Purple background with a hand holding a pair of scissors, poised to cut a red thread.

Death by a Thousand Cuts

BY SUZANNA DANUTA WALTERS I recently received a curious email from my dean querying $300 I submitted for an Amtrak fare. While she also sent this message to my program manager, I decided to respond directly to her in the spirit of both relieving an overburdened staff member and to question the dean’s decision to…

Glass panels of New York City's New School University Center reflect images at odd angles of another older building

New School, Old Tricks

BY MADHAV TR AND LEXI ALLISON What is happening at the New School is happening to higher education across the United States. The story is a familiar one: an administration determining a university’s future without consulting the people who keep it running, including students, faculty, and staff. The only people they do consult are those…

Red neon sign saying CABARET appears on the diagonal with a metal framework around it, with a glass reflection behind it

Late to the Party

BY ZOE SHERMAN I tried not to be a professional academic. But I loved being a student so much, and I felt such a strong pull toward scholarship that eventually I overcame my qualms about getting my livelihood tangled up with my intellectual passions. In the fall of 2009, at the age of thirty, with…

Rocky outcropping of reddish stones at Garden of the Gods Park in Colorado Springs, CA, offers a window-like view onto the verdant valley below with a cloudy sky and mountains in the background.

A Report from Colorado’s High Desert

BY RAPHAEL SASSOWER As the national academic landscape makes clear, academic freedom battles are often diverted to or fought in the budgetary arena: Money talks! To ensure that the mission of the university is not overlooked by our administrators, our AAUP chapter has demanded greater transparency in budgetary decision-making processes. Instead, we receive annual notices…

Nine red pushpins are inserted askew and crowded onto a single date, the 22nd of an unspecified month, on a spiral-hinged calendar that appears in soft focus in the background.

Double Booking Against Higher Education

BY ANTHONY DAVID VERNON What is proper duty? For Chinese philosopher Xunzi, proper duty included “the way of the ritual . . . and return to order.” Double booking breaks rituals and deviates from order. It is problematic for all parties, as we all have what Xunzi refers to as “a sense of duty” or…

Yet Another Florida Higher Ed Scandal

BY HANK REICHMAN When the AAUP’s special committee on political interference and academic freedom in Florida’s public higher education system, which I cochaired, issued its report last December, there was little mention of former Nebraska Republican senator Ben Sasse’s appointment as president of the University of Florida.  After all, Governor Ron DeSantis’s unprecedented takeover of…