2016 AAUP Updates

The American Association of University Professors, the College Media Association, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and the Student Press Law Center released a report, Threats to the Independence of Student Media, shining a light on threats to student media and reaffirming and expanding upon basic principles of a free student press.

We condemn the spike in hate crimes and harassment on campus since the election. We call on faculty and administrators to speak out against them and to support all efforts to ensure that campus communities are welcoming and inclusive, including through the establishment of sanctuary campuses to protect undocumented students.

The American Association of University Professors joined the American Federation of Teachers, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and more than 100 other organizations in a letter calling on president-elect Donald Trump to denounce acts of hate on college campuses and elsewhere.

An announcement that the Purdue University board of trustees has ordered the administration to suspend, eliminate, and merge some thirty programs, majors, and departments raises concerns. These actions, which the faculty senate apparently did not even consider, much less approve, appear fundamentally inconsistent with normative standards of academic governance.

The AAUP and the AAUP-CBC issued a statement today responding to Cornell University interim president Hunter Rawlings III, who suggested in October that graduate employee unionization could have detrimental effects on shared governance and educational quality at Cornell. We correct the record and support the right of Cornell graduate student employees to unionize.

A growing assault on academic freedom and the professionalism of faculty members means that now is the time for us to unite, organize, and fight, not only for ourselves but for the common good, not only by ourselves but with allies both inside and outside of academia.

If you're not already a member, please join us in this fight.

The AAUP has issued a call for proposals inviting presentations on student rights and freedoms for its 2017 annual conference on the state of higher education, June 14–18 in Washington, DC. Proposals will be accepted through December 13, 2016.

The AAUP will formally investigate the dismissal of a part-time (adjunct) professor at the Community College of Aurora in Colorado. The investigation will examine the facts of the case to determine whether widely accepted principles of academic freedom, necessary for educational quality, have been violated.