2012 AAUP Updates

Faculty at the University of Illinois Chicago are calling on the administration to voluntarily recognize two separate bargaining units, one of tenure-track and one of non-tenure-track faculty, after a court ruled Thursday that a joint bargaining unit was inconsistent with state law. The UIC United Faculty is affiliated with the AFT-IFT and the AAUP.

Faculty and students at the University of Northern Iowa are protesting academic cuts to programs and departments that have been proposed by the institution's administration. The cuts would result in layoffs, including layoffs of tenured faculty.

We are saddened to mark the passing of Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey, who died of complications from colon cancer on Tuesday, March 6. Rep. Payne was a champion of higher education, and in particular worked hard to protect and expand financial aid programs for students. Because of his work on behalf of higher education, the AAUP presented him with the 2010 Henry Yost award. At the time, we wrote in Academe:

On behalf of more than 63,000 collectively organized instructional and research employees at flagship and research university systems across the country, thirteen higher education leaders have written a letter supporting the campaign for collective bargaining at the University of Oregon. 

In response to reports that the University of Northern Iowa administration, without consulting with the faculty, has proposed eliminating academic programs and terminating faculty appointments in areas such as physics, geography, religion, philosophy, and the teaching of English to speakers of other languages, the AAUP today sent a letter urging the administration to follow normative standards of academic governance.

The Association is planning to redesign our website this year. The redesigned site will reflect our anticipated restructuring into three related entities (a professional organization, a union, and a foundation). And, we hope, it will make our many resources easier to find and use!

The AAUP opposes the recent move to ban certain books from the Mexican-American Studies Program in Tuscon, Arizona. Read the joint statement and the list of signatories here.

In a letter to Vice President Joe Biden, the AAUP thanked him for his concern about the rapidly rising cost of higher education, but corrected remarks he made Friday that suggested that faculty salaries are a significant driver of rising cost.