Secretary DeVos on Faculty in Higher Education

BY RUDY FICHTENBAUM This is a guest post by AAUP president Rudy Fichtenbaum, a professor of economics at Wright State University. In her speech at CPAC Secretary DeVos stated: “Now let me ask you: How many of you are college students? The fight against the education establishment extends to you too. The faculty, from adjunct…

Muscling My Way Over

BY ROB PLATH Guest blogger Rob Plath is a writer from New York. He lives in a subterranean hovel  with his cat Daisy. He is a member of the AAUP. I’m sitting in my car. Monday. 7:45 AM. Traffic is at a standstill. It takes me over 1-½ hours to drive 42 miles to the…

Raising our Voices on Threats to Peace

BY DAVID CORTRIGHT, ASHER KAUFMAN, GEORGE LOPEZ, ANN MISCHE, ATALIA OMER, JASON SPRINGS, SUSAN ST. VILLE, AND ERNESTO VERDEJA The statement shared below was crafted by a group of faculty members at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies during the first week of the new administration, as we watched the foundational values of our…

Being Harassed in the Wake of Milo

BY ALAN-MICHAEL WEATHERFORD This is a cross-post of an editorial by Alan-Michael Weatherford. It originally appeared as a guest editorial on the website of The Daily, the student newspaper of the University of Washington. The Daily Editor’s Note: Story includes vulgarity, anti-gay, and transphobic slurs.  When internet hate-monger and Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopolous spoke on University of…

Fighting Darkness with Light

BY J. MICHAEL RIFENBURG Guest blogger J. Michael Rifenburg teaches at the University of North Georgia. This is a letter he sent to the Dahlonega Nugget, the local newspaper in his community. It appeared there recently: I’ve only been a college professor for a decade, but as 2017 begins, I feel my colleagues and I are under attack…

Faculty, Data, and Decisionmaking

BY DAVID P. NALBONE This is a guest post by David P. Nalbone, associate professor of social psychology at Purdue University Northwest. He is the past president and external liaison of the Purdue University Northwest AAUP chapter and was just elected secretary of the Indiana AAUP conference. My article in the January–February issue of Academe,…

Fighting for CUNY and Public Higher Education

BY MARCELLA BENCIVENNI This is a guest post by Marcella Bencivenni, associate professor of history at CUNY Hostos Community College.  The City University of New York (CUNY), the nation’s largest public urban university, has been recently the subject of several articles exposing its growing challenges: steep budget cuts, climbing enrollment and class sizes, infrastructure decay,…