Law at the End of the Day: The Highy Contestable State of the Obligations of Universities and its Faculty Employees: The View From the AAUP

The American Association of University Professors has come a long way from its origins. And yet that is a necessary journey. It is one that illuminates a path way from beginnings and charts the cultural shifts and contestations that serves as a mirror for great shifts and contestations within the larger culture. More specifically, its serves as a mirror for the reflections of one group of academic influencers and their construction of narratives of the role of the university--and its faculty--within or against the larger society into which they are obliged to contribute. But what is the nature of that obligation? Certainly for some time it has increasingly shifted from "mere" knowledge production to the more politically engaged role of the public intellectual. But that has brought politics into the academy and with it the power relations, contests, battles and confrontations that politics generates. One cannot transform the essence of the university and its faculty to the role of public intellectual without expecting substantial push back from those other (powerful) societal forces who or which the academic intellectual pokes form time to time.

And thus this issue of the AAUP's Journal, Academe, which according to its press relase:

explores the complexities of higher education’s obligations to the outside world. In articles that emphasize the imperative to engage with—and develop policies responsive to—social concerns, contributors look beyond traditional ways of framing the relationship between campuses and communities.

It is worth reflecting on the transformation of the university into another form of non-governmental or quasi governmental organization a principal object of which appears to be political engagement as an institution and as a factor in the evaluation of the quality of faculty contribution. Links to the articles in the Spring 2022 (Vol 108 No 2) follows (including the quite interesting actions memorialized in the "nota bene" section).

Spring 2022 | Vol. 108, No. 2

The spring issue of Academe explores the complexities of higher education’s obligations to the outside world. In articles that emphasize the imperative to engage with—and develop policies responsive to—social concerns, contributors look beyond traditional ways of framing the relationship between campuses and communities.

You can make a difference on your campus by joining the AAUP and getting involved with an existing chapter or starting a new one. AAUP members have access to full-issue PDFs of Academe, can opt to receive the magazine by mail, and enjoy a range of other benefits.

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Confronting the Wealth Transfer from Tribal Nations That Established Land-Grant Universities
Steps toward atonement.
By Stephen M. Gavazzi and John N. Low

How Higher Education Abets Corporate Crime
The social costs of corporate partnerships.
By Michael Schwalbe

Academic Freedom and Departmental Speech
Who speaks for departments, and what can they say?
By Brian Soucek

What Do We Know about Campus Policies on Children in the Workplace?
An underexamined aspect of "family-friendly" policies.
By Heather K. Olson Beal, Lauren E. Brewer, Chrissy Cross, and Shelby J. Gull

Academic Motherhood and the Unrecognized Labors of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Women of Color
What the invisibility of the most marginalized reveals.
By Atia Sattar

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