black and white photo of two men at an AAUP Committee A meeting in 1972

Remembering William Van Alstyne

BY DAVID M. RABBAN William Van Alstyne, for decades a major leader in the AAUP and a preeminent scholar of constitutional law, died on January 29, 2019, at the age of eighty-four. He joined the AAUP in 1960, at the beginning of his career as a law professor, and twice served as president of the…

colorful "welcome" sign

Speaking Back When the University is Attacked

BY MARCO ABEL AND JULIA SCHLECK In our recent Academe article, “Academic Freedom, Radical Hospitality, and the Necessity of Counterspeech,” we revisit the incident on UNL’s campus that led to its censure last June to ask what administrations can do when faced with incidents like this one, in which a student advocating for the establishment…

Scrabble tiles spelling out the word "assess"

Assessing Ourselves

BY JOHN SCHLUETER As I was writing my recent article for Academe, “In Search of What We Do,” my college was in the throes of reaccreditation, and faculty were tasked with standardizing their assessments of student work based on outcomes revised with the help of Bloom’s Taxonomy. However, for me—and I would venture to guess…

screenshot of YouTube video by Irami Osei-Frimpong, who is speaking into a microphone

Protecting Extramural Speech

BY KEITH E. WHITTINGTON Is it possible to go a month without a controversy about the extramural speech of a faculty member? Probably not. There are, after all, a lot of faculty out there, and they have greater unmediated access than ever before to put their views about matters both great and small before a…

magnifying glass on top of colorful file folders

Nunez Community College’s Dismissal of Professor Was Likely Retaliatory

BY NICHOLAS FLEISHER According to an AAUP investigative report released today, the most plausible explanation for the dismissal of a faculty member from Nunez Community College was that it occurred as a retaliatory measure, violating his academic freedom. Professor Richard Schmitt, a nontenured associate professor of English with twenty-two years of service at the institution,…

steep gray stairs

Opportunities for Early Career Scholars with Disabilities

BY KERI L. RODGERS I am reaching out to share a career development opportunity for doctoral candidates or alumni who have disabilities as well as a service opportunity for faculty members interested in supporting early career scholars with disabilities. Please share this information with anyone who might be interested. Pre-Conference Seminar for Early Career Scholars…

Red abstract sculpture, called Turning Points on campus of Wright State University.

Letter from a Wright State Student

BY LESLIE MARSH Guest blogger Leslie Marsh is an undergraduate in her senior year at Wright State University (WSU). Below is her response to a letter from Alpana Sharma, chair of the English languages and literature department, notifying her about the conversion of her full-semester course to a compressed seven-week course due to the ongoing…