BY MICHAEL FERGUSON Following is the editor’s introduction to the fall 2026 issue of Academe, “The Brave New World of Higher Ed,” out this week. The full issue and table of contents can be found here. This issue of Academe arrives at a pivotal moment for US higher education—and for democracy. As midterm elections approach, the federal…
BY MELISSA CHADBURN In 2023, I was confounded by my humanness as I entered my first full-time visiting faculty position in my mid-forties. The brain fog. The creeping anxiety. Feeling my confidence and capacity to speak in front of other people vanish, even though I had a lot of experience with public speaking, panels, and…
BY KATIE RAINWATER This post follows up on, and covers new developments related to, the author’s June 15 Academe Blog post. In June, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACSCOC)—the traditional accreditor for the Southeastern United States, now also called the Commission on Colleges and Universities (CCU)* —released a first draft of new standards…
BY D.J. HOPKINS AND ZACH JUSTUS It’s time for your department to produce its annual assessment report. You and your colleagues have agreed on the learning outcomes to measure, and you have the data, but no one looks forward to this task, so you put it off. You answer emails, do some compliance training, and…
BY ROGER OCHSE I ran a company for fourteen years, sold it in 1990, and chose a classroom over a boardroom. I’ve taught college classes for more than forty years total, some of which overlapped with my time running the company, though most came after. I kept teaching once I retired from full-time faculty work—several…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY Fears About Working Conditions Deepen for Faculty in the South The annual Faculty in the South Survey reveals optimism about AI but worsening fears about the impacts of government intrusion into curriculum and the future of the professoriate. The survey, conducted by state conferences of the AAUP, received responses from more than…
BY GRANT MINCY Buried inside the Department of Education’s proposed Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization (AIM) rule sits a single provision, § 602.23(j), that reads on the surface like a narrow housekeeping matter. The provision tells accreditors not to second-guess how a state appoints the members of a public college’s governing board. Appointment mechanics are properly…
BY B. M. RYAN In Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania, Frank Bruni’s intervention into the admissions debate was built around a stabilizing claim: Where you go is not who you’ll be. It was an argument against status anxiety, against the idea that elite college admission determined life…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY I am the book review editor for Academe. While we continue to have an eager set of reviewers for upcoming issues of the magazine, I am interested in expanding our network of book reviewers. I have a list of books available in both print and digital formats you can choose from to…
BY SYDNEY FREEMAN JR. Too many scholars of color are leaving the academy, and too few higher education organizations, faculty senates, and faculty advocates are doing tangible work to combat this. After fifteen years in the academy, I recently stepped away from a tenured full professor position at a Research 1 university after receiving outside…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY Please share widely. Faculty in the South Colleague: That’s you in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The Georgia conference of the American Association of University Professors and its partners in states across the South would like to know your opinion as a…
BY JAMES RIVER ROBBINS I was at an educators’ union meeting recently when a member raised the issue of reproductive care. Their argument was simple: With institutions and governments cutting away at members’ reproductive rights, the union should stand behind its members and, at minimum, connect them with accurate information about reproductive health. Before I…
BY HANK REICHMAN What might celebrated incidents of “academic misconduct,” specifically plagiarism and falsifications, tell us about the crisis of academia? Recent events offer some suggestions. Jason Arday, who days earlier had resigned as professor of sociology at Cambridge University in the wake of credible charges of plagiarism and fabrication, was found dead August 14. …
BY VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY AAUP The Vanderbilt University chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) registers its profound disagreement with the Vanderbilt Board of Trust’s “Declaration of First Principles” (July 29, 2026) as well as its opposition to the Department of Education’s “National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards” (August 3,…
BY HANK REICHMAN “If at first you don’t succeed . . .” The Trump administration is at it again. With their much-ballyhooed “Compact for Excellence in Higher Education” a fantastic flop and their campaign of intimidation generating growing resistance, they’re now trying a new tactic in their ongoing efforts to reshape higher education to accord…
