Tag Archives: the university

Martha McCluskey provides an overview of the rationale behind the University of Buffalo’s faculty union campaign to pressure the university administration to cut its ties with state and local chambers of commerce, which actively endorse political candidates and have appointed a number of university administrators to their boards. This U of B campaign began when the faculty union approved a referendum calling on the university to “immediately break its membership and financial support” with the chambers. Professor McCluskey’s eloquent defense of faculty activism (click on “Continue reading” below) has important implications for all institutions of higher education: it demands administrators be fully transparent about the alliances made with private sector and external political organizations, and it demonstrates how faculty are engaging in coordinated action to assert their voices in institutional governance. The example of U of B also invites us to think about the many different ways in which university staff and faculty can “take back” their institutions, while exposing questionable university partnerships with private, political interests that compromise the “accountability, transparency and independence” of public universities and misuse public resources. Continue reading →