The following statement was released today by the AAUP: On Friday, 22 part-time faculty at the Los Angeles campus of Emerson College overwhelmingly won a National Labor Relations Board-supervised election for union representation, choosing to be represented by the American Association of University Professors. The vote was 16-0. “We decided to form a union because…
The following is a press release from the Professional Staff Congress representing faculty at the City University of New York (CUNY): New York—Governor Cuomo’s veto of legislation to protect educational quality for a half-million mostly low-income CUNY students undermines CUNY’s ability to offer an excellent education and betrays the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers…
As we move into the holiday season and the end of 2015, it seems especially appropriate to reflect on the positive role of higher education in American society. Next year will present any number of challenges, particularly as the political rhetoric heats up. Some will see bully pulpit opportunities driven by the growing anxiety and…
The College of Saint Rose (NY) faces a $9.3 million deficit and declining enrollment. “It’s a challenging time in higher education and it’s not for the faint of heart,” President Carolyn Stefanco recently remarked. “Change is really hard for people, and higher education is changing in pretty dramatic ways.” As reported by the Chronicle, the…
Writing for Bold Progressives, Marissa Barrow has highlighted the attention being given to legislative proposals to allow students to graduate from colleges and universities without debt: “Legislators in 10 states nationwide will be introducing debt-free college legislation, making debt-free college a central 2016 campaign issue from the top to bottom of the ticket. “This state-level…
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…
This past week, there was a protest at Eastern Michigan University against the continuation of the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) that Governor Snyder’s administration created ostensibly to “save” Detroit’s “failing” public school system. The EAA has promoted charter schools at the expense of the already under-funded public schools, while producing no improvement in the educations…
In case you haven’t heard yet, here’s what U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had to say yesterday during oral arguments over the case, Abigail Noel Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which centers on the constitutionality of admissions criteria that take race into consideration as one factor, what remains of the principle of…
Early in his controversial 14-year tenure as Chancellor of the California State University system, Charles Reed notoriously told a public audience that faculty members work only two or three days a week from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The comment sparked a firestorm of protest, but it sadly reflected an all too common perception among…
Two days ago I posted an item, Questioning Student Evaluations, which reported on two studies that call into doubt the utility of student evaluations of teaching as a mechanism for determining teacher effectiveness. In response, AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum, an economist, shared the following paper, adapted from an FAQ he prepared years ago for faculty…