AERA and ASHE Joint Resolution on Tenure and Academic Freedom in Wisconsin

The following resolution was released by the two organizations on June 30: The American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), as the two national scholarly associations devoted to the study of all education and higher education, respectively, affirm the principle that academic freedom, grounded in the tenure…

“Restoring Salaita’s Position Would be Right Move”

The News-Gazette of Champaign, Illinois published yesterday in its Sunday edition an op-ed I wrote on my interpretation of the American Association of University Professors censure of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The censure resulted from the summary dismissal of Associate Professor Steven Salaita for his tweets on the war in Gaza last summer. The paper supplied the…

Countering the Corporate Con

The two great parts of American higher education are the students and the faculty. The administrators are only around to facilitate the learning of the former and the teaching and research of the latter. Or that’s the way we imagine it. Over the past fifty years, the students have become customers instead of learners and…

Shared Governance and Its Misconceptions

The headline of today’s op-ed in the Chicago Tribune by William G. Bowen and Eugene M. Tobin was wonderful: “Scott Walker’s test of academic freedom.” And the first half of the essay, tracing the development of the “Wisconsin Magna Carta” in defense of academic freedom, and the threat posed by Walker, is also wonderful. And…

Sweet Briar Lives!

In a stunning and welcome development on the eve of a scheduled court hearing on Monday, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring announced today that “a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been agreed upon by Amherst County Attorney Ellen Bowyer, Saving Sweet Briar, Sweet Briar College and the Office of the Attorney General outlining a plan…

Michael Crow is not the Devil.

  I was at the AAUP Annual Meeting and conference in Washington, D.C. last week. If you’ve never been you should definitely go as it is both fun and informative. Among other things, I met many of the people responsible for this very blog for the first time. But that’s not what I want to…

Sweet Briar Faculty Speak Out

On March 3, President James Jones of Sweet Briar College shocked the small women’s college’s faculty and students by announcing that the school would close its doors on June 30.  Seniors would be allowed to graduate, but all other students would be compelled to transfer elsewhere.  Faculty members were provided vague promises of assistance, but…

U. of Illinois President on Censure: “No need to get out of jail.”

President Timothy Killeen is completing his first month as leader of the University of Illinois system. In remarks before the Urbana-Champaign faculty Senate Executive Committee, he was rather cavalier about the AAUP censure vote last Saturday. Unlike Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise, who stated in a conciliatory tone that removal of censure was important, President Killeen, according to…