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When the AAUP speaks, it is the voice of the profession. Read a sampling of what the media is saying about the AAUP.
The AAUP chapter of Virginia Commonwealth University called on President Michael Rao to “immediately declare that classes for the Fall 2020 semester should be held exclusively online, except in cases where in-person education is deemed absolutely necessary."
The faculty letter originated from the Chapel Hill AAUP, which, along with the Faculty Council, also has expressed serious misgivings about UNC’s plans to reopen. “The belief that we can safely return to campus together with 30,000 students is quickly eroding,” said the letter from the chair of the Faculty Council to the UNC Board of Governors.
“For years, the university has disinvested in academics while simultaneously losing millions on its athletics programs," Akron University's AAUP chapter wrote in a position paper about proposed cuts earlier this month. “In the spirit of shared sacrifice, we believe that it’s time to move to a responsible and sustainable model of funding for athletics.”
In a statement the University of Chicago's AAUP chapter said it was concerned about staff who can’t work remotely — such as those in libraries, dining halls and maintenance — who might not be allowed to stay at home. They also wanted to ensure that adjunct or tenure-track faculty don’t feel pressured into offering in-person classes.
Purdue University president Mitch Daniels told CNN that Alice Pawley, associate professor of engineering education and president of the main Purdue campus’s AAUP represented a “very tiny minority” of the Purdue faculty and that she was “frankly, not from the most scientifically credible corner of our very STEM-based campus.”
“We’re very excited about having this removed,” said Aubray Orduña, interim president of Clarkson College. “Having that censure was not in alignment with our mission ... values and the legacy that the college has here.”
The Washington Post speaks to three AAUP chapters, Wright State University, Purdue University and the University of Tulsa, for their perspectives on safely reopening campuses.
Inside Higher Education covers the AAUP's Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession.
"Suspending or ending OPT makes no practical sense — it solves no problem, it reduces the quality of America's higher education system, and it threatens the international exchange of ideas so vital to academic freedom," said Julie Schmid, executive director of the AAUP.
The OU AAUP chapter has called for the administration “to cut from the top” first before faculty and staff cuts, as well as rescind and halt layoffs during the pandemic.
The Ohio University AAUP chapter introduced and passed a resolution of no-confidence in University President Duane Nellis and Vice President of Finance Deb Shaffer after demanding that layoffs of the faculty and staff involved be reversed "until a process of true shared governance and transparency can be established and implemented."
The mounting death toll from COVID-19 among professors is tragic for all those whose lives are touched. And the loss of valued colleagues brings with it a loss of the institutional knowledge that helps faculty govern their institutions and departments.
Inside Higher Ed covers the annual Faculty Compensation Survey, noting that the AAUP’s data, collected before the disruption of US higher education by the COVID-19 pandemic, "will serve as important benchmarks when institutions look at faculty pay in reassessing their budgets."
The AAUP announced agreement last week with the attorneys general, stating that the COVID-19 crisis “severely constrains the ability of educational institutions’ administrations, faculty, staff and students to engage in meaningful shared governance to address new and complex Title IX regulations.”
UNH Lecturers United-AAUP and the University of New Hampshire jointly announced they have reached an agreement on a new contract. The new collective bargaining agreement runs through June 30, 2022. Lecturers had been working without a contract for the past couple of years.
The AAUP’s Hans-Joerg Tiede on exposés of liberal bias: “For all the concern these days that conservatives are expressing for free expression in universities, activities such as these seem to indicate a different interest in the suppression of views.”
In an article about the impact of COVID-19, AAUP president Rudy Fichtenbaum said he is hearing from members that decisions about closing campuses or moving instruction online “are being made without adequate faculty involvement in decision-making.”
Inside Higher Ed cites the AAUP Council's statement of support for striking graduate student workers at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Ohio State University’s presidential search committee intends to keep the names of job finalists concealed until it has a final candidate. "We think it’s a terrible development,” said John McNay, president of the Ohio Conference of the AAUP. University boards have adopted a more corporate style of management favoring private searches, said McNay, but as public institutions, “we’re not corporations, we’re not producing widgets. We’re trying to educate students.”
The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee's University Relations department informed the UWM-AAUP chapter that an image promoting an upcoming sponsored talk, Academic Freedom in the Age of Trump, was too "partisan." But after being widely condemned by multiple groups and people on social media, the department reversed its decision a day later.
The Ohio Conference of the AAUP has opposed the Open and Robust Minds Act, in testimony submitted to a Senate committee. “If legislation like this would be approved, thus taking these decisions out of the hands of the institutions, we would expect that the legislature would also provide funding to cover the costs of the crowds and necessary security that hosting controversial speakers would entail.”
Loyola University's AAUP chapter releases a report countering the university's justification for major cuts to its English Language Learning Program, writing that the cuts “have harmed our financial bottom line and fiscal vitality . . . and this dramatic reversal of course has taken place outside of the established channels for academic decision-making laid out in Loyola’s own procedures."
Colorado AAUP leaders write in an op-ed about the financial dire straits faced by adjunct faculty who do most of the instruction in community colleges.
The editorial board of the Kansas City Star quotes the AAUP's 2014 report on Confucius Institutes including our warning that “occasionally university administrations have entered into partnerships that sacrificed the integrity of the university and its academic staff."
Politico's newsletter covers the AAUP's submitted comments to the National Labor Relations Board scrutinizing a proposed rule that would not allow many graduate assistants to form unions.
Inside Higher Education writes about our statement, In Defense of Knowledge and Higher Education.
