Information provided by Nancy J. Legge, Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, Idaho State University.
Faculty at Idaho State University started a chapter of the AAUP this fall because the values and practices of the AAUP are vital to our profession and these principles are being challenged on our campus.
We believe that the AAUP will help give Idaho State University faculty a voice in this time of crisis on our campus. ISU was recently added to the AAUP’s sanction list because the State Board of Education, as advised by the ISU administration, disbanded the Faculty Senate, thereby eliminating any organized, formal faculty voice on campus. Forming a chapter of the AAUP will help provide:
- a mechanism for advocating faculty rights independent of the ISU Faculty Senate;
- a means to remove ISU from the sanction list once good governance returns to ISU;
- and, ideally, a way to bring ISU back in to the fold of American universities by following standard practices of shared governance.
We believe that our chapter of the AAUP, in conjunction with the national organization, will help provide a system and a rationale to insist on academic freedom for all faculty at ISU. The AAUP 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure offers the foundation for that insistence, and our chapter of the AAUP will be an organized outlet to embrace and advocate for the principles of academic freedom on campus.