Program Cuts

The Real Language Crisis

We are becoming a nation of second-language illiterates, and recent draconian cuts to language teaching in colleges and universities are exacerbating an already serious problem.

Map Tracks Coverage of Program Closures

The past three issues of Academe have focused on the impact of the financial crisis facing higher education—on organizing efforts, on the humanities, and on state support for public universities. As articles in the current issue make clear, reductions in state support are forcing public colleges and universities, in particular, to raise tuition and fees.

Budget Cuts and Educational Quality

Policy makers—and the public—need to understand the potentially devastating effects of cuts to higher education.

The Crisis in Extramural Funding

If state support continues to decline, public research universities will be forced to abandon their historic mission and scientific research for the common good will suffer.

Opposition to Proposed Restructuring at Rutgers–Camden

Students, faculty, and staff at Rutgers University–Camden are protesting a planned move that would sever their campus from the statewide Rutgers system and merge it with Rowan University twenty miles to the south. Proponents of the change, including New Jersey’s governor, Chris Christie, say it is meant to help promote higher education opportunities in the southern part of the state. Opponents, including the Rutgers Council of AAUP Chapters, say the move may be meant only to enhance the image of Rowan’s medical school when it opens later this year.

Occupy Education

March 1 was a national day of action for the Occupy Education movement. At campuses across the country, students, faculty, and staff organized protests, marches, sit-ins, and other nonviolent actions to draw attention to funding cuts, student debt, and the growing corporatization of higher education.

Melancholy in the Academy

It’s hardly news to anyone that higher education is under siege. That’s painfully clear. Self-serving politicians, self-righteous ideologues, and self-delusional bean counters are all demanding their pounds of flesh from our increasingly emaciated institutions. It’s hard not to be discouraged. Moreover, the Lilliputian stature of our leaders both in government and on our campuses does little to inspire confidence or dispel gloom. As the writer and translator Lin Yutang once wrote, “When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.”

Financial Exigency, Program Closures, and Faculty Layoffs

At its fall 2012 meeting, Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure approved publication of a draft report on program closures and resulting terminations of faculty appointments on grounds of financial exigency. The report, The Role of the Faculty in Conditions of Financial Exigency, finds that recent program closures represent a massive transfer of power from faculty to administration over curricular matters for which the faculty should bear the primary responsibility.

Bowling Green Faculty Fights Cuts, Negotiates Contract

The year 2013 got off to a tumultuous start at Bowling Green State University, where members of the AAUP-affiliated faculty union led protests against funding cuts and became involved in intensive—and ultimately successful—contract negotiations.

Stand With Louisiana French Professors

In summer 2010, the administration of Southeastern Louisiana University announced the closure of its French degree programs and the dismissal of the three tenured French faculty members. In violation of university guidelines and AAUP-supported standards, the administration announced the closures without having notified the faculty members concerned. Nor did French cease to be taught: French courses are still available, and a French minor is still offered. These courses are being staffed by low-paid instructors on a contingent basis.

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