Faculty Complicity in Undermining Shared Governance--A Hypothetical For a Large Public University

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2015) Faculty governance depends, in large part, on the willingness of administration and faculty to bear the burde...

The Return to Salary Transparency at Penn State and Transparency Failures at the University of Denver

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2015) In May of 2015 I raised a concern about the reversal of transparency rules at Penn State University with resp...

The Power of Assessment and the Production of Knowledge: An Example and a Warning for Faculty Complacent About the Mechanics of Value

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2015) I have been speaking to the issue of assessment--not so much as a set of techniques designed to extract data ...

The University as Irony--Disciplining Faculty for the Exercise of Speech and for Seeking to Manage the Speech of Students

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2015) I have recently noted the AAUP's Supplementary Report on the disciplining of a faculty member at Louisian...

The "Spirit of the Law": From the AAUP--Supplementary Report of Misconduct by LSU Officials

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2015) It is becoming something of a truism within the industrial sector in which academic institutions occupy a lar...