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The American Association of University Professors has long supported both the theory and the practice of sharing education and research across borders. Although academic exchange and dialogue continue to flourish internationally, recent economic, political, and national security developments have made such exchanges more difficult. These issues require careful consideration and discussion. Despite a limited budget, the AAUP has striven to maintain a leadership position in such global deliberations.
The Association is well positioned to speak out on international issues. Its membership contains international experts from around the world, working both in the United States and abroad. International chapters, like the one at the American University in Cairo, extend the influence of the Association around the globe. The AAUP collaborates with other organizations that have similar international interests, such as Human Rights Watch, Scholars at Risk, the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund, and the London-based Network for Education and Academic Rights. In addition, it has affiliation agreements with the major faculty associations in Canada, Great Britain, and Denmark and maintains close ties with its counterparts in Australia and New Zealand.
The Association promotes academic freedom around the world through conferences and the distribution of policy materials. It addresses global higher education and labor concerns such as accreditation, corporatization, and distance education. It supports international education for students in the United States and abroad, and it promotes international faculty ties. These activities vary in their character and purpose. Much is accomplished at national headquarters in Washington, D.C. Increasingly, however, it has become necessary for AAUP staff and members to meet personally with their international colleagues at leadership conferences throughout the world.
It took such face-to-face interaction for the Association to win acceptance of its Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure as the basis for the 1997 statement of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization on the status of higher education faculty worldwide. The Association has also addressed problems arising from the General Agreement on Trade in Services and has worked with other higher education organizations internationally to recommend changes. AAUP staff have met with senior administrators from former Soviet-bloc countries to share Association principles on collegial governance and to assist in reforming their educational systems. All this has been good work, but budgetary realities have limited how much of such international work the Association can undertake.
Recognizing the need to supplement the AAUP’s annual budget to allow for international initiatives, the Association’s governing Council established the Mary A. Burgan Fund to honor the Association’s general secretary from 1994 to 2004. Interest from this fund is used to subsidize travel by staff or members to international meetings or conferences relevant to Association issues. The current balance of the fund, however, is too meager to fulfill the fund’s goals. If the Association is to continue to have an impact on international issues, the Burgan Fund endowment will need to grow significantly. In the globalized world in which we live, and in which the Association and higher education operate, the Burgan Fund can have the serious impact it was intended to have only with significant contributions from generous donors. We urge you to consider a substantial gift to this worthy cause.
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