January-February 2007

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From the President: A Worldwide Cause

By Cary Nelson

Why have over two hundred AAUP members and allied organizations donated at least $1,000 to our endowment fund? Why have people raised their pledge to our capital campaign from $1,000 to $5,000 without being asked? Perhaps because the AAUP is not just another organization. It serves a cause, devotes itself to a mission—the preservation of academic freedom.

Largely nonexistent in some countries, academic freedom is slowly eroding in the United States. Many part-time faculty have no more than part-time academic freedom. Few administrators agree that faculty should have the same academic freedom when they use e-mail and university Web sites that they have in the classroom and in print. Some administrators seek to eliminate faculty control over online education. And everywhere that shared governance is in decline, academic freedom is simultaneously undermined. It is both a philosophical and a technical challenge, as we seek to extend a fundamental principle to new media and educational practices. And a global economic system makes support for academic freedom internationally interdependent.

Many of us know that the AAUP’s mission needs to become international. We sometimes take positions on academic freedom violations elsewhere; the pressure to do so is increasing. Some assaults on academic freedom rise to the level of human rights violations and can be taken up by existing international organizations. But the case-by-case monitoring of academic freedom we are adept at is not found in many countries.

If not us, then who is to take up this challenge to call for academic freedom across the world and perhaps to build an international organization capable of monitoring compliance? Yet we have not yet even educated the American people about the nature and value of academic freedom. I would like to see us producing radio spots and television and newspaper ads defining and promoting academic freedom. And we need to recognize that few American faculty members, nationwide, are prepared to be articulate advocates for our values. An effort to educate them might include mass distribution of the new edition of Policy Documents and Reports, more commonly known as the Redbook. Before considering further international responsibilities, therefore, we need to be more effective here. Indeed, the erosion of academic freedom here will undercut our ability to be a model for higher education elsewhere.

We can only meet these growing claims on our time and energy with greater resources. We need a secure financial base if we are to become the more ambitious and influential AAUP the country needs. Recruiting more members is half the answer, which will only be possible if faculty nationwide understand who we are, what we’ve done, and what principles we promote. Our new electronic newsletter series is a first step toward that end. A serious endowment fund is the other necessity, which will only be possible if our members lead the way.

Realizing we need at least a $10 million endowment, and realizing as well that small donations from our loyal members will not get us to that goal, we are asking people to donate at least $1,000, all of which is tax deductible. Some choose to do so with four or five annual checks; some have had us set up monthly credit-card payments of $20.83 or $16.67 for four or five years respectively. These gifts —often from faculty on very tight budgets, some of them struggling on part-timer salaries—send a powerful message to academics and nonacademics alike about our commitment to a common cause. We need local, state, and national leaders from every state to commit themselves to the campaign. And we need members from all over the country identified as $1,000 donors in the list we will soon publish in Academe.

Those donating $1,000 become members of the President’s Circle; $5,000 donors are recognized with membership in the Marilyn Sternberg Society. Obtain a pledge form (.pdf). Join us. Ask your colleagues to donate. Ask administrators to show their commitment to academic freedom by donating $1,000 to our endowment. Ask friends and relatives who are not members to support your career and your commitments in this lasting way. Most people find the prospect of asking for donations difficult, but once past the initial reluctance, many find it gratifying to raise money for a cause in which they believe. It will take all of us working together and honoring the $1,000 discipline to raise $10 million.