BY KELLY HAND Two articles in the new January-February 2016 issue of Academe urge faculty to consider their ethical obligations within and beyond their academic communities. In her article, “Liberal Arts in the Modern University,” Lorna Fitzsimmons discusses the liberal arts as an antidote for social change and fragmentation. Offering the example of identity theft…
Writing for the website of Channel 10 News in the Tampa Bay-Sarasota metro area, Sarah Hollenbeck has reported on two bills currently being considered in the Florida state legislature that would legalize guns on the campuses of the state’s colleges and universities. Here are the highlights of the article: “Some college leaders estimate the cost…
In his state-of-the-state address, Gov. Rick Snyder referenced a timeline of the Flint water crisis prepared by his office. Here is that timeline: The progressive blog The Daily Kos has provided the following list of significant dates missing from Gov. Snyder’s timeline: April 2011: Reports of partially treated sewage leaking into the Flint River. This is one…
Today marks the 100th anniversary of a famous editorial in the New York Times denouncing academic freedom, one that I quote in my article about the media and academic freedom in the new issue of Academe. Reacting to an AAUP report about the firing of Scott Nearing by the University of Pennsylvania, the New…
The following quotations appeared in different parts of CNN’s daily Politics newsletter: “Politics: Trump used to back Hillary, who endorsed Gore, who ran with Lieberman, who endorsed McCain, who picked Palin, who endorsed Trump.” –Tweet by the New York Times‘ Nick Confessore, on the circle of American politics. “It is hard for me to watch…
This post was written by Dave Johnson for the daily Progressive Breakfast newsletter of the Campaign for America’s Future [http://ourfuture.org/], which has become a driving force behind the New Populist Movement. The group’s report, Organizing to Take Back America: The New Populist Movement, is available at: http://y.ourfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/New-Populist-Movement-Organizing.pdf. Prepared by Roger Hickey, the co-director of the Campaign for…
This is a guest post by Howard V. Hendrix, who teaches literature and writing at California State University–Fresno. He is the author of six novels and many short stories, poems, and essays. A year has now elapsed since the events that prompted me to write “Professor, Say Hi To The Devil!” To really understand this…
The theme for the current issue of Academe, “Media and the Faculty,” was selected to encourage us to get more involved in the public debates surrounding higher education. As I write in my “From the Editor” column: we have to become our own advocates. Joining the AAUP, of course, is a first step, but each of…
Protests by and on behalf of students of color on campuses such as Yale University and the University of Missouri have highlighted the need for greater diversity among faculty. While some colleges and universities, including Yale, have committed millions of dollars to diversity initiatives, the obstacles to recruiting and retaining faculty from historically underrepresented…