BY JOERG TIEDE Walter P. Metzger, professor of history at Columbia University for his entire career and the AAUP’s official historian for most of that time, has passed away. Professor Metzger dedicated his entire professional life to the AAUP, both by contributing to the ongoing work of the Association, in particular on Committee A on Academic Freedom…
In 1927, Professor Louis R. Gottschalk resigned his position at the University of Louisville to protest the dismissal of his colleague Rolf Johannesen. Simultaneously with his resignation, Gottschalk wrote to the AAUP to request an investigation of Johannesen’s dismissal. The newly-installed president, George Colvin, justified the dismissal by citing Johannesen’s reluctance to sign the one-year…
The AAUP was founded on January 1 and 2, 1915. Shortly after the founding meeting, the Association’s first president, Columbia University philosophy professor John Dewey, appointed a Committee on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure, referred to as “the committee of fifteen.” The committee took up investigations of violations of academic freedom at the universities of Utah,…
Below is the UIUC news release, which is posted here: http://uofi.uillinois.edu/emailer/newsletter/77294.html Phyllis M. Wise steps aside as Urbana-Champaign campus chancellor Returns to faculty role, effective August 12 August 6, 2015 URBANA–University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise announced in a statement today that she will step aside as chancellor and vice president of the…
The 2015 edition of the AAUP’s Policy Documents and Reports (widely known as the AAUP Redbook) is now available to be ordered. The Redbook presents in convenient format a wide range of AAUP policy statements. The current edition, the eleventh, includes basic statements on academic freedom, tenure, and due process; academic governance; professional ethics; research and teaching;…
BY HANS-JOERG TIEDE One hundred years ago today, the AAUP was founded at an organizational meeting at the Chemists’ Club in New York. A committee of 33 professors, chaired by John Dewey, organized the meeting. Among the members of the committee were Harvard law professor Roscoe Pound and Stanford engineering professor Guido Marx. Arthur Lovejoy served…
Reported on WUIS: I received the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure’s report this morning, and I thank them for their time and effort. I have read the report. It contains a great deal of information, and it is important that I thoroughly review it and discuss the findings and recommendations with the authors, the…
This is a guest post by Joerg Tiede, a contributor to the recent November-December issue of Academe. Tiede is professor of computer science at Illinois Wesleyan University. He serves as chair of the AAUP’s Assembly of State Conferences, on Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, and as chair of the Committee on the History…
Among the articles in this year’s edition of the Journal of Academic Freedom is one I wrote on the history of the founding of the AAUP. Since I am not a professional historian (I teach computer science), I feel like I should offer an explanation (and to my colleagues who are historians, an apology) for…
The American conception of academic freedom arose with the Progressive Era in the 1890s primarily because of social scientists who advocated for reforms that negatively affected financial interests. The press – muckrakers and establishment papers – actively participated in the debate over academic freedom that took place during that time. The attention of the press sometimes helped professors…