POSTED BY THE AAUP The history of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) since its founding in 1915 has coincided with racial upheaval and transformation in the academy at large, from desegregation to current struggles for racial justice. Academe, the magazine of the AAUP, invites proposals for articles that would examine the Association’s work over…
BY HANK REICHMAN I usually admire American Prospect editor Robert Kuttner’s writings, but a short piece published online today, “The Republican Attack on Tenure,” got my hackles up a bit. Most of the piece is fine, calling appropriate attention to the assault on both tenure and academic freedom being waged by the GOP in red…
BY HANK REICHMAN The recently released preliminary report of the AAUP’s special committee to review an apparent pattern of politically, racially, and ideologically motivated attacks on public higher education in Florida, which I am co-chairing, concludes that “academic freedom, tenure, and shared governance in Florida’s public colleges and universities currently face a politically and ideologically…
BY ADRIANNA KEZAR, JOHN W. CURTIS, EMILY KOREN, AND KC CULVER The answer to the question our title poses is not very much—yet. There are serious challenges facing higher education in the United States today, from efforts to restrict teaching “uncomfortable” subjects to new and repeated attacks on tenure and the persistent underfunding of colleges,…
BY SIOBHAN SENIER Few faculty have the knowledge—or the time—to consider how information about us and our work is being collected and used. AAUP’s Academe magazine is soliciting contributions for a special issue on data mining and learning analytics, especially as these phenomena affect faculty governance and workload. What data, exactly, are colleges and universities…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The news that Cornell University’s administration sternly rejected a student demand for trigger warnings has spread across the country for the past month. The New York Times reported that “the conflict illustrates a stark divide in how different generations define free speech” with repressive students on one side while “proponents of…
BY RAPHAEL SASSOWER It makes sense for an administrator to be sued in court for violating the law. As a suit proceeds against University of Colorado Colorado Springs chancellor Venkat Reddy, charged with violating the civil rights of an employee, there has been no word from campus officials. It also makes sense for a university…
BY CHRISTIAN K. ANDERSON AND PATRICIA SULLIVAN We are reprinting with permission this guest column published yesterday in the University of South Carolina Daily Gamecock. On April 25, 1963—60 years ago—Robert F. Kennedy spoke at a meeting of the University of South Carolina chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). He was invited by…
BY JOSHUA KNICKERBOCKER In early 2023, artificial intelligence (AI) made headlines when one of the most popular AI-powered tools, ChatGPT, passed the medical licensing boards, as reported in an Insider story. The ability of AI to pass difficult examinations easily and reliably has prompted many scholars to question the implications for academia. ChatGPT is a…
BY HANK REICHMAN The so-called “heckler’s veto” is much in the higher ed news these days, with Inside Higher Ed this week running a piece, “Shouting Down Speakers Who Offend,” focusing on incidents at SUNY Albany, Stanford, and San Francisco State Universities. The Stanford incident has prompted two prior posts to this blog (here and here).…