BY HANK REICHMAN In two remarkable statements issued recently scholars from more than thirty countries, including Germany, Israel and the U.S., have spoken out against efforts by the German government to restrict the academic freedom and free speech rights of artists and scholars suspected of supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian…
BY NICHOLAS FLEISHER AND DONALD MOYNIHAN The following is reposted by permission from Tone Madison, “an independent website, podcast, e-mail newsletter and event series covering music and culture in Madison,” Wisconsin. Chekhov wrote: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.”…
BY AARON BARLOW We are losing our students. At least, for now. Yesterday, another student in one of my classes told me he is not registering for the fall. He said that online education isn’t working for him (though he did say he likes my class). This is not the first time I have heard…
BY JOHN K. WILSON I am often skeptical of the importance of surveying students about the First Amendment. “The First Amendment on Campus 2020 Report: College Students’ Views of Free Expression,” a new report just released this week of a survey in late 2019 by Gallup and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation…
BY AARON BARLOW One of my biggest fears for higher education brought on by the coronavirus crisis is that the confluence of forced online learning and a casualized faculty will be grasped by cash-strapped administrators to create a new and cheaper model for both course offerings and faculty employment. The new model makes tremendous sense…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Ohioans are very fond of saying, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a day and it will be completely different.” That saying is true today, when the temperature is 15 degrees chillier than it was yesterday, and the last frost of the spring seems to be likely tonight as the…
BY ANNIE ADAMS The COVID-19 pandemic belies the assertion that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is devoted to students. While instructors of practice-based courses in science and engineering and performance-oriented classes in the arts are scrambling to reach students remotely and offer them some semblance of a classroom experience, the NCAA has largely shuttered…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following open letter expressing the concerns of around a dozen Assistant Professors from the Faculty Organizing Group (FOG) at University of California at Santa Cruz is reposted from Remaking the University. For a previous statement on this topic from 176 UCSC faculty members go here. The authors would like to…
BY JULIE SCHMID The AAUP has issued the following guidance on the reopening of colleges and universities this fall, consistent with existing AAUP policies and standards. A number of colleges and universities across the country are considering whether to reopen their campuses in the fall. Much of the discussion about reopening has focused on the…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This year, more than most years, we should be acutely aware of what all healthcare workers, first responders, and essential workers are enduring for the sake of their communities. But nurses have been truly in the front lines. Nurses are dealing with the sickest of the sick for extended shifts and…