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This report details an investigation of the crisis in academic governance that has occurred in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on eight institutions: Canisius College (NY), Illinois Wesleyan University, Keuka College (NY), Marian University (WI), Medaille College (NY), National University (CA), University of Akron, and Wittenberg University (OH). AAUP governance investigations are conducted under the aegis of the Association’s standing Committee on College and University Governance by AAUP members who have had no previous involvement in the cases under investigation. The investigating committee is charged with independently determining the relevant facts and the positions of the principal parties before reaching its findings.

This report provides a statistical analysis of the presence of AAUP-recommended policies on academic freedom, dismissal for cause, financial exigency, and program discontinuance in faculty handbooks and collective bargaining agreements. In the best of times, analysis of their prevalence could usefully inform the work of AAUP chapters, faculty governance bodies, and higher education unions, but given the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on campuses around the coun­try, these data are now even more important to the advancement of the AAUP’s principles and policies. Statistical evidence of the widespread adoption of AAUP policy statements in faculty handbooks and contracts can reinforce the argument that institutional practices that depart from AAUP-supported standards are outside of the mainstream. Conversely, informa­tion about which institutional policies more frequently fall short of Association-recommended policies can be useful for faculty members engaged in reviewing regulations or contracts.

This report, prepared by the Association’s staff, concerns the case of Dr. Jane Harty, a part-time faculty member with forty years of service in the Department of Music at Pacific Lutheran University. In November 2018, Dr. Harty was suspended from her teaching responsibilities for the remainder of her one-year contract and informed that she would not be reappointed for the following academic year. The stated reason for the action was that she had violated a directive issued by her department chair that prohibited faculty members from accepting payment from PLU students for private lessons given independently of the university. The summary nature of the action, the relatively minor character of the infraction, and the fact that Dr. Harty’s longtime advocacy for the rights of faculty members on contingent appointments had brought her into repeated conflict with her administrative superiors suggested that the administration had imposed the suspension for reasons that implicated principles of academic freedom.

This year’s annual report provides an overview of the results of the 2018–19 AAUP Faculty Compensation Survey, which compiled data on more than 380,000 full-time faculty members at 952 colleges and universities, as well as improved data on pay and benefits for more than 64,000 part-time faculty members at more than 360 institutions. In addition, this year’s report examines the changes in full-time faculty salaries and appointment types, with a particular focus on progress toward gender equity, in the ten years since the Great Recession. Finally, the report explores some of the improved data on part-time faculty pay.

This report concerns issues of academic governance stemming from the actions of the governing board of the Maricopa County Community College District to terminate the “meet-and-confer” provision of the residential faculty policies manual and to mandate the later repeal of the entire manual. For four decades, the faculty and administration had utilized the meet-and-confer process as a mechanism for establishing institutional policies related to faculty matters and for making recommendations to the board on salary and budgetary matters. The residential faculty policies manual contains policies and procedures relating to the full-time faculty, including provisions defining the faculty’s participation in governance.

This report concerns the dismissals of two tenured faculty members and the nonrenewal of a tenure-track faculty member at St. Edward’s University (SEU) in Austin, Texas, in violation of AAUP-recommended procedural standards and principles of academic freedom. According to the report, the SEU administration failed to afford the tenure-track professor timely notice of nonrenewal and a faculty appeal process, and it declined to afford the tenured professors a dismissal hearing before an elected faculty body. The AAUP investigating committee found credible the claims of all three faculty members that their criticisms of administrative decisions led to the actions against them.

Claiming that free speech is “dying” on American campuses, a conservative think tank has led an effort to push states to adopt a model bill that, in the name of defending campus free speech, risks undermining it. This report seeks to understand the context and content of the “campus free-speech” movement, to track its influence within state legislatures, and to draw some conclusions concerning the best ways to respond to it.

The Trump administration’s alarming hostility to science has exacerbated already troubling threats to academic freedom in the physical and natural sciences in two different areas. In the area of international scientific exchange, Chinese or Chinese American scientists have been targeted and charged with espionage. The second area, the field of climate science, has been subjected to vicious attempts to discredit its validity, which have intensified significantly since Donald Trump took office.

Published in the March-April 2017 issue of Academe.

Between the 2015–16 and 2016–17 academic years, average salaries for full-time ranked faculty members (assistant, associate, and full professors) increased by 0.5 percent after adjusting for inflation. The average salary for full professors in 2016–17 was $102,402, the average salary for associate professors was $79,654, and the average salary for assistant professors was $69,206.