Roger Bowen Appointed AAUP General Secretary
Roger Bowen will succeed Mary Burgan as AAUP general secretary after her June 2004 retirement, the Association announced in November. Bowen's appointment culminated a national search conducted by a committee headed by Larry Gerber, the AAUP's first vice president and a professor of history at Auburn University.
Bowen has a long history of commitment to academic freedom, tenure, and academic governance, Gerber says. As president of the State University of New York at New Paltz, Bowen received the Association's Alexander Meiklejohn Award in 1998 for his defense of academic freedom in a controversy over the content of a faculty-approved academic conference that included workshops on sadomasochism and sex toys, and a presentation by a performance artist. Some university trustees, members of the public and the university community, and the state's governor objected to this content and to the use of university resources to support it. The controversy eventually led the governor to call on the university's board of trustees to develop a policy to prevent the recurrence of such an event. Bowen responded quickly and forcefully, noting that while he personally found aspects of the conference offensive, the issue involved faculty prerogative and expression. Despite intense pressure from members of the state university's governing board, Bowen stood firm in refusing to "turn the president's office into a board of censorship."
Prior to assuming the presidency of SUNY New Paltz, which he held from 1996 to 2001, Bowen was a professor of government at Colby College in Maine from 1978 to 1991 and served as vice president for academic affairs at Hollins College in Virginia from 1992 to 1996. In addition, Bowen is the author of numerous articles and essays and of book-length studies on contemporary Japan.
Bowen says he is prepared for the challenges facing the Association today. "Defending academic freedom from attempts to politicize and corporatize the academy must be a primary concern of the AAUP, and reversing the trend of colleges and universities to rely on contingent faculty is undoubtedly another major challenge. A faculty association is only as strong as its most vulnerable members," he explains. "Championing sufficient allocation of university resources to the academic enterprise is also crucially important, so we will need to take a critical look at excessive executive compensation and overfunded athletics programs."
"We are delighted that Roger Bowen has accepted the position of general secretary to succeed Mary Burgan, who has given us a decade of outstanding leadership. Bowen promises to be a worthy successor," says AAUP president Jane Buck. "The AAUP is privileged and excited to welcome Roger Bowen to the organization."
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