AAUP Foundation Supports UnKoch My Campus Report

The AAUP Foundation provided a grant from the Glick, Rappa­port, Tristman Memorial Fund to UnKoch My Campus to support the development of a report detailing policy recommendations for donor agreements. If implemented success­fully, the recommendations could help prevent donors from being able to buy undue academic influence.

The completed UnKoch My Campus report contends that gifts from private donors such as the Charles Koch Foundation threaten academic freedom, undermine faculty governance, and subvert the public mission of higher education. It includes model policy language and urges faculty and students to advocate for the inclusion of simi­lar language in donor agreements. The report is available at http://www.unkochmycampus.org.

The purpose of the AAUP Foundation’s Glick, Rappaport, Tristman Memorial Fund is to further the cause of academic freedom, especially as advanced through shared governance. The fund was established after a group of faculty members dismissed in 1994 reached a financial settle­ment with Bennington College in 2000. They designated a portion of the settlement to establish the fund.