Here’s a round-up of some of our latest work that touches on the COVID-19 pandemic. I hope you are staying safe and well in these trying times.

Medical Faculty Solidarity Letter

AAUP president Irene Mulvey saluted the work of AAUP clinical, medical research, nursing, and health professions faculty. The statement of solidarity provides guidance for all chapters and members on how they can support such faculty going forward. Read more here.

Recommendations of the AAUP Committee on Contingency and the Profession

The AAUP’s Committee on Contingency and the Profession provided recommendations to the higher education community about how to address the unique challenges contingent faculty face during the pandemic. These recommendations are followed by resources that can help chapters fighting for contingent faculty to get paid sick leave, to increase their job security in the fall, to apply for unemployment benefits, to retain their intellectual property rights after the emergency transition to remote instruction, to protect their academic freedom, and to gain better access to shared governance structures. Read more here.

AAUP Masks

New swag for new times: our online store will be offering non-medical-grade masks starting next week. There will be six different versions, including ones with the AAUP logo and another that says, “You can’t silence academic freedom.” We’ll share the link to the masks in the next update. In the meantime, you can check out other items in our store.

AAUP Joins Amicus Brief Opposing DHS Directive

The AAUP joined over seventy other higher education organizations in submitting an amicus brief, prepared by the American Council on Education, in support of a successful legal challenge filed by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology against the US Department of Homeland Security in the US District Court in Massachusetts. The challenge sought to prevent DHS’s July 6 directive, which rescinded a prior COVID-19 exemption for international students participating in online education, from taking effect so that thousands of international students couldn’t continue to participate in educational opportunities in the United States, even if their course of study is online. Read more here.

Virtual Summer Institute

The AAUP Summer Institute was virtual this year. Our ninety-minute sessions covered a wide range of topics, from campus decisions about reopening to supporting student protests to pushing back against austerity budgets. A special plenary panel highlighted the experiences of frontline health-care providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. You can watch recordings of the sessions here.

Academe and Academe Blog

Last month, Academe published several new online articles addressing the COVID-19 crisis in higher education, and Academe Blog continues to highlight faculty perspectives on the pandemic in blog posts about academic governance during a financial crisis, mask mandates, remote teaching, and other topics.

We’ll be in touch with another COVID-19 update in September.

In solidarity,
Julie Schmid
Executive Director, AAUP