Shared Governance

The New Rules of Engagement

 

The many levels of hierarchy in higher education are a kaleidoscope of power struggles and egos. The responsibilities of each level can be unclear, leading to administrative chaos. Above all, trustees who overstep their authority and neglect to direct policy can weaken an institution’s mission and diminish its educational product.

Academic Leadership 2.0

In a commentary accompanying the Chronicle of Higher Education’s report on how the University of Virginia’s board of visitors abruptly forced the resignation of UVA’s president, Teresa Sullivan—and then just as abruptly reinstated her—William W.

Shared Governance

Since its founding, the AAUP has been working to ensure meaningful faculty participation in institutional governance. Our first statement on the subject, emphasizing faculty involvement in personnel decisions, selection of administrators, budgeting, and determination of educational policies, was published in 1920.

College and University Governance

Most discussions of the AAUP’s origins and subsequent history focus on the Association’s role in defending principles of academic freedom and tenure. From shortly after its beginning a century ago, however, the AAUP has also played a crucial role in advancing the principle that faculty members, by virtue of their professional expertise in scholarship and teaching, ought to be centrally involved in college and university governance.

The Rise and Coming Demise of the Corporate University

The corporate university is being undone by the very forces that created it. The defining characteristic of higher education in the last forty years has been its corporatization, which has transformed the university from an educational community with shared governance into a top-down bureaucracy that is increasingly managed and operated like a traditional profit-seeking corporation. Yet two developments—the collapsed business plan of the corporate university and the recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision in Pacific Lutheran v.

‘To Make Collective Action Possible’: The Founding of the AAUP

The article reviews the developments that led to the founding of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Events before, during, and following the founding meeting in 1915, as well as the efforts of two of its founders, Arthur Lovejoy and E.R.A. Seligman, brought about the early focus on academic freedom.

Emergencies and Due Process: Developing an Involuntary Emergency Leave Policy at the University of Delaware

Following two instances of faculty members being placed on involuntary leave with pay by the University administration, it became clear to the AAUP leadership, the University Senate leadership, and the administration that the absence of a policy on emergency situations requiring faculty members to be banned from teaching and from being present on campus was a serious gap in defining both the powers of the administration and the due process rights of faculty members.

Open Access to Technology: Shared Governance of the Academy’s Virtual Worlds

Information technology (IT)—hardware, software, and networks—is enormously important in the daily lives of everyone on college and university campuses. Yet decisions about academic IT are usually made by a small administrative team with almost no faculty input.

On the Pros and Cons of Being a Faculty Member at E-Text University

This essay discusses e-texts in terms of academic freedom, using excerpts from conversations with instructors who have used various e-texts in their classes. These instructors often take a pragmatic approach to the materials but fear losing control of what and how they teach.

Negotiating Academic Freedom: A Cautionary Tale

In recent years, there has been a growing concern among academics that traditional protections of academic freedom have been eroded by increasingly intrusive and somewhat ill-informed court decisions. The most recent and prime example of this is the Garcetti v. Ceballos decision by the US Supreme Court and, more alarmingly, its progeny in other courts. Those decisions, and their implications, are the subject of a recently released AAUP special report, Protecting an Independent Faculty Voice: Academic Freedom after Garcetti v. Ceballos. In brief, the Garcetti decision said that in the course of carrying out one’s public employment responsibilities, an employee did not have First Amendment protections of free speech outside the classroom.

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