Adjunct Robin Meade Case Updated on AFT Website

The American Federation of Teachers has posted the latest developments of the Robin Meade adjunct-persecution case. Professor Meade has written for this blog, and the AAUP has provided financial and strategic assistance in her struggle for reinstatement. Moraine Valley Community College fired this on-campus union leader for criticising the administration’s treatment of adjunct faculty “as a disposable resource.”…

AAUP Statement on Presidential Searches

The following statement was issued today by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP): In recent months at a number of colleges and universities across the country controversy has emerged over decisions by governing boards to conduct searches for new presidents or chancellors in secret, abandoning the previously standard practice of inviting a select group…

Join the AAUP, People! (Guest Post by Michael Bérubé)

by Michael Bérubé Michael Bérubé is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Pennsylvania State University, a former president of the Modern Language Association, and a member of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure.  The following is reposted from theprofessorisin.com: I was recently in Washington, DC for the fall 2015 meeting of AAUP’s…

AAUP Joins Defense of Affirmative Action

On Friday the AAUP joined the American Council of Education and 36 other higher education groups in filing an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court the right of colleges to consider race in admissions. The case is Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, over which the court will hear oral argument on…

Congratulations to Kevin Cope!

Dr. Kevin L. Cope — professor of English at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; chair of the LSU Faculty Senate; and member of the AAUP’s national Council — has received the inaugural Outstanding Service to Higher Education award from the Association of Louisiana Faculty Senates (ALFS), who also named the annual award as the Kevin…

Response to Jonathan Marks

In a post published yesterday on this blog, Aaron Barlow replied to a Weekly Standard review, by Professor Jonathan Marks of Ursinus College, of Joerg Tiede’s recently published study of the founding of the AAUP, University Reform.  But Aaron focused more on a New York Times column by Arthur Brooks so his discussion of Marks…

AAUP Brief Supports Academic Freedom in Research

The following is taken from a media release issued today by the AAUP: The American Association of University Professors filed an amicus brief on October 26 with the Arizona Court of Appeals arguing that academic freedom to conduct research is essential to a vital university system and warrants protecting certain research records from disclosure. This case…

AAUP Supports Campus Equity Week

Today launches Campus Equity Week, during which groups plan local actions to draw attention to working conditions of faculty. Campus Equity Week is an annual event started by the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor, a grassroots coalition of activists in North America working for contingent faculty: adjunct, part-time, non-tenured, and graduate teaching faculty working to bring greater awareness…

Is the AAUP a Nakedly Partisan Left-Wing Group?

Jonathan Marks at Minding the Campus has denounced the AAUP, claiming that it “takes a sharp left turn.” Marks claims that the AAUP’s Centennial Declaration is “the most nakedly partisan document to emerge from the AAUP in recent memory.” Marks writes, “According to the Declaration, higher education faces one and only one enemy, corporations or business…