This report concerns actions taken by the administration of Spalding University to terminate the appointment of tenured professor of social work Erlene Grise-Owens after she criticized the administration's handling of an incident involving a student who brought a gun to a campus parking lot. The social work school's chair immediately alerted…

This report concerns actions taken by the administration of University of Nebraska-Lincoln to suspend lecturer, Courtney Lawton from her teaching responsibilities--initially, for stated safety concerns. Lawton is a sixth-year doctoral student with a part-time appointment as lecturer for the 2017-18 academic year. She received threats after a video…

St. Edward's University is a private, four-year institution affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church that traces its beginnings to 1877, when the Congregation of Holy Cross, an order of French missionaries, founded St. Edward's Academy on farmland south of Austin, Texas. St. Edward's received its charter as a college in 1885 and as a university…

This paper explores the conceptual history of academic freedom and its emergence as a substantive right that pertains to either the academic or the university. It is suggested that historical reconceptualisations necessitated by contingent circumstance may have led to academic freedom being seen as a form of protection for those working within…

New educational models such as those involving a third party educational provider linked with an official university for purposes of providing a bridge (a pathway program) into a mainstream university degree, particularly for international students, have become part of the higher education landscape capitalising on the international demand for…

Steven Bitterman was fired by his school after he offended his students for telling them that they could easily appreciate the biblical story of Adam and Eve if they considered it a myth. Several adjunct and full-time professors who work off the tenure track have been fired after saying something, as Mr. Bitterman did, that offended students or…

While both the author and Norman Finkelstein were reviled by American Zionists for their opinions regarding Israel's policies in the occupied Palestinian territories when they came up for tenure, the author ultimately gained tenure at an Israeli university, while Finkelstein was denied tenure at an American one. Drawing on this experience, the…

One may ask, "What is tenure today with its fuzzy parameters?" Is it a property right that a faculty member may earn and "hold" to retain employment? To understand the issue, educators must first understand what they are tenured to. Since the tenure process emanates from a department, are they tenured to a department or to a…

These days, most newly hired faculty are appointed on a part-or full-time nontenure- track basis. The AAUP has reported that between 1975 and 2003, full-time tenure-track positions increased by only about 16 percent, while full-time non-tenure-track positions grew by 178 percent, and part-time appointment rose by 189 percent. Yet tenure…