BY HANK REICHMAN Today the AAUP released a major new report—”Extorted Compliance: A Threat to Institutional Autonomy, Academic Freedom, and Shared Governance”—prepared by a joint subcommittee of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the Committee on College and University Governance exposing how the Trump administration has extended its pay-to-play approach to governance into higher…
BY JOAN W. SCOTT Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber has carefully curated his public reputation as a defender of free speech and academic freedom against the wanton attacks by the Trump administration. In a recent book, widely publicized and distributed by his university, he offers advice to others about how to maintain an atmosphere of…
BY PRISCILLA JEBARATNAM Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming workplace practices, including how employee performance is assessed. Organizations are increasingly adopting AI-enabled evaluation systems because they promise greater consistency, efficiency, and objectivity. But an important question remains: Do more accurate evaluations automatically lead employees to perceive them as fair? A recent rapid evidence assessment examining…
BY DANIEL A. SEGAL We—meaning both faculty and the AAUP—know that when our teaching and research disturb powerful interests, we risk repression on our campuses from administrators, trustees, donors, and elected office holders. This has certainly been the case in recent years in the context of both the second Trump administration and widespread efforts to…
POSTED ON BEHALF OF THE COALITION FOR ACTION IN HIGHER EDUCATION On behalf of the Coalition for Action in Higher Education (CAHE), we share with you a template titled Know Your Governing Board. This document’s purpose is to encourage and enable us as faculty members to learn more about bodies that too often do not…
BY HANK REICHMAN The appointment of Scott C. Beardsley, an inside candidate, as president of the University of Virginia has garnered more than its share of controversy, as Inside Higher Ed has reported here and here. The vacancy resulted from the departure of President James Ryan, who resigned under pressure as Virginia Board of Visitors…
BY HANK REICHMAN This week the AAUP released a report, In Defense of an Independent and Representative Faculty Voice: The Case of Faculty Senates, prepared by a subcommittee of the AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance. I am a member of this committee and helped write the report, which demonstrates how recent state legislative actions…
BY AFSHAN JAFAR We have recently seen accelerating legislative and political attacks on faculty governing bodies at state institutions, including legislation recently enacted in Indiana, Ohio, Utah, and especially Texas. In a recently published report titled In Defense of an Independent and Representative Faculty Voice: The Case of Faculty Senates, the AAUP’s Committee on College…
BY ADAM RZEPKA A large public university is wiping out all of its humanities departments. It isn’t sure why. As I write this, our Interim Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS)—a newly hired computer scientist who will soon be both Interim Dean and Interim Provost—is telling faculty and staff at the…
BY LAURIE ESSIG On Wednesday, October 1, the Department of Education sent nine universities a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” The document asks universities to comply with a variety of restrictions like capping the number of international students and not considering factors like race or gender in hiring and admissions. More ominously, the…