2016 AAUP In the News

The AAUP expresses concern over the circumstances of Melissa Click's firing and plans to meet as to whether to launch an investigation. 

After much controversy, the president of Mount Saint Mary's University resigned. Although two dismissed faculty members were reinstated, as the AAUP had urged, the situation created an atmosphere of distrust at the university with large concerns about academic freedom and institutional governance.

In a letter to the MU chancellor, the AAUP says MU did not follow its own rules in firing Click and insists that Click deserved “a hearing before an elected faculty body."

Mount Saint Mary's University's firing two professors for disloyalty made national news, as did the University of Missouri's suspension and subsequent firing of Professor Melissa Click. The AAUP's associate secretary Hans-Joerg Tiede discusses a growing trend of willingness among administrators to dismiss faculty for statements seen as damaging the public image of the school. Tiede points out faculty have a right to defend themselves in front of their peers, a right denied to Mount St. Mary’s professors and Click.

UConn faculty, students and community members will attend a rally to build support for AAUP faculty working for a fair contract. After the administration’s chief negotiator said, "the university (is defined as) the Board of Trustees, the President, the Provost and the Deans,” without mention of students or the faculty, students and faculty are reasserting their voice in and role on campus.

Opponents of Texas's new campus concealed carry law, including faculty, argue it will chill academic freedom and free speech. Some recommendations from the University of Houston’s Faculty Senate on how to teach under campus carry amplifies concerns of its effects on academic freedom. Henry Reichman, chair of the American Association of University Professors’ Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, called a controversial presentation slide “ominous” on AAUP's “Academe” blog and told Inside Higher Ed that under such guidelines, “it's possible to teach but not well and not freely.” 

For graduate assistants hoping for a voice at work through collective bargaining, a lot rides on cases before the NLRB. Risa Lieberwitz, AAUP general counsel, says, "The universities are taking the position that they should be in the position of unilateral control."

The Coloradoan reports that salaries of administrators closest to the CSU President increased by an about 3.38 percent in 2015, significantly more than the average raise received by the rest of the university’s staff. This follows a trend of colleges and universities granting significantly higher raises to top administrators than to professors and other university staff. AAUP's Senior Higher Education Researcher John Barnshaw said, “Over the past five years, it’s become increasingly common."