The AAUP office reopened on September 7, 2021. Contact information for all staff, including those working remotely or on a hybrid schedule, is available here.
Report concerning the actions of the administration of North Greenville College in terminating the appointments of two professors without affording them the safeguards of academic due process . Further, since tenure is no longer granted at North Greenville College, its procedural protections are not available to the majority of faculty members who serve indefinitely on term appointments renewable at the administration's discretion.
Report concerning the action taken by the administration of the University of Bridgeport to terminate the appointments of two professors on thirty days' notice. At the time of this action the professors had each completed more than thirty years of service at the university.
Report concerning the action taken by the administration of Miami-Dade Community College to abolish the existing system of academic government at the institution following a faculty vote in favor of collective bargaining and to replace it with a wholly new system of governance.
Report arising from the termination of the appointments of eighteen tenured faculty members, on grounds of financial exigency, at St. Bonaventure University.
Report concerning the dismissal of a faculty member from the Saint Meinrad School of Theology for having signed an open letter to Pope John Paul II asking that continued discussion be permitted concerning the question of ordaining women to the priesthood.
Report regarding action taken by the administration of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design to dismiss five senior members of the faculty without cause and without hearings.
Report concerning the actions taken by the administration of Lawrence Technological University regarding appointment termination following a decision to discontinue the undergraduate programs in business management.
Report examining the move last year by the administration of the University of Northern Iowa to discontinue nearly one-fifth of the university’s academic programs and close the university’s laboratory school. More than fifty faculty members were threatened with layoffs, and numerous tenured professors were constructively dismissed.
Report finding administrators discontinued or consolidated academic programs and arbitrarily selected certain tenured professors in the programs for termination of appointment.
The proportion of faculty appointments that are “contingent”—lacking the benefits and protections of tenure and a planned long-term relationship with an institution—has increased dramatically over the past few decades. The structures of faculty governance, however, as well as AAUP policies on the subject, tend to assume a faculty that is primarily full time and on the tenure track. This report examines the issues and makes recommendations on how contingent faculty should be included in institutional governance.
Recent years have witnessed massive closings of academic programs that are basic to a college or university’s curriculum, with a resulting erosion in the number and the authority of the tenured faculty. The AAUP responded last month when its Council adopted as official policy the final text of a major report, The Role of the Faculty in Conditions of Financial Exigency.