The Miami University AAUP Chapter Has a Website—and Major Changes Are Being Imposed on the University’s Regional Campuses

This relatively new but rapidly growing chapter in Ohio now has a nice website at http://www.miamiaaup.org/. The chapter news also can be followed on Facebook and Twitter. The website includes a link to an article in The Miami Student [http://miamistudent.net/] by Megan Zahneis, reporting on the major administrative restructuring occurring at Miami’s regional campuses: “Miami’s…

Connecticut State Faculty Rally Against Contract Take-Backs

Today hundreds of faculty members from Connecticut State University (CSU) and their supporters rallied in Hartford outside a meeting of the Board of Regents of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities demanding that the regents abandon draconian contract proposals that would bring to Connecticut the kinds of anti-education and anti-union measures that failed Republican presidential…

A Personal Recollection Prompted by a Literary Anniversary

I have now reached an age at which the “cutting-edge” works of contemporary literature that I read as an undergraduate are starting to be regarded from a truly historical perspective. For instance, this year is the fiftieth anniversary of the original staging of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming. To mark the anniversary, the play is being…

Oh, the Hypocrisy!

Yesterday Marty Kich posted a piece, When a University President Becomes a Scold, that focused on the hypocrisy of Oklahoma Wesleyan President Everett Piper’s much-publicized screed against PC students and his widely quoted claim that his institution is “not a ‘safe place,’ but rather, a place to learn,” and that “This is not a day…

Wilson, Du Bois, and Who is Worth Honoring

Guest blogger Jonathan Marks teaches political philosophy at Ursinus College. Corey Robin, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, concludes a recent piece in Salon by imagining how Princeton might distance itself from its former president, Woodrow Wilson. The Black Justice League there demands that the university “publicly acknowledge the racist legacy of Woodrow…

When a University President Becomes a Scold

Dr. Everett Piper, the President of Oklahoma Wesleyan, has brought a great deal of attention to himself and to his institution because of a blog post that he wrote to students. The most widely quoted portion of the post has been its closing: “At OKWU, we teach you to be selfless rather than self-centered. We…