SCoTENS (the Standing Conference on Teacher Education North and South) is a unique network of teacher educators from north and south of the Irish border. Funded by government departments and membership institutions across the island, it is facing a range of potential uncertainties. This study is an attempt to map the values and impacts of a…

In this article, I examine the relationship between unionism and academic freedom as revealed by 50 years of reports by the American Association of University Professors' Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Written following investigations of significant and/or intractable situations, the reports demonstrate the complex interactions…

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…

This is an historical and comparative paper that examines the importance of women's educational organizations across time and space and the deliberative attempts of individual members to advocate for the expansion of their professional knowledge, expertise and reach. Specifically, the historical spotlight is turned on the International Federation…

Union County College is a public, two-year college in Union County, New Jersey, with a main campus in Cranford and additional campuses in Elizabeth, Plainfield, and Scotch Plains. Founded in 1933, it is the oldest community college in New Jersey. It has been accredited since 1957 by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States…

In Canada, only 44% of members of academic governance bodies at universities feel that their boards are effective decision-making bodies (Jones, Shanahan, & Goyan, 2004). In this study, we examined the views of senators at a British Columbia university regarding their senate's effectiveness in decision-making, including structures, processes,…

The purpose of the "Bringing Theory to Practice" May 15th seminar was to examine and explore a wide range of faculty rewards (including promotion criteria, awards, faculty development support, and policies at various levels) that provide incentives and recognition to faculty for undertaking community-engaged scholarship (CES). The…

This chapter recounts the development of faculty and student groups whose purposes are to promote mindfulness and contemplative pedagogy on the California State University-Chico campus through work both on the campus and in the greater Chico community. The "Mindful Campus" a student organization formed in 2011, merged with the…

Every discipline has its own specialized language, its membership rites, its secret handshake. In its most benign and neutral definition, jargon signifies "the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group." More often, however, the jingly word that Chaucer used to describe "the inarticulate utterance of birds" takes…

Heightened commercialism on campus is pulling universities and their faculties away from higher education's core commitment to academic research, teaching, and the production of reliable public knowledge. Nearly a century ago, similar threats led to the birth of a new faculty organization--the American Association of University Professors…

Traditionally, undergraduate curriculum committees, consisting of appointed faculty and student representatives, have served as the sole departmental vehicle for investigating, discussing and promoting the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) within an academic department. However, with the universal demand for greater accountability on all…

In this article, the authors explore the multiple roles that contingent faculty play in an evolving system of higher education. They consider the professional work of faculty in contingent positions at Colorado State University through the lens of activity theory, analyzing workplace discourse logs in an effort to understand the roles of…

Scholarly groups have long served as hubs of academic life and the embodiments of their disciplines, but they face uncertain and divergent futures. Some disciplinary associations are struggling to remain relevant and financially viable as demographic and technological changes threaten their traditional sources of revenue. The core of their…

This January, the Inter Faculty Organization, the union representing nearly 3,300 faculty members at the seven Minnesota state universities, took the unusual step of making an offer that broke dramatically with past practice and with typical union negotiating. The Minnesota faculty offered to accept a pay freeze while holding current contract…

This personal reflection, as a tribute to Joe Cytrynbaum, is a primer on the struggle in which he was involved, covering the general history of the movement and the local history at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). Part I sketches the history of graduate employee unionization in the United States. Part II discusses the union movement at Penn…