In Defense of Editors

BY AARON BARLOW This past Monday saw publication of my last issue as Faculty Editor of Academe. After six years, it is time for change and I thoroughly approve of the AAUP’s plans for the magazine going forward. In fact, I suggested many of them. When I awoke a few hours ago,  I saw that another…

Standing with John Cheney-Lippold

BY Richard Falk, Cynthia Franklin, Terri Ginsberg, Salah Hassan, David Klein, Adam Miyashiro, Bill V. Mullen, David Palumbo-Liu, Andrew Ross, and Snehal Shingavi John Cheney-Lippold, an associate professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor, has been criticized by some supporters of the State of Israel for declining to write a letter of recommendation…

Targeted Harassment and the Kavanaugh Nomination

BY HANK REICHMAN Recently the AAUP and others have been calling attention to the growing phenomenon of targeted online (and direct) harassment of faculty members, which has become a major threat to the academic freedom of everyone in higher education.  In January 2017, the AAUP issued a statement noting how individual faculty members “have been…

Lightbulb on blackboard, surrounded by idea bubble drawings.

Academic Values and Innovation

BY LESLIE BARY Yesterday a public official, dropping the name of the Lumina Foundation, asked Louisiana faculty for ideas on how to innovate. Did we need help learning to use technology? Would mini-grants help us find new books to replace the outdated ones we might be using? Perhaps we do not need books, but teaching…

Trump Once Again Attacks Science

BY HANK REICHMAN The Trump administration’s disregard for and assault on science have been well documented by the AAUP, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and others.  Now President Trump himself and his FEMA administrator, Brock Long, have attacked the credibility of a study by George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, which found…

barbed wire in swirled pattern atop fence

Jailhouse Scholar

BY JAMES FERRY When I submitted my piece for the September-October issue of Academe, “How the Academy Saved My Soul—and Maybe My Life,” I figured that, at best, I might end up guest blogging. So being asked to blog about my feature article feels a bit…weird. I’d much rather blog about why I lacked “contributor…

Diversity and General Education in the CSU

BY HANK REICHMAN A little more than a year ago the Chancellor of the California State University system (CSU) issued two executive orders governing general education and remediation.  The directives, prepared and released without appropriate faculty input, were immediately controversial.  In October 2017, the California Faculty Association (CFA), an AAUP-affiliate representing over 27,000 CSU faculty…

New Academe Explores “Otherness”

POSTED BY KELLY HAND September–October 2018 | Vol. 104, No. 5 This issue of Academe explores the theme of “otherness” in our college and university communities from a variety of perspectives. Articles discuss topics such as fighting back against the marginalization of faculty, pursuing an academic career after serving time in prison, being a woman…