BY SUE RAMLO On July 15th, 2020, our worlds turned upside down. Fear filled discussions about a faculty cut list had been circulating for more than a few months. It seemed as if every faculty member assumed that they were on that list of faculty to be laid off. Faculty were brooding, panicking, and anxious,…
BY AARON BARLOW Is Liberty University the future of the American university? Most of us have dismissed Liberty as an outlier. Though an accredited university, Liberty’s focus has always been education through religion rather than, as traditional American religious colleges and universities have it, religion through education. Its leaders have not the confidence in their…
BY NICHOLAS FLEISHER According to an AAUP investigative report released today, the most plausible explanation for the dismissal of a faculty member from Nunez Community College was that it occurred as a retaliatory measure, violating his academic freedom. Professor Richard Schmitt, a nontenured associate professor of English with twenty-two years of service at the institution,…
BY AARON BARLOW “Peer review,” cried the provost, “that’s the gold standard.” Sometimes it seems like the only standard. And we are being told to grasp it strongly. Why not? It lets us off the hook. Accepting it without question, we can ignore at least a couple of the urgent concerns regarding Reappointment, Promotion, Tenure…
BY ANI KOKOBOBO Guest Blogger Ani Kokobobo is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Slavic Department, at the University of Kansas as well as Editor, Tolstoy Studies Journal. I recently gave a lecture about Leo Tolstoy’s views on sexuality, which was inspired by the contemporary #metoo movement. At the end, a faculty member from the host university…
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF LA VERNE FACULTY POLICIES COMMITTEE At a time when tenure is under attack in the American academy, it is heartening to be able to offer some good news. By a message sent on October 10, 2018, Devorah Lieberman, President of the University of La Verne, announced that, “The Board of Trustees,…
BY THE AAUP Over the past few decades, the tenure system in US higher education has eroded. At its best, the tenure system is a big tent, designed to unite a diverse faculty within a system of common professional values, standards, rights, and responsibilities. Tenure protects academic freedom by insulating faculty from the whims and…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The short answer is to tie tenure to measures of administrative incompetence. But before I elaborate on that linkage, let me acknowledge that I am taking a second shot at pitching our chapter’s petition of support to the readers of this blog. The petition was designed for a more generic audience…
BY MARGARET MORGANROTH GULLETTE In the days since Academe published my essay, “The Monument and the Wrecking Crew: Ageism in the Academy,” which explored the misery of individuals and the high costs to society at large of losing tenure, additional faculty members have written to tell me their formerly hidden stories. The ways of getting rid…
BY STEVE MUMME It was a landmark moment when Colorado State’s faculty council voted to endorse the Committee on the Responsibilities and Academic Standing of Faculty’s (CoRSAF’s) proposal establishing “contract” faculty appointments for non-tenure track faculty (NTTF) on campus. The new appointment type effectively brings those faculty out of the shadows and into the mainstream…