This paper examines how mounting pressures are reshaping academic freedom (AF) and the professoriate in contemporary higher education, with particular focus on the Canadian university context. Through qualitative interviews conducted between 2009-2011 with tenured faculty from two Southern Ontario universities, the study investigates how fiscal constraints, administrative overreach, peer dynamics, and technological disruptions affect faculty roles and institutional autonomy. The findings reveal an intensifying trend, first identified by participants over a decade ago and evidenced through their direct experiences with self-censorship and institutional constraints, where universities increasingly adopt managerial models prioritizing efficiency and performance metrics over independent intellectual inquiry. This shift, driven by chronic fiscal shortfalls and administrative pressures, constrains faculty members' ability to serve as public intellectuals and undermines universities' critical societal role. The paper argues that preserving AF requires fundamental institutional reforms, including reduced administrative burdens, stable public funding, and a renewed commitment to intellectual debate and dissent. Drawing on Deem et al.'s (2007) concept of "new managerialism," the analysis demonstrates how corporatization of higher education threatens both AF and universities' fundamental mission of advancing knowledge and fostering critical thought. Without structural reforms, the silencing of faculty voices will persist, compromising universities' essential role as centers of independent inquiry and societal critique.