Tag: freedom

  • Effect of Institutional Autonomy on Academic Freedom in Higher Education Institutions in Ghana

    Effect of Institutional Autonomy on Academic Freedom in Higher Education Institutions in Ghana

    By Mohammed Bashiru and Professor Cai Yonghong

    Introduction

    The idea of institutional autonomy in higher education institutions (HEIs) naturally comes up when discussing academic freedom. These two ideas are connected, and the simplest way to define how they relate to one another is that they are intertwined through several procedures and agreements that link people, institutions, the state, and civil society. Academic freedom and institutional autonomy cannot be compared, but they also cannot be separated and the loss of one diminishes the other. Protecting academic freedom and institutional autonomy is viewed by academics as a crucial requirement for a successful HEI. For instance, institutional autonomy and academic freedom are widely acknowledged as essential for the optimization of university operations in most African nations.

    How does institutional autonomy influence academic freedom in higher education institutions in Ghana?

    In some countries, universities have been subject to government control, with appointments and administrative positions influenced by political interests, leading to violations of academic autonomy and freedom. Autonomy is a crucial element in safeguarding academic freedom, which requires universities to uphold the academic freedom of their community and for the state to respect the right to science of the broader community. Universities offer the necessary space for the exercise of academic freedom, and thus, institutional autonomy is necessary for its preservation. The violation of institutional autonomy undermines not only academic freedom but also the pillars of self-governance, tenure, and individual rights and freedoms of academics and students. Universities should be self-governed by an academic community to uphold academic freedom, which allows for unrestricted advancement of scientific knowledge through critical thinking, without external limitations.

    How does corporate governance affect the relationship between institutional autonomy and academic freedom?

    Corporate governance mechanisms, such as board diversity, board independence, transparency, and accountability, can ensure that the interests of various stakeholders, including students, faculty, and the government, are represented and balanced. The incorporation of corporate governance into academia introduces a set of values and priorities that can restrict the traditional autonomy and academic freedom that define a self-governing profession. This growing tension has led to concerns about the erosion of academia’s self-governance, with calls for policies that safeguard academic independence and uphold the values of intellectual freedom and collaboration that are foundational to higher education institutions. Nonetheless, promoting efficient corporate governance, higher education institutions can help safeguard academic freedom and institutional autonomy, despite external pressures.

    Is there a significant difference between the perceptions of males and females regarding institutional autonomy, academic freedom, and their relationship?

    The appointment process for university staff varies across countries, but it is essential that non-academic factors such as gender, ethnicity, or interests do not influence the selection of qualified individuals who are necessary for the institution’s quality. Unfortunately, studies indicate that women are often underrepresented in leadership positions and decision-making processes related to academic freedom and institutional autonomy. This underrepresentation can perpetuate biases and lead to a lack of diversity in decision-making. One solution to address these disparities is to examine gender as a factor of difference to identify areas for improvement and promote gender equality in decision-making processes. By promoting diversity and inclusivity, academic institutions can create a more equitable environment that protects institutional autonomy and promotes academic freedom for everyone, regardless of their gender.

    Methodology and Conceptual framework

    The quantitative and predictive nature of the investigation necessitated the use of an explanatory research design. Because it enabled the us to establish a clear causal relationship between the exogenous and endogenous latent variables, the explanatory study design was chosen. The simple random sample technique was utilised to collect data from an online survey administered to 128 academicians from chosen Ghanaian universities.

    The conceptual framework, explaining the interrelationships among the constructs in the context of the study is presented. The formulation of the conceptual model was influenced by the nature of proposed research questions backed by the supporting theories purported in the context of the study.

    Conclusions and Implications

    Institutional autonomy significantly predicts academic freedom at a strong level within higher education institutions in Ghana. Corporate governance can restrict academic freedom when its directed to yield immediate financial or marketable benefits but in this study it plays a key role in transmitting the effect of institutional autonomy. Additionally, there is a significant difference in perception between females and males concerning the institutional autonomy – academic freedom predictive relationship. Practically, higher education institutions, particularly in Ghana, should strive to maintain a level of autonomy while also ensuring that academic freedom is respected and protected. This can be achieved through decentralized governance structures that allow for greater participation of academics in decision-making processes. Institutions should actively engage stakeholders, including academics, in discussions and decisions related to institutional autonomy and academic freedom. This will ensure that diverse perspectives are considered in policy development.

    This blog is based on an article published in Policy Reviews in Higher Education (online 02 January 2025) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23322969.2024.2444609

    Bashiru Mohammed is a final year PhD student at the faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University. He also holds Masters in Higher education and students’ affairs from the same university. His research interest includes School management and administration, TVET education and skills development.

    Professor Cai Yonghong is a professor at Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University. She has published many articles and presided over several domestic and international educational projects and written several government consultant reports. Her research interest includes teacher innovation, teacher expertise, teacher’s salary, and school management.

    References

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    Akpan, K. P., & Amadi, G. (2017). University autonomy and academic freedom in Nigeria: A theoretical overview. International Journal of Academic Research and Development,

    Altbach, P. G. (2001). Academic freedom: International realities and challenges. Higher Education,

    Aslam, S., & Joshith, V. (2019). Higher Education Commission of India Act 2018: A Critical Analysis of the Policy in the Context of Institutional Autonomy.

    Becker, J. M., Cheah, J. H., Gholamzade, R., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2023). PLS-SEM’s most wanted guidance.

    Hair, J., Hollingsworth, C. L., Randolph, A. B., & Chong, A. Y. L. (2017). An updated and expanded
    assessment of PLS-SEM in information systems research. Industrial management & data
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    Lippa, R. A. (2005). Gender, nature, and nurture. Routledge.

    Lock, I., & Seele, P. (2016). CSR governance and departmental organization: A typology of best practices. Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society.

    Neave, G. (2005). The supermarketed university: Reform, vision and ambiguity in British higher education. Perspectives:.

    Nicol, D. (1972) Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility: The Tasks of Universities in a Changing World, Stephen Kertesz (Ed), Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press.

    Nokkala, T., & Bacevic, J. (2014). University autonomy, agenda setting and the construction of agency: The case of the European university association in the European higher education area..

    Olsen, J. P. (2007). The institutional dynamics of the European university Springer Netherlands.

    Tricker, R. I. (2015). Corporate governance: Principles, policies, and practices. Oxford University Press, USA.

    Zikmund, W.G., Babin, B.J., Carr, J.C. & Griffin, M. (2012). Business Research Methods. Boston: Cengage Learning.

    Zulu, C (2016) ‘Gender equity and equality in higher education leadership: What’s social justice and substantive equality got to do with it?’ A paper presented at the inaugural lecture, North West University, South Africa

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • Academic freedom doesn’t require college neutrality

    Academic freedom doesn’t require college neutrality

    Amid public campaigns urging universities to commit to “institutional neutrality,” the American Association of University Professors released a lengthy statement Wednesday saying that the term “conceals more than it reveals.”

    The statement, approved by the AAUP’s elected national council last month, says it continues the national scholarly group’s long commitment to emphasizing “the complexity of the issues involved” in the neutrality debate. “Institutional neutrality is neither a necessary condition for academic freedom nor categorically incompatible with it,” it says.

    The push for universities to adopt institutional neutrality policies ramped up as administrators struggled over what, if anything, to say about Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israelis and Israel’s swift retaliation in the Gaza Strip.

    The AAUP statement notes that “institutional neutrality” has varied meanings and that actions—not just words—convey a point of view. For instance, some argue that to be neutral, institutions shouldn’t adjust their financial investments for anything other than maximizing returns. But the AAUP says that “no decision concerning a university’s investment strategy counts as neutral.”

    The AAUP asserts that by taking any position on divestment—which many campus protesters have asked for—a university “makes a substantive decision little different from its decision to issue a statement that reflects its values.”

    “A university’s decision to speak, or not; to limit its departments or other units from speaking; to divest from investments that conflict with its mission; or to limit protest in order to promote other forms of speech are all choices that might either promote or inhibit academic freedom and thus must be made with an eye to those practical results, not to some empty conception of neutrality,” the AAUP statement says. “The defense of academic freedom has never been a neutral act.”

    Steven McGuire, Paul and Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom at the conservative American Council of Trustees and Alumni, called the statement “another unhelpful document from the AAUP.”

    “Institutional neutrality is a long-standing principle that can both protect academic freedom and help colleges and universities to stick to their academic missions,” McGuire told Inside Higher Ed. “It’s critical that institutional neutrality be enforced not only to protect individual faculty members on campus, but also to help to depoliticize American colleges and universities at a time when they have become overpoliticized” and are viewed as biased.

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  • Freedom is the bedrock for learning

    Freedom is the bedrock for learning

    Two big things, personally, happened this week, and I want to explain how while they may seem different on the surface, they’re sort of inextricable from each other.

    One thing that happened was the release of my book More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI. Regular readers of this space will be well familiar with the subjects and themes of the book, but of course a book is a different thing than a blog or column.

    I do my best to always make what I share here worth reading, but often the ideas I explore in this forum are in a much earlier stage of gestation. Writing is thinking, and while sufficient thinking has to occur for me to get a post onto the page, posting a column does not end the thinking.

    A book is a chance to hone that thinking into an extended argument and experience, seeing those initial individual thoughts join together, and in this joining shift in important ways as I seek greater clarity and more impactful presentation. One of the reasons I don’t really understand people’s enthusiasm for turning their writing over to large language models is that the process of working through my own thoughts is 100 percent necessary to delivering the final product.

    There is no shortcut if I want the book to be as good as possible.

    Anyway, as I wrote at my personal newsletter in a post celebrating the book’s release, I’m proud of it. It’s good! Or the best I can do at this time, anyway, which is its own form of good. If you’re at all concerned about how tools powered by generative AI are encroaching on our spaces of working, learning and thinking, you might find some value in it.

    Kirkus Reviews had this to say:

    The other thing that happened this week is the launch of a new newsletter, Academic Freedom on the Line, that I’ll be helping oversee as part of my fellowship for the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom (CDAF).

    CDAF has been organized around a vision statement and a mission statement.

    Vision Statement

    We believe that teaching, learning, and the pursuit of knowledge are essential to creating and sustaining multi-racial and plurinational societies. For those of us working and studying within institutions of higher education, this means pursuing knowledge wherever it leads, free from intimidation and retaliation. Such freedoms serve as the foundation upon which we educate students, produce and disseminate credible research, nurture artistic expression and foster critical inquiry.

    Mission Statement

    The Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom is committed to preserving and expanding conditions that make it possible to work, teach, learn, create, and share knowledge in ways that promote the common good. The center serves as a resource and knowledge hub for all people—including faculty, students, campus workers, alumni, administrators, trustees, parents, journalists, policymakers, and business leaders—seeking to build a flourishing higher education system, rooted in institutional autonomy, workplace democracy, and freedom from coercion and external interference.

    To work towards these goals we:

    • create practical resources and build strategic partnerships for those engaged in defending academic freedom,
    • produce original research that can serve as the evidentiary basis for this work, and
    • communicate the value of academic freedom and institutional autonomy to wide audiences.

    The first newsletter post is an annotated version of these statements, where some of the other fellows comment on different parts of each, and I encourage you to check it out for yourself to see how important individual perspectives are even inside of communication that is meant to reflect group consensus.

    I also encourage you to sign up for the newsletter ,since we’ll be sharing more information and research all the time.

    A couple of weekends ago, we had an in-person gathering of CDAF, along with some other folks concerned about the attacks on academic freedom (PEN, AAUP, et al. …), and I was struck by how important it is to have all these different perspectives when considering complex and important problems.

    Even though it was a gathering of people with a broad base of shared values, there were many different perspectives, and I lost track of the number of times I experienced a moment of, I hadn’t thought of it that way.

    Here’s how I see these two different strains of my work as intimately related. At the heart of More Than Words is my belief that humans have a right to their own minds, that part of exercising our freedom is being given the chance to interpret the world and then impress ourselves onto the world around us through communication rooted in our unique intelligences. Writing is a great way to achieve this, as I’ve experienced firsthand, not just because I have some public platforms for my writing, but because the act of writing allows me to know what I think and believe.

    The boosters of the syntax-generating technology speak of it in liberatory terms, that the technology frees one up to not have to do difficult and maybe even unrewarding work. But in my view, giving over the work of writing to a probability machine is anti-freedom. The process matters.

    The process of academic freedom matters, too, which is why we sometimes (often) have disputes about what academic freedom means or how it can be supported in institutions. As a baseline, we need people to believe that academic freedom matters, that it is more than an abstract idea and it is, in fact, a way to make possible the work we want our institutions to do. This is what is being threatened at this time.

    One of the consistent themes of the weekend gathering was that deep down, we’re not just defending academic freedom, a term that we all acknowledge comes with some baggage, but we are trying to preserve important parts of our democracy.

    I don’t want to overinflate the importance of this work, either my own with my writing about writing or the efforts of the fellows of CDAF. There are clearly more urgent threats at this moment.

    But at the same time, I don’t want to shy away from the fact that there’s a lot at stake, and that what’s being threatened is our ability to self-govern.

    It matters. It all matters.

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  • Freedom of speech in higher education (Future Trends Forum)

    Freedom of speech in higher education (Future Trends Forum)

     What does academic freedom mean in 2025?

    We will explore this vital question with the help of Jeremy C. Young, the Freedom to Learn program director at PEN America (and excellent 2023 Forum guest).

     

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  • We need new ways to protect academic freedom (opinion)

    We need new ways to protect academic freedom (opinion)

    Katherine Franke, formerly a law professor at Columbia University, is just the latest of many academics who have found themselves in hot water because of something they said outside the classroom. Others have been fired or resigned under pressure for what they posted online or said in other off-campus venues.

    In each of those cases, the “offending party” invoked academic freedom or freedom of speech as a defense to pressures brought on them, or procedures initiated against them, by university administrators. The traditional discourse of academic freedom or free speech on campus has focused on threats from inside the academy of the kind that led Franke and others to leave their positions.

    Today, threats to academic freedom and free speech are being mounted from the outside by governments or advocacy groups intent on policing colleges and universities and exposing what they see as a suffocating orthodoxy. As Darrell M. West wrote in 2022, “In recent years, we have seen a number of cases where political leaders upset about criticism have challenged professors and sought to intimidate them into silence.”

    We have seen this act before, and the record of universities is not pretty.

    During the 1940s and 1950s, an anticommunist crusade swept the nation, and universities were prime targets. In that period, “faculty and staff at institutions of higher learning across the country experienced increased scrutiny from college administrators and trustees, as well as Congress and the FBI, for their speech, their academic work, and their political activities.”

    And many universities put up no resistance.

    Today, some believe, as Nina Jankowicz puts it, that we are entering “an era of real censorship the likes of which the United States has never seen. How will universities respond?”

    If academic freedom and freedom of expression are to be meaningful, colleges and universities must not only resist the temptation to punish or purge people whose speech they and others may find offensive; they must provide new protections against external threats, especially when it comes to extramural speech by members of their faculties.

    They must become active protectors and allies of faculty who are targeted.

    As has long been recognized, academic freedom and free speech are not identical. In 2007, Rachel Levinson, then the AAUP senior counsel, wrote, “It can … be difficult to explain the distinction between ‘academic freedom’ and ‘free speech rights under the First Amendment’—two related but analytically distinct legal concepts.”

    Levinson explained, “Academic freedom … addresses rights within the educational contexts of teaching, learning, and research both in and outside the classroom.” Free speech requires that there be no regulation of expression on “all sorts of topics and in all sorts of settings.”

    Ten years after Levinson, Stanley Fish made a splash when he argued, “Freedom of speech is not an academic value.” As Fish explained, “Accuracy of speech is an academic value … [because of] the goal of academic inquiry: getting a matter of fact right.” Free speech, in contrast, means “something like a Hyde Park corner or a town-hall meeting where people take turns offering their opinions on pressing social matters.”

    But as Keith Whittington observes, the boundaries that Levinson and Fish think can be drawn between academic freedom and free speech are not always recognized, even by organizations like the AAUP. “In its foundational 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure,” Whittington writes, “the AAUP asserted that academic freedom consists of three elements: freedom of research, freedom of teaching, and ‘freedom of extramural utterance and action.’”

    In 1940, Whittington explains, “the organization reemphasized its position that ‘when they speak or write as citizens,’ professors ‘should be free from institutional censorship or discipline.’”

    Like the AAUP, Whittington opposes “institutional censorship” for extramural speech. That is crucially important.

    But in the era in which academics now live and work, is it enough?

    We know that academics report a decrease in their sense of academic freedom. A fall 2024 survey by Inside Higher Ed found that 49 percent of professors experienced a decline over the prior year in their sense of academic freedom as it pertains to extramural speech.

    To foster academic freedom and free speech on campus or in the world beyond the campus, colleges and universities need to move from merely tolerating the expression of unpopular ideas to a more affirmative stance in which they take responsibility for fostering it. It is not enough to tell faculty that the university will respect academic freedom and free expression if they are afraid to exercise those very rights.

    Faculty may be fearful that saying the “wrong” thing will result in being ostracized or shunned. John Stuart Mill, one of the great advocates for free expression, warned about what he called “the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling.” That tyranny could chill the expression of unpopular ideas.

    In 1952, during the McCarthy era, Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter also worried about efforts to intimidate academics that had “an unmistakable tendency to chill that free play of the spirit which all teachers ought especially to cultivate and practice.”

    Beyond the campus, faculty may rightly fear that if they say things that offend powerful people or government officials, they will be quickly caught up in an online frenzy or will be targeted. If they think their academic institutions will not have their back, they may choose the safety of silence over the risk of saying what they think.

    Whittington gets it right when he argues that “Colleges and universities should encourage faculty to bring their expertise to bear on matters of public concern and express their informed judgments to public audiences when doing so might be relevant to ongoing public debates.” The public interest is served when we “design institutions and practices that facilitate the diffusion of that knowledge.”

    Those institutions and practices need to be adapted to the political environment in which we live. That is why it is so important that colleges and universities examine their policies and practices and develop new ways of supporting their faculty if extramural speech gets them in trouble. This may mean providing financial resources as well as making public statements in defense of those faculty members.

    Colleges and universities should also consider making their legal counsel available to offer advice and representation and using whatever political influence they wield on behalf of a faculty member who is under attack.

    Without those things, academics may be “free from” the kind of university action that led Franke to leave Columbia but still not be “free to” use their academic freedom and right of free expression for the benefit of their students, their professions and the society at large.

    Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.

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  • Is freedom of speech the same as freedom to lie?

    Is freedom of speech the same as freedom to lie?

    Meta will stop checking falsehoods. Does that mean more free speech or a free-for-all?

    “First, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers,” Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Meta, said in a video statement early this January. “Second, we’re going to simplify our content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse.”

    This statement marks another turn in the company’s policies in handling disinformation and hate speech on their widely used platforms Facebook, Instagram and Threads. 

    Meta built up its moderation capabilities and started its fact-checking program after Russia’s attempts to use Facebook to influence American voters in 2016 and after it was partially blamed by various human rights groups like Amnesty International for allowing the spread of hate speech leading to genocide in Myanmar. 

    Until now, according to Meta, about 15 thousand people review content on the platform in 70 languages to see if it is in line with the company’s community standards.

    Adding information, not deleting

    For other content, the company involves professional fact-checking organizations with journalists around the world. They independently identify and research viral posts that might contain false information. 

    Fact-checkers, like any other journalists, publish their findings in articles. They compare what is claimed in the post with statistics, research findings and expert commentary or they analyze if the media in the post are manipulated or AI generated. 

    But fact-checkers have a privilege that other journalists don’t – they can add information to the posts they find false or out of context on Meta platforms. It appears in the form of a warning label. The user can then read the full article by fact-checkers to see the reasons or close the warning and interact with the post.

    Fact-checkers can’t take any further action like removing or demoting content or accounts, according to Meta. That is up to the company. 

    However, Meta now likens the fact-checking program to censorship. Zuckerberg also argued for the end of the program saying that the fact-checkers “have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created.”

    Can untrained people regulate the Web?

    For now, the fact-checking program will be discontinued in the United States. Meta plans to rely instead on regular users to evaluate content under a new program it calls “Community Notes.” The company promises to improve it over the course of the year before expanding it to other countries.

    In a way, Meta walking back on their commitments to fight disinformation wasn’t a surprise, said Carlos Hernández- Echevarría, the associate director of the Spanish fact-checking outlet Maldita and a deputy member of the governance body that assesses and approves European fact-checking organizations before they can work with Meta called the European Fact-Checking Standards Network. 

    Zuckerberg had previously said that the company was unfairly blamed for societal ills and that he was done apologizing. But fact-checking partners weren’t warned ahead of the announcement of the plans to scrap the program, Hernández- Echevarría said.

    It bothers him that Meta connects fact-checking to censorship.

    “It’s actually very frustrating to see the Meta CEO talking about censorship when fact-checkers never had the ability and never wanted the ability to remove any content,” Hernández-Echevarría said. He argues that instead, fact-checkers contribute to speech by adding more information. 

    Are fact-checkers biased?

    Hernández-Echevarría also pushes back against the accusation that fact-checkers are biased. He said that mistakes do occur, but the organizations and people doing the work get carefully vetted and the criteria can be seen in the networks’ Code of Standards. 

    For example, fact-checkers must publish their methodology for choosing and evaluating information. Fact-checkers also can’t endorse any political parties or have any agreements with them. They also have to provide proof of who they are owned by as well as publicly disclose information about their employees and funding.

    Meta’s own data about Facebook, which they disclose to EU institutions, also shows that erroneous decisions to demote posts based on fact-checking labels occur much less often than when posts are demoted for other reasons — nudity, bullying, hate speech and violence, for example. 

    In the period from April to September last year, Meta received 172,550 complaints about the demotion of posts with fact-checking labels and, after having another look, reversed it for 5,440 posts — a little over 3%. 

    However, in all other categories combined, the demotion had to be reversed for 87% of those posts.

    The sharing of unverified information

    Research shows that the perception of the unequal treatment of different political groups might form because people on the political right publish more unreliable information.

    A paper published in the scientific magazine Nature says that conservative users indeed face penalties more often, but they also share more low-quality news. Researchers therefore argued that even if the policies contain no bias, there can be an asymmetry in how they are enforced on platforms.

    Meta is also making other changes. On 7 January, the company published a revised version of its hateful conduct policies. The platform now allows comparing women to household objects and “insulting language in the context of discussing political or religious topics, such as when discussing transgender rights, immigration, or homosexuality”. The revised policies also now permit “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation”.

    LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD called these changes alarming and extreme and said they will result in platforms becoming “unsafe landscapes filled with dangerous hate speech, violence, harassment, and misinformation”. 

    Journalists also report that the changes divided the employees of the company. The New York Times reported that as some upset employees posted on the internal message board, human resources workers quickly removed the posts saying they broke the rules of a company policy on community engagement.

    Political pressure

    In a statement published on her social media channels. Angie Drobnic Holan, the director of the International Fact-Checking Network, which represents fact-checkers in the United States, linked Meta’s decision to political pressure.

    “It’s unfortunate that this decision comes in the wake of extreme political pressure from a new administration and its supporters,” Holan said. “Fact-checkers have not been biased in their work. That attack line comes from those who feel they should be able to exaggerate and lie without rebuttal or contradiction.”

    In his book “Save America” published in August 2024, Donald Trump whose term as U.S. President begins today, accused Zuckerberg of plotting against him. “We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison,” he wrote. 

    Now, with the changes Zuckerberg announced, Trump is praising Meta and said they’ve come a long way. When asked during a press conference 7 January if he thought Zuckerberg was responding to Trump’s threats, Trump replied, “Probably.”

    After Meta’s announcement, the science magazine Nature published a review of research with comments from experts on the effectiveness of fact-checking. For example, a study in 2019 analyzing 30 research papers covering 20 thousand participants found an influence on beliefs but the effects were weakened by participants’ preexisting beliefs, ideology and knowledge. 

    Sander van der Linden, a social psychologist at the University of Cambridge told Nature that ideally, people wouldn’t form misperceptions in the first place but “if we have to work with the fact that people are already exposed, then reducing it is almost as good as it as it’s going to get”. 

    Hernández-Echevarría said that although the loss of Meta’s funding will be a hard hit to some organizations in the fact-checking community, it won’t end the movement. He said, “They are going to be here, fighting disinformation. No matter what, they will find a way to do it. They will find support. They will do it because their central mission is to fight disinformation.”

    Questions to consider:

    • What is now allowed under Meta’s new rules for posts that wasn’t previously?

    • How is fact-checking not the same as censorship?

    • When you read social media posts, do you care if the poster is telling the truth?

     

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  • How the university can support student digital learning freedom

    How the university can support student digital learning freedom

    Feelings of belonging have a significant positive impact on academic success and progression, but we know that creating belonging isn’t as simple as putting up a welcome sign.

    Belonging is not something that can be automatically created by an institution, regardless of its commitment to access and inclusion. To make students feel they belong in a higher education environment, having the power to shape and co-create the environments in which they participate is essential.

    For students in higher education, liminal digital spaces (those informal areas of interaction that sit between formal academic environments and students’ broader social contexts) offer unique opportunities for students to lead, collaborate, learn and foster a sense of belonging, and the freedom to shape their learning environment and exercise agency in ways that may not be available within more formal institutional frameworks. They also offer opportunities for institutions to create places that nurture academic success without assuming responsibility for the development and delivery of all support.

    But squaring the ownership, credibility and safeguarding triangle is complex, so how can universities do this while also embracing digital tools?

    Taking ownership for learning

    Focusing on digital spaces allows institutions to expand the space their students feel comfortable inhabiting and learning in, without limiting engagement from those who may not be free to meet at a specific time or be able to meet in person.

    Digital learning resources can help students connect to their peers, further strengthening their sense of place within the institution. These spaces could act as connectors between university resource and student-driven exploration and learning in a way that more formal mechanisms sometimes fail to. At Manchester, resources such as My Learning Essentials (a blended skills support programme) can be used by the students within the spaces (via online resources) and signposted and recommended by peers (for scheduled support sessions).

    Although this model exists elsewhere, at Manchester it is enhanced by the CATE-awarded Library Student Team, a group of current students who appreciate and often inhabit these spaces themselves. The combination of always available online, expert-led sessions and peer-led support means there is a multiplicity of avenues in the support. This allows the University to partner with, for example, its Students’ Union, and work alongside students and the wider institution by hosting these digital spaces, acting as mediators or facilitators, and ensuring the right balance of autonomy and support.

    Keeping learning credible

    Wider institutional support like My Learning Essentials already takes advantage of digital spaces by delivering both asynchronous online support and scheduled online sessions, and it can be easily integrated, signposted and shaped by the students using it.

    These spaces need to be connected to the institution in such a way as to feel relevant and powerful. “Leaving” students to lead in spaces, giving them leadership responsibility without institutional support or backing, sets both them and these spaces up for failure.

    Universities can work alongside students to help them define collective community values and principles, much like the community guidelines found in spaces like MYFest, a community-focused annual development event. Doing so ensures these liminal spaces are inclusive and responsive to the needs of all participants. Such spaces can also help students transition ‘out’ of the university environment and support others to build skills that they have already developed, such as by mentoring a student in a year below.

    Safeguarding in a digital world

    Universities should also allow students to follow the beat of their own drum and embrace digital outside of university spaces to further their learning.

    Kai Prince, a PhD candidate in Maths at The University of Manchester, who runs a popular Discord server for fellow students, notes:

    If the servers are led by a diverse group of students, I find that they’re also perfect for building a sense of belonging as students feel more comfortable in sharing their difficulties pseudo-anonymously and receiving peer-support, either by being informed on solutions or having their experiences, such as impostor syndrome, acknowledged.

    Spaces like Discord allow students to engage in peer-led learning, but universities can enhance the quality of that learning by making available and investing in (as is done with My Learning Essentials) high-quality online materials, clear paths to wider support services and formal connections with societies or other academic groups. These mechanisms also help to keep the space within a student’s university experience, with all the expectations for behaviour and collegiality that entails.

    The higher education sector is a complex and diverse space, welcoming new members to its communities each year. But it is often mired in a struggle to effectively engage and include each individual as a true part of the whole.

    Work to address this needs to incorporate the students in spaces where the balance of power is tilted, by design, in their favour. Recognising the potential for digital spaces, for accessibility, support and familiarity for students as they enter higher education means that universities can put their efforts towards connecting, but not dictating, the direction of students and helping them forge their own learning journeys as part of the wider university community.

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  • What is academic freedom? With Keith Whittington

    What is academic freedom? With Keith Whittington

    “Who controls what is taught in American universities
    — professors or politicians?”

    Yale Law professor Keith Whittington answers this
    timely question and more in his new book, “You Can’t Teach That!
    The Battle over University Classrooms.” He joins the podcast to
    discuss the history of academic freedom, the difference between
    intramural and extramural speech, and why there is a
    “weaponization” of intellectual diversity.

    Keith E. Whittington is the David Boies Professor of
    Law at Yale Law School. Whittington’s teaching and scholarship span
    American constitutional theory, American political and
    constitutional history, judicial politics, the presidency, and free
    speech and the law.


    Read the transcript.

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    02:00 The genesis of Yale’s Center for Academic
    Freedom and Free Speech

    04:42 The inspiration behind “You Can’t Teach
    That!”

    06:18 The First Amendment and academic freedom

    09:29 Extramural speech and the public sphere

    17:56 Intramural speech and its complexities

    23:13 Florida’s Stop WOKE Act

    26:34 Distinctive features of K-12 education

    31:13 University of Pennsylvania professor Amy Wax

    39:02 University of Kansas professor Phillip
    Lowcock

    43:42 Muhlenberg College professor Maura
    Finkelstein

    47:01 University of Wisconsin La-Crosse professor Joe
    Gow

    54:47 Northwestern professor Arthur Butz

    57:52 Inconsistent applications of university
    policies

    01:02:23 Weaponization of “intellectual diversity”

    01:05:53 Outro

    Show notes:

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  • What HR Should Know About Tenure and Academic Freedom – CUPA-HR

    What HR Should Know About Tenure and Academic Freedom – CUPA-HR

    by Julie Burrell | February 6, 2024

    From an HR perspective, faculty positions can often look very different from other professional and staff roles on campus, especially when it comes to those faculty on the tenure track. But as HR’s role in academic staffing expands, it’s critical to understand tenure and its role in supporting academic freedom, says Joerg Tiede, the director of the department of research and public policy with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). In his recent CUPA-HR webinar, Tenure: Past, Present and Future, Tiede explains the nuances of tenure and academic freedom through an HR lens. Here are some key takeaways.

    Tenure and Academic Freedom

    Tenure

    Tenure is an “indefinite appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency and program discontinuation,” according to the AAUP.

    Tiede notes that this simple definition is often surprising to many in higher ed, because tenure frequently comes with other advantages, such as sabbatical or the ability to vote for or hold a position in faculty senate. But these other benefits are often part of an institution’s culture or a faculty member’s contract, rather than inherent to tenure itself.

    Academic Freedom

    Tiede stresses that tenure exists not as an individual perk, but to protect academic freedom. The AAUP defines academic freedom as “the freedom of a teacher or researcher in higher education to investigate and discuss the issues in his or her academic field, and to teach or publish findings without interference from political figures, boards of trustees, donors, or other entities.” The concept of academic freedom applies to faculty members’ speech and writing on campus as teachers and advisors, in their research, and in their “intramural speech” (e.g., institutional governance) and “extramural speech” (e.g., when speaking as a citizen).

    The AAUP’s 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure is the most widely adopted description of both academic freedom and tenure at institutions of higher education.

    Non-Tenure-Track Faculty

    Not all professors have or are eligible for tenure, including non-tenure-track faculty who may work full time as salaried employees with benefits but are not eligible for tenure. An example of this kind of faculty may be someone whose job functions involve instruction rather than a mix of instruction and research. Other non-tenure-track faculty include adjuncts, who are paid per course and typically do not have a benefits package. The breakdown of who is eligible for tenure differs by institution, with some institutions not having a tenure system at all. See the AAUP’s data on the academic workforce.

    The Future of Tenure and Academic Freedom

    “Tenure is indispensable to the success of an institution,” says Tiede. This is because academic freedom not only strengthens individual institutions by protecting the teaching and research of faculty, but also upholds the public good. The AAUP’s FAQs on academic freedom states: “Those teaching and researching in higher education need academic freedom because the knowledge produced and disseminated in colleges and universities is critical for the development of society and for the health of a democracy, an idea often expressed by the phrase ‘for the common good’ or ‘for the public good.’” In theory, tenure shields faculty from political or religious agendas. It also protects tenured faculty who work in areas that are or may become controversial.

    Tiede notes that academic freedom would be made secure with more broadly inclusive tenure policies. One way this can be accomplished is by converting non-tenure-track positions into tenure-track positions, with the AAUP recommending “only minor changes in job description.” In particular, the conversion of teaching-focused positions from non-tenure-track to tenure-track is recommended. Though tenure is often tied to research accomplishments, Tiede and the AAUP do not view this as inherent to the definition of tenure.

    A more inclusive tenure process also includes reviewing for implicit bias. In breaking down who is tenured or on the tenure track, CUPA-HR has found that more women faculty are represented in non-tenure-track roles than in tenure-track roles. Moreover, with each increase in rank, the proportions of women faculty and faculty of color decrease for both tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty. Taken together, this means that women are over-represented in the lowest-paying and lowest-ranking positions.

    Who gets tenured also has implications for pay equity. Faculty pay raises are commonly tied to promotion and tenure, which is often the only time faculty see a significant increase in their salary. When there is bias in promoting women and faculty of color to successive ranks, this results in career earnings gaps.

    Additional Resources

    Watch Tiede’s webinar, Tenure: Past, Present and Future, which covers the origins and history of tenure and answers HR-specific questions, like whether academic freedom applies to provocative posts on social media and how best to nurture a merit-based culture within a tenure system.

    CUPA-HR’s Toolkit on Academic Freedom contains real-world examples of academic freedom policies at various institutions.

    In Opening Doors for Strategic Partnerships With Academic Leadership, Gonzaga University’s HR pros explain how they cultivated the relationship between HR and the campus community, including leveraging the power of HR champions on their campus.

    Check out CUPA-HR’s e-learning courses, including Boot Camp, which offers a higher ed perspective on essential HR topics, and Understanding Higher Education, which is designed to help all employees be more effective in their roles by developing a deeper understanding of institutional structure and culture.

    Ways to support an increasingly contingent faculty workforce are explored in the article The Way Forward: Envisioning New Faculty Models for a Changing Professoriate. The focus is on The Delphi Project, part of the University of Southern California’s Pullias Center for Higher Education, which explores how non-tenure-track faculty working conditions are tied to student success.



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  • Academic Freedom, Tenure & the U.S. Higher Education System – GlobalHigherEd

    Academic Freedom, Tenure & the U.S. Higher Education System – GlobalHigherEd

    This entry is available via Inside Higher Ed as well.

    ~~~~~~~~~

    2015 is surely one of the most momentous years in a long time regarding debates about tenure, academic freedom, the Wisconsin Idea, budget cuts, etc. Yesterday’s balanced article (‘Tenure or Bust‘) by Colleen Flaherty, in Inside Higher Ed, is but the latest of a series of nuanced pieces Ms. Flaherty has produced this year about the unfolding of higher education debates in this Midwest U.S. state of 5.75 million people.

    While I’m immersed in the tumult as a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I can’t help standing back and trying to look at the big picture. Studying, living, working, and visiting a range of other countries, including universities in Canada, England, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and France, as well as being based in the U.S. since 2001, often engenders a drive to compare. And when comparing and reflecting upon what this wonderful university and the state/national higher education system (systems, in reality) has to offer, I increasingly think too much is taken for granted, or assumed. This is a relatively risk-oriented society, and I’m struck by how many people (including many of of the people leaving comments below ‘Tenure or Bust‘) assume the system is ‘broken,’ resiliency can be counted upon, and mechanisms to turn the system on a dime exist, if searched for long enough. They also ignore path dependency, and prior developmental trajectories and agendas, the ones that have led us to where we are now, a nation that has some of the strongest and most dynamic universities in the world. Problems and weaknesses exist, of course, but people in Wisconsin and the U.S. more broadly don’t seem to know just how many other countries are desperate to create just the types of universities that exist here.

    And what are some of the deep (core) principles and conditions that have led to the creation of so many world-class universities and higher education systems (at the state-scale) in Wisconsin and the U.S. more broadly? This question brings me to the words of Hanna Holborn Gray, the esteemed president of the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1993. In conference panel comments reprinted in the Summer 2009 issue of Social Research, Hanna Holborn Gray deemed universities to be a very important and special institution:

    …the only institution in our world, that is, as it were, commissioned to always take a longer-term look. The only institution in our world that is commissioned, so to speak, to concentrate on the mission of discovery and learning, and the transmission of learning, on the elaboration and interpretation and debate over important ideas, over what is most important in the cultural world.

    Emeritus President Holborn Gray then begged the question: “What is it that makes that profession or vocation possible? And what is it that makes the institution in which it is carried on a genuine institution?”

    Her question was actually answered 115 years earlier to this day (18 December 1900), by the founding president of the University of Chicago, William Rainey Harper, in his ‘36th Quarterly Statement of the President of the University’:

    When for any reason, in a university on private foundation or in a university supported by public money, the administration of the institution or the instruction in any one of its departments is changed from an influence from without; when an effort is made to dislodge an officer or a professor because the political sentiment or the religious sentiment of the majority has undergone a change, at that moment the institution has ceased to be a university, and it cannot again take its place in the rank of universities so long as their continues to exist any appreciable extent of coercion. Neither an individual, nor the state, nor the church has the right to interfere with the search for truth, or with its promulgation when found. Individuals, or the state, or the church may found schools for propagating certain kinds of special instruction, but such schools are not universities, and may not be so denominated.

    Genuine ‘universities’ like the University of Chicago and those that make up the University of Wisconsin System are associated with conditions of autonomy, and are spaces that respect and uphold academic freedom. And from the faculty perspective, academic freedom is significantly realized via the mechanism of tenure, which enables faculty to focus upon things like “establishing revolutionary theories about economics” (one of Milton Friedman’s many contributions in Chicago), the sustained basic research that underlies the creation of the iPhone (that the University of Wisconsin-Madison contributed to), challenging research questions related to democratization, authoritarianism, sexuality or violence, complex global challenges such as climate change, and so on. And in so doing, these faculty members (in association with staff & students) play a major role in creating the conditions that have helped us facilitate the formation of one of the world’s first university-linked technology transfer units (WARF) in 1925, through to generating research activity and spin-off firms that has made the Madison city-region one of the US’s most advanced industrial bases (according to the Brookings Institution in 2015) — a now common process of geographical concentration that the World Bank and others (e.g., David Warsh) note is inevitable, but defacto functions as ‘engines’ for regional and national economies.

    I have no doubt the vast majority of the University of Chicago’s current faculty would make the same argument I am above: after all, that great university’s leadership has been doing so since it was founded 125 years ago in 1890. Visionary leaders like William Rainey Harper and Hanna Holborn Gray were aware that the long and challenging road to build one of the most dynamic and powerful higher education systems in the world depended upon more than platitudes about ‘academic freedom’ – academic freedom actually had (and has) to be realized each and every day.

    Kris Olds

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