BY MARK HULSETHER Guest blogger, Mark Hulsether, a professor in the department of religious studies at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, originally published this essay on his blog, MBE: Mark’s Blogging Experiment, on February 26. We are posting it here with his permission. Yesterday I read this piece in the New York Times by Molly Worthen. Then I made the mistake…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL American higher education is a complex, decentralized, and interlocking network of institutions that provide education to a disparate group of learners. Historically, many of the fundamentals build around an applicant cohort of 18- to 22-year olds. The demographics of the 21st century predict that this group will not be able to…
BY HANK REICHMAN Today, after nine days on an “illegal” and “unauthorized” strike, West Virginia teachers won a powerful victory when Republican Governor Jim Justice signed legislation passed earlier in the day that will raise salaries of not only teachers but also all state employees by 5%, the largest single pay hike for public employees…
POSTED BY THE AAUP Gun violence is not a problem limited to high schools. Colleges and universities have been sites of mass shootings since the 1960s. The mere presence of guns on campus or in the classroom limits academic freedom, potentially affecting the choice of course materials, how far faculty members should press students to…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following is the text of an open letter to members of the U.S. Congress co-written by the March for Science and the American Psychological Association and signed by a growing number of scholarly organizations, including the AAUP. To add your signature go to https://www.marchforscience.com/gunviolence To: The Members of Congress Three…
BY HANK REICHMAN With high school students and their supporters across the country planning walkouts from class this spring to demand common sense gun control measures, it may be useful to look back on, commemorate, and learn from events that occurred 50 years ago this week. Among the many anniversaries from the remarkable year 1968,…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH About a week ago, I posted Rudy Fichtenbaum’s speech rallying our chapter members at Wright State before we marched as a group across campus to an open forum being hosted by our university’s President, its chief Financial Officer, and the Chair of our board of Trustees. [See https://academeblog.org/2018/02/09/rudy-rallies-wright-state-faculty/.] What follows is…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Young adults are under attack. Dick’s, Wal-Mart, Kroger and other stores have announced that they are raising the age limit to 21 for gun purchases. Donald Trump expressed his support for raising the age limit, declaring that “it’s a big issue now,” despite the opposition of the National Rifle Association to…
BY THE TENNESSEE TECH UNIVERSITY AAUP CHAPTER The Tennessee Tech University chapter of the AAUP passed the following resolution yesterday about a controversy concerning allegations of research misconduct and conflict of interest. WHEREAS a chief purpose of AAUP has always been the protection of shared governance, which requires academic matters in the university to be…
BY JOERG TIEDE The national American Association of University Professors joins its California state conference in urging the suspension of two executive orders, EO 1100 (revised) and EO 1110, that make extensive changes to the general education requirements, placement testing, and remedial education policies applying to all of the California State University (CSU) campuses. The…