Shared Governance

From the General Secretary: What the AAUP Stands For

When the passenger next to me on a flight asks what I do for a living, I say I work for a nonprofit association. When he or she asks which one, I am tempted to answer, “The AARP.” One letter makes a big difference. Everyone knows what the AARP stands for. So what does the AAUP stand for?

From the Editor: Governance in a Time of Financial Crisis

Calls to resist the corporatization of higher education and for faculty control over educational issues go back at least to Thorstein Veblen’s publication of The Higher Learning in America in 1918. However, as many of the articles in this issue demonstrate, the current economic crisis has greatly intensified threats to the practice of shared governance.

From the General Secretary: A Faculty Voice

For me, part of the job description of a good professor is exercising a faculty voice, not just in instruction, scholarship, and extramural settings, but also with regard to institutional governance matters. Part of our responsibility, and our service to society, is to speak up and speak out. We must be an independent voice, grounded in our professional expertise and commitments.

How to Climb Down from Top-Down Leadership

The challenging work to improve on the bureaucratic model of governance at community colleges requires both cooperation from administrators and commitment from faculty members.

Securing the Three-Legged Stool

No University Is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom. Cary Nelson. New York: New York University Press, 2010

A Mission of Amenities, Not Education

Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate University. Gaye Tuchman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009

Bethune-Cookman Report Now Online

An Association investigating committee report on Bethune-Cookman University in Florida, now published on the AAUP’s Web site, deals with the 2009 dismissal of four professors and the termination of the services of three additional faculty members. The stated reasons for these actions ranged from charges of sexual harassment of students to claims of insufficient academic credentials to the purported need to reduce the size of the faculty for financial reasons.

Faculty in Action at Bowie State

Faculty members at Bowie State University in Maryland were concerned early this fall when a new provost, Stacey Franklin Jones, began reorganizing the staff in preparation for programmatic academic changes and demoted or removed some staff members, and faculty serving in staff positions, without appropriate notice or due process. Members of the faculty report that she went on to circumvent established governance bodies and to use informal meetings with selected faculty members to launch new academic initiatives, such as first- and second-year experience programs.

AAUP Governance Conference Draws Overflow Crowd

AAUP members and others interested in shared governance in higher education came together November 12–14 in Washington, DC, for the AAUP’s Shared Governance Conference and Workshops. The conference featured three days of presentations exploring significant aspects of college and university governance, an opportunity to network with governance leaders from across the country, and expert-led training workshops for governance leaders and those aspiring to positions of leadership.

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