AAUP Purdue

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in faculty, staff, and graduate and undergraduate students needing to immediately rethink much of their work.  Universities canceling invited talks, moving courses online with short notice, and redirecting work in myriad ways to limit how the health emergency locally presents us all with considerable emotional, mental, and practical challenges. AAUP-Purdue stands with the Purdue community as we collectively take on this unprecedented challenge.

THE FUTURE OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM

A PRESENTATION AND CONVERSATION WITH HENRY REICHMAN

American Association of University Professors
Chair, Committee A on Tenure and Academic Freedom (National)

MONDAY, APRIL 6TH
2:30-4 P.M.  RAWLS 1062

Henry Reichman is Professor Emeritus of History at California State University, East Bay; Chair of the AAUP's Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, a position he has held since 2012; and AAUP Second Vice-President.  His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, was published last year by the Johns Hopkins University Press.  A graduate of Columbia University, where he was active in the 1968 student rebellion, he earned the PhD in Russian history at the University of California at Berkeley.  From 1982 to 2015 he edited the American Library Association's Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom and in that capacity authored Censorship and Selection: Issues and Answers for Schools.  At CSU East Bay he three times chaired the academic senate and served for nine years on the California Faculty Association collective bargaining team.  He blogs regularly on issues in higher education at academeblog.org

“Voting Rights and Voter Suppression: The Race for Representation”

A PUBLIC FORUM AND DIALOGUE
    
Wednesday, March 4th 6:30-7:30
            Tippecanoe Public Library
            McAlister Room B 

Erik J. Davis.  Ph.D. student in Political Science, Purdue University. "Solution in Search of a Problem:  Voter Suppression and the Pursuit of Eliminating Election Fraud."

Joyce Field. Chair, Redistricting Committee, League of Women Voters Greater Lafayette. “Whither Redistricting Reform? Blame the Supermajority.”

Stephanie Masta Zywicki. Assistant Professor of Curriculum Studies, Purdue College of Education.  “Voter Suppression in Indian Country: An Ongoing Challenge to Sovereignty.”

Sponsored by Purdue Chapter of the American Association of University Professors and the League of Women Voters of Greater Lafayette.

At the last chapter meeting in January, we acknowledged that the 4:30-6 pm meeting is difficult for many people to attend, particularly with childcare responsibilities.  As a result, we decided to move our March and April meetings.

Our March meeting will now be Tues March 24 12-1pm in KRAN G021 (just down the hall from our usual room).  

Our April meeting will now be Tues April 21, 12-1 pm in KRAN G021.  

Please feel free to bring your lunch to either or both meetings!

February will remain on Wed February 26 from 4:30-6 in KRAN G013 (because I couldn’t change the room fast enough).  However, if you would like to attend virtually, we would be happy to Zoom you in - contact Alice for the call-in information.

If you subscribe to our Google Calendar, these changes are now reflected there, along with the dates of our Executive Committee meetings.  You can subscribe to this public calendar here.

President Mitch Daniels’ recent use of “rare creature” or “rare bird” as a figure of speech to describe students and faculty of color is not simply an unfortunate, and hurtful, turn of phrase. It is another example in a series of examples that reflect the tone-deaf nature of Daniels and the Purdue administration toward the concerns raised by marginalized groups and their allies.

The problem is not merely that Daniels has solely focused on the unintended meaning of his comment. What is of greater consequence is his willingness to ignore the primary point made by students: that by asserting Black scholars are rare, Daniels diminishes the work of Black scholars and students currently at Purdue. 

On behalf of the Purdue-West Lafayette chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the chapter executive committee expresses its full support and solidarity with Indiana teachers and the Indiana State Teachers Association for better wages and working conditions. 

The ISTA is hosting a rally gathering at the Statehouse in Indianapolis November 19th.  The “Red for Ed” rally will draw thousands of teachers.  Many school districts in Indiana have already announced that they will close for the day, including the Lafayette School Corporation in our area.

The American Association of University Professors Purdue chapter (AAUP-Purdue) notes with strong concern the release by the Purdue University administration of S-19 on October 15th. S-19 is a new standard governing Purdue’s Intellectual Property policy. It gives the University broad power to hold intellectual copyright and ownership over Courseware and Online Modules designed by Purdue faculty. Purdue AAUP is concerned that this standard does not represent the interests of Purdue faculty, who were not consulted in its formation.

We live-streamed our panel on public higher education.  Watch it here live, or recorded after the fact.

https://business.facebook.com/aauppurduechapter/videos/2339512176299393/

Please consider attending, or sharing with others, two events scheduled for Monday Oct 14: 

Lecture: Kathleen Fitzpatrick, author of Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving the University (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019)
Monday Oct 14 7:30 pm in Lawson 1142.

Panel on Public Higher Education
Oct 14 at 12-1:30pm, Rawls 2070. 
With panelists: 

• Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Director of Digital Humanities and Professor of English at Michigan State
• David Nalbone, Professor of Psychology at Purdue Northwest, and President of the Indiana AAUP Conference
• John K. Wilson, co-editor of Academe blog (academeblog.org), and Fellow at the University of California National Center on Free Speech and Civic Engagement.

Contact Dan Morris with questions about the event.

Contact: Alice Pawley, chapter secretary/treasurer, aaup.purdue@gmail.com,  (765) 201-0751

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE