AAUP Presents The AAUP
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- Education
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A new podcast by the American Association of University Professors on issues related to academic freedom, shared governance, and higher education. Visit aaup.org for more news and information.
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A National Day of Action For Higher Education
Faculty and student groups at more than 50 U.S. college and university campuses will hold a National Day of Action for Higher Education on Wednesday, April 17 in a coordinated nationwide counterprotest against the sustained right-wing assault on American higher education as a public good.
Organizers say the Day of Action for Higher Education will demonstrate how cross-rank organizing, robust faculty governance, labor solidarity, and protection of the freedom to teach and learn are crucial to the survival of higher education and to its vital social purpose in a democracy.
In this episode host Mariah Quinn, the AAUP's digital organizer, talks to two of the organizers of the April 17 movement about how it came about and the path forward. Our guests are Rebecca Karl, a professor of history at New York University and president of NYU-AAUP, and Amy Offner, an associate professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and president of AAUP-Penn.
Links:
Day of Action for Higher Education website -
Fighting Political Interference in Higher Ed: Lessons Learned in Ohio and Texas
From Florida to Texas to Ohio to Indiana politicians in some states are trying to substitute their own ideological beliefs for educational freedom by passing legislation that interferes with how colleges and universities operate. They’re introducing bills that mandate or prohibit content in the classroom, empower partisan political appointees to determine campus policy, limit the freedom to learn, teach, and conduct research.
In this episode we look at member-led efforts to fight legislative interference in Texas and Ohio, specifically pushing back against bills targeting diversity equity and inclusion programs, tenure, and collective bargaining. We talk about each campaigns successes, failures, and the lessons learned.
The guests are Karma R. Chávez, the Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor and Chair in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also serves on the executive committee of the AAUP chapter, and Sara Kilpatrick, the AAUP Ohio Conference Executive Director. She previously worked as the political director for the Ohio Senate Democratic Caucus. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.
Links:
Lessons from AAUP Advocacy in Texas, Karma Chávez, Academe, Fall 2023A Provisional Victory in Ohio, Sara Kilpatrick, Academe, Fall 2023Ohio Conference website with information about SB 83AAUP UT Austin chapter website page tracking Texas higher ed billsAAUP resources on political interference -
Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education System.
In this podcast we discuss the AAUP's special report Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education System. The report offers an in-depth review of a pattern of politically, racially, and ideologically motivated attacks on public higher education in Florida, which have largely occurred during the term of Governor Ron DeSantis.
The guests are Afshan Jafar, a professor of Sociology at Connecticut College and a co-chair of the special committee, Henry Reichman, professor of history California State University, East Bay, also a co-chair of the committee, and Liz Leininger, a neuroscience professor who was previously affiliated with New College. The program is hosted by Anita Levy, senior program officer in the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance.
Show notes:
Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education SystemAAUP's Statement on Government of Colleges and UniversitiesResources from the AAUP on political interference in higher edThe Administrative Overhaul of New College of Florida, Inside Higher Ed, September 2023 -
Equity In Higher Ed after the Affirmative Action Decision
In this episode, Michaele Turnage Young, a senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, discusses this summer’s Supreme Court affirmative action decision and talks about how creating equity in higher ed requires reimagining and reexamining what the education system can do to expand access to higher education. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.
Show Notes:
AAUP resources on diversity in higher educationThe Legal Defense Fund website -
The Rutgers Strike and the Wall-to-Wall Model
In this episode, we discuss the unprecedented strike earlier this year at Rutgers University with Todd Wolfson, the president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT. Of the strike and their common good model of organizing, he had this to say: “For 50 years, I’d say public universities have been on the defensive.” Now, he said, “I think we turned the tables and we moved the ball perceptively in the other direction.”
The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.
Episode links:
Rutgers AAUP-AFT website"Reclaiming Paul Robeson in the Time of COVID-19," Todd Wolfson and Donna Murch, Academe magazine -
Academia, Women of Color, and Motherhood: A Conversation with Atia Sattar
In this episode we talk to Atia Sattar, an associate professor (teaching) in the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California, about the article she wrote for AAUP’s Academe magazine entitled “Academic Motherhood and the Unrecognized Labors of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Women of Color.”
In it, she wrote, “while women in higher education often face a career penalty for their struggles with infertility and motherhood, women of color do so within an institutional context that also frequently undervalues them and is dismissive of their abilities.” Listen to episode for more.
The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.
Links:
"Academic Motherhood and the Unrecognized Labors of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Women of Color," Academe, Spring 2022Ten simple rules for a mom-friendly Academia