If You Are in Carbondale, Illinois, and Cannot Find a Way to Celebrate Halloween, Chances Are That You Are Hiding Out at Home in an Interior Closet

I think that Carbondale, Illinois, the home of Southern Illinois University, must have just about the most options for celebrating Halloween of any college town in the United States. If you want the full list of events related to the holiday, go to the events page on the website maintained by CarbondaleRocks.com: http://www.carbondalerocks.com/taxonomy/term/191. Even if…

First Eliminate Job Security; Then Have Faculty Bid on Their Salaries

In one of my recent reviews of recent news items on higher education [https://academeblog.org/2015/10/23/u-s-higher-education-news-from-september-29-2015/], I opened with an item on the elimination of continuing contracts for faculty at Florida State College. Now the member of the college’s board of trustees who initiated that change of policy has been emboldened to advance a proposal that faculty…

Partisan Politics and Academic Freedom

What’s the point of calling academia, or an association of academics like the AAUP, “too liberal”? Doing so always has a political goal; it’s an attempt to make academia—or the organization—more conservative. It’s never an unbiased or objective (whatever that means) complaint; it is part of an agenda to transform academia into one’s own image and…

My Colleagues and I Don't Have Academic Freedom

I was associated with the University of Connecticut for almost 25 years before I learned that I did not have academic freedom. Naively I had assumed that all American institutions of higher learning, except some small religious colleges, guaranteed academic freedom. I had hoped that the current contract negotiations between UConn’s trustees and its chapter…

Professors in Poverty

As part of Campus Equity Week, Brave New Films has released this terrific short film about the very real poverty of many faculty in contingent positions: Contains some illuminating stats comparing presidential salaries to adjunct wages, and personal stories from adjuncts–mostly women, which reflects the reality that contingent labor issues are also women’s issues. It’s…

UNC System: Quo Vadis?

[F]or those of us who think that universities exist for academic purposes — to teach academic knowledge and skills, to pass on academic virtues, and to sustain academic research — the stakes could not be higher. [former Secretary of Education under George Bush and newly appointed head of the University of North Carolina system Margaret]…

Ben Carson, Academic Freedom, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Marty Kich has already blogged about GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson’s advocacy of campus censorship of free expression despite his shallow and hypocritical railing against the perils of “political correctness.” But I can’t resist piling on. Let’s recall that the retired right-wing neurosurgeon’s claim last week was that unlike other right-wing fanatics he doesn’t want…

House Science Committee Attacks Scientists

In a must-read article published yesterday on vox.com, David Roberts argues that “The House science committee is worse than the Benghazi committee.” “The Benghazi committee is not even the worst committee in the House,” Roberts contends. “I’d argue that the House science committee, under the chairmanship of Lamar Smith (R-TX), deserves that superlative for its…