BY JEFFREY C. ISAAC Over 1,700 of the roughly 2,400 graduate student workers at Indiana University have signed union cards affiliating with the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition with the United Electrical Workers union. The Indiana University administration has refused to recognize or even to meet with coalition leaders. And after years of seeking recognition, the…
BY MARTHA MCCAUGHEY At its February 25 meeting, the Wyoming Senate passed a budget amendment to end funding for the University of Wyoming’s Gender and Women’s Studies (GWS) program and the activities associated with GWS. The Senate approved the amendment, 16–14, but it did not make it onto the House floor for consideration. The provision’s…
BY REBECCA T. ALPERT The following remarks were delivered as part of an online forum on “The Assault on Academic Freedom” sponsored by Temple University April 7. I want to focus today on my own experience of academic freedom in two very different (but related) locations: in and also beyond the classroom. Academic freedom in…
BY MARLEEN S. BARR I could only look at the Will Smith meltdown from the point of view of that earlier Will, because Shakespeare has so many characters who precipitate a steep and stunning downfall: Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Shylock. The title of Smith’s movie, in which he plays the father of Venus and Serena…
BY DANA SAJDI Part of my choosing to be a premodern historian is precisely to escape the reality of having been born and raised until adolescence in Nablus, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. As a schoolgirl, it was a daily routine for me to carry in my lunch tiffin an onion, the root vegetable considered…
BY JESSICA WINEGAR Do you know that photo of the older woman protestor holding a sign that says “I Can’t Believe I Still Have to Protest this S**t?” Now that I just turned fifty and have spent three decades in the academy, I think of that image frequently when attending academic talks. Back in grad…
BY DALE E. MILLER Several states have taken or are considering measures to prohibit the teaching of “divisive concepts.” In my state, Virginia, new governor Glenn Younkin immediately issued Executive Order Number One (E.O. 1), “Ending the Use of Inherently Divisive Concepts, Including Critical Race Theory, and Restoring Excellence in K–12 Public Education in the…
BY AINSLEY CARRY Founded in 1816, Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church is one of the oldest Black churches in the South. Black leaders in South Carolina were nurtured in this church and advanced to national prominence. Mother Emanuel—as referred to by locals—is the heartbeat of the Black community in Charleston, SC. On June 17,…
BY ALICE BROWN One of the first articles published by the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2022 asked, “Who Wants to Be a College President?” Author Eric Kelderman writes that recent changes in higher education have led to a shift in the qualities boards seek in a new president. One change he describes is that…
BY DAVID A. VAREL When I was an undergraduate at a liberal arts college in the early 2000s, our student evaluations were all qualitative. We were asked to write short essays describing our experience in our courses—what worked, what didn’t, what could be improved. It was clear from this design that the chief audience was…