AAUP Presents

In this episode we dive into how data, educational technologies (or “EdTech”), and other technological forces are shaping and sometimes harming higher education. The guests  are Martha Fay Burtis, an associate director of the Open Learning and Teaching Collaborative at Plymouth State University, and Jesse Stommel, a faculty member in the writing program at the University of Denver and cofounder of Hybrid Pedagogy: The Journal of Critical Digital Pedagogy.

In a recent article for the AAUP's Academe magazine, Burtis and Stommel explain how “increasingly, technology companies are treating educational institutions as conglomerations of data, reducing the human teachers, staff, and students to bits and binary. Too many of these companies are more interested in selling solutions to problems of data than they are in genuinely supporting the people represented by those data.” Listen for more.

Links:

• "Bad Data Are Not Better Than No Data,  Academe
• "Counter-friction to Stop the Machine: The Endgame for Instructional Design", Hybrid Pedagogy  
• "Undoing the Grade: Why We Grade and How to Stop,'" Hybrid Pedagogy 
• Design Forward faculty development program

Faculty and student groups at more than 50 U.S. college and university campuses will hold a National Day of Action for Higher Education on Wednesday, April 17 in a coordinated nationwide counterprotest against the sustained right-wing assault on American higher education as a public good.

Organizers say the Day of Action for Higher Education will demonstrate how cross-rank organizing, robust faculty governance, labor solidarity, and protection of the freedom to teach and learn are crucial to the survival of higher education and to its vital social purpose in a democracy. 

In this episode host Mariah Quinn, the AAUP's digital organizer, talks to two of the organizers of the April 17 movement about how it came about and the path forward. Our guests are Rebecca Karl,  a professor of history at New York University and president of NYU-AAUP, and Amy Offner,  an associate professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and president of AAUP-Penn.

Links:

• Day of Action for Higher Education website

From Florida to Texas to Ohio to Indiana politicians in some states are trying to substitute their own ideological beliefs for educational freedom by passing legislation that interferes with how colleges and universities operate. They’re introducing bills that  mandate or prohibit content in the classroom, empower partisan political appointees to determine campus policy, limit the freedom to learn, teach, and conduct research.

In this episode we look at member-led efforts to fight legislative interference in Texas and Ohio, specifically pushing back against bills targeting diversity equity and inclusion programs, tenure, and collective bargaining. We talk about each campaigns successes, failures, and the lessons learned.

The guests are Karma R. Chávez, the Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor and Chair in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also serves on the executive committee of the AAUP chapter, and Sara Kilpatrick, the AAUP Ohio Conference Executive Director. She previously worked as the political director for the Ohio Senate Democratic Caucus. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.

Links:

• Lessons from AAUP Advocacy in Texas, Karma Chávez, Academe, Fall 2023
• A Provisional Victory in Ohio, Sara Kilpatrick, Academe, Fall 2023
• Ohio Conference website with information about SB 83
• AAUP UT Austin chapter website page tracking Texas higher ed bills
• AAUP resources on political interference

In this podcast we discuss the AAUP's special report Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education System.  The report offers an in-depth review of a pattern of politically, racially, and ideologically motivated attacks on public higher education in Florida, which have largely occurred during the term of Governor Ron DeSantis.

The guests are Afshan Jafar, a professor of Sociology at Connecticut College and a co-chair of the special committee, Henry Reichman, professor of history California State University, East Bay, also a co-chair of the committee, and Liz Leininger, a neuroscience professor who was previously affiliated with New College. The program is hosted by Anita Levy, senior program officer in the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance.

Show notes:

• Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education System
• AAUP's Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities
• Resources from the AAUP on political interference in higher ed
• The Administrative Overhaul of New College of Florida, Inside Higher Ed, September 2023

In this episode, Michaele Turnage Young, a senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, discusses this summer’s Supreme Court affirmative action decision and talks about how creating equity in higher ed requires reimagining and reexamining what the education system can do to expand access to higher education. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer. 

Show Notes: 

• AAUP resources on diversity in higher education
• The Legal Defense Fund website

In this episode, we discuss the unprecedented strike earlier this year at Rutgers University with Todd Wolfson, the president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT. Of the strike and their common good model of organizing, he had this to say: “For 50 years, I’d say public universities have been on the defensive.”  Now, he said, “I think we turned the tables and we moved the ball perceptively in the other direction.” 

The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer. 

 Episode links: 

• Rutgers AAUP-AFT website
• "Reclaiming Paul Robeson in the Time of COVID-19," Todd Wolfson and Donna Murch, Academe magazine

In this episode we talk to Atia Sattar, an associate professor (teaching) in the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California, about the article she wrote for AAUP’s Academe magazine  entitled “Academic Motherhood and the Unrecognized Labors of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Women of Color.”

In it,  she wrote,  “while women in higher education often face a career penalty for their struggles with infertility and motherhood, women of color do so within an institutional context that also frequently undervalues them and is dismissive of their abilities.”  Listen to episode for more. 

The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer. 

Links: 

• "Academic Motherhood and the Unrecognized Labors of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Women of Color," Academe, Spring 2022
• Ten simple rules for a mom-friendly Academia

In this episode we examine the changing higher ed landscape after the Supreme Court decision in the case Students for Fair Admissions, INC, v. President and Fellows of Harvard College which effectively ended effectively end race-conscious admissions.

The guests are Charles Toombs and Risa Lieberwitz. Charles Toombs, a Professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University and president of the California Faculty Association. He is the immediate past chair of AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Risa L. Lieberwitz, a professor of labor and employment law in the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She also serves as the General Counsel of the AAUP and is a member of AAUP Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.

Links: 

•  Link to the Supreme Court decision
• AAUP resources on diversity in higher education 
• Webinar by the AAUP “After Affirmative Action” (member login required)
• San Diego State University diversity policies

In this episode we focus on AAUP’s work around racial justice. This is the first in a series of podcasts this season that will examine issues around the fight for greater racial equity in higher education. Tune in to hear our discussion about efforts to restrict teaching about race, the racial equity initiative at the AAUP, and what's ahead. 

The guest are Irene Mulvey and Glinda Rawls. Irene Mulvey is the president of the AAUP. She  taught mathematics for 40 years, first at Swarthmore College and then Fairfield University in Connecticut. In Fall 2022, she retired as a full professor from Fairfield, and was awarded the title of professor emerita of mathematics. Glinda Rawls is an Associate Professor of Counselor Education and Unit Director at Western Michigan University (WMU), a member of AAUP’s national Council, and the chair of  the AAUP Racial Justice Committee. 

Additional links: 

• Resources about racial justice  on the AAUP website
• Resources about political interference in higher education

We’re returning to the topic of student debt after this week’s arguments before the Supreme Court over the Biden administration’s student debt relief program.  Risa Lieberwitz, AAUP’s general counsel and a professor of labor and employment law in the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and Jenna Sablan, AAUP’s senior program officer for government relations, weigh in on what happened at the high court this week and what's next.  

In August, the Department of Education announced that borrowers with federally-held loans making less than $125K for individuals or $250K for households would be eligible for up to $20,000 in debt relief to Pell Grant recipients  and up to $10,000 in debt relief to non-Pell Grant recipients. On February 28, the justices heard two cases challenging the debt relief plan, one from six Republican-led states  and one from two individuals.

 The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.

Links:

• AAUP Files Brief Supporting Student Debt Relief
• The Past, Present, and Future of the Student Debt Crisis (AAUP Presents, Season 1, Episode 11)