BY Z. W. TAYLOR AND PATRICIA SOMERS Only a few decades after the 1789 signing of the US Constitution, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison sat on the board of visitors for the University of Virginia. Both Jefferson and Madison, originalists and contributors to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, supported the University of Virginia…
BY HARVEY J. GRAFF We live in a new age of division. Universities are so often centers of differences, contradictions, and clashes between knowledge and ignorance. One revealing site is the false opposition of the faculty and the—to faculty and academic administration—second-class “professionals” in departments of student affairs and student life. Critically, this dichotomy parallels…
BY RANDI SHEDLOSKY-SHOEMAKER Learning—in all of its forms—represents some change in behavior or thoughts based on direct or indirect experiences. Of course, the range of experiences we can directly access might be limited for a variety of reasons. That’s where books, or more broadly narratives, can provide a pathway to a reality beyond the one…
BY RACHEL WHEELER For my sanity, I’ve had to cut back on my doom-scrolling habit and limit my time on Twitter. But there’s one type of content I’m totally there for: over the course of spring semester—our fifth pandemic semester—as more faculty ventured back into physical classrooms and back to in-person conferences and lectures, what…
BY SHU WAN In the past few years, the Chinese government’s consistent interventions with—and suppression of—electronic resources in academic libraries in the nation have become an internationally controversial issue. One example of such censorship was a 2017 incident involving the China Quarterly. A statement by the journal’s publisher, Cambridge University Press, noted that “all international…
BY AN ANONYMOUS SAINT CATHERINE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR Saint Catherine University sits on an idyllic green bluff in a serene part of Saint Paul, Minnesota. It’s not too far from the Mississippi River. When it’s hushed, you can hear the faint sounds of a barge horn as it slowly heads down to New Orleans. It’s the…
BY MICHAEL SCHWALBE University of Florida administrators have created a slideshow to help faculty understand the implications of the state’s new law, House Bill 7, also known as the Stop WOKE Act. One slide says, “At its core, the bill’s message is: ‘No one likes to be told what to think. And that includes students.’…
BY WISCONSIN CONFERENCE OF THE AAUP On Monday, the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents voted unanimously to appoint Jennifer Mnookin as the next chancellor of UW–Madison. Within hours, many leading Wisconsin Republicans—both elected officials and candidates for statewide office—issued nearly identical statements of opposition to her appointment. We write to condemn these statements…
BY MICHAEL C. BEHRENT Since the release last week of the report by the AAUP’s Special Committee on Governance, Academic Freedom, and Institutional Racism in the University of North Carolina system, UNC administrators have responded to the charge that, as the report puts it, the UNC system is “in trouble.” Unsurprisingly, responses from university officials…
BY ANDREW TONKOVICH It’s hard to find a better-funded speech rights outfit than one purchasing digital ads on the virtual front page of the New York Times. Setting aside the peculiar politics of the “libertarian-leaning” Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), its newest campaign, which I noticed in early April, is puzzling, if not…