Exploring the Threats to Higher Education’s Integrity
BY ROBERT A. SCOTT Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic this past spring prompted the rapid turn to remote teaching and learning; caused uncertainty about whether teaching and learning would continue in the remote mode this fall; resulted in dire enrollment forecasts for domestic and international students; and raised questions about what plans should be made…
Wavy the Bear in . . . “Pitchfork Wavy!”
BY WAVY THE BEAR Hi! I’m Wavy the Bear, senior stuffed brand ambassador at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn! The nice folks at the AAUP liked the story about “managerial techniques” and “academic freedom” that I sent them for their journal, so now I’m “blogging”! Can I get a “wow”?!? I wrote that story back…
What Chutzpah Looks Like
BY ELYSE CRYSTALL In my circle of family and friends in Brooklyn, the word chutzpah could indicate admiration for someone who asserted herself, spoke truth to power in spite of what others thought: “She had the chutzpah to challenge the senator’s policy on Medicaid expansion.” More often, however, chutzpah expressed disgust at a person who…
No Common Good at an Uncommon Institution
BY HUEY-LI LI In the middle of World War II, the AAUP published its oft-quoted 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure in order to “promote public understanding and support of academic freedom and tenure and agreement upon procedures to ensure them in colleges and universities.” In response to the outbreak of the…
Notes on Joseph Epstein’s Teaching Style as Described by Himself in the Wall Street Journal
BY STEVEN LUBET Best known as an essayist and short-story writer, and former editor of The American Scholar, Joseph Epstein retired in 2002 after 30 years in the English Department at Northwestern University. As an emeritus lecturer, however, he still receives university announcements, which recently led him to complain about a decline in teaching standards.…
The Conflict over the Conflict
BY ERNST BENJAMIN Just as Kenneth S. Stern was completing his new book, The Conflict over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate, he discovered that President Trump had signed an executive order adopting the “working definition of anti-semitism” and making it applicable to enforcement of the Civil Rights Act Title VI. Stern warns that the…
At the U of Akron, It Is Time for Equitable Sacrifice
Academic Freedom under Siege at CU Boulder
BY DON ERON The following essay was posted on Sept. 8 at the Daily Camera, the Boulder, Colorado newspaper, and is reposted with permission. Academic freedom has had a rough go of it lately at the University of Colorado Boulder. Nobody seems to like it. Chancellor Phil DiStefano finds it necessary but disagreeable, at least…
End Misspending in Higher Ed: Presentations at the Forum
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The forum, sponsored by the SaveOhioHigherEd coalition of AAUP chapters across several Midwestern states, included six presentations: Jill Galvin, an English Professor at Ohio State University, made the “Introduction.” Cathy Wagner, an English professor at Miami University, provided an “Overview.” Abby Stidham, a student at the University of Cincinnati, spoke on…