BY CAROLYN BETENSKY On Friday, I posted the first part of this survey of what faculty face this fall at institutions in COVID-denialist states. Part I discussed conditions in Louisiana and Georgia. Here, I report what I heard from colleagues in Florida, Wisconsin, and Texas. * * * At the University of Florida, where no…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY I’ve been spending the past two weeks speaking with colleagues who teach at public and private colleges and universities in Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Wisconsin, and Texas. All of these states are led by governors or legislatures that have demonstrated varying degrees of hostility to protective policies against the spread of COVID. To…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY In the middle of a pandemic, faculty activists have accomplished something of real significance. Working with their provost, the town-hall style faculty governance group at Worcester Polytechnic Institute has managed to secure forty-five tenure lines for existing “teaching” faculty. While the idea of expanding tenure to include teaching faculty has been promoted…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY In the middle of the summer and in the middle of a pandemic, with an overwhelming majority of faculty and other community stakeholders voicing their objections to the plan and with few students weighing in on it, the Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) voted on…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY Faculty members who would have been Professor Nikole Hannah-Jones’s colleagues at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina have written a powerful statement voicing support for her decision not to accept the tenured position she was offered last week at their school. After a demeaning and…