BY AAUP STAFF Congratulations to Wright State University faculty for a hard-fought agreement with the administration! The AAUP-WSU strike is over and faculty returned to work this morning in a victory for faculty, students, and quality higher education. The blog includes a number of recent posts about the strike. Below are links to just a…
BY RACHEL IDA BUFF Who’s a Bully? Civility, Authoritarianism, and Power in the Contemporary Academy For its next volume, scheduled for publication in fall 2019, the AAUP’s Journal of Academic Freedom seeks original, scholarly articles that consider how “bullying” is implicated in conflicts taking place around discourses of civility and academic freedom. How do admonitions of “civility”…
POSTED BY KELLY HAND The new issue of Academe uses the feminist concept of intersectionality to consider gender on campus in relation to race, class, and other categories that shape our understanding of higher education. Contributors reframe problems such as sexual violence, declining access to public education, the vulnerability of contingent faculty, and the exploitation of graduate…
BY KELLY HAND The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) recently released a research brief analyzing results of a survey of humanities PhD recipients who were three, eight, and fifteen years out of programs at thirty-five institutions. With a data sample of 882 respondents, the report focuses on PhDs working in academic and nonacademic jobs “closely…
POSTED BY KELLY HAND The AAUP released an open letter to US congressman Jeff Fortenberry letting him know that threatening and harassing faculty members is unacceptable after Fortenberry’s chief of staff harassed Ari Kohen, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. After Kohen “liked” on Facebook an image of an altered…
BY THE AAUP Over the past few decades, the tenure system in US higher education has eroded. At its best, the tenure system is a big tent, designed to unite a diverse faculty within a system of common professional values, standards, rights, and responsibilities. Tenure protects academic freedom by insulating faculty from the whims and…
POSTED BY KELLY HAND September–October 2018 | Vol. 104, No. 5 This issue of Academe explores the theme of “otherness” in our college and university communities from a variety of perspectives. Articles discuss topics such as fighting back against the marginalization of faculty, pursuing an academic career after serving time in prison, being a woman…
BY MICHAEL C. BEHRENT Last year, North Carolina became one of the first states to adopt a so-called “campus free speech” law (S.L. 2017-196). This law, like similar legislation that has been proposed or approved in other states, was drafted by a partisan conservative think-tank and supported by sympathetic legislators. Premised on the dubious proposition…
BY DAVID KOCIEMBA The 13th Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor international conference this year was about organizing solutions to the international problem of faculty contingency. Held in San Jose this year August 3-5, COCAL presenters and attendees came from Mexico, the United States, Quebec, and English-speaking Canada. As this blog’s readers well know, contingent faculty…
BY ROBERT A. SCOTT According to Moody’s Investors Service, about 25% of private colleges are experiencing budget deficits. It also is estimated that traditional high school graduates will decline by 9% between 2026 and 2031, reducing by almost 300,000 the number of four-year college students. Moody’s also predicts more campus mergers and closings. Finally, it…