Mark Your Calendar

Mark your calendars for some of the country's best training and education on academic unionism. The AAUP-CBC Fall Regional meeting will be on October 19 at the University of New Hampshire, and the AAUP-CBC Winter Regional meeting will be on January 11, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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What's New

Read an open letter to Purdue president Mitch Daniels from 90 Purdue professors on Academe Blog. This letter was written in response to recent news reports about emails written while governor of Indiana.

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Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Due Process

Committee A Statement on Extramural Utterances

Statement clarifing those sections of the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure relating to the faculty member’s exercise of freedom of speech as a citizen.

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Joint Statement on Faculty Status of College and University Librarians

Statement arguing that because the scope and character of library resources should be taken into account in such important academic decisions as curricular planning and faculty appointments, librarians should have a voice in the development of the institution’s educational policy

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Statement on Professors and Political Activity

Statement defining rights and obligations of faculty regarding the institutional regulations of many colleges and universitiesthat govern the participation of professors in political activity and public office holding.

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Academic Freedom and Artistic Expression

Statement proposing policies that are designed to assist academic institutions to respond to the issues that may arise from the presentation of artistic works to the public and to do so in a manner that preserves academic freedom:

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Verification and Trust: Background Investigations Preceding Faculty Appointment

Report setting forth standards that should guide academic institutions in performing background checks of prospective faculty members.

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Statement on Corporate Funding of Academic Research

Report concerning the growing collaboration between industry and research universities. This relationship has been the most productive for both parties when scholars are free to pursue and transmit basic knowledge through research and teaching. The relationship, however, has never been free of concerns that the financial ties of researchers or their institutions to industry may exert improper pressure on the design and outcome of research.

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The Role of the Faculty in Conditions of Financial Exigency

Recent years have witnessed massive closings of academic programs that are basic to a college or university’s curriculum, with a resulting erosion in the number and the authority of the tenured faculty. The AAUP responded last month when its Council adopted as official policy the final text of a major report, The Role of the Faculty in Conditions of Financial Exigency.

The subcommittee report makes recommendations designed to strengthen shared governance and faculty consultation when program closures are threatened, and it provides a more detailed and specific definition of “financial exigency.” As to governance and consultation, it insists that faculty be involved in every stage of the process, beginning with the determination of whether the institution is indeed financially exigent. As to defining financial exigency, the report extends the definition to situations not previously covered but only to those which jeopardize an institution’s academic integrity and core educational mission.