2017 AAUP In the News

Nathaniel Bork said he feels vindicated after a censure of Community College of Aurora over the weekend and that "My concern was about the well being of the students going forward."

The Community College of Aurora was censured by the nation’s 100-year-old association for college professors Saturday for “serious departures from principles and standards of academic freedom” over the firing of a part-time philosophy instructor last year. “Being forced to lower my standards to increase my pass rates was horrible,” Bork said Saturday. “Being fired for drawing attention to the plan out of concern for students’ well-being was worse.”

The AAUP's annual delegation will vote Saturday on whether to remove censure from UI based on the Salaita case.

The AAUP's Sam Dunietz pointed out that he increases in presidential salaries have been far outpacing faculty pay over the last 10 to 15 years. And nationally presidents earn an average of four times as much as professors.

Reflecting on controversy over whether the cancelation of a history course on college athletics that seemed to pit a department against top administrators, the AAUP's Joerg Tiede said it would be "at odds with principles of academic freedom" if a course were canceled because the subject it covered was controversial.

The AAUP's Howard Bunsis talks trends in disinvestment, contingent labor, athletics spending, and more.

Wright State faculty members sent an angry letter to university leadership, calling WSU’s 2018 budget proposal “disgraceful” and “absurd” because of the emphasis placed on athletic spending. The letter comes just days before Thursday’s WSU Board of Trustees meeting, where the board is expected to vote on the budget proposal and points to a $1.6 million proposed budget increase for intercollegiate athletics at the same time that WSU is planning $30 million in cuts, $9.5 million of it at the school’s seven core colleges.

Courses on whiteness and diversity are increasingly politicized. The AAUP's Joerg Tiede said, "Academic freedom protects the right for people to teach things that some might consider divisive."