BY CHRISTOPHER NEWFIELD The following is reposted from the Remaking the University blog. While its focus is on the University of California its arguments are as relevant for other public research and teaching universities. Should university officials be fatalistic about Covid-powered cuts to their core educational budgets? Or should they work 24/7 on their state…
BY NOLAN HIGDON AND MICKEY HUFF The following essay appeared on Project Censored’s website and is reposted with permission. The response to COVID-19 by governing institutions has altered the lives and practices of people across the nation, including the students, faculty, and staff in higher education. One of the biggest changes in educational institutions has…
BY JANE S. GABIN Everyone agrees: college will never be the same. Even before the pandemic, rapid change had become the pattern. Remember when college applications were handwritten? It wasn’t so long ago. Over the past three decades, colleges have become more like businesses and the process of applying for admission to them has become,…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The collective effort expressed in this pledge has been organized by AAUP Advocacy Chapters at Ohio University, Ohio State University, and Miami University. We pledge to demand genuine shared governance—visible and tangible involvement in decisions affecting the academic mission, at our own schools and all over Ohio. We pledge to demand…
BY JUDITH GRANT This three-part article continues from Part 1 and Part 2. Failure to Invest in the Region At OU, we have a special mission to educate the citizens of the state of Ohio, especially those in the region of Appalachia. “Today, fewer Ohio adults age 25-64 have at least an Associate’s degree or…
BY JUDITH GRANT This article continues from Part 1, available here. Market Irrationalities But there are other places to cut costs that could conceivably result in a balanced budget. One is administrative bloat, especially at the executive level. Another is intercollegiate athletics. Recent data shows that in 40 states, sports coaches are the highest paid…
BY JUDITH GRANT With thanks and solidarity to the many faculty who gave me comments on drafts of this paper. Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, is in the midst of the latest iteration of a decades-long series of budget cuts which, faculty fear, will result in the “non-renewal” (i.e., the firing) of dozens if not…
BY THE COLORADO AAUP CONFERENCE The Colorado Conference of the American Association of University Professors endorsed and promulgated the following statement on May 10, 2020. As Colorado’s universities and colleges ponder the risks and rewards of opening their campuses this fall in the midst of the continuing pandemic, the prospect of renewing normal or even…
BY NICHOLAS FLEISHER AND DONALD MOYNIHAN The following is reposted by permission from Tone Madison, “an independent website, podcast, e-mail newsletter and event series covering music and culture in Madison,” Wisconsin. Chekhov wrote: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.”…
BY ANNIE ADAMS The COVID-19 pandemic belies the assertion that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is devoted to students. While instructors of practice-based courses in science and engineering and performance-oriented classes in the arts are scrambling to reach students remotely and offer them some semblance of a classroom experience, the NCAA has largely shuttered…