BY MICHAEL DECESARE Yesterday the AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance released the following statement: In October 2017, news broke of University of Wisconsin system president Ray Cross’s decision to propose a merger of the system’s two- and four-year institutions. It was the latest in a number of unilateral and secretive actions taken by system…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN For the past few years Wisconsin has been ground zero in the fight over the future of public higher education. The AAUP, along with the Wisconsin AFT, has condemned a series of actions taken by Governor Scott Walker, the Wisconsin state legislature, and the University of Wisconsin system board of regents in…
BY MICHAEL DECESARE “Getting hammered by the ‘shared governance’ leaders because they weren’t involved in the process; however, had they been involved we wouldn’t be doing anything!!” That’s part of an October 11, 2017 email message from University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross to a UW regent. Cross was complaining about the backlash he…
BY HANK REICHMAN Add Kennesaw State University president Sam Olens to the list of college and university executives hired in secret and departing under a cloud not long after. Last week Olens submitted his resignation amidst a growing scandal over his handling of a political protest by five cheerleaders, who took a knee at a…
BY MICHAEL DECESARE In 2016, the AAUP’s annual meeting voted to add The College of Saint Rose to the censure list. The most egregious of the administration’s and governing board’s many transgressions had been the termination of 23 tenured and tenure-track faculty appointments as part of a top-down “academic prioritization” process that eliminated a number of…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Below is the text of an open letter signed by 135 members of the University of Nebraska faculty expressing concern that “decisions involving the future of the University are being made without transparency or proper governance and under improper exertions of influence by the legislative and executive branches of the state…
BY JOERG TIEDE Last month, the Board of Directors of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) issued a statement on shared governance. The statement delineates four principles “to help guide boards and those who work with them to achieve and support healthy and high-functioning shared governance”: Boards should commit to ensuring a broad…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL America’s colleges and universities are in the early stages of dramatic change. For many, the concentration has been on the development of new academic programs, designed to differentiate academic offerings among institutions and create new revenue streams. For others, efforts to find efficiencies internally or through participation in consortia have improved…
BY ALTHA CRAVEY I’ve been attending UNC Board of Governors’ meetings for about three years. I knew it was important to understand the Board’s increasing willingness to interfere in campus affairs across the state. The Board had already ceased being a bi-partisan Board with equal numbers of Republican and Democratic members, a “gentleman’s agreement” that…
BY HANK REICHMAN The University of Wisconsin-Superior announced this week that it will suspend 25 programs, including 9 majors, 15 minors and one graduate program, according to reports by the Duluth News-Tribune and Wisconsin Public Radio. Among the majors affected are sociology, theater, journalism and political science. The university has now suspended 40 programs since…