2020 AAUP Updates

The AAUP is proud to announce the recipients of the Georgina M. Smith Award, the Marilyn Sternberg Award, and the Outstanding Achievement Award.

The AAUP has issued a response to revised Title IX regulations that the US Department of Education released on May 6. The response, prepared by a subcommittee of the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the Committee on Gender and Sexuality in the Academic Profession, comments on some aspects of the revised regulations that represent small steps forward and others that represent large steps backward.

After three and a half years of negotiations, the AAUP faculty bargaining unit at the College of Southern Nevada--part of the Nevada Faculty Alliance--has ratified its first contract, which is now pending before the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents. Rudy Fichtenbaum, president of the AAUP, released a statement in support of the chapter’s hard-fought contract.

The AAUP has issued guidance on reopening campuses for our chapters, faculty governing bodies, and administrations. The guidance, which is consistent with existing AAUP policies and standards, emphasizes the health and safety of students, faculty, and staff and the importance of faculty involvement in decisions related to instruction.

The AAUP and the AFT have submitted joint comments urging the Department of Education to rescind proposed rules for distance education, citing the importance of interaction between students and faculty and the dangers of outsourcing core educational responsibilities.

AAUP president Rudy Fichtenbaum has issued a statement of solidarity with essential workers who are at the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. AAUP members and supporters can send a message of support by signing on to the solidarity statement.

Faculty salaries show no signs of growth, according to data from the AAUP’s annual Faculty Compensation Survey released today. After adjusting for inflation, salaries for full-time faculty members at US colleges and universities were just 0.5 percent higher in 2019–20 than they were in the preceding academic year.

The AAUP joins eighteen attorneys generals who urge the Department of Education to “suspend the rulemaking process for the proposed regulations implementing Title IX” during the COVID-19 pandemic.