POSTED BY KELLY HAND The new issue of Academe highlights the power of faculty to build strength on their campuses by organizing through AAUP advocacy and collective bargaining chapters. Articles focus on presidential searches, private donor influence, adjunct faculty activism, risks of gun violence, retirement, and other topics. Follow the links in the table of contents…
BY FRANK D. LOMONTE Headhunters for university presidential searches make their six-figure commissions by promising trustees they’ll deliver an efficient search with high-quality candidates. What they’ve delivered to the University of Colorado is a slow-motion train wreck, as president-elect Mark Kennedy struggles to salvage his candidacy after a “ready-fire-aim” search process in which trustees admit…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Last Thursday, April 11, OCAAUP President John McNay testified to the Ohio House Finance Subcommittee on Higher Education on House Bill 166, the biennial state budget bill. In his testimony, McNay advocated for greater State Share of Instruction funding, encouraging the committee members to seek new revenue, if need be, in…
BY JOERG TIEDE Delegates to the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association of University Professors voted today to remove the University of Iowa from the list of sanctioned institutions as well as to remove Stillman College from the list of censured administrations. The AAUP places academic institutions on the sanction list for serious departures…
BY HANK REICHMAN Add Kennesaw State University president Sam Olens to the list of college and university executives hired in secret and departing under a cloud not long after. Last week Olens submitted his resignation amidst a growing scandal over his handling of a political protest by five cheerleaders, who took a knee at a…
BY HANK REICHMAN The following is the text of a talk I delivered on January 30 at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. I want to thank the Whitman AAUP chapter, the faculty committee on academic freedom and due process, and the Whitman administration for their invitation, hospitality and support during my illuminating two-day visit.…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Some politicians make good college presidents, at least on paper. As Rick Seltzer reported in Inside Higher Education last week , the best possess many of the same skills as successful college and university presidents. They are typically well connected with outside stakeholders, enjoy good name recognition, and know how to…
BY HANK REICHMAN Last Fall the AAUP issued a “Statement on Presidential Searches” decrying the growing practice “by governing boards to conduct searches for new presidents or chancellors in secret, abandoning the previously standard practice of inviting a select group of finalists to visit the campus and meet publicly with faculty and other members of…
The following is taken from an email sent to AAUP members on December 10: Today, the AAUP is releasing an investigative report on the University of Iowa’s 2015 presidential search. The investigation found that the search was nothing less than a crude exercise of naked power by the Iowa Board of Regents. Notably, In contrast…
The growing trend toward secret presidential searches and the emerging tendency of governing boards to appoint corporate executives or politicians with no experience in higher education has gained considerable attention on this blog (see for examples the University of Iowa and the University of Missouri, the latter with well-known disastrous consequences). One recent example is…