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Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind Mark Bauerlein

AP Profile of Cary Nelson

cross-posted from howtheuniversityworks.com

So I’ve been taking a few days for non-academic desk work—chiefly editing about twenty hours of Emile video (aged six weeks to five months: first swim in the lake, first rice cereal) into forty minutes that a grandparent would enjoy, notwithstanding the Oakland funk sound track.

But I find tons of interesting stuff in my email box that I can share with you, including these killer opening lines to a Joy James essay (“Academic Addiction”) for a volume to which I’m providing an afterword: “I have been mainlining white supremacy for so long that I’ve lost clarity and spirit. I could blame this on the university, the degrees, publishing, narcissism, and careerism….yet I was hooked long before I went to graduate school and long before I got the green light for tenure track, tenure, and promotion.”

The book’s called Academic Repression: Reflections on the Academic Industrial Complex, forthcoming this Fall 2008 by AK Press, edited by Peter McLaren and Steve Best. Featured writers include Cary Nelson, Doug Kellner, Michael Parenti, Joy James, Ali Zaidi, Henry Giroux, Robert Jensen, Dana Cloud, Ward Churchill, and Michael Berube.

Speaking of the academic-industrial complex, two other interesting things in the box. Seems that 5,000 University of California postdocs just chose UAW as their collective bargaining representative: UAW’s success in organizing the majority contingent faculty has spurred on the efforts of NEA, AFT, and AAUP.

And AP just shot this profile of Cary Nelson across the wires. Brainstorm regulars will note a couple of nice quotes by Stan Katz, who is showing a good example by recently re-joining AAUP. You can too.

There seem to be at least two barbs on the hook for this profile by Justin Pope. First, AAUP is turning its ship around, and to do the job, “wild man” Cary Nelson may have to become an “organization man.” Both are true enough. As the article notes, the venerable AAUP has seen some tough times in the era of Greed is Good—compounded by some organizational missteps.

And Cary’s been nothing short of brilliant in the captain’s chair, both as an organizational leader and a tireless advocate for the organization and its causes. Most important in my view is that he has driven the organization’s aggressive stance on the plight of the “new majority faculty” of graduate employees and others teaching contingently. If you haven’t already, you might also want to check out my 5-minute Youtube interview clips with him, Twilight of Academic Freedom and The Academic Working Poor.

One correction to the profile itself, which makes it sound as if AAUP “muddled its identity” by “getting involved in collectiive bargaining.”

Tenure-stream higher education faculty are three times more likely to bargain collectively than the average American worker, and the majority of AAUP members bargain collectively. Collective bargaining is a core feature of academic life for faculty, staff, and graduate employees, especially in public higher ed.

And union membership is growing by leaps and bounds in the “new majority” of the nontenurable. All of the major education unions have launched major organizing initiatives targeting faculty serving contingently. (As has UAW, and even UE, SEIU, and AFSCME have gotten in on the action.)

‘Tenured radical’ tries to revive professors group
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
By Justin Pope

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his professorial attire and flowing, Zeus-like beard, Cary Nelson would look right at home behind a lectern, expounding on obscure poets. He even resembles one of the leading influences on his scholarship — Karl Marx.

For decades, this self-described “tenured radical” has been satirizing academia and criticizing the “corporatization” of universities. Now, the man dubbed “scary Cary” by former graduate students for his pull-no-punches style has a kind of corporate role himself.

But he’s hardly selling out.

As president of the American Association of University Professors, the 62-year-old gadfly and erudite literary theorist is trying to breathe new life into a group with a complicated dual role: speaking out on behalf of academic freedom, while also representing faculty at some colleges in contract talks.

The AAUP’s core issues are front and center these days. Colleges are increasingly relying on part-time faculty, who have less job security and protection if they speak out on controversial subjects. But at such a critical time, the AAUP has been hobbled by declining membership, staff turmoil and financial dysfunction.

Some bristle at Nelson’s imperious presence and sharp, sometimes brutal honesty. But others are convinced it’s just what’s needed to revive the AAUP.

“I think the real danger is nobody knows the AAUP is there,” says Princeton University’s Stanley Katz. “It may well be a little noise and bluster is much less a problem than ennui.”

Nelson knows he has his work cut out for him. In 2005, the AAUP’s membership office “basically disintegrated,” in Nelson’s words, and until recently the group couldn’t complete a 2006 financial audit.

“It’s been quite a mess to clean up and we’re still working on it,” said Nelson, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who had been active in the AAUP for years before becoming president in 2006. He has overseen major changes in the professional staff and pushed a structural reorganization intended to better reflect AAUP’s two very different roles.

Nelson, trained in literary theory and highbrow arguments at academic conferences, finds himself knee-deep in fundraising and projects involving things like accounting software.

In a forthcoming book of essays paying tribute to Nelson, scholar Michael Berube notes the irony that this “Ginsbergian wild man” has become an “organization man.”

But he means it as a compliment. Nelson says that’s what AAUP needs at a time when its founding mission of protecting faculty’s rights to teach and publish as they see fit is under threat again.

The growing number of part-time faculty “are frightened that if they dare to teach something controversial in their colleges, the easiest way their dean will deal with it is to say we don’t need troublemakers, and they’re gone,” Nelson said in an interview in Washington, where he spends extended periods on AAUP matters “They don’t even need to say it. They just need to think it and then not issue a contract next year.”

AAUP’s origins date to the early 20th century and an academic freedom dispute — the firing of a Stanford professor at the behest of Jane Stanford, who with her husband donated the money to start the university. The group’s guidelines on academic freedom and tenure have become a widely accepted standard. It fields more than 1,000 violation complaints per year, many from nonmembers, and though it has no official power, AAUP publicly shames institutions it believes violate the guidelines.

It’s also issued reports criticizing colleges in New Orleans for how they handled downsizing after Hurricane Katrina, and supporting speaking invitations by universities to controversial figures.

But along the way, the AAUP has taken on other roles that have muddled its identity.

In the 1970s, it got involved in collective bargaining for college and university faculty. The idea was to concretely advance faculty rights, but it caused political rifts.

Membership, which hit 100,000 in 1970, bottomed out at 39,000 in 1989 (it’s currently about 47,000). Nelson says the group didn’t even have e-mail addresses to tell current and prospective members about its work. There were 170 different classes of membership — and predictable bookkeeping foul-ups, infuriating to members, about who had paid dues.

The membership director and general secretary — the top full-time staffer — quarreled. The budget deficit was over $370,000 last year — largely because of nonrecurring costs to fix the problems.

All along, Nelson insists, the AAUP continued to do admirable work on academic freedom. But he is adamant the group needs a major reorganization. One reason is legal restrictions on its activities under the current set up. Last month, members approved a division into three affiliated groups: a professional association, a union and a foundation.

The changes, scheduled to take effect in 2010, passed overwhelmingly, and should make it easier for the AAUP to flex its muscles. Still, Nelson does have critics.

It doesn’t help that several of his 25 books are critiques of academic culture that skewer not only administrators but fellow professors.

Partly, it’s humorous fun-poking at academia (one of Nelson’s lines is when he wants something accomplished in his department, he argues against it). But more seriously they reflect his outrage at many contemporary professors’ tolerance of the status quo. From their tenured perches, Nelson believes many have lost their sense of common cause with the college teaching profession.

Other critics find AAUP’s fundraising efforts gauche, while some graduate students are concerned the campaign against using adjunct faculty will leave them with no jobs at all.

The AAUP still has outside critics, too, like Anne Neal of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, who believe the organization is too concerned with protecting faculty teaching rights at all costs, even if students don’t hear all viewpoints. She argues for more emphasis on faculty accountability and responsibility.

“The AAUP itself needs to become more clear on what academic freedom means,” she said. “It’s not anything goes.”
But even Nelson critics haven’t questioned his commitment — and not just through his writings and long-standing service to AAUP. He was arrested in 2006 at a rally for New York University graduate students seeking union recognition, and has taken on the likes of David Horowitz, the right-wing critic whom Nelson, in a 2007 debate, called a “pit bull who feels sorry for himself.”

“Not everybody loves Cary Nelson, but I think the vast majority of people respect Cary Nelson,” said Cat Warren, who has served as AAUP’s North Carolina chapter president and has known Nelson since graduate school.

She admires Nelson, though she disagrees with some of his decisions.
“The degree to which a gentler, kinder Cary Nelson would be able to herd the flock I think is probably a myth,” she said. “Faculty don’t herd well.”

To succeed, Nelson will need to sell AAUP membership to a younger generation of faculty who barely know the group, and are typically more focussed on issues in their own fields than in the professoriate at large.

Princeton’s Katz, who recently rejoined the AAUP after a long absence, said a measure of Nelson’s success will be his ability to attract more people like him who care about academic freedom but had left the group when it became more of a labor union. (Asked how many Princeton faculty belong to AAUP, Katz answered “I’d be surprised if there are six.”)

Ernst Benjamin, recruited by Nelson last year as general secretary, says Nelson’s tendencies as a “born rebel” sometimes run up against the constraints of running an organization. But he insists the energy he provides is also essential.

“It’s like poetry, isn’t it?” Benjamin said, comparing Nelson’s AAUP and scholarly work. “You have to have creativity and you have to have discipline.”

And Benjamin said anyone who had produced 25 books, as Nelson has, “has to have some discipline.”

Posted at 05:27:36 PM on July 16, 2008 | All postings by Marc Bousquet

Comments

  1. I like and admire Cary, but I was appalled by his knee-jerk defense of Ward Churchill, even after CU’s devastating investigative report had been published. That made me question whether Cary is really thoughtful, or whether he is willing to go on record with received soundbites whose import he does not fully comprehend. The AAUP’s defense of Churchill also prevents me from renewing my membership. What a waste of resources!

    — Fred · Jul 17, 05:00 AM · #

  2. On Comment 1:

    The complexities of the Churchill affair (e.g. plagiarism is never defensible even if the plagiarist is only “found out” after an anti-free speech “witch hunt”) were apparently somewhat lost on the AAUP.

    Note these excerpts from the blog posting: “The book’s called Academic Repression: Reflections on the Academic Industrial Complex, forthcoming this Fall 2008 by AK Press, edited by Peter McLaren and Steve Best. Featured writers include Cary Nelson, Doug Kellner, Michael Parenti, Joy James, Ali Zaidi, Henry Giroux, Robert Jensen, Dana Cloud, Ward Churchill, and Michael Berube” – “a volume to which I’m providing an afterword” [emphasis supplied].

    And this from the AP article (oddly reminiscent of commissioned “PR” since the reporter appears to have been slipped a pre-print): “In a forthcoming book of essays paying tribute to Nelson, scholar Michael Berube notes the irony that this ‘Ginsbergian wild man’ has become an ‘organization man.’”

    As Comment 1 and the drop in membership from 100,000 to 47,000 would seem to imply, in the eyes of many, AAUP is increasingly known by the company it keeps.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 17, 06:04 AM · #

  3. Hi, Fred. Glad you enjoyed the profile of Cary, and hope you’ll reconsider and renew your membership, as Stan Katz and nearly 10,000 others have done since the Association’s low-water mark. From my perspective, membership and enthusiasm for the AAUP mission have been climbing steadily as folks emerge shell-shocked from the era of “Life is a Market—Go Compete!”

    One correction: to my knowledge, AAUP has not thus far been asked by Ward Churchill to consider investigating whether due process was observed in his case.

    If he had made such a request, it would have been considered by Committee A, the committee that best represents the professional citizenship of the Association.

    Uniquely: irrespective of membership status, the committee has defended the academic freedom rights of countless individuals in specific cases. It’s been the main bulwark for academic freedom for all of us.

    I urge you to rejoin and support Cary and the vital work of Committee A.

    Below is the AAUP description of the committee. Solidarity, M

    Academic Freedom and Tenure (Committee A)
    Promotes principles of academic freedom, tenure, and due process in higher education through the development of policy documents and reports relating to these subjects and the application of those principles to particular situations that are brought to its attention. The staff is authorized to receive, on behalf of the committee, complaints of departures from these standards and, where appropriate, to undertake formal investigations. Such investigations may lead to a recommendation from the committee to the Association’s national council and annual meeting that the administration of an institution be censured for failure to adhere to the principles of academic freedom and tenure as endorsed by the AAUP and hundreds of other professional and educational organizations.

    — Marc Bousquet · Jul 17, 07:12 AM · #

  4. One correction to the profile itself, which makes it sound as if AAUP “muddled its identity” by “getting involved in collectiive bargaining.”

    Tenure-stream higher education faculty are three times more likely to bargain collectively than the average American worker, and the majority of AAUP members bargain collectively. Collective bargaining is a core feature of academic life for faculty, staff, and graduate employees, especially in public higher ed.

    And union membership is growing by leaps and bounds in the “new majority” of the nontenurable. All of the major education unions have launched major organizing initiatives targeting faculty serving contingently. (As has UAW, and even UE, SEIU, and AFSCME have gotten in on the action.)

    — Marc Bousquet · Jul 17, 07:30 AM · #

  5. On Comment 4:

    Absolutely, but AAUP was very slow to understand the rationality and reasonableness of collective bargaining, dropped the ball when faculty at major universities came to ask for support in such endeavors, and thereby lost tens of thousands of members who then saw their allegiance as uniquely to their unions. A missed opportunity for leadership in the 70s for which AAUP is still paying the piper….

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 17, 08:30 AM · #

  6. It appears strange that there is not more discussion regarding the pay and course assignments of adjunct faculty. The issue is the survival of financial security for all with endeavors in academic work, not just the tenured and to be tenured.

    — Carl Oblinger · Jul 17, 02:09 PM · #

  7. Hey Mark — I don’t quite understand how these “blog” things work. Do commenters like “Fred” and “anti-hypocrisy advocate” ever come back and say, “oops, seems I was wrong about the AAUP and Ward Churchill, and therefore wrong about all the conclusions I drew therefrom — sorry about that”? Or do they just move on to the next blog post?

    — Michael Bérubé · Jul 17, 03:00 PM · #

  8. Here I am, Prof. Berube, and I am not wrong. The CU chapter of AAUP most certainly did advocate on Churchill’s behalf, and the president of AAUP replicated Churchill’s talking points in a public interview. Whether the case went before Committee A or not is a mere technicality for the unwashed majority who are not privy to the organizations’ inner workings.

    While I have your attention, I am saddened that you have stooped to publishing with AK Press alongside Churchill (and Jensen, and Cloud, and the other lout-shouting extremists). The company you keep in this collection diminishes my respect for you and your work. Believe me, I am totally on board with the issues at hand here in Marc’s blog, but I will not lie down with dogs simply because we vote the same ticket.

    — Fred · Jul 17, 04:20 PM · #

  9. For those members of the AAUP National Council who, like the two MBs in their comments above, “have no idea what Fred and Anti-hypocrisy advocate could possibly be talking about”:

    “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 17, 10:36 PM · #

  10. “Whether the case went before Committee A or not is a mere technicality for the unwashed majority who are not privy to the organizations’ inner workings.”

    OK, Fred, let me get this straight. You’re not wrong about the AAUP’s relation to Churchill, because the question of whether or not the AAUP is defending Churchill is a mere technicality from the perspective of people who don’t know what they’re talking about. Got it. I stand corrected.

    About my relation to AK Press: it’s news to me that I’m a “featured writer” in this volume. I told one of the editors that I might be able to provide a 1000-word foreword by the end of the month. Whether I can deliver it depends on how quickly my older son recovers from jaw surgery.

    — Michael Bérubé · Jul 18, 07:40 AM · #

  11. On Comment 10:

    Actually, Committee A in AAUP is a highly political body. It very carefully selects which cases it will “officially” investigate so as not to rock any important boats. In general, if one surveys the AAUP list of institutions formally investigated in the past ten years, one finds no “Ivies” or major “household word” institutions unless, for example, an AAUP current or former General Counsel happens to be at that university (e.g., University of Virginia).

    So, when the public reads of statements by the President of AAUP and doesn’t know that “the AAUP” hasn’t taken a formal position unless and until a formal Committee A investigation has taken place and the entire report has been submitted through the AAUP governance process (which can take at least a year or two), it is assuming that the President represents the organization. Here, the public is being mocked by another member of the National Council for being so “ignorant” as to think that President Cary Nelson in any way speaks for the AAUP.

    This reminds me of the Austrian Defense Minister who, around the time of the Kurt Waldheim affair, twenty-three years ago met notorious ex-Nazi Walter Reder at the Graz airport and claimed he was acting as a private citizen and not as a government official. The outcry against that bit of casuistry brought him scorn and criticism not only from Austrians but, indeed, the entire world.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 18, 09:26 AM · #

  12. “Actually, Committee A in AAUP is a highly political body. It very carefully selects which cases it will “officially” investigate so as not to rock any important boats.”

    Wow. You really don’t know what you’re talking about, friendo. But for the record, I’m not mocking “the public” for its ignorance about the AAUP. Just you and Fred here.

    — Michael Bérubé · Jul 18, 10:06 AM · #

  13. On Comment 12:

    The AAUP’s record of censured bodies speaks for itself. The reader is encouraged to consult it, keeping in mind that most of the Ivies have never respected the 1940 Statement with respect to tenure, for example: http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/censuredadmins/

    As for who knows what about the AAUP, the readers can, like me, explore the Website and do research on AAUP and its collective bargaining history, for example, and draw their own conclusions about what is going on in the postings by National Council members on this thread.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 18, 11:22 AM · #

  14. Ok, so I really don’t know who any of these people are (beyond their blog posts), but the level of condescension from the, I guess one, representative of the AAUP is surprising.

    Of course I am not represented by the AAUP and the only experience I’ve had in life with labor groups has been teamsters. To be fair, teamsters come off a lot tougher than academics; you rarely ever hear them get their panties twisted over which committee does what and just how political it is.

    — Tessier-Ashpool · Jul 18, 11:30 AM · #

  15. On Comment 14:

    To my knowledge, both Marc Bousquet and Michael Berube are AAUP National Council members i.e., they sit on the legal board of directors of the organization.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 18, 01:17 PM · #

  16. Prof. Berube sticks to his technical defense re the national AAUP’s position on Churchill (people who listen to the AAUP president’s public pronouncements don’t know what the AAUP’s Committee A is really doing—fair enough). Prof. Berube has yet to address the CU chapter’s very energetic and public defense of Churchill.

    — Fred · Jul 18, 04:25 PM · #

  17. Fred, there can’t be a national AAUP position on a matter it hasn’t investigated. It can’t investigate unless an aggrieved party so requests.

    As a decentralized organization, AAUP chapters take extremely diverse views on all matters—whether to bargain collectively or not, for instance. Most folks think that’s a good thing.

    The same freedom applies to individual members of the association, including its officers, who take quite divergent views on many of the issues we have to consider officially, as well as on matters outside our purview. Most folks think that’s a good thing too.

    I have opinions on Ward Churchill’s situation, having read many of the publicly available reports.

    I may or may not share them in this forum.

    Should I choose to discuss them, you’d find they differ from some of the views held by others who are AAUP’s officers, and resemble the views held by others.

    That is, if they chose to share them with you.

    Which they very well might not, since they don’t believe their views on an individual case should be used as a litmus test for an organization which has an unparalleled record of distinguished service to the profession.

    I may not agree with some of them about the Churchill case. But I agree with them that AAUP is, has been, and remains a beacon for all of us in very rough waters. I’d urge you to join, get active, and come talk to us in person—at the Annual Meeting, perhaps.

    Those who disagree with you about a whole range of matters will still be glad to see you there. Solidarity, M

    — Marc Bousquet · Jul 18, 06:09 PM · #

  18. Btw, thanks for dropping by, Michael. And I admit it. You told me so:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6kBWlkg3G8

    — Marc Bousquet · Jul 18, 06:21 PM · #

  19. When professors make extra-mural statements, their campuses often insist that they issue a disclaimer that their views are not necessarily those of the university.

    Unless and until AAUP’s officers and Council members place that statement into their interviews, blogs, etc., then the public at large (and even members) cannot be blamed for mistaking the musings of a “wild man” for the “representative” statements of an organizational president.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 18, 07:18 PM · #

  20. Exactly so, AHA. There were many media reports that “the AAUP” was supporting Churchill, because the local chapter and the national Prez had indeed done so — without disclaimers.

    Whether this is a good idea or not is for the organization to decide. But when the current policy is in place, it is incredibly rude for Prof. Berube to blast the reading public for “ignorance”, when in fact the AAUP is complicit in creating that public perception.

    — Fred · Jul 18, 07:23 PM · #

  21. On Comment 18:

    It is not at all clear that the AAUP handles dissent very well. There’s the AAUP listserv shutdown – but even more public is David Horowitz’s claim that he wrote to the AAUP before actually disseminating his Academic Bill of Rights to ask for dialogue – and he never got an answer. No one at AAUP has ever produced a rebuttal of Horowitz’s statement concerning AAUP’s ignoring of his request.

    BTW The entire AP article was reproduced on this blog in its entirety with permission, I assume. I expected a link to the article, not the full text, handy as it is to have it here.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 18, 07:42 PM · #

  22. it is incredibly rude for Prof. Berube to blast the reading public for “ignorance”, when in fact the AAUP is complicit in creating that public perception.

    Sigh.

    Once again, I am not blasting the “reading public” for “ignorance.” I am, rather, addressing two people who are offering uninformed opinions about the AAUP in a public forum, and who refuse to admit it when they’re called out on their misinformation. There is a difference, after all, between being uninformed about the AAUP’s operations (as most people are, through no fault of their own) and being uninformed about the AAUP’s operations and mouthing off in blog comment sections anyway.

    It really is kind of surreal. When Fred here learned that the national AAUP is not defending Churchill, his fallback position was “well, people have that impression, so I’m still right.” This is a very strange argument. If I said, “the United Nations is going to destroy the United States and install a world government,” and someone pointed out (with whatever degree of “condescension”) that I was wrong about this, would I be justified in replying, “yes, but some people believe this, and the U.N. has not dispelled the impression, so I’m right”? As for the Colorado chapter: as Marc points out in comment 17 (with, I admit, far more patience than I have), it doesn’t speak for me.

    And as for aha — sigh again. In the course of one comment he says that Committee A “very carefully selects which cases it will ‘officially’ investigate so as not to rock any important boats,” and that this explains . . . why the AAUP has allegedly given people the impression that it is defending Ward Churchill? Quoi?

    On other matters about which aha is half-informed: the shutdown of the AAUP listserv had nothing to do with “dissent,” and everything to do with the realization that a once-useless forum had become a vicious one. And I’d really like to hear how the Ivies have been violating the 1940 Statement with regard to tenure, since the statement doesn’t say anything about whether a university has to grant tenure after a probationary period.

    The AAUP investigation of universities affected by Hurricane Katrina, by the way, is a marvelous piece of work. Anyone interested in forming an informed opinion of the AAUP and its operations should check it out.

    — Michael Bérubé · Jul 19, 12:55 PM · #

  23. On Comment 22:

    Ah, the ironies of an “ignoramus” like AHA having to cite one of the most important sections of the 1940 Statement to a National Council member. Oh well; such is life on the blogs….

    The probationary period in the Ivies has traditionally been ten years, after which generally the universities have conducted world-wide searches if there is a tenure position to be filled. Recently, Yale has instituted a shorter track system which junior faculty may elect as an alternative to the traditional system. (And yes, I know a Yale professor who complained about this several years back to an AAUP National Committee A staff person who informed him that the AAUP could not assist him with a complaint at an Ivy.)

    Here is the relevant section of the 1940 Statement which the AAUP has “closed its eyes” to for literally decades:

    “Beginning with appointment to the rank of full-time instructor or a higher rank,5 the probationary period should not exceed seven years, including within this period full-time service in all institutions of higher education; but subject to the proviso that when, after a term of probationary service of more than three years in one or more institutions, a teacher is called to another institution, it may be agreed in writing that the new appointment is for a probationary period of not more than four years, even though thereby the person’s total probationary period in the academic profession is extended beyond the normal maximum of seven years.” [emphasis supplied]
    cf. Section 2 under “Academic Tenure” in the 1940 Statement available online at http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/contents/1940statement.htm

    As for the AAUP listserv, I have made inquiries of members and have been forwarded several of the postings which occurred around the time of its shut-down which I read with great curiosity. The “wild man” was in rare form in them, mocking his election challenger and openly abusing his position as president to, yes, viciously attack his opponent. My suspicion is that the AAUP killed the listserv in order to protect itself from further embarassment from the postings of its chief officer (as well as one anonymous poster whose highlighted Website was also conveniently “viciously” attacking CN’s election challenger). I’d be happy to “cut and paste” one or two listserv postings here for your entertainment – but that probably isn’t necessary. The nickname of the AAUP president “says it all”….

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 19, 03:09 PM · #

  24. Yes, Prof. Berube, I understood your objection the first time, and acknowledged its validity. We’ve already moved past that point, to a discussion of the AAUP’s incompetence at managing its public relations. I’m beginning to get a glimpse of why the AAUP forum turned “vicous”.

    — Fred · Jul 19, 03:13 PM · #

  25. More on Comment 22:

    While I do not speak for Fred, I must say that Fred doesn’t appear to be “uneducated” about the AAUP; he’s simply describing the usual conceptual leap in such circumstances. Further, he is correct that the support for Churchill from the Colorado AAUP is a form of AAUP support. One would have to say “the National AAUP did not support Churchill” to be totallly accurate. “The AAUP” is both its constituent parts and more than the sum of its parts. Even the support of a chapter or conference support from the AAUP.

    If the United States President condemns the actions of a rogue state, it is understandable that the public might say “the United States” has spoken. Of course, that wouldn’t be true unless both houses of the Congress passed a resolution, would it? Nevertheless, the public perception of condemnation by the United States President would be perceived as somehow “representing” the government.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 19, 03:20 PM · #

  26. Addendum to Comment 22:

    My apologies to the reader for having neglected to provide a link to the proof of my allegations concerning the non-AAUP-censured “Ivy” ten-year violation of the seven-year limit rule of the 1940 Statement. Inasmuch as the AAUP National Council member will likely continue his repeated accusations of “ignorance”, here, for example, is the link (http://www.yale.edu/provost/handbook/handbook_iii__faculty_ranks__appointment.html) and an excerpt from the official Yale site:

    “With the exception of faculty in certain tracks in Medicine and Nursing, no one on the Yale faculty may be employed in the ranks of assistant professor and associate professor on term for longer than a total of ten years, plus any extensions as described below. This ten-year maximum may be extended by up to a total of three years for time during which the faculty member:

    (a) has taken a leave of absence for public service,

    (b) has taken an approved Child Rearing Leave or a Caregiver’s Leave of at least six weeks, or

    © has been given an approved extension in connection with childbearing or as a result of a short-term medical disability of at least six weeks (see Section VII.D).

    “Extensions granted for any combination of these reasons are subject to a maximum of three additional years in the non-tenure ladder ranks.

    “An extension may also be allowed, on a pro-rata basis and subject to the same three-year limit on extensions, for time during which the faculty member holds a part-time ladder appointment at Yale. (For example, a person working half-time over the course of two academic years would be entitled to a one-year extension of the ten-year maximum.)

    “In the schools of Medicine and Nursing, the ten-year maximum includes years of appointment to the ladder ranks at Yale and all years (up to three) of full-time teaching at other institutions, in both cases excluding years in which the faculty member did not hold the Ph.D. or its equivalent for any part of the academic year.”

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 19, 05:22 PM · #

  27. Comment 21: addendum

    No, indeed, one may not publish an entire article of the Associated Press without permission. Here is the link to the article at the Chicago Tribune (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/wire/chi-ap-tenuredradical,0,4629321.story) and here is the copyright announcement at the end of the article: “Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.”

    The email link on the Chicago Tribune page allows one to send it to up to 50 addresses; that is not publishing. Would the CHE staff member please post that permission was granted to publish the article in the CHE – if indeed it was obtained beforehand. It may well be that the CHE has permission from the AP to re-print; however, it is usual to print the copyright notice with the article.

    My polite query in Comment 21 was, of course, ignored. No surprise, of course, since AAUP National Council member(s) cannot be relied upon to even read and understand the major policy documents of the organization – yet commentators who do are labeled “uninformed”.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 19, 11:43 PM · #

  28. The AAUP (National) did indeed issue more than one formal position statement on the Churchill controversy:
    “AAUP Releases Statement on Professor Ward Churchill Controversy”
    http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/newsroom/prarchives/2005/Church.htm
    “AAUP Responds: UC Boulder Decision on Churchill’s Statements”
    http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/newsroom/prarchives/2005/churchllstatement.htm

    Once again, AAUP National Council members are themselves the source of “misinformation” on this blog thread (cf. especially Comments 17 and 22). Rather than admit that the National AAUP took public positions on the matter, the National Council members instead deny that the National AAUP could make any pronouncements without a full-blown Committee A investigation – which the results of a few minutes’ research on the Web belie.

    Again, who is it who is “uninformed” about the “inner workings” of the AAUP? Indeed, it is small wonder that the organization’s membership is eroding: condescension and Clintonesque misinformation are not the keys to a successful AAUP.

    I beg pardon of the readership for the frequency and detail of my comment postings on this thread – but it would seem to be important to set the record straight.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 20, 12:34 AM · #

  29. To be “fair and balanced”, here is the Inside Higher Ed article which extensively quotes Jonathan Knight, then staff member to Committee A, on the AAUP’s position on the process which eventually terminated Churchill’s employment: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/30/churchill

    There Knight presents a more moderate view of the AAUP’s position on the right of an administration to fire a professor for misconduct and gives the impression that the AAUP would later address the matter of the university’s investigation.

    And here is the AAUP CU chapter statement on the Churchill firing: http://www.aaup-cu.org/publications/chapterstatements.html#churchill

    My suspicion is that the chapter has indeed asked the National AAUP for a formal investigation and that such an investigation was denied by Committee A. But we will likely not learn the truth about such potential internal politics at National AAUP in this venue.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 20, 08:12 AM · #

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