BY CAROLYN BETENSKY I’ve been spending the past two weeks speaking with colleagues who teach at public and private colleges and universities in Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Wisconsin, and Texas. All of these states are led by governors or legislatures that have demonstrated varying degrees of hostility to protective policies against the spread of COVID. To…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY In the middle of a pandemic, faculty activists have accomplished something of real significance. Working with their provost, the town-hall style faculty governance group at Worcester Polytechnic Institute has managed to secure forty-five tenure lines for existing “teaching” faculty. While the idea of expanding tenure to include teaching faculty has been promoted…
BY THE AAUP RESEARCH DEPARTMENT This is the third in a series of three blog posts on findings from the AAUP’s Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession. You can read the first post here and the second post here. Much attention has been given—and rightfully so—to the student debt crisis in the…
BY DMITRY DUBROVSKY On June 21, Hank Reichman posted a piece in response to a decision taken earlier that day by the Russian state prosecutor designating Bard College as an “undesirable organization,” effectively terminating the New York-based school’s quarter-century long partnership with St. Petersburg State University. (See also articles on Inside Higher Ed here and…
BY HANK REICHMAN Last week historian Garrett Felber reached a confidential settlement with the University of Mississippi, where in December 2020 his appointment as a tenure-track assistant professor was not renewed under abrupt and alarming circumstances. “I was terminated because of my public statements, including legitimate criticisms of the University. Rather than go to court…
BY NICOLE BRAUN A few weeks ago, I participated virtually in the very first Higher Ed Labor Summit: Building a Movement to Transform U.S. Higher Education. It was a fabulous, inspiring, stimulating and visionary experience. During the conference, we were put into small focus groups to explore the question of power, how to obtain power,…
BY MICHAEL THADDEUS A depressingly familiar trend in higher education has been the gradual erosion of ladder faculty positions and their replacement by positions with no prospect of tenure. The former tend to be relatively well-paid and secure; the latter, undervalued and marginal. Though it ranks among the richest American universities, my own institution, Columbia…
BY JULIA SCHLECK The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so…
BY HANS-JOERG TIEDE It’s a mixed picture when it comes to shared governance faculty roles in decision-making areas at four-year institutions of higher education. Today we released a second report on data collected from the 2021 AAUP Shared Governance Survey, the first national survey on shared governance since 2001. Key findings include: In several areas in…
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–MILWAUKEE AAUP As faculty, staff, and students prepare to return to a newly re-opened campus this fall, UWM AAUP reminds us of the centrality of academic freedom and democratic governance in ensuring our collective safety and public health. The Covid-19 pandemic is not over. Faculty, staff, and students must be free…