Dominican University in River Forest, a suburb of Chicago, has formed a new A.A.U.P. chapter. They received a welcoming letter e-mail from Alexis Pearlstein, administrative assistant in the Department of Organizing. It included a copy of the Association’s constitution, which is not in the current Redbook. I am linking it here. From: Alexis Pearlstein Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2015…
The ad was placed by someone who is obviously incensed by the increasing corporatization of the university that has been reflected in the decisions made, without faculty input, by President Scarborough’s administration. About two hours after it was posted, the ad was removed by the Craigslist administrators. I would like to note that…
The W. B. Yeats poem “The Second Coming” first appeared in 1919, almost a century ago. That’s probably why, though he alludes to it frequently in his column “Enter the Age of the Outsiders,” David Brooks never quotes from it directly–nor does he mention Yeats directly. He knows that most of his readers will understand…
In his influential “‘Good-bye, Teacher… ‘” Fred Keller lists five aspects of his Personalized System of Instruction that differentiate it from more conventional methodologies: (1) The go-at-your-own-pace feature, which permits a student to move through the course at a speed commensurate with his ability and other demands upon his time. (2) The unit-perfection requirement for…
The decision last month of the Iowa Board of Regents to name former IBM senior vice president J. Bruce Harreld as the University of Iowa’s next president, despite widespread opposition to his candidacy among faculty and others, has brought renewed attention to presidential searches. This past weekend at the request of the UI AAUP chapter…
This past weekend the Executive Committee of the Texas Conference of the AAUP issued the following statement: The Executive Committee of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors continues to oppose the ‘campus carry’ laws. College campuses are marketplaces of ideas, and a rigorous academic exchange of ideas is chilled by weapons…
“The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.” *** Faculties in the Connecticut State University system are facing an unprecedented attack on tenure and collective bargaining. In the current negotiations for a new contract with the American Association of University professors (AAUP), the Board of Regents…
Close to the start of “An Essay on Criticism,” Alexander Pope writes, “’Tis with our Judgments as our Watches, none/Go just alike, yet each believes his own.” The cornerstone of education, I have come to believe, is development of judgment–but with recognition that it is not uniform. Judgment is an elusive quality, impervious to quantification.…