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Academic Freedom and Tenure: Northeastern Illinois University

The administration of Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago violated principles of academic freedom when it denied tenure to a candidate who had opposed its wishes in a dispute between linguistics faculty and teachers of English as a second language (TESL), concludes an AAUP investigating committee in this new report.

Incentives to Forgo Tenure

Tenure is "indispensable to the success of an institution in fulfilling its obligations to its students and to society." So declares the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The academic community, however, has never lacked for proposals that would undermine tenure and thus its role in serving students and society. Among such current proposals, one in particular requires comment because it has surfaced in recent cases considered by Committee A.1  It proposes that prospective faculty members accept renewable term appointments and forgo consideration for tenure and/or that current faculty members renounce tenure in return for some advantage, such as a higher salary, accelerated leave, or other pecuniary consideration. Proponents of these agreements argue that they embody a free exchange of mutual benefit to the parties. If academic tenure withers in consequence, they claim, that only demonstrates that, in a free market, faculty will have demonstrated their unwillingness to support tenure.

Defending the Freedom to Innovate: Faculty Intellectual Property Rights After Stanford v. Roche

This report is being issued in the midst of fundamental changes in the character of faculty rights and academic freedom. The purpose of the report is to put the dialog on intellectual property on a new foundation, one that leads to a principle-based restoration of faculty leadership in setting policy in this increasingly important area of university activity. Administration efforts to control the fruits of faculty scholarship augur a sea change in faculty employment conditions, one too often imposed without negotiation or consent.
 

Faculty Communication with Governing Boards: Best Practices

From its initial statement of principles in 1915 and its earliest investigations into violations of academic freedom, the AAUP has emphasized the necessity of effective communication among those who participate in academic governance. Based on a consideration of relevant AAUP documents, the current climate in higher education, and feedback on an earlier draft, the final statement urges greater communication between faculties and governing boards in colleges and universities.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: National Louis University

Report dealing with the National Louis University administration’s actions in spring 2012 to discontinue nine degree programs and five nondegree certificate programs, to close four departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, and to terminate the appointments of at least sixty-three full-time faculty members, sixteen with tenure.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Southern University, Baton Rouge

Report investigating the declaration of financial exigency at Southern University, Baton Rouge (SUBR), and the subsequent terminations of tenured professors and restructuring of academic programs.

College and University Governance: The University of Virginia Governing Board’s Attempt to Remove the President

This report documents a major breakdown in governance at UVA, focusing on the role of the board of visitors and its rector, Helen Dragas, who initiated the effort to force the president’s resignation. It finds that the events at the university resulted from “a failure by those charged with institutional oversight to understand the institution over which they presided and to engage with the administration and the faculty in an effort to be well informed.”

Institutional Accreditation: A Call for Greater Faculty Involvement

A report calling for greater faculty involvement in the accreditation of colleges and universities.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Frank Phillips College

Report on the administration of  Frank Phillips College's 1965 dismissal of a faculty member without providing cause, without academic due process, and without providing for any payment of salary beyond the date of notification of dismissal.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Concordia Seminary

Report regarding the administration of Concordia Seminary's 1972 termination of a faculty member based on outside ecclesiastical authorities' displeasure with his views on matters that fell within his academic competence, despite the recommendations of his colleagues and inadequate notice of the termination of his services

Academic Freedom and Tenure: State University of New York

Report regarding retrenchments at the State University of New York that were initiated by the University administration without appropriate consultation with the faculty and without any showing of a financial exigency. They were overseen by the administration with disregard for the rights of tenure, for due notice, and for the role of the faculty in institutional government.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Murray State University

Report on the administration of Murray State University's 1975 termination of the services of nine faculty members without due process and in disregard of the role of faculty in reaching decisions of faculty status.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Nichols College

Report concerning the administration of Nichols College's dismissal of a faculty member  prior to the expiration of his term of appointment, without providing him with the basic safeguards of academic due process

Academic Freedom and Tenure: American International College

Report concerning the administration of American International College's dismissal of a faculty member after thirteen years of service without setting forth specific cause for its action and without offering him a hearing and other safeguards of academic due process.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Talladega College

This report deals with actions taken by the administration of Talladega College in late May 1985 to terminate the services of three professors without affording them the protections of due process. Additionally, the administration's actions in these cases, coupled with revised institutional regulations that restrict faculty prerogatives and remove safeguards of academic due process, have left academic freedom in jeopardy at Talladega College.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico

This 1987 report describes actions by the administration of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico to suspend and then to dismiss a tenured professor, without any severance salary, once it was informed that she had remarried in a civil ceremony after a previous Catholic marriage had ended, thirteen years earlier, in civil divorce. The administration justified its action by stating that faculty members at the university, which was canonically established by the Holy See, must adhere even in their private lives to the laws of the church, under which the professor's marital life following her civil remarriage was considered to be sinful. At the time of her initial appointment she was warned orally of this constraint but she states that she explicitly refused to acquiesce in it.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Husson University

This report concerns the action taken by the administration of Husson College (now University) to terminate the services of a professor in his sixth year of full-time service at the college following five years of credited prior service elsewhere. The professor, who had held a concurrent appointment as a division head and had clashed repeatedly with the president over issues of academic and administrative policy, alleged that considerations violative of his academic freedom had contributed significantly to the ad- ministration's decision. The administration stated that its action was necessitated by financial difficulties and the resulting need to eliminate a faculty position in the professor's department. Before the professor's appointment expired, the unexpected departure of a senior colleague created a vacancy in the department which, the investigating committee found, the professor was fully qualified to fill. The administration did not offer the position to him, however, but instead advertised for and recruited a new appointee..

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Hillsdale College

1988 Report dealing with the denial of due process and lack of protections of academic freedom at Hillsdale College. The investigating committee concluded that the administration, in declining to provide the faculty member with a statement of the reasons for not reappointing him and in failing to afford opportunity for review by a faculty body of his allegation relating to academic freedom, denied him basic procedural safeguards to which he was entitled under the Association's Statement on Procedural Standards in the Renewal or Nonrenewal of Faculty Appointments. The absence of these procedural safeguards, the committee found, leaves the faculty of Hillsdale College inadequately protected against an improper exercise of administrative power.

College and University Government: Elmira College

Report dealing primarily with conditions of academic government at Elmira College, particularly relations among the faculty, the chief academic officers, and the governing board.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Report regarding the administration of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary's elimination of the appropriate faculty role in making new appointments and has placed academic freedom in peril at the institution by restricting further faculty appointments to those holding a particular and narrowly construed ideological stance.

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