Protecting Colorado Faculty throughout the Pandemic

BY THE COLORADO AAUP CONFERENCE The Colorado Conference of the American Association of University Professors endorsed and promulgated the following statement on May 10, 2020. As Colorado’s universities and colleges ponder the risks and rewards of opening their campuses this fall in the midst of the continuing pandemic, the prospect of renewing normal or even…

A UW System Crisis a Decade in the Making

BY NICHOLAS FLEISHER AND DONALD MOYNIHAN The following is reposted by permission from Tone Madison, “an independent website, podcast, e-mail newsletter and event series covering music and culture in Madison,” Wisconsin.   Chekhov wrote: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.”…

A New Survey of College Students on Free Speech

BY JOHN K. WILSON I am often skeptical of the importance of surveying students about the First Amendment. “The First Amendment on Campus 2020 Report: College Students’ Views of Free Expression,” a new report just released this week of a survey in late 2019 by Gallup and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation…

A Terrible Beauty

BY AARON BARLOW One of my biggest fears for higher education brought on by the coronavirus crisis is that the confluence of forced online learning and a casualized faculty will be grasped by cash-strapped administrators to create a new and cheaper model for both course offerings and faculty employment. The new model makes tremendous sense…

Game Over for the NCAA

BY ANNIE ADAMS The COVID-19 pandemic belies the assertion that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is devoted to students. While instructors of practice-based courses in science and engineering and performance-oriented classes in the arts are scrambling to reach students remotely and offer them some semblance of a classroom experience, the NCAA has largely shuttered…

large lecture hall with empty seats

Guidance for Reopening Campuses

BY JULIE SCHMID The AAUP has issued the following guidance on the reopening of colleges and universities this fall, consistent with existing AAUP policies and standards. A number of colleges and universities across the country are considering whether to reopen their campuses in the fall. Much of the discussion about reopening has focused on the…