirus pandemic. Our faculty have provided expertise that has helped our state to meet a wide range of challenges, from conducting ground-breaking bio-medical research to resolving unprecedented logistical and technological issues. Our institutions have opened…

Corporatization, Commodification, and Hyper-Politicization

BY MARTIN KICH The following two charts, which were included in an article from Brookings but taken from the sources indicated below them, suggest how closely the much-reported, mixed perceptions of higher education are connected to our hyper-partisan politics. The first chart compares the voting patterns in the 2016 presidential election and in the 2018…