Here’s a roundup of AAUP events and other academic freedom and higher education-related conferences coming up this year. Feel free to add any events in the comments. Tomorrow is the Illinois AAUP Annual Meeting, Sat. April 16, 9:15am-4pm, Dominican University, Priory Campus, 7200 Division Street, River Forest, Illinois, featuring AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum, plus sessions…
JOHN K. WILSON The AAUP recently issued a draft report on “The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX” and requested comments that are due today, April 15 (send comments to titleIX@aaup.org). I’ve been putting off my response because I feared that I would have to write a lengthy critique. But it turns out the…
BY HANK REICHMAN In a unanimous decision issued today (April 14), a three-judge panel of the California Court of Appeal for the Second District overturned the infamous lower court decision in Vergara v. State of California, which had declared tenure and seniority protections for K-12 teachers enshrined in California’s Education Code unconstitutional. Los Angeles County…
BY HANK REICHMAN Last month I posted a piece to this blog commenting on a recent book and op-ed by two conservative scholars, which argues persuasively that “right-wing hand-wringing about higher education is overblown” and that “conservatives survive and even thrive in one of America’s most progressive professions.” Now comes an essay posted today on…
The following message from Barbara Bowen, President of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), a joint AAUP-AFT union representing faculty and staff at the City University of New York, was sent to all PSC members. It is taken from the PSC website. For previous posts on the PSC’s six-year battle for a fair contract go here.…
BY HANK REICHMAN This is the second in a series examining issues in the University of California (UC) system, the nation’s premier public research university. The first entry in the series, on the UC’s funding challenge, may be found here. On March 5, I began a post on this blog entitled “Corporatizers Gone Wild!” with…
BY HANK REICHMAN This is the first in a series examining issues in the University of California system, the nation’s premier public research university. As if the University of California system did not have enough problems with embarrassing sexual harassment scandals at Berkeley and a growing movement to fire Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi for alleged…
BY KELLY HAND The AAUP released its Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession on April 11. This year’s report, “Higher Education at a Crossroads,” puts into perspective data that demonstrate a modest increase in compensation for full-time faculty even as the percentages of tenured and tenure-track faculty have decreased over the past four…
A recent article in the Cincinnati Enquirer by Kate Murphy examines the current state of faculty salaries in the region’s universities and beyond. John McNay, the president of the Ohio Conference of AAUP, is quoted at some length—and memorably—in the article: “Full-time professors at Ohio and Kentucky colleges, including three Greater Cincinnati universities, are making…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Earlier this month Inside Higher Education and Gallup cooperated to produce the third annual survey of college and university business officers on a range of “hot button” higher education topics. A total of 457 campus and system chief business and financial officers participated. The response from the for-profit community was weak…