THE DAVID R. KELLER CHAPTER OF THE AAUP / AFT AT UVU

On the first of May of this year over one hundred current and former members of the UVU faculty and Staff (several us members of the UVU Chapter of the AAUP) published this letter in the Salt Lake Tribune. George Pyle wrote Sunday in the Salt Lake Tribune that Gene Schaerr, the lawyer hired by the State of Utah to argue against marriage equality in the 10 th Circuit Court of Appeals, has filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case and has done so for “100 Scholars of Marriage.” Pyle noted that among the 100 are 13 with connections to Utah, including, “most notably, Matthew Holland, the president of Utah Valley University.” All of us, including our university president Matthew Holland, have the right to speak publicly as private citizens on controversial issues. However, as the public face of UVU to the larger community, Holland has a special responsibility to avoid public pronouncements that would harm his ability to carry out his duties as president of a state university ...

Response to the talk by Clayton Christensen, sponsored by the UVU Faculty Senate (and, given those in attendance, by President Holland and by all the UVU Vice Presidents and Deans and by the UVU School of Business and by the BYU School of Business and by the BYU School of Law, etc.) As befits a professor at the Harvard Business School, Christensen’s basic question was how universities can teach their students more cheaply and thus make more money and avoid being “disrupted” or “killed” by private universities like the University of Phoenix. The short answer, according to him, is online and hybrid courses. MOOCs, for example. It would be much more efficient, he said, for a single MIT physics professor to tape a set of physics 101 lectures that all universities could use for their physics 101 course. Ditto economics 101, and so on. (No thought of the advantage of local professors in first-year classes to inspire and mentor and lead students to majors that match their interests...

The AAUP issued its first statement about academic freedom and tenure in 1915. As the centennial of that beginning approaches, it has published this statement  (go to the link to read more and to sign the declaration): Institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good and not to further the interest of either the individual teacher or the institution as a whole. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free expression -1940  Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenur e The university is a public good, not a private profit-making institution, and corporations or business interests should not dictate teaching or research agendas.   The life of a university should reflect all dimensions of human endeavor and be built on the full and open participation of diverse faculty and students.   The main aims of teaching are the dissemination of knowledge and the fostering of creativity; learning is not just about d...

Speech given to the UVU Faculty Senate 2 September 2014 (after a speech given by IS Chair Wayne Hanewicz and preceding a speech given by AAUP President David Knowlton) Thanks to David Connelly and the executive committee for agreeing to let us bring this to the Senate. This is an awkward position for us. As a Department we have always worked well with the administration of the university. Over the years we have been well respected and well supported. This is awkward in another way as well. When I was President of the UVU Chapter of the AAUP, Ian Wilson and I spoke each year about questions of academic freedom and due process and concerns of the faculty. Kat Brown invited my feedback on new policy related to academic freedom. Current chapter president David Knowlton has worked skillfully to maintain that relationship even as he has represented members of our faculty in problematic cases of academic freedom and due process. Given that history, and given the importa...