Troubling Developments at Appalachian State
The following is a guest post by Michael DeCesare, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Merrimack College. “Tenured Professor Is Placed on Leave After Showing a Film About Pornography” was one of the headlines screeching across the April 20 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. The case…
What Tenure Means to Me
By annetteboardman (annetteboardman is a pseudonym of a college professor who teaches at a university in Missouri). This essay originally appeared on DailyKos. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to work anymore, that I have permission to never update a class, or get grading done in a timely manner. Perhaps you thought it meant…
David Levy’s Faulty Attack on Professors
The following is a guest post by Michael DeCesare, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Merrimack College. Yet again, the professoriate finds itself under attack from a misguided and misinformed administrator. David Levy, in a March 23 op-ed piece in the Washington Post, asked the very tired question…
The Academic Freedom Crisis of the Twenty-First Century
The following guest post is by Jonathan Rees, a professor of history at Colorado State University-Pueblo and vice president of the Colorado AAUP conference. It is cross-posted at his blog, More or Less Bunk. Somebody call the AAUP! I think I’ve found the academic freedom crisis of the twenty-first century. From IHE: [Lasell College] wants 100…
Shooting Itself in the Foot: East-West University’s Anti-Union Campaign
By Tom Suhrbur For the past 18 months, East-West University (EWU) in Chicago has fought a vigorous campaign against the efforts of its part-time faculty to organize a union. In November 2009, adjunct (part-time) Professor Curtis Keyes contacted me about organizing a union. In January, I had my first meeting with the group and, by…
Saving Rutgers-Camden
The following guest post is by Jean-Louis Hippolyte, an Associate Professor of French and Director of the European Studies program at Rutgers University-Camden. “Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought. Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith let us, to the end, dare…
CUA President John Garvey’s Misguided View of Religious Liberty
This essay by Peter N. Kirstein (a professor of history at St. Xavier University, Vice President of the Illinois Conference of the AAUP and is chair of the Illinois Conference Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure) originally appeared on his blog. By Peter N. Kirstein John Garvey, president of censured Catholic University of America…
Occupy Education
The following guest post is by Craig Vasey, professor of philosophy at the University of Mary Washington and a member of the AAUP’s national Council. Yesterday I wrote about how faculty at relatively privileged institutions can feel we are operating in a bubble, insulated from the catastrophes befalling higher education, especially public higher education, in…
Are You Working Inside a Bubble?
The following guest post is by Craig Vasey, professor of philosophy at the University of Mary Washington and a member of the AAUP’s national Council. Signs of a coming disaster for American higher education are all around us. That’s why the AAUP Council, of which I am a member, endorsed the Occupy Wall Street movement…