This article explores the relationship between unionization and academic freedom protections for sessional faculty in Ontario universities. Specifically, we compare university policies and contract provisions with a view to determining whether unionized sessionals hired on a per-course basis have stronger academic freedom protections than their…

A focus on faculty professional learning, given the challenges that California community colleges and students face, must remain a high priority and continue to evolve. The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) has long been an advocate for the development of robust professional development policies as part of senate purview…

Though there is a plethora of articles written over the past years on the ordeal adjunct professors go through while teaching in universities and community colleges, very little has been done to salvage the situation. The work adjunct professors do has been oversimplified while institutions that utilize their services save a lot. This article will…

Community and technical colleges (collectively referred to as associate's institutions throughout this brief) serve an important role in the U.S. higher education system. They are often an option for students who: (1) need skills development, an associate's degree, or training for specific jobs in their community; (2) need a more affordable…

The unionization of instructional workers is a central feature of U.S. higher education, with more than a quarter of those teaching college classes covered by collectively bargained contracts. Though dated, the best existing numbers indicate that more than 430,000 faculty members, graduate students, and related personnel are in bargaining units;…

One of the author's enduring concerns about the concept of academic freedom is with semantics. It has seemed to him that one of the biggest difficulties with discussions of academic freedom (as with many conversations about "value-laden" terms such as "democracy," "equity," and "justice") is that people begin from different positions and with…

American higher education is in transition and if there ever was a "golden age" for faculty, it probably is behind us. The best historical data on the composition of faculty is collected annually by the American Mathematical Society. Between 1967 and 2009, the share of full-time faculty with PhDs remained constant at about 90 percent at…