www.ilaaup.org ● ● ● ● ● The newsletter of the Illinois Conference of the American Association of University Professors ● ● ● ● ● Fall 2003

American Association ofUniversity Professors5658 South Meade Ave. #2Chicago, IL 60638-3504

I L L I N O I S

AAAAA CADEMECADEMECADEMECADEMECADEMEPRESIDENT’S CORNER

We Must All Become AmbassadorsInside This Issue

CURRICULUM WARS:Are conservative foundationsaccurate in their attacks oncollege courses?

John K. Wilson investigatespages 4-5

CHAPTERS IN ACTION :St. Xavier University’s AAUPresponds to the Peter Kirsteinsuspension. Plus: How BradleyUniversity’s AAUP helped pre-serve shared governance.

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THE ETHICAL PROFESSOR:Ken Andersen explores what ethicsmeans to the faculty.

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LEGISLATIVE REPORT:IL-AAUP lobbyist Leo Welchreports on the new laws in Illinoisaffecting higher education, and thebills that fell short.

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I LLINOIS COLLEGE NEWS:An update on higher education aroundthe state: UIUC frowns on a website;EIU faculty feel shut out of presidentialselection; censoring the college press.

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NATIONAL NEWS:A new AAUP policy oncontingent faculty is adopted;a new report on nationalsecurity after 9-11; plus newsfrom the national AAUPannual meeting.

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Ken Andersen, Speech Communica-tion, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, past president, IL AAUP:

1) Shared Governance and Due Pro-cess; 2) Academic Freedom & Tenure.

Joseph Felder, Economics BradleyUniversity, Secretary, IL AAUP (memberof AAUP National Council):

1) Academic challenges of the nationalAAUP office; 2) Types of services and as-sistance from the national AAUP office.

Jack Leahy, Religious Studies, DePaulUniversity, and past president, IL AAUP:

1) Academic issues in religious affili-ated institutions; 2.) Contingent faculty.

Pan Papacosta, Columbia College inChicago, and president, IL AAUP:

1) Academic Freedom & Tenure; 2) Thesignificance of the Faculty Handbook.

At a recent faculty meeting, I spoke of the importanceof having an active AAUP chapter on the campus. A col-league asked me, “But what is AAUP? I never heard ofthis organization.” His question shocked me, and plungedme into long and painful reflection. He made me realizethat some of our colleagues have never heard of our orga-nization, its many services and the very principles that itdefends and promotes. I am sorry to admit that this is aproblem on both state and national levels, and it needsour urgent attention.

I believe that one of the best ways to properly addressthis challenge is for all of us to become active ambassa-dors of AAUP and all that it stands for. We need to ac-knowledge, openly and without fear, our affiliation andcommitment to AAUP so that our colleagues can seek usout for advice, guidance and support in time of need.

We ourselves must be knowledgeable and well versedin AAUP principles and position statements. Now the goldstandard in academia, they address academic freedom, ten-ure, due process, shared governance and many other criti-cal issues. Each of us must be willing to become involvedin the shared governance of our own institution. We mustall see ourselves as ambassadors of AAUP.

The state office is doing its share of reaching out bycreating a new breed of ambassadors which can be char-acterized as “peripatetic,” a term for those whose missioncan only be achieved by going from place to place. Thisnew initiative, the Speakers Bureau, is designed to serveour members and chapters throughout the state. The Bu-reau is composed of experienced AAUP-Illinois leaders,who are committing their energy and time for the com-mon good in academia. The names of the founding mem-bers of the Speakers Bureau are listed in this edition of

Illinois Academe and will alsobe posted at our web site,www.ilaaup.org. To arrange fora speaker to come to your cam-pus, please contact me or thespeaker directly. The state of-fice will undertake all relatedexpenses. We urge all ourmembers to make the most ofthis, the latest of our servicesand one which I am especially proud to announce.

Remember, the Speakers Bureau is only one of nu-merous services that the state office currently provides.We offer grants of up to $300 per year to chapters thatwish to arrange for a special event on their campus, aswell as grants of up to $500 to members who wish to startan AAUP chapter at their institution. For details visit ourweb site.

Finally, mark your calendars for what promises to bean exciting annual meeting. The theme of the meeting,which will be held in Chicago in April of 2004 (tenta-tively scheduled for either the 17th or the 24th), will beContingent Faculty. We are planning to have a well-knownfigure as our plenary speaker, so do mark your calendarsand plan to attend.

In closing, I wish to paraphrase a famous line fromPresident Kennedy: “Don’t ask what AAUP can do foryou. Ask instead what you can do for AAUP.” One of theeasiest ways of responding to this challenge is to becomean active ambassador of AAUP at your own institution.

P. PapacostaPresident AAUP-IL

WWW.ILAAUP. ORG

Lawrence Poston, English, University of Illinoisat Chicago:

1) Academic freedom and tenure; 2) Academicgovernance.

Leo Welch, Biology, Southwestern Illinois Col-lege, and past president, IL AAUP:

1) Legislation and academia; 2) Collective bar-gaining issues in academia.

John K. Wilson, editor, Illinois Academe;founder, www.collegefreedom.org; Ph.D. student, Il-linois State University:

1) History of Academic Freedom in America; 2)Students and academic freedom.

We invite all our chapters and members to makeuse of this Speaker Bureau. Contact IL AAUP Ex-ecutive Director Lynne Meyer at (773) 510-5923,lmmeyer@mindspring.com. We are accepting nomi-nations and applications from experienced AAUPmembers who wish to serve on this bureau.Sp

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From: Saint Xavier University-AAUPChapter Executive Committee:

Richard Fritz, President; Jayne Hileman,Treasurer; Norman Boyer, At-Large Represen-tative; Michael Clark, At-Large Representa-tive; Olga Villela, At-Large Representative

In the aftermath of the circumstances sur-rounding Professor Peter N. Kirstein’s e-mailcommunication with an Air Force Academycadet, the Executive Committee of the SaintXavier University chapter of the American As-sociation of University Professors makes thefollowing recommendations. These recom-mendations are made in the spirit of sharedgovernance and collaboration. Both the admin-istration and the faculty will benefit by shar-ing the responsibility for due process in caseswhere formal sanctions or punishments maybe contemplated.

1) Faculty should not be censured or pun-ished for their ideas or opinions. The AAUP1940 Statement of Principles on AcademicFreedom and Tenure states: “When they speakor write as citizens, faculty should be free frominstitutional censorship or discipline.” TheSXU-AAUP Executive Committee stresses thatexternal public pressures should not influenceeither due process or substantive actions takenagainst faculty in regard to free speech. AAUPguidelines further state: “In a democratic so-ciety freedom of speech is an indispensableright of the citizen” (AAUP “Redbook” Com-mittee A Statement on Extramural Utterances).As Stanley Kurtz observes in the NationalReview Online (January 8, 2003): “The bestremedy for speech that offends, is morespeech.” Free speech is indispensable to a freesociety. Faculty should not be removed fromthe classroom for extramural utterances andactivities. Suspension, dismissal, or other pun-ishments/sanctions should not be used to re-strain faculty members in their exercise of aca-demic freedom or other rights of Americancitizens. (see AAUP “Redbook,” Recom-mended Institutional Regulations on AcademicFreedom and Tenure, Section 5, DismissalProcedures). “Extramural utterances rarelybear upon the faculty member’s fitness for con-tinuing service.” (AAUP “Redbook,” Commit-tee A Statement on Extramural Utterances).Professors should not be judged on their class-room teaching based on extramural statements,opinions, or activities that are unrelated to theirteaching assignment.

2) Due process must precede any sanctionsor punishments. Faculty members should benotified in advance of a disciplinary hearing.They should be informed in writing of the na-ture of the charges and of any sanctions being

On June 11, 2003, AAUP-IL PresidentPan Papacosta and Executive DirectorLynne Meyer visited the Wheaton campusof National-Louis University, wherePapacosta was guest speaker at the NLUFaculty Association meeting. His topic,“Why I am a Member of AAUP,” drew at-tention to issues of ongoing concern withinthe academy, and reiterated the importanceof AAUP in these matters. Appropriately,Papacosta’s remarks opened the meeting,much of which was devoted to related top-ics. Of note were the reports from the In-stitutional Promotion and Tenure Commit-tee and the Sabbatical Committee, both ofwhich included proposals for changes inpolicy. Also of special interest was the Fac-ulty Platform adopted by the Associationlast December in order to specify particu-lar goals to be attained in 2003. In May ofthis year, the Association produced anddisseminated a “Report Card” describingits perceptions of NLU’s progression to-ward these goals; this status of this pro-

IL AAUP president PanPapacosta (center) withNational-Louis UniversityFaculty Association Chair (andAAUP-IL Council member)Fred Widlak (on the left) andNLU Faculty Association Co-Secretary/AAUP chapterPresident Ken Kantor (right).

By Joseph FelderAt Bradley University, the faculty

of a college evaluates the collegedean. Each faculty member is askedto fill out a form once a year. Thoseforms go to the Provost. Every thirdyear those forms and other informa-tion go to an elected faculty commit-tee that evaluates the dean.

It was not always so. The localAAUP chapter worked long and hardto put this process in place. First therewas an AAUP committee. It devel-oped a procedure and evaluationform. They were submitted to theUniversity Senate, which thencharged its own committee, made upof faculty members, including mem-bers of AAUP, and administrators, todevelop its own procedure and form.Finally, in 1991, the Senate approveda process and a form. They were writ-ten into Bradley’s Faculty Handbook.

That is the system we had in placefor about 10 years. Then a new Sen-ate committee, made up of faculty andone dean, was charged with improv-ing the process and form. The com-mittee included AAUP members andfaculty members who had chaireddean evaluation committees.

The committee first revised theforms that faculty and others areasked to fill out each year. Its revi-sions were accepted by the Senate.(To see the forms, go to http://www.brad ley.edu/academics /fachandbook/documents /pd f /Faculty_Handbook.pdf, pages 193–201 near the end of the Handbook.)

Then the committee turned to theprocess itself and after months of de-liberation decided on a split vote torecommend to the Senate that thethird year faculty committees be abol-ished!

The Bradley AAUP chapter wasstunned and decided to fight the is-sue out on the floor of the Senate.Bradley has a University Senate, nota Faculty Senate. One third of theSenators are administrators and theyusually vote as a block.

The AAUP chapter sent the fol-lowing e-mail to the whole facultyand academic staff in April, 2002:

MEETING ON THEPROPOSED ABOLITION OFFACULTY DEAN EVALUATIONCOMMITTEES

THE ISSUE: Every third year thedean of one college is evaluated bya committee elected by the faculty ofthat college. The faculty committeeis charged with collecting and ana-lyzing information about how their

From: Saint Xavier University-AAUP Chapter Executive Committee: Richard Fritz, President;Jayne Hileman, Treasurer; Norman Boyer, At-Large Representative; Michael Clark, At-Large Rep-resentative; Olga Villela, At-Large Representative

On May 19, 2003, the Saint Xavier University-AAUP Chapter Executive Committee sent theattached letter via e-mail to President [now Emeritus Richard] Yanikoski and other concerned par-ties. Since then, several recipients have requested a “hard copy” version of the document. The Ex-ecutive Committee has agreed to this request, and also decided to distribute the letter to all facultymembers at Saint Xavier and the general public.

The intent of the attached letter is to articulate the Executive Committee’s interpretation of AAUPpolicies and recommendations regarding issues of due process and academic freedom. We hope thiswill encourage faculty members and their elected representatives to openly discuss the faculty’s rolein managing and/or adjudicating complex, difficult cases. Another goal is to urge the establishmentof binding rules and procedures that specify faculty participation in ensuring due process, fair rem-edies, as well as faculty responsibility to the university and the community.

As an advisory body, we urge the Faculty Senate and the administration to work closely with oneanother to uphold academic freedom and due process. We need clear policies that spell out theSenate’s responsibility to conduct inquiries and, when necessary, to recommend sanctions. Thereare important gaps in the faculty governance structure. Right now the faculty’s role, and its respon-sibilities, in ensuring due process are at best vague and ill-defined. In the future, elected facultyofficials should share the burden of investigation and decision- making in those rare cases wheresanctions are contemplated.

We need a full, open, and collaborative discussion of faculty rights and responsibilities. Currentpolicies do not clearly specify faculty leaders’ roles or the procedures they must follow in caseswhere sanctions are being considered. We need to establish clear rules and procedures requiringelected faculty representatives to participate in all cases, even when the unpleasant prospect ofsanctioning a colleague arises. The administration should not be left to bear the onus of decidingsuch cases alone. Collaborative decision making, with faculty input and participation, will ease theburden on administration and pave the way for harmonious relations. Our elected faculty leadersshould not be relegated to the sidelines when sanctions are considered.

We believe there is a serious need to clarify the faculty’s role in ensuring due process, and wehope that the Senate and administration can work together to establish meaningful rules and proce-dures.

gression generated spirited discus-sion. After the introduction of newbusiness, the meeting was ad-journed, and immediately followedby a meeting of the NLU chapterof the AAUP.

IL AAUP Visits National-Louis University

dean is perceived by the faculty. This pro-cess has been in place since 1991. A Sen-ate Ad Hoc Committee is recommendingdoing away with the faculty committees.It is recommending, in effect, that the fac-ulty role be limited to filling out an an-nual questionnaire, the results of whichwill never be seen by any members ofthe faculty.

WHY THE ISSUE ISIMPORTANT: The AAUP Red Book, thedocument our Faculty Handbook isbased on, states that faculty should beaccorded the primary voice in the evalu-ation of academic administrators. Thefaculty committees are the voice of thefaculty. As faculty committees elected bytheir peers, they are in a unique positionto collect information, put it in the propercontext, and speak for the faculty as awhole.

The committees are also central toshared governance. Shared governancemeans empowerment of the faculty aswell as administrators. It means that weshare responsibility and are accountableto one another.

The committees promote improvedcommunication between the faculty,deans, and the provost. This is impor-tant even in the best of times, but it takeson added importance when there is a sig-nificant problem in dean-faculty rela-tions. The committees are essential fordetecting such problems early-on, gaug-ing their magnitude and importance, andworking toward early internal resolu-tions. Surely, that is in the best interestof the colleges and the university.

At the Senate meeting last year, thechair of the committee presented his re-port and recommended abolition of thefaculty committees. A senator moved foracceptance of the report and its recom-mendation of abolition.

In the debate that followed the Pro-vost and some members of the facultyspoke in favor of abolition, but a formerProvost, who had returned to the faculty,spoke out in favor of retention. His argu-ment was that faculty participate in thedean search and selection process, so theyshould have continued involvement inthe dean evaluation process.

After impassioned debate the Senatevoted to thank the committee and rejectits recommendation. That is, the Senatevoted to retain the third year evaluationof deans by faculty committees.

Joseph Felder, secretary of the ILAAUP, was a member of all of the com-mittees mentioned in this report and wasa Senator when the issue was debatedand voted on.

considered. Faculty members should also benotified in advance of the agenda and formatof the hearing. (See AAUP “Redbook,” Rec-ommended Institutional Regulations on Aca-demic Freedom and Tenure, Section 5, Dis-missal Procedures).

To ensure faculty oversight and participa-tion in future cases involving the potentialsanctioning of a faculty member, the SXU-AAUP Chapter Executive Committee recom-mends that the Saint Xavier Faculty Senateestablish a faculty committee, duly elected bythe general faculty, charged with the functionof rendering confidential advice. This commit-tee should have the right to conduct its owninquiry into whether additional proceedingsand sanctions are appropriate. This commit-tee can only function properly if: 1) there isadequate communication and a mutually re-spectful, constructive working relationshipwith the administration, and 2) it has appro-priate initiating capacity and a full voice inthe decision making process regarding sanc-tions. (See AAUP “Redbook,” Statement onGovernment of Colleges and Universities). Theprinciples of shared governance indicate thatthe Faculty Senate must seek formal, bindingarrangements with the administration that re-quire all parties to adhere to relevant AAUPguidelines.

3) Post tenure review must not be used as apunitive process. Article V of the Saint XavierUniversity Faculty Bylaws requires: “The pur-pose of the [post-tenure] review is to enhanceand improve the tenured faculty member’soverall performance. The review process shallbe formative and shall preserve academic free-dom and tenure.” The procedures specified inthe Faculty Policies Section of the FacultyHandbook regarding post-tenure review mustbe respected at all times. It is not the preroga-tive of either the faculty member or the ad-ministration to alter, amend, or revise theseprocedures.

4) As discussed in the opening paragraphsof AAUP’s 1940 Statement of Principles onAcademic Freedom and Tenure, the economicsecurity of the faculty member, along with aca-demic freedom, “are indispensable to the suc-cess of an institution in fulfilling its obliga-tions to its students and to society.” The eco-nomic security of faculty members should neverbe threatened by contract addenda which singleout an individual for his or her speech or ac-tivities. Contract addenda should never be con-templated or implemented as a means of re-stricting academic freedom or requiring intel-lectual orthodoxy or behavioral conformity.

A Success Story at Bradley University

St. Xavier AAUP May 19, 2003 Statement

St. Xavier University AAUP Response to Peter Kirstein Case

————————————————————————— Illinois Academe · Fall 2003 · Page 3 ——————————————————————————

The October 21 Science Times section of The New YorkTimes on “Ethics 101: A Course About the Pitfalls” detailsmany complicated issues scientific researchers encounter:ownership of data, who has the right to be listed as anauthor on a paper, sharing of knowledge, data manipula-tion, requests for laboratory equipment desired but notneeded for a research project. Two things particularlycaught my attention: The first was the claim by scientiststhat even though they are not experts in ethics, they arethe right people to teach courses in the ethics of doingscience since “by and large people who are ethicists arenot going to know much about the practical issues of do-ing science.” Scientists generally said they were largelyself-taught in scientific ethics: anyone who runs a lab dealswith ethical issues several times a day. The second, a casestudy in which a prospective hire for a tenure-track posi-tion was asked by the prospective department head to in-clude some expensive equipment in his start-up laboratoryrequest that he didn’t need for his lab but that the depart-ment wanted.

I take two lessons from the article: First, those of uswithout formal training in ethics nevertheless must ad-dress the ethical issues that arise in our work and that weare the proper people—no, the essential people—to do so.That is part of being professional, a member of a profes-sion. Second, the individuals with whom we work or towhom we are responsible may create an ethical climatethat places our values at risk. We are part of that ethicalclimate as our actions help to create and shape that cli-mate and we are affected by it.

Given the furor over corporate (Enron/Comcast/Tyco),governmental (take your pick), and, yes, academic scan-dals (Baylor’s football cover-up), it is not surprising therehas been a surge of newspaper articles, magazine articles,and books focusing on ethical issues and calling upon theacademy to enhance the ethical education of its students.

Change, which describes itself as “The Magazine ofHigher Learning,” and is editorially controlled by theAmerican Association of Higher Education, gave its en-tire September-October 2002 issue to the topic of “EthicalIssues in Teaching and Learning.” The six articles fea-tured are well worth thoughtful consideration.

The focus upon the role of higher education in promot-ing ethical action is as old as the institutions of highereducation in this country. The 1987 statement by the AAUP(see sidebar) notes: “membership in the academic profes-sion carries special responsibilities.” The statement stressesintellectual honesty. “Professors make every reasonableeffort to foster honest academic conduct and to ensure thattheir evaluations of students reflect each student’s truemerit.”

A paragraph by Peter Markie in Professor’s Duties:Ethical Issues in Teaching summarizes a powerful view ofthe role a teacher: “Professors also represent certain val-ues. We are supposed to inspire out students by communi-cating a vision of intellectual excellence and to help themacquire the qualities needed to make that vision a realityin their lives. Some of the qualities—analytic skills, ver-bal skills—are intellectual abilities, some—self-disciplineand perseverance—are traits of character, and others—acommitment to the truth and objectivity, a belief in thevalue of free inquiry—are moral values. Like all values,these last are best taught by word, example, and expecta-tion. Our role includes acknowledging them in word, dis-playing them in action, and holding students to them intheir course work.”

If recent events have taught us anything, it is that weshould pay less attention to what we proclaim and givefocused attention to what we do. And here I will make a

American Association of University Professors

Statement on Professional EthicsThe statement which follows, a revision of a statement originally adopted in 1966, was approved by the

Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics, adopted by the Association’s Council in June 1987, and en-dorsed by the Seventy-third Annual Meeting.

INTRODUCTIONFrom its inception, the American Association of University Professors has recognized that membership in the

academic profession carries with it special responsibilities. The Association has consistently affirmed these re-sponsibilities in major policy statements, providing guidance to professors in such matters as their utterances ascitizens, the exercise of their responsibilities to students and colleagues, and their conduct when resigning froman institution or when undertaking sponsored research. The Statement on Professional Ethics that follows setsforth those general standards that serve as a reminder of the variety of responsibilities assumed by all members ofthe profession.

In the enforcement of ethical standards, the academic profession differs from those of law and medicine,whose associations act to ensure the integrity of members engaged in private practice. In the academic professionthe individual institution of higher learning provides this assurance and so should normally handle questionsconcerning propriety of conduct within its own framework by reference to a faculty group. The Associationsupports such local action and stands ready, through the general secretary and the Committee on ProfessionalEthics, to counsel with members of the academic community concerning questions of professional ethics and toinquire into complaints when local consideration is impossible or inappropriate. If the alleged offense is deemedsufficiently serious to raise the possibility of adverse action, the procedures should be in accordance with the 1940Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards inFaculty Dismissal Proceedings, or the applicable provisions of the Association’s Recommended InstitutionalRegulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

THE STATEMENT1. Professors, guided by a deep conviction of the worth and dignity of the advancement of knowledge, recog-

nize the special responsibilities placed upon them. Their primary responsibility to their subject is to seek and tostate the truth as they see it. To this end professors devote their energies to developing and improving theirscholarly competence. They accept the obligation to exercise critical self-discipline and judgment in using, ex-tending, and transmitting knowledge. They practice intellectual honesty. Although professors may follow subsid-iary interests, these interests must never seriously hamper or compromise their freedom of inquiry.

2. As teachers, professors encourage the free pursuit of learning in their students. They hold before them thebest scholarly and ethical standards of their discipline. Professors demonstrate respect for students as individualsand adhere to their proper roles as intellectual guides and counselors. Professors make every reasonable effort tofoster honest academic conduct and to ensure that their evaluations of students reflect each student’s true merit.They respect the confidential nature of the relationship between professor and student. They avoid any exploita-tion, harassment, or discriminatory treatment of students. They acknowledge significant academic or scholarlyassistance from them. They protect their academic freedom.

3. As colleagues, professors have obligations that derive from common membership in the community ofscholars. Professors do not discriminate against or harass colleagues. They respect and defend the free inquiry ofassociates. In the exchange of criticism and ideas professors show due respect for the opinions of others. Profes-sors acknowledge academic debt and strive to be objective in their professional judgment of colleagues. Profes-sors accept their share of faculty responsibilities for the governance of their institution.

4. As members of an academic institution, professors seek above all to be effective teachers and scholars.Although professors observe the stated regulations of the institution, provided the regulations do not contraveneacademic freedom, they maintain their right to criticize and seek revision. Professors give due regard to theirparamount responsibilities within their institution in determining the amount and character of work done outsideit. When considering the interruption or termination of their service, professors recognize the effect of theirdecision upon the program of the institution and give due notice of their intentions.

5. As members of their community, professors have the rights and obligations of other citizens. Professorsmeasure the urgency of these obligations in the light of their responsibilities to their subject, to their students, totheir profession, and to their institution. When they speak or act as private persons, they avoid creating theimpression of speaking or acting for their college or university. As citizens engaged in a profession that dependsupon freedom for its health and integrity, professors have a particular obligation to promote conditions of freeinquiry and to further public understanding of academic freedom.

claim that some may dispute: Because we as members ofthe academy have declared ourselves to be educators, wehave a particular responsibility to deal with the ethical is-sues that are present in every stage and aspect of the edu-cational process where we have a role. We are not justdealing with intellectual capacities, we are dealing, as Pro-fessor Markie states, with traits of character and moralvalues.

We could spend a long time just listing the areas inwhich we as teachers do things every day that have pro-found ethical implications. But typically we do not thinkof the ethical implications unless there are unique circum-stances: unusual significance, conflicting tensions, con-cerns of one sort or another. This is one reason that Aristotlestressed the importance of habit because we tend to repeatthe same patterns and be comfortable in them.

Are we sensitive to the ethical dimensions of the grad-ing standards we employ and the range of grades assigned?Are our standards publicly announced? Do we treat simi-lar cases in a similar manner? Are our letters of recom-mendations honest, fair/helpful to the prospective employer/graduate school as well as the candidate? Is evaluation ofmerit of our colleagues or the article under review fair,

Being the Ethical Professorfree of personal bias? Do we participate in the governanceof our institutions addressing such questions as intellec-tual property rights?

As educators and members of the professoriate, are we:· Utilizing our capacity to choose values and ac-

tion?· Keeping current given in our area of primary in-

terest given the growth in knowledge?· Carrying our share of the responsibilities of main-

taining the discipline and the unit in which we work?· Exercising responsible, critical judgement of our

activities? Professionals are expected to be “self-policing.”· Aware of and meeting professional and ethical

standards and appropriately enforcing that expectation forothers?

· Being honest with and fair to all parties involved?As Paul Simon wrote in his Oct. 31, 2003 Point of

View column in the Chronicle of Higher Education: “Ifyou are in a position of responsibility in education [and Iargue we all] be willing to do ‘the little extra’ that ulti-mately can be meaningful. It may require risking a little,and most of us are risk-aversive. But without that smallrisk, you won’t change things.”

KEN ANDERSEN

Write toIllinois

AcademeWrite us a letter, express your opinion,or submit an article or a book review.

Email editor John K. Wilson atjkwilso2@ilstu.edu.

By John K. WilsonAre elite colleges responsible for the

“Death of the Liberal Arts?” That’s the titleof a new report from the conservative, anti-feminist Independent Women’s Forum(www.iwf.org). IWF’s Oct 27, 2003 pressrelease declares: “Parents who send theirchildren to the top 10 liberal arts collegesin the country will be surprised to learnthat at most of these schools political cor-rectness has killed liberal arts.” The report,written by IWF Senior Fellow Melana ZylaVickers, proclaims that it is now “impos-sible” to get an education in the “funda-mentals” at the top-ranked liberal arts col-leges.

The IWF report begins with four as-sertions, which apparently reflect the mostscandalous information learned by thegroup:

“•A freshman at Bowdoin cannot takea course in Shakespeare.”

“•A freshman at Amherst isn’t offereda single overview of European or Ameri-can history.”

“•A freshman at Williams will find thatwhat few courses review U.S. or Europeanhistory focus on ‘race, ethnicity and gen-der,’ rather than the given period’s maindevelopments.”

“•A freshman at Wellesley will find thatthe few broad English courses offered tofreshmen focus on gender and not thebooks’ themes and styles.”

None of these four claims are true, anda close inspection of the ten departmentsdenounced as failing in the IWF reportshows that all of them actually offer sur-vey courses to freshmen.

The IWF report is full of dubious factsand questionable conclusions, such as, “Atleast one college requires that students fo-cus as much coursework on the writings ofthe last 100 years as they do on all pastcenturies combined.” The IWF doesn’tidentify this college, but the assertion it-self is untenable. How could any college“require” students to make equal balanceof twentieth century history and literaturewith previous centuries, when studentsdetermine most of the courses they chooseto take?

IWF’s idealized view of a survey courseseems alien to any reality in higher educa-tion, past or present. According to the IWFreport, “a core English course would typi-cally review the traditional English andAmerican literary canon.” The idea of asingle class covering the entirety of En-glish and American literature is stagger-ing to demand. The IWF report adds, “Acore history course might trace the evolu-tion of Western Civilization from theGreeks and Romans to the modern UnitedStates.” It would be hard to find any col-lege in the country which offers a singlehistory course spanning nearly all of hu-man history from ancient Greece to Eu-rope and the United States today. It wouldbe difficult to find a historian qualified toteach every historical period in such a vastarea, or one who would want to do it, sinceit means covering almost 200 years of his-tory every week in a standard semester.While incredibly broad survey classes canbe done well by uniquely talented profes-sors (although few could claim to offer acomprehensive review of everything), todemand that every college teach this wayis irrational.English Under Fire

The IWF gives failing grades in En-glish to Bowdoin, Wellesley, Williams, andSwarthmore. But many of its claims don’thold up under examination. According tothe IWF report, “A freshman at Bowdoincannot take a course in Shakespeare.” Thisis false. Far from being anti-Shakespeare,Bowdoin College’s small English Depart-ment offers a Shakespeare class every se-mester, and often teaches Shakespeare asa freshman seminar. For example, in

Spring 2003, Bowdoin offered English 024,“Shakespeare at Sonnets,” which was a“systematic close reading of Shakespeare’s154 sonnets.” Also in Spring 2003 (andopen to freshmen who had taken one En-glish class) was English 211,“Shakespeare’s Tragedies and RomanPlays.” And English majors are required totake three out of their ten courses in Brit-ish and Irish literature before 1800.

Wellesley’s English Department gets afailing grade from IWF because “only fourcourses open to freshmen could be consid-ered overviews within the field.” Only four?How many courses does a first-year studentneed to have in order to satisfy the IWF?According to the IWF report, “A freshmanat Wellesley will find that the few broadEnglish courses offered to freshmen focuson gender and not the books’ themes andstyles.” In fact, the broad survey class,“Novels, Plays, Poems” is taught by threedifferent professors, with no indication thatgender is the exclusive focus. (Of course,some novels plainly include gender amongtheir themes, so it’s not clear if the IWFwants to ban all discussion of gender in,say, Jane Austen’s novels.)

The English Department at WilliamsCollege is condemned as a failure becauseof its seminars for freshmen, of which only“two could be considered overviews”:“Shakespeare’s Warriors and Politicians”and “The Nature of Narrative” (which isdismissed because “it studies only narra-tive techniques”). The IWF report goes onto denounce the English Department merelyfor offering courses with the titles “GreenWorld” and “Literature and SocialChange.” The report, naturally, doesn’tmention the more advanced survey classes(open to freshmen who have taken one En-glish course) on “Shakespeare’s MajorPlays,” “American Literature: Origins to1865,” “British Literature: Middle AgesThrough the Renaissance,” and“Shakespearean Comedy.”

Swarthmore College is failed by theIWF because “Swarthmore requires asmuch study of those authors who have writ-ten in the last 173 years as of the previous1,730 years combined.” According to theIWF report, “Swarthmore gives contempo-rary academic fashion a further boost overthe traditional literary canon by requiringEnglish majors to take three courses onpost-1830 writing and three on pre-1830.”(In this odd reasoning, nineteenth centuryauthors like Melville and Twain are deemedby the IWF to be “contemporary academicfashion” rather than part of the literarycanon.) Of course, Swarthmore Englishmajors are free to take most of their courseson early English literature. But the IWFreport advocates a kind of literary relativ-ism, seemingly demanding some type ofquota to teach an equal number of ninthcentury English authors compared to allnineteenth century English and Americanauthors.

According to the IWF report onSwarthmore, “Not one of the courses listedfor freshmen in the 2003 course guide couldbe considered an overview of a literary pe-riod.” This isn’t true. In addition to the in-troductory seminars, among the classes“open to freshmen and sophomores whohave successfully completed an introduc-tory course” in 2003-04 are “Survey I:Beowulf to Milton,” “Survey II: Neo-Clas-sical to Post-Colonial” (“A historical andcritical survey of poetry, prose, and dramafrom Pope to Rushdie”), “Chaucer,”“Shakespeare,” “Milton,” “American Po-etry,” and many more.Don’t Know Much AboutHistory: The IWF’s Distortions

In addition to criticizing English depart-ments, the IWF report attacks the historydepartments at Williams, Wellesley,Bowdoin, Amherst, Swarthmore, andCarleton, claiming that none of them offer

survey classes on Western culture or Ameri-can history to freshmen students (surveyclasses on other cultures, which are com-mon at these colleges, are considered un-important by the IWF).

Williams College gets a failing mark forits history department, even though 2003-04 classes offered at Williams include“Greek History,” “Roman History,” “Europefrom Reformation to Revolution: 1500-1815,” “Europe’s Long Nineteenth Cen-tury,” “Europe in the Twentieth Century,”“British Colonial America and the UnitedStates to 1877,” “America from San Gabrielto Gettysburg, 1492-1865,” and “TheUnited States from Appomattox to AOL,1865-Present.”

The IWF report admits that three classesappear to offer “quite solid overviews” butthen dismisses the early American historyclass because “readings emphasize threethemes considered to be of major impor-tance in order to better understand the pe-riod surveyed: gender, slavery, and IndianAmerica.” Most people might think thatgender, slavery, and Indian encounterscould be considered important in Ameri-can history (there was that Civil War thing,remember), but for the IWF the mere men-tion of a point of emphasis deemed too PCis enough to earn a failing grade, withouteven a glance at what the readings are orwhat is taught in the course. A Europeanhistory survey class with a description thatmentions studying history “with an eye to-ward exploring the origins of today’s com-plex attitudes toward race, ethnicity, and

gender” is condemned by the IWF for a“narrow outlook” and leads to the unsup-ported conclusion that “the department can-not be said to offer a comprehensive educa-tion in history.”

According to the IWF report, “A fresh-man at Williams will find thatwhat few courses review U.S.or European history focus on‘race, ethnicity and gender,’rather than the given period’smain developments.” That’snot true. Consider this descrip-tion of “Europe from Reforma-tion to Revolution: 1500-1815”: “This course intro-duces students to the majorhistorical developments inWestern Europe during theearly modern period-such pan-European phenomena as theReformation, the Witch Craze,the Military Revolution, therise of absolutist states, theseventeenth-century crisis ingovernment and society, theEnlightenment, the FrenchRevolution and Napoleon, andthe establishment of Europeaninfluence around the world.”Or this description of “The United Statesfrom Appomattox to AOL, 1865-Present”:“This course will survey the history of theUnited States from its struggles over Re-construction and westward expansionthrough the challenges of industrializationand immigration to the nation’s increas-

By John K. WilsonThe conservative Young America’s

Foundation (YAF) this fall issued its ninthannual report on college course titles,“Comedy & Tragedy, 2003-04: CollegeCourse Descriptions and What They TellUs About Higher Education Today.” Writ-ten by Rick Parsons and Roger Custer,“Comedy & Tragedy” is full of misrepre-sentations used to denounce higher edu-cation.

The Young America’s Foundation(www.yaf.org) examined 50,000 coursecatalog entries at elite universities and se-lected 300 course titles it didn’t like. Fromthis, YAF concludes: “Academic stan-dards continue to deteriorate.” Of course,YAF can’t tell anything about how acourse is taught (or the standards used)from its title and a one-paragraph descrip-tion. Even if course titles were a reliable measure of content,YAF’s methodology would be worthless: You can’t list lessthan 1% of the courses sampled and claim that they repre-sent anything. This is an ideologically-motivated hatchet jobagainst higher education.

The tiny group of 300 “bizarre and biased” courses de-cried by YAF sound like innovative, specialized courses about“Diversity in the Workplace” (Cornell), “Feminism and Phi-losophy” (Dartmouth), “Muslims in Multicultural America”(Harvard), “Race and Ethnicity” (Princeton), “Race, Racismand American Law” (Penn), “Homelessness and the UrbanCrisis” (Penn), “Multiculturalism and Education” (Bucknell),“Gender Inequality” (Duke), “Spike Lee” (University of Chi-cago), and “Women in the Bible” (DePaul). The classes de-nounced by YAF include “Environmental Stewardship”(Brown University), which examines ways to improve cam-pus policies and present these ideas to the administration,and “Christians in Crisis” (Duke), which promises “Chris-tian thought and debate on, and theological analysis of, suchcontemporary issues as abortion, creationism, homosexual-ity, liberation, poverty, racism, and sexism.” YAF dismissesalmost anything mentioning prisons, sex, diversity, inequal-ity, race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, envi-ronment, justice, Elvis, witchcraft, Muslims, hip-hop, tele-vision, and hate crimes.

Some classes denounced by YAF are apparently based ona misinterpretation of the course titles. “Taking Marx Seri-ously” (Amherst College) is in fact critical of Marxism. Thecourse description asks, “Should Marx be given yet anotherchance?...Has Marx’s credibility survived the global debacleof those regimes and movements which drew inspiration from

his woscript“criti c

“Hgan) iconverabout alizedways how tstereotthis cl“Dirt ylators sociatfundin

Achave ayears, no cho

courses.” That’s nonsense: all oYAF are specialized, elective clato take any of these classes.

The YAF claims, without epletely absent from the curriculconservative intellectual ideas the free market is the most widelege campuses, often without angest field in higher education 20% of student majors. Busineseconomics classes where the freenot debated. (Admittedly, it is othe free market rather than the variation preferred by the far rithe free market.)

YAF presents no evidence thcluded. After two minutes’ seavarious conservative classes. TSchool of Government is offerintism” with readings from RusseBarry Goldwater. Johns Hopkintive Political Thought.” Georgetservative Political Thought.” Anservative ideas in various other

The YAF study makes otherYAF report, the University of Chas twice as many multiculturathis year as American literaturUniversity of Colorado EnglishEnglish) listings for Fall 2003,

THE FALSE ATTACKS ON THE LIBERA

The Comedy and Tragedy of Attacks on

ingly global role in the post-World War IIperiod. We will pay special attention to howAmericans defined both themselves as citi-zens and the nation at-large, particularlyas they faced the profound economic andpolitical crises that mark this period.” Sev-

eral other course descriptions ofsurvey classes could be addedto show how wrong the IWF is.

At Bowdoin College, thehistory department is failed bythe IWF grader: “Of the historycourses theoretically open tofreshmen this fall, two might beconsidered mainstream over-views, albeit with short hori-zons: ‘The Making of ModernEurope 1848-1918’ and ‘TheUnited States in the NineteenthCentury.’” Bowdoin alsoteaches “Medieval Europe,” butonce again it’s not clear whythese survey courses are deemedinsufficient.

Amherst College’s HistoryDepartment fails according tothe IWF report because “a fresh-man at Amherst isn’t offered asingle overview of European orAmerican history.” In fact,

Amherst does offer a class in Fall 2003 on“19th Century America.” In Spring 2004,freshmen can take a European history sur-vey, “From Roman Mediterranean to OldEurope,” as well as a U.S. survey class,“History from Reconstruction to thePresent.”

Swarthmore’s history department isgiven a failing grade because “there is onlyone basic course offered to freshmen—‘TheU.S. to 1877.’” (Actually Swarthmore alsooffered a class on “Medieval Europe,” butapparently one or two survey classes are notenough to satisfy the IWF, although the cri-teria for “failing” are never defined andseem completely idiosyncratic.)

The IWF report fails Carleton Collegebecause “Carleton’s history department of-fers freshmen only one course that couldbe considered an overview. It’s called ‘His-tory of Modern Europe 1789-1900.’” Be-cause Carleton prefers to offer small semi-nars for freshman called “Introduction toHistorical Inquiry,” it is denounced by IWF,even though survey classes are available tofirst-year students. In Fall 2003, Carletonoffered “Foundations of Modern Europe,”which is “a narrative and survey of the earlymodern period (fifteenth-eighteenth centu-ries). General areas to be covered: economyand society of pre-industrial Europe; theReformation Age; the rise of the secularstate; the scientific revolution; the cultureof the Renaissance and the Baroque.”

At Wellesley’s history department, theIWF reports, “Only one course open tofreshmen could be considered an overviewwithin the field. It is ‘History of the UnitedStates, 1607 to 1877.’ It does not, however,profess to give a comprehensive review ofthe period but stresses ‘special attention torecurrent themes in the pattern of America’spast: immigration, racial and cultural con-flict, urbanization, reform.’” But a survey

ork?” According to the de-tion, the course requires acal reading of Marx’s texts.”How to Be Gay” (U of Michi-s not some training class forrting straights, but instead ishow gay culture is institution-. It examines “the plurality ofin which people determine

to be gay” in contrast to thetypes about homosexuals. Yetlass is number one on YAF’sy Dozen” and Michigan legis-and the American Family As-tion have sought to cut offng for the course.ccording to YAF, “if studentsa desire to graduate in fourthey are more likely to have

oice, but to take these kind off these classes condemned by

asses. No student is ever forced

evidence, that “almost com-lum are courses that examineor the free market.” In fact,ely indoctrinated idea on col-ny dissent permitted. The big-is business, with more than

ss and economics majors takee market is typically presumed,ften a neo-Keynesian view ofAustrian or Chicago School

ight, but still is in support of

hat conservative views are ex-arching on the web, I found

This fall, Harvard’s Kennedyng “Understanding Conserva-ll Kirk, William Buckley, andns has “American Conserva-own has “Contemporary Con-nd every college includes con-r classes.r distortions. According to theColorado English Departmental and gender studies coursesre courses. According to theh Department (Colorado.edu/Colorado has twice as many

AL ARTS COLLEGE

traditional literature classes (51 without including contempo-rary literature and literary analysis) as multicultural literatureclasses (26).

Although YAF claims that they don’t advocate censorship,their report speaks with pride about how previous reports “maybe responsible for the elimination of some frivolous courses.”The headline of YAF’s press release is, “How YOU Fund a Radi-cal Agenda on America’s Campuses” and their clear implica-tion is that funding for colleges should be cut until colleges getrid of all these classes on race, class, gender, sexuality, and in-equality: “Universities across the nation continue to raise tu-ition rates and complain they are not receiving enough fundingfrom taxpayers,” YAF says. “But, how are these schools spend-ing the money in their ‘tight’ budgets? They continually pro-mote leftist ideology.”

The only comedy here is the laughable idea that a right-wing foundation can pretend to survey the state of higher edu-cation based on a quick scan of a few course descriptions. Themuch greater tragedy is YAF’s effort to ban all courses mention-ing race, gender, class, sexuality, and popular culture. This in-creases pressure on universities to restrict academic freedom andthreatens the quality and innovation of higher education.

Courses at Illinois universities considered objectionable bythe Young America’s Foundation’s 2003 Report:

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO:Anthropology 329: Introduction to Theories of Sex and GenderArt History 274/374: Feminism and the Visual ArtsCinema and Media Studies 261: Spike LeeEnglish 103: Problems in Gender StudiesGender Studies 177: Social History of US Sexual SubculturesPolitical Science 260/350: Race and PoliticsDEPAUL UNIVERSITY:American Studies 270: Gay and Lesbian America From the Forties

to the NinetiesLiberal Studies in Education 210: Multiculturalism and EducationReligious Studies 270: Women in the BibleReligious Studies 370: Feminist TheologiesSociology 248: White RacismSociology 271: Population ProblemsSociology 282: Rock JournalismWomen’s Studies 312: Contemporary Feminist Sex DebatesWomen’s Studies 316: Representations of the BodyLOYOLA UNIVERSITY-CHICAGO:Communication 227: Social Justice and CommunicationCommunication 329: Environmental AdvocacyHistory 295: Gender, Race and Class in U.S. HistorySocial Work 370: Cultural DiversityTheology 330: Liberation TheologyTheology 344: Theology and EcologyYAF offers no explanation for the specific inclusion of these

courses, except for DePaul University’s history class on Gayand Lesbian America (because the “subject and intent are con-trary to Catholic beliefs”) and its class on “White Racism”(because it allegedly has a “get whitey” philosophy based onthe title).

course that fails to give special attention to“immigration, racial and cultural conflict,urbanization, reform” would itself be guiltyof failing to offer a “comprehensive review.”

Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka, chair of theHistory Department at Wellesley College,argues that the report on his department“seems to contain a number of mistakenperceptions, if not misrepresentations, anddoes not seem to have entailed a seriousexamination of our curriculum.”

Matsusaka points out that Wellesley of-fers History 200, “Roots of the Western Tra-dition. According to Matsusaka, this is aclass “starting with the origins of civiliza-tion in Mesopotamia through the Islamicinvasions of the 7th century CE, and isaimed at first year students as well as oth-ers seeking an introduction to the originsof Western civilization.”

One reason why the broad survey classesfavored by conservatives have faded is dueto lack of student interest. Wellesley usedto offer a survey class called “Western Civi-lization” but Matsusaka reports that it“failed to attract significant numbers of stu-dents because incoming first-year studentsfelt it was something they had already cov-ered in high school.” Matsusaka adds, “TheUS history course, for example, stresses athematic approach because most of our stu-dents do have strong background prepara-tion; a general survey would not attractmany students for this reason.”

Matsusaka’s critique suggests a deeperproblem with the IWF report, beyond itsnumerous errors and distortions. The IWF’sdevotion to survey courses is never ex-plained or defended. If elite liberal arts col-leges offered more broad survey courses,most students would simply avoid them (orplace out of them) after taking high school(and A.P.) courses that cover similar mate-rial. (By contrast, the IWF study gives apassing grade to all political science depart-ments for having survey classes, since thesame material is rarely taught in highschool.) The ignorance of American stu-dents about history cited in studies by con-servative think tanks can be blamed moreon the survey class model than on its al-leged absence at elite colleges. Surveyclasses on American and world history aretaken by virtually every high school gradu-ate, while relatively few undergrads takemore specialized history courses in college.If survey classes effectively taught highschool students about literature and history,then we wouldn’t ever need to repeat thesame survey classes in college. Therefore,it should be logical for critics to denouncesurvey courses for failing to educate our stu-dents, and to urge more of the intellectu-ally exciting courses offered by professorswhich provide a unique perspective on his-tory and literature.

Ideology, not pedagogy, is behind theseattacks from the right. Absolutely no evi-dence exists that survey classes are inher-ently superior at educating students, evenwhen it comes to learning basic facts (aswith everything else, it all depends on howthey are taught). Small seminars, consid-ered a valuable way to educate freshmen,are denounced by the IWF as being worsethan larger survey classes. Because surveyclasses are “traditional,” they are deemedby the far right to be safer in protecting ourchildren from alien ideas like race, gender,and class, ideas that the conservatives re-gard as too dangerous to permit. That’s whythe IWF report makes a special effort to de-nounce every single course that mentionsissues of race, gender, or the environment,and disqualifies survey courses as “too nar-row” if a word about race appears in acourse description. The IWF report does notaccurately examine whether students havethe opportunity to take survey classes (theydo, without exception). Instead, the IWFreport denounces colleges for daring to dis-cuss race and similar issues with impres-sionable students.The Myth of Survey Classes

Beyond the small lies told in the IWFreport, there is a bigger lie: the assertion

that broad survey courses are always betterfor students than more “specialized”courses. But why is this? There is not theslightest piece of evidence ever offered tosupport this position. In fact, no one hasscientifically studied the issue, nor is it trulypossible to study it in a reliable way. Thereis no neutral mechanism for testing whetherone course is better than another, particu-larly when they focus on different topics.

Is it better to learn a little about a lot ofthings, or to learn a lot about a few things?Is it better to cover the traditional topics ofa broad span in history, or to look at a broadtimeline from a particular perspective tounderstand it better? Who can answer sucha question?

As Allan Bloom observed in The Clos-ing of the American Mind, “[A] very small,detailed problem can be the best way, if itis framed so as to open out on the whole.”But Bloom also noted about general educa-tion classes, “Everything, of course, de-pends upon who plans them and whoteaches them.”

And that’s the fundamental problemwith the IWF report. It fails to recognizethat a survey class can be taught badly, anda specialized class can actually teach moreif done correctly. A student could learn moreabout American history from a class onAfrican-American history than from a tra-ditional survey course. Everything dependson the teacher. And the IWF has no ideawhat is actually taught in these courses,beyond the title given and a short descrip-tion.

For that reason, the IWF report warn-ing students and their parents to be wary ofcolleges supposedly without survey coursesis just silly. The stout defense of traditionalsurvey classes has more to do with conser-vative politics than pedagogy.

The IWF report is not the only exampleof the right’s attack on the college curricu-lum. On July 31, 2003, Senator Judd Gregg(R-N.H.) introduced the Higher Educationfor Freedom Act (S.1515), which asks theSenate to “establish and strengthenpostsecondary programs and courses in thesubjects of traditional American history,free institutions, and Western civilization,available to students preparing to teachthese subjects, and to other students.” Greggproclaimed, “Today, more than ever, it isimportant to preserve and defend our com-mon heritage of freedom and civilization,and to ensure that future generations ofAmericans understand the importance oftraditional American history and the prin-ciples of free government on which thisNation was founded.” Gregg added,“[C]ollege students’ lack of historical lit-eracy is quite startling, and too few oftoday’s colleges and universities are focusedon the task of imparting this crucial knowl-edge to the next generation.” To Gregg andother conservatives, history is about “lit-eracy” and “imparting” the positive “facts”of American history on students for mul-tiple-choice exams and polls.

This legislative intrusion into the cur-riculum is a threat to academic freedom.Gregg’s bill essentially demands the teach-ing of a Republican view of “traditionalAmerican history” and “Western civiliza-tion” as “free institutions,” using federalfunding as the tool for this indoctrination.

The Senate bill for teaching traditionalhistory is not the only effort at ideologicalcontrol of higher education. The IWF Re-port was released just before the Oct. 29,2003 Senate committee hearings on “intel-lectual diversity” at American colleges anduniversities, where four speakers alignedwith conservative groups announced theiruniform agreement that something needsto be done to control left-wingers on col-lege campuses.

While the IWF report offers “dubiousachievement awards” to these elite collegesfor murdering the liberal arts, the awardought to be given instead to the IWF forthe dubious achievement of a report full oferrors and misrepresentations that unfairlycriticizes liberal arts colleges.

n Academia

————————————————————————— Illinois Academe · Fall 2003 · Page 6 ——————————————————————————

By Leo Welch, Past presi-dent, IL-AAUP

Gov. Rod Blagojevich hascompleted action on legislationsent to him from the spring ses-sion. The Illinois Constitution re-quires the Governor to take actionon legislation within 60 days af-ter the legislation is officially sentto him. The last possible date thatthe Governor could act on legis-lation from the recent spring ses-sion was August 26, 2003.

Legislation that was signed(approved) by the Governor on orbefore August 26 has become Illi-nois law and is now identified bya Public Act number. Legislationthat was vetoed or amendatorilyvetoed will be returned to the Illi-nois General Assembly and sched-uled for further consideration dur-ing the fall veto session. The Gen-eral Assembly can choose to ac-cept the Governor’s Vetoes, over-ride them, or not act at all. If aveto is not accepted or overriddenby both houses of the General As-sembly, then the entire bill is lost.The 2003 fall veto session wasscheduled for October 23, Novem-ber 4-6, and 18-20.

Bills Signed intoLaw by theGovernorSenate Bill 1586 -Verbatim Minutes ofClosed Sessions

Requires that all public bod-ies (including community collegeboards) make a verbatim audio orvideo recording of closed meet-ings. Establishes procedures forthe availability to the court ofclosed meeting minutes and re-cordings. Effective January 1,2004.

Public Act 93-0523.HB 2671 - FY 04 HigherEducation Budget

Sets FY 2004 appropriationsto the Illinois Board of HigherEducation, the Illinois Depart-ment of Public Health (for medi-cal education scholarships), theIllinois Mathematics and ScienceAcademy, the Illinois Student As-sistance Commission, the ServiceSystem. The total budget forhigher education was approved ata level of about $25 million abovethe Governor’s funding recom-mendations. The community col-lege budget was approved abovethe Governor’s recommendedlevel, with the addition of $7.4million in new funding for “holdharmless” dollars. These addi-tional dollars will be used toimplement a new allocation ofstate funds to community collegesthrough a new funding formula.

Public Act 93-0090. Item re-duction veto: community colleges’“hold harmless” funding was re-duced by 50 percent (from $7.4million to $3.7 million).Senate Bill 1239 - FY 04Capital Appropriations

Contains funding for statecapital appropriations, including$50 million for community col-leges.

Public Act 93-0587. Item re-duction veto - the Governor re-duced or vetoed many constructionprojects, although the $50 million

earmarked for community collegessurvived.Senate Bill 1980 - LincolnLand Community CollegeElection By Subdistricts

Requires the election of Lin-coln Land Community Collegetrustees by subdistrict rather thatat-large, beginning with the 2005consolidated election. The term ofeach trustee elected before the ef-fective date of the amendatory Actwould end on the date that thetrustees elected in 2005 are offi-cially determined. The bill alsoprovides for 4-years and 2-yearterms (rather than 6).

Public Act 93-0582.House Bill 1457 -Redefinition ofEducational Employee

Amends the Illinois Educa-tional Labor Relations Act to pro-vide that an academic employeeof a community college who pro-vides less than 3 (currently 6)credit hours of instruction per aca-demic semester is not an “educa-tional employee” within the mean-ing of the Act. Amends the StateMandates Act to require imple-mentation without reimburse-ment.

Public Act 93-0314.House Bill 3396 - UnionElections

Amends the Illinois Educa-tional Labor Relations Act to pro-vide that an educational employershall (rather than may) voluntar-ily recognize a labor organizationfor collective bargaining purposesif that organization appears to rep-resent a majority of employees inthe unit.

Public Act 93-0444.House Bill 1119 - Increasein IIA Grants

Change the name of the Illi-nois Incentive for Access GrantProgram to the Silas Purnell Illi-nois Incentive for Access GrantProgram, and in FY 05 increasesthe maximum annual contributionof $0.

Public Act 93-0455.House Bill 1118 - Limitson University TuitionIncreases

Provides that, for students firstenrolling after the 2003-2004 aca-demic year, for 4 continuous aca-demic years following initial en-rollment (or for undergraduateprograms that require more than4 years to complete, for the nor-mal time to complete the pro-gram), the tuition charged an un-dergraduate student who is an Il-linois resident shall not exceed theamount that the student wascharged at the time he or she firstenrolled in the university. Com-munity Colleges are not includedin this legislation.

Public Act 93-0028.House Bill 60 - In-StateTuition forUndocumentedImmigrants

Requires community collegeor university governing boards todeem an individual to be an Illi-nois resident if the individual: (1)resided with his or her parent orquardian while attending a highschool in Illinois; (2) graduatedfrom a high school or received a

GED in Illinois; (3) attendedschool in Illinois for at least 3years as of the date the individualgraduated from high school or re-ceived a GED; (4) registers as anentering student not earlier thanthe fall of 2003 semester; and (5)provides an affidavit stating thathe or she will file an applicationto become a permanent resident ofthe United States at the earliestopportunity the individual is eli-gible to do so. Provides that anyrevenue lost be a university inimplementing the amendatoryprovisions shall be absorbed by theuniversity’s income fund.

Public Act 93-0007.House Bill 1387 - CityColleges of ChicagoTreasurer’s Bond

Makes the penalty of thetreasurer’s bond of the Chicagocommunity college district thesame as the penalty of the treasur-ers’ bonds of all other communitycollege districts and school dis-tricts in Illinois.

Public Act 93-0163.House Bill 1543 - HigherEducation Line ItemAppropriations

Requires universities to iden-tify state appropriations for uni-versities by line items and not bylump sum. Community collegesare not included in this legislation.

Public Act 93-0229.House Bill 2805 -University FacultyMember on IBHE

Provides that one of the 10members of the Illinois Board ofHigher Education appointed bythe Governor must be a facultymember at a public university.

Public Act 93-0429.House Bill 761 - Sale ofHigher EducationDirectory Information

Prohibits a community college,school district, or university fromproviding a student’s name, ad-dress, telephone number, socialsecurity number, e-mail address,or other personal identifying in-formation to a business organiza-tion or financial institution thatissues credit or debit cards, unlessthe student is 21 years of age orolder. Effective July 1, 2003.

Public Act 93-0549.Senate Bill 19 - ChicagoSchool Reform

Implements and agreement torepeal parts of the Chicago SchoolReform legislation enacted in1995. The City Colleges of Chi-cago is included this legislation.

Public Act 93-0003.House Bill 2660 - PensionBonding

Authorizes the issuance of anadditional $10 billion in generalobligation bonds. Provides for theproceeds of those bonds to be usedto reduce the unfunded liabilitiesof the five state-funded retirementsystems (including the State Uni-versities Retirement System). Thisis Gov. Blagojevich’s initiative toprovide partial relief from fund-ing reductions in fiscal year 2004by financing (or “refinancing”)the unfunded accrued liability ofthe public pension systems.

Public Act 93-0002.

BILLS VETOEDBY THEGOVERNORHouse Bill 221 - SurplusState Property

Amends the State PropertyControl Act to redefine the term“responsible officer” to excludecommunity college presidents.Th8is bill also requires that un-used state property leased by theIllinois department of CentralManagement Services may not beleased at les than 60% of the fairmarket rental value rate unlessspecified conditions are met; pro-vides procedures for determiningthe fair market rental value; andprohibits the sale of surplus realproperty if any state agency re-quests its transfer. The bill wasintroduced in response to the dis-position of the former Zeller Men-tal Health Center in Peoria to Illi-nois Central College.

Total Veto.House Bill 3412 -Governmental Ethics Act

Creates the State Officials andEmployees Ethics Act. Prohibitsstate officers and employees of theexecutive and legislative branch ofstate government and the AuditorGeneral and his or her employeesfrom engaging in political activi-ties during state time. Requires theimplementation and maintenanceof personnel policies for those of-ficers and employees. Prohibitscertain practices by those officers, candidates for those offices, andthose employees with respect tocampaign contributions, fund rais-ing, public service announce-ments, and post-state employment.Creates protections for whistle-blowers. Preempts home rule andrequires units of local governmentand school districts to adopt simi-lar provisions. States that a regis-tered lobbyist may not serve on aboard, commission, authority, ortask force authorized or created bystate law or by executive order ofthe Governor.

Amendatory Veto.

BILLS THATHAVE NOT YETPASSED BOTHHOUSESSenate Bill 1021 -Campus Book Stores

Adds community colleges tothe University Retail Sales Act bydefining “state institution ofhigher learning” to mean “a uni-versity, college, community col-lege, or junior college in this statethat is publicly supported by taxeslevied and collected within theState on income, sales, or prop-erty.” Does not permit the sale ofgeneral merchandise that was noton the bookstore shelves prior to1980. Permits the operation of thebookstore without restrictions if itis leased out to a private vendor.House Bill 2279 -Community CollegeDormitories

Amends the Public Commu-nity College Act to allow a com-munity college board to provide orcontract for residential housing for

students and employees.

SB 815 / HB 2806 -Mandated Ratio of Part-time / Full Time Faculty

Requires the governing boardof each public university and com-munity college to achieve a ratiounder which at least 75% of allfull-time equivalent teaching po-sitions are held by part-time teach-ers. The bill also provides for aphase-in, starting the FY 2004,that requires a university to use33% of its increase in state fund-ing each year and a communitycollege district to use 33% of itsincrease in its annual distributionformula grants to achieve the ra-tio.House Bill 2252 -Community CollegePurchasing Consortium

Amends the Public Commu-nity College Act to add contractsfor goods of services procuredthrough an intrastate or interstategovernmental agency consortiumas an exception to the requirementthat contracts for the purchase ofsupplies, materials, or work in-volving and expenditure in excessof $10,000 must be awarded to thelowest responsible bidder.House Bill 2593 - NewCommunity College forEast St. Louis

Requires the Illinois Commu-nity College Board to establish anew community college district,comprised of the territory of theformer Metropolitan CommunityCollege in East St. Louis, to beknown as Gateway CommunityCollege. Provides that ICCB maynot abolish, restrict, or take overthe operation of Gateway Commu-nity College without first notify-ing the General Assembly and re-ceiving permission from the Gen-eral Assembly for the action.House Bill 19 - HigherEducation ScholarshipAct

Allows scholarships for enter-ing freshman, sophomores, jun-iors, and seniors who have andmaintain at least a “B” average atpublic and private community col-leges, colleges, and universities inIllinois.House Bill 254 - IncomeTax Credit for Tuition

Creates and income tax creditof up to $500 for taxpayer (withan adjusted gross income of lessthan $100,000) for tuition and feespaid at any public or private col-lege, university, or communitycollege located in Illinois.Senate Bill 205 - IllinoisOpportunity Scholarship

Creates the Illinois Opportu-nity Scholarship Act to be admin-istered by the Illinois Student As-sistance Commission. Provides forthe award, beginning with the2004-2005 academic year, of un-dergraduate scholarship awards,renewable for up to 4 years, for useat institutions of higher educationlocated in Illinois.Senate Bill 334 - MobileHome Tax

Provides the mobile homesplaced on permanent foundationsshall be taxed as real property.

I LLINOIS LEGISLATIVE REPORT

————————————————————————— Illinois Academe · Fall 2003 · Page 7 ——————————————————————————

By Margaret L. HostyAt this moment, I am one of three pro

se plaintiffs (meaning we have been forcedto represent ourselves) in two federal suitsbrought against Governors State Univer-sity (GSU), one of which is slated for arare en banc (full bench) rehearing by theU.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Cir-cuit in the coming months. The case, Hostyv. Carter, in which I am joined by fellowGSU students Jeni S. Porche and StevenP. Barba, is significant because the Stateof Illinois, in defense of a university dean,has argued that university officials shouldhave the right to screen, approve, and cen-sor student publications—materials whichcriticize and expose corruption of thesevery same officials seeking absolute au-thority to commit prior review and re-straint.

Why should you be concerned? If theAttorney General’s Office is successful inits attempts to disintegrate our constitu-tional liberties, then the right of ultimatecensorship GSU seeks will apply to allthese public institutions of higher learn-ing. Not only is the preservation of self-expression and the free press necessary togood government, it is crucial to the wel-fare and mission of academia, as the freeexchange of ideas constitutes the very es-sence of higher education’s goals involv-ing moral and intellectual development.

The ability to grow intellectually, andto succeed in the pursuit and establishmentof truth, counter-rhetoric is crucial, forwithout exposure to varied and antitheti-cal contentions, our minds, like muscleswithout sources of resistance, cannot be ex-ercised to their greatest potential—yet ourgovernment is seeking to legalize suppres-sion of the very First Amendment liber-ties which help guarantee the expressionof dissent.

It is not simply student presses whichmay be harmfully affected by an adverseruling in Hosty, as any situations whichapply to First Amendment issues may besubject then to approval of school authori-ties: administrators may cancel guest lec-tures if they find the speakers or their lec-ture topics objectionable; they may disal-low art exhibits of controversial subjectmatter; they may squelch articles or criti-cism about their own misdeeds upon falsepretenses; they may prohibit films not totheir tastes or purposes; the list goes onand on—and if the student press is subject

to the same constraints as those publica-tions generated by university administra-tors, they quickly devolve into PR organsfor the school, thereby constraining the freespeech and intellectual (and moral) devel-opment of not merely students, but faculty,staff, and community members.

If the courts do not rule in favor of thestudents involved in these suits, you cankiss your constitutional guarantees good-bye, as rulings in favor of the universitywould precipitate an onslaught of censor-ship.

An administrator’s covert threat to apublisher to withhold payment for servicesif that publisher refused to secretly pro-vide the administration with copies of thestudent press prior to publication, and anorder to only publish that which the ad-ministration approved, are actions whichfly in fundamental opposition to everythingfor which the First Amendment stands—and yet that is precisely what the AttorneyGeneral’s Office (courtesy of LisaMadigan) is arguing as legally-protectedaction on the part of the school: If thecourts permit these repugnant offenses atGSU, rest assured, they will permit themat your public university as well.

Do not idly sit by and permit your free-doms to be stripped and diminished bygovernment officials who seek to establishthe legal viability of censorship and dueprocess insurrections. If our civil libertiesare to be preserved for our enjoyment andbetterment, and for those to follow, then itis the common citizen who must insistupon such liberties and which must act todefend them, from enemies foreign or do-mestic. GSU has argued that it has the rightto suppress free speech and due processmandates.

I continue, with my colleagues, in thebattle to see justice upheld and civil liber-ties preserved, the time has come, how-ever, for ordinary citizens—students, fac-ulty, civil servants, community members,and even administrators—to do their re-spective parts in helping safeguard thefreedoms we are intended to fully enjoy atpublic universities and on college cam-puses: If my co-plaintiffs and I do not suc-ceed, then it is not only the case we willlose, but the very liberties which consti-tute the fabric of our free society—and ifwe lose them, then you lose them, too.

For more information, goto:www.collegefreedom.org/gsu.htm.

State News

University of IllinoisThe decision by University of Illinois

Board of Trustees to extend domestic part-ner benefits to gay and lesbian faculty andstaff sparked a sharp reaction from statelegislators. State Rep. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth, introduced HB 3832 in Septemberto return the University of Illinois trusteesto elected rather than appointed positions.Currently, all trustees in Illinois are ap-pointed by the governor, with approval bythe state Senate.

Other legislators want to give alumniassociations (which are generally regardedas having a conservative influence) muchmore power in appointing trustees.

On Oct. 29, 2003, state Rep. ChapinRose, R-Mahomet, introduced HB 3874(which would apply to all public universi-ties), requiring trustees appointed by thegovernor to be chosen from a list of threeindividuals nominated by the school’salumni association.

State Sen. Rick Winkel, R-Champaign,announced a bill to increase the number ofU of I trustees from nine to 15, and changehow they are selected. The Senate presidentand House speaker would appoint two mem-bers each, and the Senate minority leaderand House minority leader would appointone member each, while the governor wouldappoint three members and the alumni as-sociation six members to the board.

U of I at Urbana-ChampaignTo mark the 50th anniversary of Brown

v. Board of Education, the University of Il-linois at Urbana-Champaign, the Brown v.Board of Education Jubilee Commemora-tion (www.oc.uiuc.edu/brown) has a yearof event, including an April 1-3 Law andEducation Conference.Illinois State University

Illinois State University has approved apolicy requiring students beginning in fall2005 to own a computer, but officials re-port that the rule will not be enforced andno students will be turned away for lackinga computer. The policy will include the costof a computer in financial aid calculations.Eastern Illinois University

Eastern Illinois University faculty andstudents objected to the process used by theBoard of Trustees when it voted in October2003 to extend interim president LouHencken’s contract by two years. The EIUStudent Senate passed a resolution askingthe Board of Trustees to create an advisorycommittee “composed of representativesfrom the various constituencies of the cam-pus community to participate in the pro-cess of selecting the president.” The EIUFaculty Senate passed this resolution:

“Whereas, the Faculty Senate feels thatthe recent Board of Trustees decision tosuspend the national search for the Univer-sity president has strained the working re-lationship between the EIU campus com-munity and its Board of Trustees;

“Whereas, the Faculty Senate wishes to

The October 31, 2000 issue of the Innovator, the student newspaper of GovernorsState University in suburban Chicago, was certainly controversial, with a front-pagestory about the dismissal of the Innovator’s faculty adviser. It was so controversial, infact, that it was the last one ever printed. President Stuart Fagan wrote in a campuswidememo, “I will not sit idly by, without comment, and allow the reputation of the univer-sity to be sullied by newspaper reporting that is inaccurate, insulting, and that might bedriven, in part, by self-interest.” The Administration did not sit idly by. Patricia Carter,dean of student affairs, contacted the printer to order that no further issues be printeduntil prior review had been made by a top administrator.

The Illinois College Press Association investigated the case and determined, “ad-ministrators have acted inappropriately, and probably illegally, with blatant disregardfor students’ First Amendment rights.” Currently the case, Hosty v. Carter, is beingreviewed by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, as the state of Illinois argues that collegesare no different from high schools and student newspapers should be subject to a simi-lar censorship by administrators. The 7th Circuit will hear oral re-argument on Jan. 8,2004. In this article, Margaret Hosty, the former managing editor and a plaintiff, re-flects on the legal challenges involved in the case.

— John K. Wilson

establish improved working relationshipsfor the best interest of EIU;

“Therefore, be it Resolved: The FacultySenate recommends that the Board of Trust-ees, in consultation with the Faculty Sen-ate, work to accomplish the following goals:to specify appropriate academic credentialsfor senior administrative positions, to in-crease the number and role of faculty mem-bers on search committees for academicdeans, vice-presidents, and presidents, toconsult and communicate with campus con-stituencies in a timely fashion; and the as-sure that administrative searches remainopen and competitive.”

University of IllinoisBecause the new state “truth-in-tuition”

law requires a fixed level of tuition for fouryears (rather than requiring public collegesto announce in advance what tuition in-creases will be), Illinois colleges will makemassive tuition increases in Fall 2004. TheUniversity of Illinois became the first in-stitution to set new tuition rates for nextfall, increasing tuition by 8% for continu-ing students and 16% for incoming stu-dents. Because the “truth-in-tuition” lawonly applies to tuition, and not student feesor room and board expenses, students willnot be able to plan their total college costs.

By John K. WilsonGeorge Gollin didn’t intend to launch

a crusade against diploma mills that wouldeventually lead the University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign to censor this physicsprofessor’s website. Gollin was just annoyedat pop-up ads that continually came up onhis computer. After clicking them shut, overand over again, he says, “after a couplemonths, I called the number” on the ad.Intrigued by the sales pitch, he went on theweb.

What they were selling was the samething his university sells: a university di-ploma. But these institutions of “higherlearning” were actually diploma mills,ready to sell fake degrees to anyone willingto pay. Robertstown University gave a mul-tiple-choice quiz to give credit for “life ex-perience.” Gollin took the quiz. Because the100-question quiz was so simple (“Wheredoes the President live?”), Gollin knew allthe answers, so he intentionally made mis-takes to get only 26% correct, or roughlywhat random guessing would get. Gollinreceived an email saying that he passed thetest, and could receive an Associate of Artsdegree with a 2.7 GPA for a mere $1000.He took an identical test offered by St. RegisUniversity, got only 21% right (worse thanrandom guessing), and received the sameoffer, with an even higher GPA.

Gollin posted this information on hiswebsite at the U of I, and complained to theFederal Trade Commission and state fraudagencies (one of them, in Oregon, is nowposting the information the University ofIllinois told him to take off the website).Gollin’s criticism of diploma mills was fea-tured on the CBS Evening News on July25, 2003, and he appeared on CNN Aug.30, 2003. Soon after, the diploma mills be-gan complaining to Gollin and the Univer-sity of Illinois, threatening to file a defa-mation lawsuit.

These letters scared the University ofIllinois, which pressured Gollin to removethe offensive content. On Oct. 9, Gollinagreed to obey orders from top administra-tors to remove the controversial webpages.

Robin Kaler, a spokeswoman for theUniversity of Illinois, claimed: “We weretrying to help him find a more appropriateplace for his website” because a website ondiploma mills should be “housed in a place

that deals with accreditation.” But Gollinperceived the meeting with University offi-cials as an order to drop the controversialinformation from his website, and he gotOregon accreditation officials to agree topost the information on their website.

Kaler argued about Gollin, “He has alot to offer the community and the worldoutside of his discipline. But for the uni-versity support he receives, it’s for his workin his discipline.” This seems to indicatethat the University of Illinois believes fac-ulty websites can only include informationdirectly related to their field of research.Yet Gollin’s site, like those of many fac-ulty, includes personal and even humorousmaterial in addition to his scientific rea-son. If big issues about the integrity of aca-demic standards are banned from facultywebsites for fear of criticism or lawsuits,then academic freedom is endangered.

By intervening to urge a professor toremove allegedly libelous material, theUniversity of Illinois sets a dangerous pre-cedent for monitoring student and facultywebsites and may actually make itself morevulnerable to litigation (because now it’staking responsibility for the content ofwebsites).

Gollin believes that as “an infringementof academic freedom, it needs to be dis-cussed,” but he is happy that the State ofOregon is putting his information on theirwebsite: “It makes me a hell of a lot safer,it makes the university a hell of a lot safer.”

So why is a physics professors pursu-ing diploma mills? “Physics is interestingbecause we deal with 11 different dimen-sions,” Gollin says. “This is also interest-ing because it’s so unfamiliar to me.” Gollinis fond of John LaCarre novels, and his cru-sade against diploma mills may be the clos-est thing to international intrigue that aphysics professor in central Illinois is likelyto find.

Gollin plans to continue his fightagainst these diploma mills and the “really,really evil” people who own them. He says,“I have this very nice life” compared toLiberia, where civil war has brutalized thepeople. “These sons of bitches who smellmoney are just using the situation there fortheir own ends,” says Gollin. “They’remonsters. They’re just disgusting mon-sters.”

Freedom of the College Press and Governors State UniversityFear of a Website at UIUC

Join the AAUPTheAmerican Association of University Professors (AAUP) is the only facultyorganization devoted solely to higher education. We address the issues that concernyou as a teacher and as a scholar. Our policies ensure that faculty members areafforded academic due process.TheAAUP protects and defends your rights.If you are a member of the faculty, you need to be a member of the AAUP.

2003 Illinois AAUP DuesFull-Time Active Faculty MembershipEntrant Active Faculty (new to the AAUP, non-tenured, first four years)Part-Time Faculty MembershipGraduate Student MembershipAssociate Membership (administrators)Public Membership (others)

$151$76$38$10

$114$114

Payment OptionsMy check payable to the AAUP is enclosed for $ _______Please send me information about the bank debit planPlease charge $ _________ to Visa MastercardCard No. _________________ Exp. Date _______ Signature _______________

Yes, I would like to join the AAUP

WWW.ILAAUP.ORG

Please complete this form and mail it to the AAUP, P.O. Box 96132,Washington, DC 20077-7020.For details, go to www.aaup.org or call our membership department at 1-800-424-2973, ext. 3033.

Name _______________________________________________________(Please Print) Last First MiddleMailingAddress Home Work____________________________________________________________City: _______________________________ State: ___ Zip: ______________Daytime tel.: ___________________________ Fax No.: ________________Email: _________________________________________ Tenured: Yes NoInstitution: ___________________________________________________Academic Field: ________________________________________________

————————————————————————— Illinois Academe · Fall 2003 · Page 8 ——————————————————————————

State Office:AAUP of Illinois5658 S. Meade Ave., #2Chicago, IL 60638Executive DirectorLynne Meyer(773) 510-5923lmmeyer@mindspring.comPangratios Papacosta, PresidentScience/Math DepartmentColumbia College(312) 344-7443FAX (312) 344-8075ppapacosta@colum.eduJoan Berman, Vice PresidentBarat College, DePaul UniversityEconomics and Women Studies (Emerita)JJBerman@concentric.netJoseph Felder, SecretaryEconomics DepartmentBradley Universityfelder@bradley.eduAnne L. Draznin, TreasurerChair, Legal Studies DepartmentUniversity of Illinois at Springfielddraznin@uis.eduLeo Welch, Past PresidentBiology DepartmentSouthwestern Illinois Collegelkwelch@compu-type.net

Other State Council MembersWalter J. (Jerry) KendallThe John Marshall Law School7kendall@jmls.eduLesley KordeckiEnglish DepartmentBarat College, DePaul Universitylkordeck@barat.eduMichael CollinsDept. of Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Stritch Schoolof MedicineLoyola University Medical Centermcollin@lumc.eduMichael McIntyreInternational Studies ProgramDePaul Universitymmcintyr@depaul.eduLisa TownsleyMathematics DepartmentBenedictine Universityltownsley@ben.eduJohn K. WilsonPh.D. student, EducationIllinois State Universityjkwilso2@ilstu.eduJan CookIllinois State Universityjmcook@ilstu.eduFrederic W. WidlakCollege of Management and BusinessNational-Louis UniversityFwidlak@nl.eduRobert HippensteeleBiology DepartmentIllinois Wesleyan Universityhippenst@iwu.edu

Illinois AA

UP

Council

NATIONAL AAUP NEWS

By Lynne Meyer, Executive Director, AAUP-ILHeld in Albuquerque at the University of New Mexico, this year’s Institute boasted a

record 230 attendees from across the nation. The Illinois Conference was represented bytwo delegates: State Council member Leo Welch (Conference lobbyist and past presi-dent), and Lynne Meyer, Executive Director of the Conference.

Seminars on a wide variety of topics, followed by a welcome banquet and an informa-tive, if sobering, panel discussion on the topic “State Fiscal Crises and Higher Educa-tion,” marked the start of the four-day event. The next two days were devoted to work-shops on everything from faculty handbooks, shared governance, and contract negotia-tions to membership recruitment, lobbying, and effective campaigning. Conversationswere enlightening and often spirited, as people exchanged ideas and related tales both ofhorror and of success.

Despite the long days, many attendees found the energy to take advantage of AAUP-sponsored opportunities to explore the area. Friday night’s highlight was the tram ride tothe top of Sandia Peak, which offered not only a spectacular view but also a welcomerespite from the sweltering late-July heat. On Saturday evening, a large group traveled tonearby state capital Santa Fe for a little unstructured R & R. Others stayed closer tocampus and took advantage of Albuquerque’s many attractions.

The Institute wrapped up on Sunday with more seminars, followed by a goodbyebrunch. Having been given much to think about, many attendees pronounced the affair asuccess, and left in anticipation of next year.

IL AAUP lobbyist andpast president LeoWelch (left) with AAUPpresident Jane Buck atthe 2003 AAUP SummerInstitute.

AAUP’s Summer Institute, July 24-27, 2003

Contingent Faculty PolicyAdopted

The governing Council of the Ameri-can Association of University Professorsadopted a new policy statement, ContingentAppointments and the Academic Profes-sion, on November 9, 2003. The statementaddresses the increasing overreliance onpart-time and non-tenure-track faculty thatthreatens the quality and stability of highereducation and the academic profession’scapacity to serve the public good. Read thenew policy at www.aaup.org.

The Illinois AAUP’s Annual Meetingin April 2004 in Chicago will focus on con-tingent faculty, as will the next issue of Il-linois Academe. For more information orto submit an article or book review, contacteditor John K. Wilson atjkwilso2@ilstu.edu.

The AAUP also has announced a newcontingent faculty fund for research, publi-

cation, leadership development, and otherassistance to contingent faculty. BenjaminJohnson, Patrick Kavanagh, and KevinMattson will donate all royalties from thenew book they have edited, Steal This Uni-versity: The Rise of the Corporate Univer-sity and the Academic Labor Movement(Routledge, 2003) to the AAUP fund. Con-tributions may be mailed to: ContingentFaculty Fund, AAUP, P.O. Box 96132,Washington, DC 20077-7020.

National Security and AcademicFreedom

In a new report (published in the Nov./Dec. issue of Academe), an AAUP SpecialCommittee on Academic Freedom and Na-tional Security in a Time of Crisis assessedthe risks to academic freedom in the wakeof 9-11. UIUC law professor Matt Finkinwas one member of the committee.

AAUP Annual MeetingThe national AAUP Annual Meeting

was held in June in Washington, D.C., andIL AAUP representatives at the event in-cluded Ken Andersen, Joe Felder, PanPapacosta, and John K. Wilson.

The AAUP members voted to removefour institutions from the censured list andadded none, although a resolution criticiz-ing the administration of the University ofSouth Florida for its violation of due pro-cess in the Sami Al-Arian case was passed(censure was not recommended by Com-mittee A because internal appeal procedureshave not been fully exhausted). The presi-dent of one institution was on hand to urgeremoval from censure, and noted that hisfirst priority upon becoming president wasto urge changes in campus procedures sothat the university would no longer be un-der AAUP censure.

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (D-N.Y.) re-ceived the Henry T. Yost CongressionalRecognition Award. Eileen Burchell, anAAUP member from Marymount College

of Fordham University received theGeorgina Smith Award for improving thestatus of academic women or advancingcollective bargaining. San FranciscoChronicle reporter Seth Rosenfeld won theIris Molotsky Award for Excellence in Cov-erage of Higher Education for his remark-able series that took more than a decade offighting for Freedom of Information Actrequests, “The Campus Files: Reagan,Hoover and the UC Red Scare” (availableonline at www.sfgate.com/campus).

The Alexander Meiklejohn Award forAcademic Freedom went to Molly CorbettBroad, president of the University of NorthCarolina, for defending the right of facultyand staff to select a book about the Qu’ranfor a freshman reading program in 2002(see the summer 2003 issue of Illinois Aca-deme for more details. Shortly after theAAUP meeting, conservative groups andstate legislators launched an attack on thebook selected by the University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill for 2003, BarbaraEhrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed.