BY AFSHAN JAFAR, SIMON FELDMAN, AND JOAN C. CHRISLER In the latest issue of Academe, we write about the importance of participating in academic governance, especially on small campuses. Our article, Hang Together or Hang Separately, lays out some of the obstacles to participation in governance and argues for the need to overcome them. Here,…
BY MICHAEL DECESARE Administrative encroachment. Governing board overreach. Political interference. In light of these and other ominous trends, the need has never been more urgent for faculty to reclaim a central role in the government of our colleges and universities. The May–June issue of Academe, now available on the AAUP website, is devoted to academic…
BY HANK REICHMAN A few weeks ago the California state auditor released damning reports on the management of both the California State University Chancellor’s Office and the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), with the latter stirring up a hornet’s nest of controversy in the legislature and the media. At a Board of…
BY LAURA MARKWARDT An investigative report released today by the AAUP concludes that the administration of Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, fired Erlene Grise-Owens, a long-serving professor of social work, in blatant violation of academic freedom and due process. The report finds that Spalding’s administration abruptly terminated Professor Grise-Owens’s tenured appointment because she criticized the administration’s…
BY HANK REICHMAN AB 847, a bill currently under consideration in the California Assembly, would require the local academic senate of a campus of the California State University or of a campus of the California Community Colleges, and would request the local academic senate of a campus of the University of California, to post its…
BY BILL MULLEN Guest blogger Bill Mullen is a Professor of English and American Studies at Purdue. Last week, Purdue University purchased Kaplan University, a for-profit on-line entity owned by Graham Holdings Company, a corporate conglomerate and former owner of the Washington Post newspaper. Purdue says it plans to make Kaplan into a public University…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Higher education is misunderstood and struggling financially, but the majority of college and university presidents are increasingly confident that their institutions are financially stable. These seemingly contradictions were found in Inside Higher Education’s annual survey of 706 campus leaders. Let’s set aside the obvious political concerns among presidents about the Trump…
BY AARON BARLOW Two great failings of the American professoriate are timidity and self-righteousness. Casting about to orient myself in my new calling a decade or so ago, I found David Horowitz defining one extreme view of it and Michael Bérubé standing out on the other. Horowitz was pushing professors further into timidity and inaction…
BY MICHAEL DECESARE In discussions of academic governance, administrators like to emphasize the need for trust. Trouble is, they’re usually the ones to betray it. The latest case in point comes from Fordham University. As reported in a February 1 article in the Fordham Ram, the administration announced in June 2016 that “it would impose a…
BY MARTIN KICH What follows is from an uncredited story published by the Northwest Florida Daily News: In a debate that has repeatedly flared in recent years, a House Republican on Monday proposed Sunshine Law exemptions for information about applicants for top jobs at state universities and colleges. “The proposal (HB 351), filed by Rep.…