For Release: April 17, 2008
Contact: Robin Burns, (202) 737-5900, ext. 113
Cary Nelson, (217) 356-0649
See the election results.
Cary Nelson, a well-known scholar-activist, has been elected president of the American Association of University Professors for a second two-year term. Nelson is professor of English and Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. An author or editor of twenty-five books and the author of 150 articles, he has served on the AAUP's National Council for ten years, six as second vice president, and the last two as president.
In such books as Manifesto of a Tenured Radical (1997), Academic Keywords: A Devil's Dictionary for Higher Education (1999), and Office Hours: Activism and Change in the Academy (2004), the last two coauthored with Stephen Watt, Nelson has written widely on most of the major issues confronting the academy: academic freedom, collective bargaining, contingent labor, corporatization, globalization, the Internet, political correctness, sexual harassment, and the relationship between teaching and research. He regularly lectures around the United States and abroad and is frequently interviewed about higher education. A book about his work and career, Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University: Poetry, Politics, and the Profession, with contributions by twenty scholars, will be published by SUNY press this year.
Nelson based his campaign for the presidency on his accomplishments during the past two years, citing examples such as working with the staff to help inaugurate a twice-monthly online newsletter to AAUP
members and the implementation of the AAUP's largest ever educational and membership outreach to U.S. faculty, reaching over 350,000 individuals. He plans to continue this outreach, and says, “I look forward to persuading faculty nationwide that their professional identities are not complete until their disciplinary activities are supplemented by AAUP membership.”
Nelson’s primary field of scholarship is modern American poetry. His books Repression and Recovery: Modern American Poetry and the Politics of Cultural Memory, 1910-1945 (1989) and Revolutionary Memory: Recovering the Poetry of the American Left (2001) have been at the center of the effort to reform and expand the American poetry canon. But he has also been an academic activist for years, defending the rights of graduate students and part-time faculty, and joining union rallies across the country. He has also served on the Executive Committee of the Modern Language Association. Nelson is widely recognized as a frank and witty commentator on the politics of higher education. He is married to Paula A. Treichler, a University of Illinois faculty member internationally known for her work on AIDS.
Jeffrey A. Butts, professor of biology at Appalachian State University, was elected first vice president of the AAUP. Estelle Gellman, professor of Educational Psychology at Hofstra University, was re-elected second vice president. Howard Bunsis, professor of accounting at Eastern Michigan University, was elected secretary-treasurer.
National Council Elections
The AAUP also elected members to its national Council, the governing body of the Association. Council members serve for three-year terms. The members were elected from ten geographical districts representing colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
The forty-member Council meets twice a year to determine Association policy. Each year, a nominating committee selects two members from each district to stand for election, and the membership within the district elects the members of Council. The newly elected or re-elected Council members with their affiliations and districts are listed below.
District I (Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah)
Marc Bousquet (English), Santa Clara University (Calif.)
District II (Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming)
Cecilia Konchar Farr (English and Women`s Studies), College of St. Catherine (Minn.)
District III (Michigan)
Joel Russell (Chemistry), Oakland University
District IV (Arkansas, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia)
Saranna Thornton (Economics), Hampden-Sydney College (Va.)
District V (Alabama, Canada, Florida, Foreign, Georgia, Guam, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Virgin Islands, West Virginia)
Larry G. Gerber (History), Auburn University (Ala.)
District VI (Ohio)
Kevin Mattson (History), Ohio University
District VII (New Jersey)
Judith L. Johnston (English), Rider University
District VIII (New York)
Ellen Schrecker (History), Yeshiva University
District IX (Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont)
Irene Mulvey (Mathematics), Fairfield University (Conn.)
District X (Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island)
Michael Bérubé (English), Pennsylvania State University
The American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit charitable and educational organization that promotes academic freedom by supporting tenure, academic due process, and standards of quality in higher education. The AAUP has about 47,000 members at colleges and universities throughout the United States.