The following is a guest post by Donald Rogers. Rogers is the chair of the Organization of American Historians Committee on Part-Time, Adjunct and Contingent Faculty, and serves as the OAH liaison to the Coalition on the Academic Workforce. He is currently serving as an Assistant Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University. Recently, the…
This is a guest post by Lenore Beaky, a member of the AAUP Committee on Community Colleges. “Santa Monica College—The Shape of Things to Come, or The Future That’s Already Arrived?” What happened at Santa Monica College this spring embodies many of the most urgent threats and challenges facing community colleges in the United States now: vanishing…
About a year ago, the Department of Education released its highly-anticipated “Gainful Employment” rules, which were meant to solve the problem of students spending a lot of money on job-preparedness programs that didn’t actually prepare them for jobs. The basic idea was that if too many of a school’s graduates were left unable to pay…
The 2011 volume of the AAUP Journal of Academic Freedom contained two articles—by John Champagne and John Powell—critical of “the relentlessly expanding assessment movement.” In response, Berea College professor Dave Porter describes his own extensive experience with assessment, arguing that assessment is about creating a culture of evidence that is much more than merely collecting…
The following is a guest post by Dr. James Pappas. Dr. Pappas serves as Vice President for University Outreach, Dean of the College of Liberal Studies, and Professor at the Departments of Educational Psychology and Liberal Studies at the University of Oklahoma. From May 29–June 2, 2012 in New York City, the National Conference on…
In an example of terrible legislation, the Tennessee House and Senate this week approved a new law (if it’s signed by the governor) compelling public universities (and the private Vanderbilt University) to allow student groups to discriminate against students based on religious beliefs and private behavior. It’s an attack on the religious liberty of individuals,…
The following is a guest post by Michael DeCesare, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Merrimack College. “Tenured Professor Is Placed on Leave After Showing a Film About Pornography” was one of the headlines screeching across the April 20 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. The case…
Student Veterans of America (SVA) is a national organization dedicated to helping veterans “succeed in higher education and following graduation.” The SVA has a strong emphasis on student leadership and building connections between veterans in higher ed to help them adjust to life out of the military and in school. That’s why SVA leaders were…
The Center for the Future of Higher Education—the “virtual think tank” of the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education—has released its first report, Closing the Door, Increasing the Gap: Who’s not going to (community) college. It’s written by Gary Rhoades, former general secretary of the AAUP, and in the report, Rhoadesexplains that more than…
The debate over for-profit colleges could be coming to a theater near you. Aaron Calafato, an actor who also spent time working for a for-profit college in Ohio, wrote and stars in a new one-man play, For-Profit, about the industry. The play takes a harsh look at the industry, from the perspective of a recruiter talking…