BY CAROLYN BETENSKY I’ve been spending the past two weeks speaking with colleagues who teach at public and private colleges and universities in Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Wisconsin, and Texas. All of these states are led by governors or legislatures that have demonstrated varying degrees of hostility to protective policies against the spread of COVID. To…
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–MILWAUKEE AAUP As faculty, staff, and students prepare to return to a newly re-opened campus this fall, UWM AAUP reminds us of the centrality of academic freedom and democratic governance in ensuring our collective safety and public health. The Covid-19 pandemic is not over. Faculty, staff, and students must be free…
BY THE AAUP RESEARCH DEPARTMENT This is the first in a series of three blog posts on findings from the AAUP’s Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession. New data from an AAUP survey detail the profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty salaries and fringe benefits for both tenure-line and non-tenure-track…
BY A LECTURER IN THE SOUTHEAST As my students and I worked on a collaborative document projected overhead, my inbox appeared on the screen. Whoops. Front and center, there was an email from Parking Services: PARKING TICKET NOTIFICATION Startled, I shut down the projection. As I glanced over my shoulder, I witnessed eye rolls and…
BY THE AAUP DEPARTMENT OF RESEARCH Today we issued a report on data from the first national survey about shared governance in two decades. It follows and complements our recently released Special Report: COVID-19 and Academic Governance, which is the report of an investigation into a number of instances in which governing boards and administrations opportunistically…
BY MICHAEL BÉRUBÉ AND MICHAEL DECESARE Today, we released the report of an investigation into the crisis in academic governance that has occurred in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The investigating committee, of which we are co-chairs, was charged with reaching findings on whether and to what extent there were departures at eight institutions…
BY MILES D. MAYER I recently spoke with students and colleagues at Doane University regarding failing leadership in higher education. After many spirited discussions, the conclusion was that in higher education, as in the corporate world, some leaders are taking advantage of the times, making decisions that would otherwise call for discussion and approval of…
BY JYOTSNA KAPUR AND NEEPA MAJUMDAR Words fail, as everyday India sinks to new depths of cruelty, injustice, and sheer apathy under the Modi administration. India counts today for almost one-third of the deaths from COVID-19, with people reduced to frantically chasing after a cylinder of oxygen, dying because they failed to get to a…
BY PAUL A. DILLER Many universities throughout the United States are mandating COVID-19 vaccines for students, faculty, and staff. The pandemic and associated restrictions have battered many segments of society, and higher education has not been immune. Social distancing, online courses, mask wearing, and the cancellation of sports and activities significantly disrupted the campus experience;…
BY MARYBETH GASMAN All one has to do in order to understand the depth of anxiety felt by assistant professors on the tenure track is to spend an hour on Twitter following the hashtags #academictwitter or #academicchatter. Tenure-track faculty members are feeling uncertain, stressed, overworked, and frightened of the tenure process and its unforgiving inhumanity.…