Post-Millennials and Higher Ed

BY MARTIN KICH Consider the following chart: The article from which this graphic is taken, “Early Benchmarks Show ‘Post-Millennials’ on Track to Be Most Diverse, Best-Educated Generation Yet,” has been written by Richard Fry and Kim Parker for Pew Research and is available at: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/11/15/early-benchmarks-show-post-millennials-on-track-to-be-most-diverse-best-educated-generation-yet/?utm. The chart suggests some very positive developments—the increasing diversity of…

Dark Money at Tufts

BY HANK REICHMAN In the fall of 2016 the AAUP, the College Media Association, the Student Press Law Center, and the National Coalition Against Censorship issued a report, Threats to the Independence of Student Media.  The report declared, “Candid journalism that discusses students’ dissatisfaction with the perceived shortcomings of their institutions can be uncomfortable for…

The Central European University under Siege

BY JOAN W. SCOTT For previous posts on this topic go here, here, here, and here. On Tuesday, Nov 27, I joined a group of protestors outside the Parliament, on Kossuth Square in Budapest.  There, a coalition of students denouncing “attacks on academic freedom” had convened a week-long Open University (Szabad Egyetem).  The protest was…

UW Stevens Point Faculty Oppose Restructuring

BY HANK REICHMAN Earlier this year administrators at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, in Wausau, proposed dropping thirteen majors in the humanities and social sciences–including English, philosophy, history, sociology, and Spanish–while adding or expanding sixteen programs “with high-demand career paths.”  The proposal would ostensibly address a $4.5 million deficit over two years. The added or…

Call for Papers: Who’s a Bully?

BY RACHEL IDA BUFF Who’s a Bully? Civility, Authoritarianism, and Power in the Contemporary Academy For its next volume, scheduled for publication in fall 2019, the AAUP’s Journal of Academic Freedom seeks original, scholarly articles that consider how “bullying” is implicated in conflicts taking place around discourses of civility and academic freedom. How do admonitions of “civility”…

State Income Tax Revenues Increase Dramatically

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH State support for public higher education—or, more precisely, the decline in such support—remains a persistent and significant issue. It continues to exacerbate the level of debt that students are assuming to get degrees (or often to pursue degrees that they do not manage to complete) and constricting the number of faculty…