More than a year and a half after the University of Minnesota made headlines when an administrator halted the premiere of an environmental documentary, controversy and questions persist at the Twin Cities university. "Troubled Waters: A Mississippi River Story" took nearly four years to make. It explores how agricultural runoff and…

People's varied views of service come to the fore when they evaluate one another's work, most notably in promotion and tenure reviews. Those who have worked on such reviews may have observed the differences among their colleagues' service contributions. One faculty member may have served on an editorial board and evaluated grant proposals. Perhaps…

Frequently drawn from elite corporate backgrounds and, for public institutions, from pools of politically connected people, trustees usually have to be educated about shared governance. Corporate or political ties are scarcely reliable indices of the wisdom necessary to oversee institutions of higher learning, and some trustees, sadly, prove…

An academic plan is a business plan disguised in the regalia donned for significant public ceremonies--black cap and gown, colorful hood, and, of course, gold tassel. Several years ago, the University of Connecticut started to plan for the economic disaster that was at the time so obviously in the future of higher education institutions. A formal…

April 20, 2010, and the days following, provided the world with graphic images of a burning oil rig, a perception that the oil industry and state and federal governments were helpless, and a pervasive sense of the devastation wrought on coastal residents by the rig explosion and the oil spill. The residents of the Gulf Coast soon realized that…

A University of Maryland at College Park faculty member describes the recent retrenchment process, focusing on the role of the faculty senate and the academic planning advisory committee in decision making. The administration is credited with conducting an open and decisive process. (MSE)

Discussion of academic freedom usually focuses on faculty, and it usually refers to speech. That is the gist of the 1915 "General Report of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure," appearing in the inaugural AAUP "Bulletin" as a kind of mission statement. Given the conditions of the American system of higher education--decentralized…

When the representatives of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation came to Tallahassee in 2007 with checkbook in hand, they had every reason to expect a warm reception from Florida State University (FSU). Florida, along with much of the nation, was busy transferring money from higher education to prisons, and FSU was hurting. The foundation…

It may seem as if colleges and universities across the United States support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) faculty, staff, and students. After all, the employer database of the Human Rights Campaign, using self-reported data, identifies 567 colleges and universities offering protection against discrimination, including 96…

This article presents three recent American Association of University Professors (AAUP) cases that involved the dismissal of a senior non-tenure-track member of the faculty. The most recent case resulted in the investigating committee's report on Nicholls State University, a regional public institution in Louisiana. Preceding Nicholls was an…

At a time when, nationally, community colleges are increasing their reliance on contingent faculty, and nonacademics are increasingly attacking the tenure system, some community colleges--like Bronx Community College, City University of New York--continue to follow the traditions of shared governance. The collective bargaining unit at CUNY that…

Historian Joan Wallach Scott has served on the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure since 1993. She was committee chair from 1999 until this past June, when she became a consultant to the committee. To mark her transition from chair to consultant, "Academe" asked her to participate in an interview about her experience with the…

The scholarship of teaching has received a considerable amount of attention in recent years, with new recognition that faculty members' research does not necessarily exclude their pedagogy. But research and teaching are not the only parts of their lives as faculty members. Much of what they do on their campuses comes under the heading of service.…

Although American higher education has arguably been the setting for a number of different culture wars, the one now being waged goes to the very heart and soul of the university as an institution. Like most wars, it has usually involved two opposing camps. On one side of this conflict are the traditionalists, who see themselves as defending the…

Committee N on Representation of Economic and Professional Interests and Committee T on College and University Government (both of the American Association of University Professors--AAUP) issued a statement on collective bargaining and the part it plays in shared governance in colleges and universities. (MLW)