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download .pdf of Higher Education Platform
The Issue Every student has a right to expect well-educated and prepared faculty, who are fully supported by their institutions, to provide the highest quality instruction. Michigan colleges and universities must provide full-time, permanent tenure-track positions to all faculty who meet these high standards. Faculty must be personally available to students for advice and guidance. Students need opportunities to talk to their professors and advisors about their plans and ambitions, as well as their coursework and research. Technology should not be allowed to turn professors into mere faces on a screen or names on a computer. At the same time, technology should be readily available so that students have the ability to be educated in the latest advances and be fully prepared for the workforce. Research, scholarship and creative activity are essential to the success of American higher education. For ideas to flow between students and teachers, and reach society at large, knowledge must be continually expanded as well as transmitted. Colleges and universities differ greatly in their research activity, but good teaching always draws on new scholarship, and vice versa. Scholarly and creative activity is the engines that keep America on top in commerce, medicine, science and technology. They enrich our culture and generate breakthroughs in every walk of life. Academic Freedom is essential to unfettered inquiring and progress. It must be retained and strengthened. Action Steps Professional Development: The State should support training in effective teaching for new faculty and professional development opportunities for all faculty; Non Tenure-Track Impact: As a first step in assessing appropriate faculty staffing patterns, the State should conduct a study of the conditions under which non tenure-track faculty function at the State's institutions of higher education and the impact of these conditions on student access to faculty, student conferencing, curriculum development, faculty knowledge of curriculum and accrediting agency standards, and professional development. These conditions include, but are not limited to, extremely low salaries, no health and pension benefits, no offices, no assurance of continuing employment and no opportunity to participate in university governance or course development. With over 50 percent of the teaching in Michigan's higher education institutions done by non tenure-track faculty, such a study is long overdue; Academic Freedom: State policy makers should oppose the deceptively named "Academic Bill of Rights" which would have the reverse impact suggested by its name. For scholarly and creative activity to continue to prosper, we must preserve the line between indoctrination of students and appropriate pedagogical authority. The best way to accomplish that goal is to continue to have all faculty rather than college administrations or the courts interpret and apply scholarly and professional standards. |
