This member-only library of AAUP webinars, trainings, and virtual discussions includes a list of topics organized by category and a list in reverse chronological order below. You can click on the links for each webinar to access webinar recordings, presentation slides, and/or handouts associated with the webinars.

Related resources:

• Chapter leaders may also be interested in our chapter resources, which include many recorded trainings. 

Political Attacks

Academic Freedom

Investigating Threats to Academic Freedom and Governance
Academic Freedom Basics
Academic Freedom in the Classroom
Academic Freedom and Educational Gag Orders

Faculty Handbooks and Policy Basics

AAUP Policies and Principles
Academic Freedom Language for Handbooks
Faculty Handbooks and AAUP Principles
Faculty Handbooks as Enforceable Contracts
Strengthening Faculty Handbooks

Shared Governance

Working With the Faculty Senate to Fight Educational Gag Orders
Shared Governance and Contingent Faculty
Shared Governance during a Crisis
Improving Shared Governance on Your Campus

Tenure

What Is Tenure?

Financial Exigency

Financial Exigency and Program Elimination during the COVID-19 Pandemic 

Work and Family

Pregnancy in the Academy
Family and Medical Leave Act

Teaching and Research

Hiring Trends
Remote Teaching, Recording of Classes, and Intellectual Property
Intellectual Property
Academic Freedom in the Classroom
New Tools for Exploring AAUP Faculty Compensation Survey Data
Using AAUP Faculty Compensation Survey Data for Collective Bargaining Purposes

Webinar Materials Archive

Manufacturing Backlash: Discussing Right-Wing Think Tanks and the Legislative Attack on Higher Education

Today, higher education is under attack. During the 2021, 2022, and 2023 legislative cycles alone more than one hundred and fifty bills were introduced in state legislatures seeking to actively undermine academic freedom and university autonomy. These bills included ninety-nine academic gag orders seeking to ban the teaching of “critical race theory” (CRT) or other so-called “divisive concepts” as well as efforts to defund campus diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, weaken tenure and accreditation, and establish academic programs, centers, and whole schools designed to teach conservative content. Join us for an online discussion of a new white paper out from the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom—Manufacturing Backlash: Right-Wing Think Tanks and the Legislative Attack on Higher Education, 2021–2023—which examines the well-funded political operatives and conservative think tanks behind this legislative attack on higher education.

Isaac Kamola, the white paper’s primary author, will begin by briefly presenting its topline findings. Then we’ll have a moderated discussion with Nancy MacLean, a scholar of dark money influence in American higher education, and Barrett Taylor, whose book Wrecked examines Republican efforts to transform education policy in the state legislatures. The event will be moderated by Karma Chávez, who has been actively involved in responding to legislative attacks on academic freedom in Texas.

Participants:

• Karma Chávez is chair and Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor in the department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is author and editor of several books including Palestine on the Air (University of Illinois Press, 2019).
• Isaac Kamola is the director of the AAUP's Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom.
• Nancy MacLean is professor of history and public policy at Duke University and author of several prize-winning books, most recently, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America.
• Barrett Taylor is professor and coordinator of the higher education program at the University of North Texas.

Recording

Using AAUP Faculty Compensation Survey Data for Collective Bargaining Purposes

The AAUP has collected and published data on faculty salaries and fringe benefits annually since 1958. Datasets for the 2023–34 survey results are now available to AFT locals and state federations at no cost. This webinar will provide an overview of AAUP Faculty Compensation Survey data products and other resources that are available for conducting faculty compensation studies, including peer comparisons.

Presenter: Glenn Colby, senior researcher, AAUP

Recording | Slides

Campus Speech in Politically Charged Times

Policy experts and local leaders from the AAUP and AFT will delve into how the AAUP’s policies and AFT and AAUP contract language on academic freedom and campus speech apply to the current situation, what faculty at different campuses are facing on the ground, and what our affiliates are doing to support our members and protect campus speech.

Presenters:

•  Amy Offner, AAUP-Penn chapter
• Hank Reichman, former chair of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom & Tenure (moderator)
• Katie Rodgers, president of UC-AFT, the union which represents non-senate faculty and academic librarians in the University of California system
• Greg Scholtz, senior program officer, AAUP Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, & Governance

Recording | Slides | Campus Free Speech FAQ | Protecting an Independent Faculty Voice

AAUP Polices and Principles

This training is designed for chapter and conference leaders and field staff interested in learning about a primary role of AAUP chapters: working for the incorporation of AAUP standards on academic freedom, tenure, and governance into the institution’s faculty handbook. Which of these standards should a chapter focus on and how are they best understood?

Presenters: Afshan Jafar, a professor of sociology at Connecticut College and a member of AAUP’s committee on College and University Governance and Mark Criley, a senior program officer in AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom Tenure and Governance

Recording | Slides

Hiring Trends 

This webinar examines recent hiring trends in US higher education, drawing from the latest IPEDS data. With insight from the AAUP Research Department, it explores how COVID affected the employment landscape for full-time faculty across various demographic categories to determine what trends are evident and to suggest possible avenues for future study. 

Presenter: Scott Sederstron, a senior program officer in the AAUP's research department.

Recording | Slides

After Affirmative Action

The Supreme Court has ruled—now what? Join AAUP experts for a discussion of the legal issues involved in the Court’s ruling on affirmative action, the national AAUP position on this, and potential ways to continue to pursue diversity goals. We’ll also talk about what happened when affirmative action was barred in California, and the role of unions in pushing for racial equity even with state-level restrictions.

Presenters:

Charles Toombs is president of the California Faculty Association, professor of Africana studies at San Diego State University, and outgoing chair of the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom. Risa Lieberwitz is professor of law at Cornell University and the AAUP's general counsel. Michaele Turnage Young is senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

Recording | Toombs Slides | Lieberwitz Slides

Responding to Legislative Attacks on Education

Our students deserve quality education that includes difficult truths and many perspectives. But politicians in some states are trying to substitute their own ideological beliefs for educational freedom, especially on topics like race and gender. Join us for a discussion of these efforts to suppress teaching and learning and how we can respond. We’ll discuss the state of this legislation, an AAUP task force on the issue, and review a new guide for campus leaders out from PEN America and the American Council on Education.

Presenters:

Jennifer Ruth is a professor in the School of Film at Portland State University and a member of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom. Jeremy C. Young is the senior manager of free expression and education at PEN America. Steven Bloom is assistant vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education. Derryn Moten is a professor of history and political science at Alabama State University and serves on the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. He is vice president of the Alabama AFL-CIO chapter and co-chair of the AFT Higher Education Policy and Planning Council.

Recording | AAUP Resources on Political Attacks in Higher Education | The Right-Wing Attacks on Higher Education: An Analysis of the State Legislative Landscape | Making the Case for Academic Freedom and Institutional Autonomy in a Challenging Political Environment | Chapter Action Toolkit

Investigating Threats to Academic Freedom and Governance

The AAUP recently published a report about the dismissal of Professor Mark McPhail from Indiana University Northwest. After suspending him, the administration sent campus police officers to his home to inform him that he had been dismissed and banned from campus, supposedly because he had made racially charged threats of physical violence. No accuser was identified, no criminal charges were filed, and no faculty hearing was afforded him. This webinar discusses the investigation.

Presenters:
Afshan Jafar is a faculty member in sociology at Connecticut College and chaired the investigating committee in the McPhail case. Mark Criley is a senior program officer in the AAUP's Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance.

Recording

New Tools for Exploring AAUP Faculty Compensation Survey Data

This webinar will discuss how to access and analyze data from the AAUP's Faculty Compensation Survey data, focusing on interactive data tools now available on the new AAUP Data website. Topics will include peer comparison, gender pay gaps, fringe benefits, part-time faculty compensation, and inflation adjustment. Step-by-step examples will be presented while introducing key features of Tableau data visualizations such as filters, parameters, and generating custom reports. Following the presentation, participants will be encouraged to provide ideas on how these data tools might be improved to better meet the needs of faculty members, administrators, and policy makers who seek information on faculty employment.

Presenter: Glenn Colby, AAUP Senior Researcher

Recording | AAUP Data Homepage

Targeted Harassment of Faculty: Understanding the Problem, Preparing Successful Responses

Presented by Faculty First Responders, a program that monitors right-wing attacks on academics and provides resources to help faculty members and administrators respond. Support for Faculty First Responders has been provided by the AAUP Foundation. 

In recent years, the targeted harassment of faculty has become common. Conservative think tanks, media outlets, and politicians seek to censor the teaching of “controversial” topics such as slavery and the Holocaust. Right-wing outlets publish hundreds of stories each year accusing faculty of liberal bias. Despite regularly containing gross misrepresentations, these stories circulate widely within the right-wing media ecosystem and often culminate in faculty members and universities receiving barrages of unwanted, hateful, and threatening messages. These manufactured controversies can result in faculty losing days and months of work, and even their jobs, and they may experience severe emotional distress. The threat of viral outrage also creates a chilling effect on academic speech and threatens academic freedom. This webinar offers an overview of the political organizations that facilitate such harassment, the effects such harassment has on faculty members, and how faculty and administrators can develop strategies for successfully responding to such attacks.

Presenters: Isaac Kamola is an associate professor of political science at Trinity College in Connecticut. He is a founder of his campus chapter of the AAUP and the creator of Faculty First Responders. Monica J. Casper is Dean of the College of Arts and Letters and professor of sociology at San Diego State University. Jennifer Lundquist is professor of sociology and senior associate dean at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Recording | Slides

Academic Freedom and Educational Gag Orders

This joint AAUP-AFT symposium explores the origins of academic freedom, the current threats to academic freedom posed by “divisive concepts” legislation, and how these most recent attacks fit within the larger anti-Black political agenda in America. We also discuss how faculty, unions, and political groups are pushing back against these proposals and winning.

Recording 

Working with the Faculty Senate to Fight Educational Gag Orders

Presented by the African American Policy Forum. State legislatures across the nation have passed legislation barring the teaching of "divisive concepts." In some states, this legislation excludes teaching about race and gender at the university level. Faculty senates at Michigan State, Portland State, DePaul University, Molloy College, and the Universities of Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Minnesota, and Oregon have all passed resolutions defending academic freedom and rejecting such educational gag orders. In this webinar, we discuss the importance of these resolutions to the preservation of education and why institutions of higher education need to commit to ideologically free classrooms.

Two members of the African American Policy Forum, DePaul University professor Valerie Johnson and Portland State professor Jennifer Ruth (who also serves on the AAUP's Committee A), lead the webinar and answer questions about how to use shared governance to fight back against this assault on academic freedom. Resources to pursue the resolution campaign on your campus are provided.

Recording | Presentation Slides

Improving Shared Governance on Your Campus

Academic Freedom Language for Handbooks

The successful implementation of AAUP policies is largely dependent upon faculty working toward and insisting upon sound policies at their own institutions. This webinar reviews language about academic freedom that should be included in faculty handbooks. It considers ways in which institutional regulations may fall short and need to be revised.

Presenters Mark Criley and Anita Levy are senior program officers in the AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance.

Recording | Slides | 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure | Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities | Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure | Statement on Procedural Standards in the Renewal or Nonrenewal of Faculty Appointments | The Role of the Faculty in Conditions of Financial Exigency

What Is Tenure?

Over the course of the last century, the AAUP has advocated for the expansion of the protections of tenure and of the right to participate in governance to larger segments of the academic profession. Each expansion arguably served to reinforce the other and served to solidify academic freedom. This webinar gives a brief overview of the historical developments that led to the AAUP's conception of tenure in 1940 and the impact of ever rising levels of contingent hiring on academic freedom today. 

Presenter Julia Schleck is associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She's chair of the local Committee A on Academic Freedom both at the UNL chapter and for the Nebraska state conference. Her forthcoming book is called Dirty Knowledge: Academic Freedom in the Age of Neoliberalism (University of Nebraska Press, 2021). Presenter Hans-Joerg Tiede is a senior program officer and research director with the national AAUP.

Recording | Slides

Racial Justice Roundtable

AAUP chapter leaders talk about racial justice work their chapters have engaged in. We talk about initiatives that different chapters are working on or have completed, the factors that prompted the chapters to focus on these initiatives, and challenges encountered in the process. 

Moderator Glinda Rawls is an associate professor of counselor education and counseling psychology at Western Michigan University, a national AAUP Council member & chair of the national AAUP’s racial justice working group. Charles Toombs is president of the California Faculty Association and professor of Africana studies at San Diego State University, where he teaches literature and a range of other courses. Megan Horst is a faculty member in urban and public affairs at Portland State University, and a member of her AAUP chapter's executive council. Aurora Sherman is an associate professor in the School of Psychological Science at Oregon State University and current chair of the Social Justice Committee for her faculty union, United Academics of OSU.

Recording | AAUP Racial Justice Resource Page

Faculty Handbooks and AAUP Principles

The successful implementation of AAUP policies is largely dependent upon faculty working toward and insisting upon sound policies at their own institutions. This webinar reviews AAUP principles that should be included in faculty handbooks. It considers ways in which institutional regulations may fall short and need to be revised, as well as statistical information about the prevalence of AAUP principles in faculty handbooks and collective-bargaining agreements.

Presenter Hans-Joerg Tiede is director of AAUP's research department. Presenter Mark Criley is a program officer in the AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance.

Recording | Slides | Faculty Handbooks as Enforceable Contracts: A State Guide | Policies on Academic Freedom, Dismissal for Cause, Financial Exigency, and Program Discontinuance

Shared Governance and Contingent Faculty

This webinar discusses general principles of shared governance and their relevance for the growing ranks of faculty members who hold contingent appointments. Shawn and Mark present AAUP-supported recommendations for the equitable inclusion of non-tenure-track faculty members in governance.

Presenters: Shawn Gilmore is a senior lecturer in English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is secretary of NTFC Local #6546 (AFT/IFT, AAUP), chair of the University Statutes and Senate Procedures committee of the UIUC Academic Senate, and a member of the AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance. Mark Criley is a program officer in the AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance.

Recording | Presentation Slides

Academic Freedom Basics

This webinar provides an overview of the concept of academic freedom. Academic freedom includes freedom in research, teaching, and governance. It also discusses extramural speech, along with the differences between academic freedom and free speech, and the language in which is it most frequently codified at US colleges and universities, which comes from the AAUP’s 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. 

Presenters: Julia Schleck is associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is chair of the local Committee A on Academic Freedom both at the UNL chapter and for the Nebraska state conference. Her forthcoming book is called Dirty Knowledge: Academic Freedom in the Age of Neoliberalism (University of Nebraska Press, 2021). Presenter Hans-Joerg Tiede is a senior program officer with the national AAUP. January 2021.

Recording | Presentation Slides | 1940 Statement | Academic Freedom One-Pager

Shared Governance during a Crisis

Financial exigency, force majeure, program cuts, reduction in force—these are the challenges that faculty governance faces during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under pressure, administrations may seek to minimize the faculty role in making key decisions about these matters in which faculty should have primary responsibility. This session will help you understand the AAUP’s recommended standards for faculty governance. We will also review relevant research highlighting the standard roles that faculty play throughout US higher education.

Presenters: Allison Buskirk-Cohen, a faculty member at Delaware Valley University and a member of the AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance; Hans-Joerg Tiede, a senior program officer with the national AAUP. October 2020.

 Recording | Presentation Slides | Related Resources

Financial Exigency and Program Elimination during the COVID-19 Pandemic 

Provides an overview of recommended AAUP-supported standards on financial exigency and program elimination that should be included in faculty handbooks and collective bargaining agreements, material particularly revelant during the COVID-19 crisis.

Presenter: Hans-Joerg Tiede, AAUP senior program officer and Mark Criley, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University. October 2020.

Recording | Presentation Slides

Remote Teaching, Recording of Classes, and Intellectual Property

This webinar reviews the impact of the move to remote teaching as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on copyright and intellectual property. We discuss what faculty can do to protect their intellectual property, and focus on the recording of lectures, the uses and abuses of these recordings, and what options faculty have when addressing recordings. December 2020.

Presenters: Aaron Nisenson is AAUP counsel. Chris Sinclair is a faculty member at the University of Oregon and secretary-treasurer of the national AAUP.

Recording | Presentation Slides

Pregnancy in the Academy

Explains how the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and other federal laws related to pregnancy apply to the academic workplace. Addresses such issues as the differences between pregnancy disability leave and family medical leave, sources of leave entitlements, academic employees’ rights, and how to file a complaint if rights are violated. Note that this webinar is based on the AAUP guidebook Pregnancy in the Academy and covers some of the same material (the guidebook is more comprehensive).

Presenter: Saranna Thornton is a professor of economics and business at Hampden-Sydney College and the author of the AAUP’s guidebook Pregnancy in the Academy. November 2016.

Presentation Slides | Handout

Working with Faculty Handbooks​

Reviews AAUP principles that should be included in faculty handbooks and considers ways in which institutional regulations may fall short and need to be revised.

Presenters: Hans-Joerg Tiede is a senior program officer in the AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance. Irene Mulvey is a faculty member at Fairfield University and a member of the AAUP’s executive committee. October 2016. 

Presentation Slides | Handout

Intellectual Property

Covers what professors need to know about university copyright policies. Discusses how copyright law interacts with copyright policies, identifies how these interactions affect professor ownership and use of copyrighted works, and applies these concepts through the use of hypothetical situations.

Presenters: Jack Lerner is assistant clinical professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, and director of the UCI Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic. Simarpreet Ahluwalia and Erica Row are UCI law students. Aaron Nisenson is AAUP senior counsel. April 2016. 

Recording | Presentation Slides | Overview of Relevant Law and Current Trends | Relevant Statutory Provisions

Academic Freedom in the Classroom

Gives an overview of what academic freedom in the classroom consists of, and discusses threats to freedom in the classroom, including attacks on the academic freedom of individual faculty; legislative attacks; policies, such as those concerning trigger warnings, that may threaten academic freedom; and threats posed by new teaching technologies. We also review what the national AAUP and chapters can do to protect academic freedom in the classroom.

Presenters: Henry Reichman is chair of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Jonathan Rees is a faculty member at Colorado State University and a member of the AAUP’s national Council who writes about technology and education. March 2016.

Presentation Slides

Faculty Handbooks as Enforceable Contracts

Gives an overview of contract issues and case law pertaining to when faculty handbooks may be enforceable as contracts. We also familiarize participants with a state-by-state guide on the AAUP website that was developed by AAUP legal staff. We look at one example case and leave time for questions and comments. The webinar provides general legal information about this area of the law, but please note that we cannot provide specific legal advice to individuals.

Presenter Nancy Long is AAUP associate counsel and is a member of the AAUP’s legal department. January 2016. 

Recording | Presentation Slides

Strengthening Faculty Handbooks 

Explores the key areas that should be covered in a faculty handbook with presenters Hans-Joerg Tiede, a faculty member at Illinois Wesleyan University and a member of the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, and Hank Reichman, first vice president of the AAUP and chair of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. September 2014.

Presentation Slides | List of Policies Frequently Used in Handbooks | Faculty Handbooks as Enforceable Contracts: A State Guide

Family and Medical Leave Act

This webinar looks at the entitlements provided by the FMLA, how they may apply to faculty, and where else you should look for leave entitlements. Presenter Saranna Thornton, professor of economics and business at Hampden-Sydney College, is co-author of the AAUP’s FMLA guidebook. December 2013.

Recording | Presentation Slides