BY AARON BARLOW Since the beginning of my academic career, I have intertwined the personal with my objects of study. After tentative moves toward some nonsense dissertation related to literary theory, I chucked it all and wrote on my favorite science-fiction writer. That, as they say, was my ‘defining moment.’ At the time, there was…
GUEST POST BY JULIA K. GRUBER I am a professor and AAUP chapter president at Tennessee Technological University, the institution that has recently been in the news for its collaboration with the glider kit “Zombie truck” producing company Fitzgerald. The situation escalated last week, when four professors (myself included) received a rather threatening letter from…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH I came across an link to an item in the Forsyth County News in Alabama, and the string of adverb phrases in the headline caught my attention: “University of Alabama Searching for Family of Owner of Radio Struck by Meteorite.” The Alabama Museum of Natural History is located on the University…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following is the text of an open letter to members of the U.S. Congress co-written by the March for Science and the American Psychological Association and signed by a growing number of scholarly organizations, including the AAUP. To add your signature go to https://www.marchforscience.com/gunviolence To: The Members of Congress Three…
BY THE TENNESSEE TECH UNIVERSITY AAUP CHAPTER The Tennessee Tech University chapter of the AAUP passed the following resolution yesterday about a controversy concerning allegations of research misconduct and conflict of interest. WHEREAS a chief purpose of AAUP has always been the protection of shared governance, which requires academic matters in the university to be…
BY HANK REICHMAN Issued in December, the AAUP’s report, “National Security, the Assault on Science, and Academic Freedom,” examines politically motivated threats to scientific research, with emphasis on threats to climate science and on the initial actions of the Trump administration. As one of the authors of this report I learned how daunting, if not…
BY HANK REICHMAN Readers of this blog have probably already heard how the Trump administration has barred officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from using a list of seven words or phrases in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget. According to the Washington Post, policy analysts were told of…
BY HANK REICHMAN Earlier this week word arrived that Princeton University history graduate student Xiyue Wang, sentenced in July by the Iranian government to ten years in prison for alleged espionage, is being transferred from general detention to Ward 7, a more extreme prison unit run by Iran’s intelligence agency. When Wang arrived there, his…
BY HANK REICHMAN Today the AAUP released a new report, “National Security, the Assault on Science, and Academic Freedom.” The report details troubling threats to academic freedom in the physical and natural sciences that have been exacerbated by the Trump administration’s hostility to science. International scientific exchange and, especially, the charging of innocent Chinese or…