From the Editor: Tales of Two Wheatons and More
Paula M. Krebs
This issue of Academe offers a helpful pair of articles about contract negotiations at colleges that do not have collective bargaining units. Elaine Rizzo, David Guerra, and Jay Pitocchelli from Saint Anselm College present a how-to guide that starts with choosing the members of your negotiating team and takes you through the whole process. Economist John Miller of my own institution, Wheaton College in Massachusetts, tells the success story of the Wheaton Salary Plan, a deal that produced raises of up to 11 percent in a single year for Wheaton faculty by tying our raises to total college revenue.
And speaking of Wheaton economists, I recently saw a blog posting by P. J. Hill, an economist from what we in Massachusetts like to refer to as the other Wheaton College, the one in Illinois. Hill’s post addressed a dilemma he faced when his status as a faculty member at that evangelically affiliated institution conflicted with his obligations as a member of his professional association, the American Economic Association. I’ll let him explain the issue in his article, which fits nicely into this issue’s cluster of articles on religious colleges.
Kenneth Wagner’s article came in before Hill’s but reads as if it were a response to it. Wagner discusses the restrictions on academic freedom that are inherent in the faith statements required by the more orthodox of the Christian colleges, such as Wheaton. Lee Hardy of Calvin College, in an article derived from a presentation at an AAUP conference on religion and higher education, argues the other way, declaring that the constraints of religious belief are not constraints on research at all.
Bernard Olszewski makes a similar argument from within the tradition of Catholic education, pointing out that although Catholic colleges might forbid campus speakers or events that conflict with church teachings, what happens inside the classroom is different. Catholic education, he argues, provides a level of free inquiry and debate on questions such as intelligent design that has its roots back with Saint Augustine.
The question of religion and culture comes up in a different form in Fatemeh Keshavarz’s reflections on an interaction she had at a faculty seminar she attended last summer. Keshavarz asks us to consider the position of the faculty member in Near Eastern and Islamic studies in a U.S. climate hostile to those of Muslim cultural background. Think about the meaning of your silence on these issues, Keshavarz urges.
Philip Altbach takes on the increased commercialization of higher education by questioning the wisdom of granting naming rights for everything from buildings to professional schools within universities to campus roadways. Werner Heim is interested in ownership issues, too, but he daydreams about a college without a board of trustees—one in which the faculty actually owns and runs the college.
Finally, Karl Petruso made my day when he submitted his article analyzing the content of the material posted on faculty office doors. Do your own survey to see what your Ψ quotient is and pass this article on to your friends who tell you that academics don’t have a sense of humor.
Please send us your stories of large and small successes at your institutions—triumphs in terms of defending academic freedom and faculty governance, overcoming bureaucracy, empowering faculty, or educating state legislatures. Let us know how you managed to cut back on contingent labor, how you developed a program to support immigrant faculty, or what happened when student groups paired up with faculty to push for change. How-to articles, short descriptive pieces, and longer reflective articles are all welcome. Send me an e-mail at editor@aaup.org. Remember—this is your magazine.
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