News :AAUP Oregon

NWCCU Responds to Concerns About Academic Freedom

Apr 2, 2019 2461 Views Comments Off

AAUP-Oregon representatives and other faculty who contacted the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) concerning the lack of academic freedom as a standard and criterion for accreditation received the encouraging response below. We will work with the NWCCU leadership to ensure strong language around academic freedom and governance is incorporated into the new draft accreditation standards. ALOs. Over the last couple of weeks we have received emails regarding NWCCU’s draft, revised Standards from AAUP affiliates and faculty senate chairs, and provosts of a few institutions. (Those individuals are copied on this email.) Additionally, we have received input during conversations with some…

News

Urgent Request to Protect Academic Freedom

Apr 1, 2019 3101 Views Comments Off

March 20, 2019 Dear Friends and Colleagues, We write to you with an urgent request to take action and protect academic freedom as a standard and criterion for accreditation by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU), the largest single accreditation body in the region. Inexplicably, the latest draft of accreditation standards from the NWCCU removes all references to academic freedom and to institutional bodies and practices of shared governance such as university senates, faculty vote and voice, and tenure (see the proposal and compare to current standards here). The strong emphasis on centralized authority and the implicit erasure of faculty participation in decision-taking is new and it…