Wooden gavel sits atop a desk with dark shadows behind it

Can Faculty Senates and AAUP Chapters Work Together?

BY DEAN SAITTA One year ago, the national AAUP released its report In Defense of an Independent and Representative Faculty Voice: The Case of Faculty Senates. The report suggests that senates and other faculty groups (such as unions, and, I assume, advocacy chapters) should work together to protect the faculty’s role in university governance. That’s…

A small plant growing out of dry, cracked earth

Look at the Potential Before Us

BY HILARY HOULETTE The professoriate has changed over the last several years, and it is indeed an odd time to be a faculty member in US higher education. Efforts have successfully eliminated diversity, equity, and inclusion across college campuses, while LLMs and AI technology impact how students and instructors engage with learning and assessment. The…

Purple background with a hand holding a pair of scissors, poised to cut a red thread.

Death by a Thousand Cuts

BY SUZANNA DANUTA WALTERS I recently received a curious email from my dean querying $300 I submitted for an Amtrak fare. While she also sent this message to my program manager, I decided to respond directly to her in the spirit of both relieving an overburdened staff member and to question the dean’s decision to…

Glass panels of New York City's New School University Center reflect images at odd angles of another older building

New School, Old Tricks

BY MADHAV TR AND LEXI ALLISON What is happening at the New School is happening to higher education across the United States. The story is a familiar one: an administration determining a university’s future without consulting the people who keep it running, including students, faculty, and staff. The only people they do consult are those…

photo of a daguerreotype of Frederick Douglass by an unknown artist inside a bifold frame with red velvet on the left panel and a gilt carved frame around the image of Douglass on the right panel

Frederick Douglass, Censorship, and Humanities Education

BY JOE LOCKARD Book bans and censorship in middle and high schools also affect higher education. They shape the reading knowledge of students who graduate and enter colleges and universities. An absence of knowledge about racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual diversity and histories among incoming students creates learning gaps and campus culture problems. Crucially, censorship…

Small note with the word "Workshop" in black cursive on an off-white background is pinned with a blue pushpin to a cork bulletin board

My Year of Workshopping Lectures

BY MELISSA CHADBURN In 2023, I was confounded by my humanness as I entered my first full-time visiting faculty position in my mid-forties. The brain fog. The creeping anxiety. Feeling my confidence and capacity to speak in front of other people vanish, even though I had a lot of experience with public speaking, panels, and…