The issue of naming John Doe donour defendants in Professor Steven Salaita’s lawsuit against the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was one of the more creative and interesting aspects of this case. Donour pressure has frequently been a fulcrum in suppressing academic freedom as institutions run for cover when controversy arises, and the corporate university…
Testimony of John McNay, Ph.D., President Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors Before the House Finance Committee Representative Ryan Smith, Chair April 16, 2015 Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Driehaus, and distinguished members of the Finance Committee: my name is John McNay and I am President of the Ohio Conference of the…
The following is the text of my keynote address at “Hurdles on the Horizon: Governance & Student Success in the Connecticut State College & University System,” a conference organized by the Faculty Advisory Committee to the CSCU Board of Regents for Higher Education at Manchester Community College on April 10, 2015. Let me begin by…
Janet Napolitano, the President of the University of California system recently wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post in which she argued that, despite the challenges created by unprecedented cuts in state support for public higher education, it is a gross exaggeration to assert that American higher education is in crisis. Scott H. Levine,…
Tenured Associate Professor Steven Salaita, last night, filed a response to the University of Illinois motion to dismiss his civil rights lawsuit against the Board of Trustees, University of Illinois officials and donors. The response lays out the underlying constitutional, contractual and tort-based claims at the heart of the lawsuit and addresses how the complaint alleges…
Ohio State University is internally circulating a draft of a new policy on faculty intellectual property rights. The following summary of the main outlines of the lengthy and very detailed draft revision was published in an article in the Columbus Dispatch: “The proposal says that all intellectual property created by faculty, staff and students belongs…
In August 2014, Graeme Wood wrote an article for The Atlantic titled “The Future of College?” The tease under the headline is: “A brash tech entrepreneur thinks he can reinvent higher education by stripping it down to its essence, eliminating lectures and tenure along with football games, ivy-covered buildings, and research libraries. What if he’s…
Testimony of John T. McNay, Ph.D., President Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors, Before the Ohio Senate Finance Committee, Senator Scott Oelslager, Chair, March 3, 2015 Chairman Oelslager, Ranking Member Skindell, and distinguished members of the Finance Committee: my name is John McNay and I am President of the Ohio Conference…