The AAUP Committee on Graduate and Professional Students today issued a statement in support of a graduate employee solidarity day of action that will take place on Thursday, October 15, 2015 at universities throughout the country. The AAUP stands firmly behind graduate employees as they stand up in defense of their right to form unions…
In The New York Times today is an article, “For-Profit Colleges Accused of Fraud Still Receive U.S. Funds.” Exploitation of the failed student loan programs (failed, that is, in terms of protection against fraud by for-profits) continues, the Times says, even in the face of an Education Department crackdown on “bad actors.” The article claims:…
Guest blogger Jacob A. Bennett lives and works in Philadelphia, where he teaches rhetoric, poetry, and literature. I was surprised to receive, and happy to accept, an invitation to attend this year’s annual meeting of the Pennsylvania State Conference of the AAUP on October 3. The keynote speaker, Dr. Gerald Beyer of Villanova University (the host…
The American professoriate once ranged from professionals who taught a course as an adjunct—a contribution to their professions, the compensation being almost nothing—to the regular (but generally poorly paid, often relying on family fortune to sustain them) faculty who generally assumed lifetime security at institutions whose operation their colleagues dominated. That changed over the decades starting…
Late yesterday I posted news that the Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge Faculty Senate had voted by an overwhelming 39-5 margin to censure LSU Chancellor-President F. King Alexander and two other top administrators for their roles in the dismissal of tenured professor Teresa Buchanan. The LSU administration responded with the following press release, issued…
By an overwhelming 39-5 vote the Louisiana State University (LSU) Faculty Senate today (October 6) voted to censure three top administrators for their roles in the dismissal of tenured professor Teresa Buchanan for allegedly creating a hostile environment in classes with sexually explicit jokes. LSU Baton Rouge has been on the AAUP’s list of censured…
Last week I posted an item reporting on the bargaining efforts of two AAUP/AAUP-CBC affiliated faculty unions, the California Faculty Association (CFA) in the California State University system and the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) in the City University of New York. Now comes word that the AAUP’s own collective bargaining chapter at the Connecticut State…
One of the most disheartening events of this past summer on the Academe blog was the rise of invective in the comments that started with our posting of a guest commentary by a group of scholars with particular connections to–or interests in–India. The vituperation exhibited astonished me, and it came in the dozens and then hundreds (to…
Last week the AAUP and the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) issued a statement protesting remarks made by University of California Regent Richard Blum, which threatened negative political consequences for the University if it did not approve a policy on alleged anti-semitic speech acceptable to him and his wife, U.S. Senator Dianne…
Two AAUP/AAUP-CBC affiliates — the California Faculty Association (CFA), which represents over 23,000 faculty members in the 23-campus California State University (CSU), and the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), which represents more than 25,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the CUNY Research Foundation — are engaged in protracted contract…