Open Letter to Our Akron Colleagues

POSTED BY SUE RAMLO A couple of months ago, the Provost’s office sent faculty, through their deans, a survey, asking us what we thought the criteria for firings should be. Akron-AAUP saw this for what it was: direct dealing with faculty, and a failed attempt to legitimize the gutting of the faculty. At the time,…

Being on the Hit List at Akron

BY SUE RAMLO My name is Sue Ramlo, and I am on the cut list—or as I like to call it, the Hit List.  There are ninety-six of us on the Hit List, over 70 percent of these faculty are tenured faculty members at The University of Akron (UA), as I wrote about in yesterday’s…

The University of Akron Hit List: Who Are We?

BY SUE RAMLO On July 15th, 2020, our worlds turned upside down.  Fear filled discussions about a faculty cut list had been circulating for more than a few months.  It seemed as if every faculty member assumed that they were on that list of faculty to be laid off.  Faculty were brooding, panicking, and anxious,…

Anti-Faculty Coup at National University

BY ALARMED FACULTY MEMBERS AT NATIONAL UNIVERSITY This spring and summer of COVID has witnessed a perhaps unprecedented assault on faculty rights, as institution after institution, claiming some sort of exigency, have laid off both contingent and tenured faculty members, restructured programs, and short-circuited established institutions of shared governance.  In many cases the challenges are…

Newly elected AAUP officers and Council members.

Irene Mulvey Elected AAUP President

BY THE AAUP In a mail ballot election, AAUP chapter and section delegates have elected Irene Mulvey of Fairfield University as the new president of the 105-year-old faculty-led organization. Paul Davis of Cincinnati State Technical and Community College was elected as vice president, and Christopher Sinclair of the University of Oregon was elected as secretary/treasurer. Chapter…

Chart showing difference between 2000 and 2020 use of AAUP language in faculty handbooks.

New Report on Prevalence of AAUP Policies in Higher Ed

BY HANS-JOERG TIEDE The AAUP released today a new research report, Policies on Academic Freedom, Dismissal for Cause, Financial Exigency, and Program Discontinuance, that examines the prevalence of AAUP-supported policies in faculty handbooks and collective bargaining agreements at four-year institutions that have a tenure system. The analysis replicates a study conducted in 2000 and tracks changes that…

Scrabble tiles spelling out the word "assess"

Colleges Should Offer a Pass-Fail Option This Fall

BY KIMBERLY BERNHARDT Like many of my colleagues across the country, I am unsure whether I will be teaching face-to-face, online, or hybrid courses this fall. While I hope to adapt my teaching to whatever model is necessary to serve students, I am not confident that our current pedagogical framework—in which students work throughout the…