An Inside Look at the American Association of University Professors

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

• Why the AAUP was formed.
• Their role in supporting academic freedom.
• Why the threat to tenure is a threat to higher education.
• The importance of collective bargaining, and of transparency in academic salaries.

Our guest is: Dr. Irene Mulvey, who is a Professor of Mathematics at Fairfield University where she has been teaching for 37 years. She has been fighting to protect academic freedom, to promote shared governance, and to uphold AAUP principles and standards at the campus, state and national level for over 30 years. In 2020, she was elected to a four-year term as President of the AAUP on a platform pledging progress toward making the AAUP an anti-racist organization and dismantling structural racism in all aspects of higher education.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-creator of the Academic Life.

Listeners to this episode might also be interested in:

• The AAUP 
• The AAUP Foundation
• Chronicle of Higher Education article on the Adjunct Problem 
• LA Times editorial about the adjunct crisis in California and how that affects Academic Freedom
• Statement on academic freedom from the American Federation of Teachers 
• Academic Life interview with an Adjunct Professor 
• NBN episode on the future of tenure

You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island and neither are we. We reach across our mentor network to bring you experts about everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Here on the Academic Life channel, we embrace a broad definition of what it means to be an academic and to lead an academic life. We view education as a transformative human endeavor and are inspired by today’s knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DMs us on Twitter: @AcademicLifeNBN.

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