Interview with Rudy Fichtenbaum
Rudy Fichtenbaum, a professor at Wright State University, was elected the next president of the AAUP last month. John K. Wilson interviewed Fichtenbaum via email about his goals for the AAUP. John K. Wilson: A headline about your election on InsideHighered.com asked, “Is the AAUP about to change course?” Is it? In what direction?
Distorting the AAUP’s History
On the blog of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), its longtime president Anne Neal writes about the election of Rudy Fichtenbaum as the new president of the AAUP. Her alarmist rhetoric not only distorts what the AAUP does today, but fundamentally rewrites the history of the AAUP in a completely misleading way.…
The Truth about Tenure
The AAUP today released an important new report on the violation of faculty rights at two Louisiana public universities, Northwestern State University and Southeastern Louisiana University (pdf of full report). AAUP Associate General Secretary Jordan Kurland called it, “the worst situation the AAUP has encountered of using cutbacks in funding as an opportunity to select unwanted…
A Crisis of Censorship: A Response to the National Association of Scholars
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has issued a new report about California universities based upon false evidence, distorted anecdotes, random online postings, and a series of terrible arguments that are fundamentally contrary to academic freedom and the idea of the university as a place for the free debate of ideas. What the NAS calls…
The Academic Freedom Crisis of the Twenty-First Century
The following guest post is by Jonathan Rees, a professor of history at Colorado State University-Pueblo and vice president of the Colorado AAUP conference. It is cross-posted at his blog, More or Less Bunk. Somebody call the AAUP! I think I’ve found the academic freedom crisis of the twenty-first century. From IHE: [Lasell College] wants 100…
It’s Not Much Fun to Lose Your Name
The following guest post was authored by Cary Nelson, the president of the American Association of University Professors. Will the day come when a successful student tells a prospective employer “I’m a graduate of Rutgers-Camden” and the employer answers “Never heard of the place?” That is the future New Jersey’s governor and some other state…
Joint Statement Against Censorship in Arizona
Faculty Should Choose Their Unions
I don’t often agree with Robert Weissberg, but he makes a lot of very good points at Minding the Campus about faculty unionization at the University of Illinois. Weissberg refers to a Chronicle of Higher Education article that emphasizes the tensions between adjuncts and tenure-track faculty among faculty union groups. But the reality is that…
Graduate Students Attempt to Revive “Comatose” NLRB, Demand a Decision on Union Recognition Case
By Jay Sosa Yesterday, graduate students from the University of Chicago handed a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) based in Washington DC, asking that they rule on the case of the New York University (NYU) graduate employee union by December 31. Sound confusing? Welcome to NLRB-land, where the board that adjudicates labor…