University of Illinois Administration Again Rejects Faculty Panel in Wake of Salaita Firing

The Hiring Policies and Processes Review Committee is a faculty committee impaneled last October by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign faculty senate and Provost Phyllis M. Wise. It has recommended the University of Illinois System Board of Trustees no longer approve new faculty hires and cease all personnel decision-making below the position of an…

WIU Lifts Suspension of Student Editor

Last week, I reported on the case of Western Illinois University suspending the Western Courier editor-in-chief Nicholas Stewart because he sold video he took of a riot on campus. This week, WIU decided to reinstate Stewart. WIU student services vice-president Gary Biller informed Stewart, “a preliminary review … has revealed that no complete policy exists within…

UIUC AAUP Statements on Salaita Case

UPDATE: I’ll be speaking at a panel on “Shared Governance and Academic Freedom: Where Are We Now?” at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Weds. Feb. 11, 7:30pm @ University YMCA, 1001 S. Wright St., Champaign, sponsored by the Campus Faculty Association. On a related topic, the AAUP chapter at UIUC has issued these two statements on…

If They Keep Repeating It, Then It Must Be True

Why are the Far Right criticisms of Progressives almost always retreads? (Much like their “new” proposals for promoting broadly shared prosperity and political inclusion, which have never seem to have been implemented quite purely or thoroughly enough to produce results even remotely close to those that have been promised—or so the repeated rationalization of their…

The Myth of Political Correctness, 20 Years Later

Two decades ago, I wrote a book titled “The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education.” Two decades later, the myth continues. Today, the proponent is Jonathan Chait, who warns us in New York Magazine of this dire evil resurrected from the distant past: Political correctness. According to Chait, “Political correctness is…

In the Absence of Satisfying Facts—or Any Facts at All

On January 29, this was the lead headline on the NBC Nightly News newsfeed: “Malaysia Airlines MH370 Declared an ‘Accident,’ Search for Survivors Ends.” On the surface, this headline is absurd in at least two very obvious ways. First, how can the loss of the plane be declared an “accident” when no one has located…

ASEEES Responds to Cohen Controversy

On Friday, the Executive Committee of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) posted on the Association’s website a “clarification” of its position on the controversial rejection by the Association’s board of a sizeable donation from the KAT Foundation to fund dissertation fellowships and to be named for Professor Stephen Cohen and…

Resolution on Non-Tenure Track Faculty and Shared Governance

This is a guest post from Karen Davis, a lecturer in cinematic arts at California State University, Monterey Bay, and a statewide academic senator. On January 23, the Academic Senate of the California State University unanimously passed AS-3199/FA: Non Tenure Track Faculty and Shared Governance in the California State University: A Call to Campus Senates.…

Becoming Intentional About Student Life

If the residential learning experience continues to define a wide range of traditional higher education settings, then college leadership – including faculty – must become far more intentional about it. At the moment, there are two principal levels of influence dominating the residential part of the learning experience. The first is the presumed social contract…