The two-day strike by non-tenure-track faculty at the University of Illinois seeking a contract continues today. Here is a letter that appeared in the local newspaper supporting the strike: By Susan G. Davis and Richard S. Laugesen Members of the Non-Tenure Faculty Coalition Local 6546 (the union for non-tenure-track faculty at the University of Illinois) voted…
Here’s a press release from the AFT/IFT/AAUP local 6546 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, representing the non-tenure-track faculty out on strike today and tomorrow: Hundreds of non-tenure track faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will walk out of their labs and classrooms for two days beginning Tuesday morning, April 19, to…
Here’s a roundup of AAUP events and other academic freedom and higher education-related conferences coming up this year. Feel free to add any events in the comments. Tomorrow is the Illinois AAUP Annual Meeting, Sat. April 16, 9:15am-4pm, Dominican University, Priory Campus, 7200 Division Street, River Forest, Illinois, featuring AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum, plus sessions…
JOHN K. WILSON The AAUP recently issued a draft report on “The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX” and requested comments that are due today, April 15 (send comments to titleIX@aaup.org). I’ve been putting off my response because I feared that I would have to write a lengthy critique. But it turns out the…
BY JOHN K. WILSON John McAdams of Marquette University has written a letter to President Lovell, refusing to go along with the administration’s demands. McAdam’s lengthy letter outlines why he objects to his suspension and dismissal on both procedural and substantive grounds. Unless Marquette backs down, it seems likely that the administration will refuse to let him…
BY JOHN K. WILSON A new Gallup survey released today, sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Newseum Institute, shows that college students support free speech and open debate more than other adults in America, but they often make exceptions to their support for 1st Amendment rights. In the survey’s…
Marquette University yesterday announced the punishment of John McAdams for his crime of publicly criticizing a graduate student teacher’s pedagogy on his blog: He will be suspended (and banned) from campus until January 2017 (without pay but with benefits), and apparently will be forced to apologize for his actions as a condition of reinstatement. According to…
BY JOHN K. WILSON William Ringenberg is a Professor of History at Taylor University and the author of the new book, The Christian College and the Meaning of Academic Freedom: Truth-Seeking in Community (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). AcademeBlog co-editor John K. Wilson interviewed Ringenberg via email about his new book. John K. Wilson: You seem to…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, has written a detailed 11,000-word theoretical account of what academic freedom means. In response, I want to examine some of his arguments in detail, although I don’t have time and space to address every point. But fundamentally, I think Wood takes academic…
BY JOHN K. WILSON I have not previously spoken out in defense of Melissa Click, the University of Missouri professor who was loudly denounced for supporting a student protest by keeping out student journalists. Like many others, I strongly opposed her actions, and despite many threats against her and calls for her dismissal, she was…