AAUP: Investigation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
The AAUP general secretary has authorized an investigation into key issues of shared governance at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The investigation, which will be carried out by a committee of AAUP members with no previous involvement in the situation, will focus on issues of concern surrounding the ongoing suspension of Rensselaer’s faculty senate. (12/18)
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Posted in Governance, Unions
Tagged AAUP, Governance, Investigations, RPI, Shared governance
The Chronicle: The AAUP’s Cary Nelson Goes to War
It is an understatement to say Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, sees the nation’s faculty members as on the defensive. In No University Is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom, scheduled for publication by New York University Press in January, he argues that academic freedom verges on being a lost cause, shared governance is in retreat, and the professoriate is in danger of losing any semblance of job security in a work force dominated by underpaid adjunct faculty members. His response is to call for an all-out effort to win not just battles but the hearts and minds of other college employees—even students.
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Posted in Unions
Tagged AAUP, Academic freedom, Cary Nelson, Unions
The Chronicle: AAUP President Says Group’s Former Chief Weighed Courting Hugo Chávez for Funds
A former top official of the American Association of University Professors considered asking Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, to finance the purchase of a new headquarters for the organization, the AAUP’s current president, Cary Nelson, says in a new book scheduled for release early next year.
But the former AAUP administrator that Mr. Nelson says offered up the idea — Roger Bowen, who served as general secretary of the organization from July 2004 through June 2007 — today called the account in Mr. Nelson’s book “fanciful” and asserted he has no recollection of suggesting the group ask Mr. Chávez for money.
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Posted in Unions
Tagged AAUP, Budgets & Funding, Hugo Chavez, union
Inside Higher Ed: AAUP Lifts Censure of Tulane
The American Association of University Professors has lifted its censure of Tulane University, following an agreement that Tulane would not cite the move in defending itself in lawsuits from former faculty members. Tulane was censured in 2007 for the way it eliminated departments and made decisions in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The university maintained at the time — and has maintained since — that it had no choice but to act quickly to shift priorities in light of the severe situation presented by Katrina. But the AAUP investigation into the situation questioned the extent to which the university needed to take those specific steps, particularly without appropriate levels (to the AAUP) of faculty input. The university has adopted policies — developed by faculty members and with AAUP backing — that specify more explicit faculty roles in decision making in a financial crisis, and that stress the protections that should be offered to tenured faculty members. The final issue to be resolved concerned fears that the lifting of censure could hurt lawsuits against the university, and Tulane’s pledge not to cite the lifting of censure led to the latest decision.
Inside Higher Ed: Seeking Tenure ‘Conversion’
In discussions about the use and abuse of adjunct faculty members, “conversion” is a controversial topic. Typically it refers to a decision by a college or university to convert some number of adjunct positions into a number (typically a smaller number) of tenure-track positions. The idea of conversion has been key to the reform proposals of national faculty groups.
AAUP: Conversion of Appointments to the Tenure Track (2009)
This report was prepared by a subcommittee of the Committee on Contingent Faculty and the Profession and has been approved by the parent committee for publication for comment.
I. The Collapsing Faculty Infrastructure
The past four decades have seen a failure of the social contract in faculty employment. In 1940 the joint Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure characterized the tenure system as a “means to certain ends,” specifically, “(1) freedom of teaching and research and of extramural activities and (2) a sufficient degree of economic security to make the profession attractive to men and women of ability. Freedom and economic security, hence tenure, are indispensable to the success of an institution in fulfilling its obligations to its students and to society.”
The tenure system was designed to secure reasonable compensation and to protect academic freedom through continuous employment. Financial and intellectual security enabled the faculty to carry out the public trust in teaching and research, and it provided a system of professional peer scrutiny in hiring,
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Posted in Contingent labor
Tagged AAUP, faculty infrastructure
AAUP Investigation at San Francisco Art Institute
The AAUP’s general secretary has authorized an investigation into issues of academic freedom, tenure, and due process posed by the release of numerous tenured professors on grounds of financial exigency at the art institute.
The members of an investigating committee are faculty members who have had no previous involvement in the case. The committee will visit the institution where the event(s) under investigation occurred, meet with the principal parties, and prepare a report for submission to the AAUP’s national Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The investigating committee’s draft report will recount the facts of the case, and sets forth conclusions as to whether the actions of the administration were in procedural and substantive compliance with the principles and standards supported by the Associatio
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Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged AAUP, Academic freedom, due process, investigation, San Francisco Art Institute, tenure
Inside Higher Ed: Protecting Grad Student Employees
Graduate student employees would have expanded due process and informational rights, under a draft plan released Tuesday by the American Association of University Professors to amend its recommended policies for colleges and universities on academic freedom and tenure.
The AAUP’s statement on academic freedom has long included provisions about the work done by graduate students as teaching or research assistants. But the association decided to revise the statement to reflect changes in higher education.
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Tagged AAUP, Grad Student Employees, Unions
Inside Higher Ed: The Antioch Fight — Refought
Following years of turmoil, Antioch College may be about to be revived, independent of Antioch University, which many of the college’s advocates blame for its problems.
The American Association of University Professors is today releasing an analysis of the conflict, arguing that it is a “cautionary tale” about what happens when a board ignores the faculty role in governance. Antioch University leaders in turn are releasing their version of events, accusing the AAUP of being unfair.
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Posted in Corporate University, Faculty, Unions
AAUP’s CBC Executive Committee Issues Resolution
AAUP: Washington, D.C.— Recently, the AAUP’s Collective Bargaining Congress (CBC) Executive Committee issued the following resolution.
Turn it around; don’t give it away
Recent decades have witnessed: (a) a systematic shift of institutional monies from educational to administrative expenditures; (b) a disjuncture between rapidly rising tuition versus overused and underpaid contingent faculty and graduate student employees; (c) a growing gap between rising numbers of Full Time Equivalent students and the numbers of tenure-track faculty; and (d) a growing gap between faculty/academic professional and senior administrative salaries. Each of these patterns work to the detriment of educational quality, institutional effectiveness, student access and success, and broad social benefit.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding, Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged AAUP, salary cuts, Salary/Economic Benefits
Inside Higher Ed: Rutgers Postdocs Unionize
New Jersey has certified that postdoctoral fellows at Rutgers University have voted to unionize, affiliating with the joint American Federation of Teachers-American Association of University Professors union that represents more than 5,000 faculty members and graduate students at the university. The Rutgers postdocs are the third such union nationally, following those at the Universities of California and Connecticut.
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Posted in Organizing
Tagged AAUP, Organizing, postdocs, Rutgers U
The Daily News: Academic association to probe UTMB layoffs
GALVESTON — A committee appointed by the American Association of University Professors will travel to Galveston and Austin this summer to investigate whether the University of Texas Medical Branch used Hurricane Ike as a handy excuse to thin out tenured faculty.
“We don’t launch an investigation lightly,” said Eric Combest, associate secretary in the Department of Academic Freedom and Tenure of the 94-year-old organization based in Washington, D.C.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
Tagged AAUP, Budgets & Funding, investigation, Job cuts, Layoffs, UTMB
Inside Higher Ed: AAUP Censures 4 Colleges
WASHINGTON — The American Association of University Professors on Saturday voted to censure four colleges: Cedarville University, Nicholls State University, North Idaho College and Stillman College. At the same time, the association lifted censure of the University of New Haven and took a step toward doing so for Tulane University.
The Nicholls State, North Idaho and New Haven cases all involved adjunct faculty members. And AAUP members, speaking at the annual meeting where the censure votes took place, noted that it was appropriate that the association is taking more censure votes over the rights (or violated rights) of those off the tenure track.
The Chronicle: Adjunct and Tenure-Track Professors Need One Another, Say Speakers at AAUP Meeting
Washington — Tenure-track faculty members and their adjunct brethren don’t have to be enemies, according to a paper presented here today during a conference held concurrently with the American Association of University Professors’ annual meeting.
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Tagged AAUP, adjuncts, Contingent labor, Organizing, Unions
The Chronicle: AAUP Says It’s Rebounding, Though Challenges Remain
The American Association of University Professors is back on track after the financial and organizational derailments it endured over the past three years. That was the message the group’s leadership reiterated throughout the business portion of the association’s 95th annual meeting, which wrapped up here on Saturday.
The Chronicle: AAUP Plans to Investigate Clark Atlanta U. Over Faculty Layoffs
The American Association of University Professors today informed Clark Atlanta University of plans to investigate the university over its dismissal of 70 full-time faculty members in February.
In a letter to Clark Atlanta’s president, Carlton E. Brown, the associate secretary of the AAUP, B. Robert Kreiser, wrote that the institution’s “massive dismissals of faculty” raised “key issues of academic freedom, tenure, and due process” that remain unresolved after two months of communications with the university. Accordingly, Mr. Kreiser said, the AAUP plans to establish an investigative panel to determine whether the association’s committee on academic freedom and tenure needs to take action against the university.
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Posted in Unions
Tagged AAUP, Academic freedom, Budgets & Funding, Clark Atlanta U, Investigations, Layoffs, Termination
The Chronicle News Blog: AAUP Warns Colleges Not to Rescind Speaker Invitations
Gary Rhoades, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, today issued a statement warning colleges and universities not to rescind invitations to speakers in the face of controversy.
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Posted in Free speech
Tagged AAUP, Free speech
Times Daily: Online study ups workload for instructors
Debbie Benson can’t remember a time when she didn’t want to teach.
“I really never saw myself in a college classroom, but I got part-time jobs at Northwest-Shoals (Community College) and the University of North Alabama in 1991, and I’ve been doing that ever since,” said the English instructor.
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Posted in Unions
Tagged AAUP, adjunct, Distance Education, Online
Inside Higher Ed: AAUP Backs Notre Dame in Commencement Controversy
The Indiana Conference of the American Association of University Professors has weighed in on the controversy surrounding President Obama’s upcoming commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, which some Roman Catholics oppose due to the president’s support for abortion rights. In its statement, the AAUP chapter expresses support for Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, for standing by the invitation, and expresses concern about “the efforts of external groups to prevent President Obama or any other invited guest from speaking on campus. … Notre Dame has a worthy tradition of inviting new presidents to speak at commencement even though none agree with all aspects of Catholic dogma. To disinvite a commencement speaker over public policy disagreements is an anathema to open discourse.” President Obama will be the ninth U.S. president to be awarded an honorary degree at Notre Dame, and the sixth to be commencement speaker.
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Posted in Politics
Tagged AAUP, abortion, Obama, University of Notre Dame
Spokesman-Review: Budget cuts rekindle faculty group
AAUP advocates shared governance, protection of rights for members
Concern about budget cuts at Washington State University has prompted a resurgence of a national faculty rights organization on campus.
The American Association of University Professors, active in Pullman in the 1950s and 1970s, is recruiting members from among WSU faculty fearful of how the administration will respond to state spending cuts, according to applied statistics professor Rich Alldredge, president of the local chapter of the AAUP.
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Posted in Organizing, Unions
Tagged AAUP, Unions, Washington State U
Inside Higher Ed: A Presidential Critic, Fired
After a career of 27 years teaching business at Stillman College, and despite holding a tenured position, Ekow O. Hayford was fired last year, in violation of his academic freedom, according to a report being issued today by the American Association of University Professors. The report found that Hayford was fired without due process after he publicly criticized the president of the college, a historically black institution in Alabama.
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Posted in Academic freedom, Free speech
Tagged AAUP, Academic freedom, Free speech, University presidents, Worker rights
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