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…
BY HANK REICHMAN The question in my title is central to a report released this week by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). Report on the Implications for Academic Freedom in the Case of Andrew Potter at McGill University, prepared by professor Mark Gabbert of the University of Manitoba, has important implications for U.S.…
BY MARTIN KICH Early last summer, Sherrod Brown’s senatorial campaign contacted the leadership of the Ohio Conference about what he could provide to us on his positions. The OCAAUP tries to limit its focus to issues related to higher-education and collective-bargaining rights. Senator Brown’s positions on labor issues are very well known, and after some…
BY MARTIN KICH The “what” in this case can refer, of course, to many things—the causes, the effects, and/or the political, cultural, and moral implications of the two issues and the ways in which they are (or are not) being addressed. But I would like to focus on simply a similarity in which the evidence…
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…
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”…
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…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This resolution was passed unanimously by the chapter leaders and members attending this year’s annual meeting in the Columbus suburb of Westerville. Whereas the state funding for public higher education has been declining for the last 30 years, Whereas the State Share of Instruction (SSI) accounts for only about 13 percent…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown has stated that he is considering a run for the Democratic nomination in 2020. He has been widely quoted as asserting that if the Democrats want win again in 2020, they need to support working people in a broad variety of ways—most fundamentally by supporting collective bargaining…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH A sub-title for this post might be: Student Debt, DACA, and the Ottoman Defeat at the Gates of Vienna. These items have been culled from Pro Publica’s Capitol Words: Granted, Gohmert and King are not only on the Far Right end of the political spectrum, but even among those at that…