🚨 @SpeakerDonScott @VAHouseDems
Well over half of VA profs are untenured and many struggle to pay the bills. This is 2x true for our adjunct profs. As Prof Letiecq says, our working conditions are our students' learning conditions! When we struggle, they struggle. We need collective bargaining NOW!
Let's be clear: While we are disappointed that this passed, the elimination of the most egregious language and restrictions is due to the tireless efforts of our AAUP NC members and allies. We are the fastest growing conference, and we're just getting started.
Also today at 5pm, UNCG Alumni House: Nancy MacLean of Duke University will speak: "Why is the Right 'Laying Siege' to Higher Education? The History that Solves the Mystery." Talk will be preceded by a reception beginning at 4pm hosted by the Association of Retired Faculty.
3pm TODAY: UNCG AAUP members and pals are meeting up at Tate Street Coffee House to chat about academic freedom. Stop by and say hi!
Join @ncaaup.bsky.social in opposing major restrictions on academic freedom in the UNC System--sign the petition actionnetwork.org/petitions/pr...
UNC's redefinition of academic freedom as not absolute "does little to clarify key terms, leaving open the possibility for certain actors to retaliate against instructors with whom an institution, an administrator, or an outside party disagrees, thereby increasing the threat of self-censorship.”
Should the University of North Carolina system obey right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation & require faculty to make syllabi public? 🤔
Sign this petition & say NO! Academic integrity everywhere is at stake.
We're almost at 3,000 signatures—help us get there by signing & sharing.
Even at research intensive (R1) universities in the US, "tenure density" is already below 50%.
a little context: This was posted by the AAUP chapter at Texas A&M University; one of their members received the email, apparently.
We're disappointed our faculty senate leader, once outspoken in his defense of a liberal arts education, has now so thoroughly betrayed our lost faculty and students with, "it seems fine now." Students were hospitalized. Brilliant faculty left in droves. Those who remain are choosing to forget. SAD.
For those who have forgotten the sweeping violations of shared governance, lack of transparency, and authoritarian nature of the APR here in 2024, we suggest a scroll through www.savetheg.com
This piece is embarrassing in its willful amnesia www.theassemblync.com/news/educati...
Over 2,800 people have signed on to the AAUP petition challenging the requirement for faculty across universities in the North Carolina System to make syllabi publicly available.
The petition is still taking signatures: add yours today and say no to political pressure from right-wing think tanks 👇
This op-ed on the dangers of requiring public posting of course syllabi at the University of North Carolina System was authored by Annelise Mennicke and Caitlin Shroering of AAUP UNC - Charlotte.
@ncaaup.bsky.social
@uncgaaup.bsky.social
@unc-ch-aaup.bsky.social
Protect the academic freedom of faculty at the UNC system, and challenge the unreasonable demand of admin to require instructors to publicly post their syllabi, by signing on to the petition below👇
@unc-ch-aaup.bsky.social
@uncgaaup.bsky.social
@ncaaup.bsky.social
The University of North Carolina System may require all instructors to publish syllabi starting next year.
“Calling instructors 'work for hire' & stripping them of copyright is a surefire way to turn creative thinkers into widgets."
- Abigail Hatcher, AAUP UNC-Chapel Hill
Sign the petition linked below to support higher ed workers at the UNC System in their fight against the requirement to create a searchable repository of all university syllabi, which will endanger students and instructors by inviting political actors to attack free inquiry across UNC campuses.
The Trump admin weaponized Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to attack DEI programs, protections for trans people & freedom of speech at our universities.
We took the Trump admin to court over this in AAUP v. Trump and WON.
AAUP General Counsel Veena Dubal discusses what prompted the lawsuit👇
WE WON. I am *begging* you to take note of who did this. *Not* UCLA admin—they’re still scuttling around behind closed doors, attempting to appease—but FACULTY AND STAFF, led by AAUP.
Quote from an Inside Higher Ed article: Blaine added that he'd like "more information about who we are giving tenure to, how much demand there is for their classes, publications, and the majors they teach in, etc." He also said that "regardless of my philosophical opposition to the outdated tenure model, I think we should proceed very cautiously and with full information before adding that kind of long-term, fixed cost."
The information this trustee claims should be evaluated are indeed included in tenure packages, developed in phases over the probationary tenure track period as faculty prepare annual evaluations and a 3 year reappointment review.
The tenure track probationary period is usually ~6 years, and before then, consider 5-8 years of graduate school plus 4 years of undergraduate work. By the time a tenure dossier hits the desk of trustees, most faculty have been through a host of rigorous evaluations spanning at least 20 years.
A pair of bar charts. The first chart shows what percentage of the analyzed cohort transition from a postdoc into a tenure-track job vs the fraction that move from a postdoc to another intermediate position. The second chart shows it takes an average of 5 years for the first group, and almost 7 years for the second group.
To give some further context to the idea of faculty not being fully vetted: Hsu et al. 2021 report 5-7 years between completing graduate school and earning a tenure-track position. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
The child in this trustee’s scenario? Faculty. Who submitted their tenure files for consideration in accordance with the terms of their employment. Both sides have a responsibility in that contract, one to submit and one to review.
I hope everyone really hears this.
UNC's board has belatedly confirmed faculty's tenure awards, but made some incredibly alarming remarks along the way. On public outcry to the board's silence, one trustee wrote, "It is not good governance to give your child a cookie every time they lay on the floor and scream that they want one."
www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
anyone have ideas/resources for how AAUP chapters can show up in solidarity w/our staff/contract faculty colleagues? funding cuts are hitting hard, we needed to have set mutual aid networks up last year, the year before, etc.. 😬 also worried for our grad students and postdocs relying on grants
Trump’s executive order on accreditation is yet another attempt to dictate what is taught, learned, & said by college instructors & students.
Threats to remove accreditors are transparent attempts to consolidate power in the hands of the administration in order to stifle teaching & research.
🧵
Across the country on Feb 19, workers impacted by cuts to federal funding are coming together to say: Hands off our healthcare, research, and jobs! Join us in one of more than a dozen cities (& if there's not an action near you yet, sign up to be the first to know when there is): labor4highered.org
