Connecticut State Conference-AAUP

Annual Spring Meeting

May 10, 2012

5:30-9:00 P.M.

Graduate Club, New Haven, CT

 Distinguished Guest Speaker: Robert C. Post, Dean and Sol and Lillian Goldman Professor of Law, Yale University Law School

Event Dedicated to Robert Bard, Emeritus Professor, University of Connecticut School of Law

For dinner reservation and directions to the Graduate Club, please see here

All faculty are invited to the Thursday, May 10, Spring Meeting of the Connecticut State Conference-AAUP. The
event takes place at the Graduate Club, 155 Elm Street, New Haven, from 5:30 to 9:00 PM. The evening begins at 5:30 with a social period; at 6:00 dinner is served, followed by the program of awards and Dean Post’s talk. A dinner reservation form and directions to the Graduate Club can be found here. The reservation deadline is Friday, May 4.

In honor of our late friend and colleague Robert Bard, our May 10 Annual Spring Meeting focuses on the principles of academic freedom, tenure, and due process in higher education. Our featured speaker is Robert C. Post, Sol and Lillian Goldman Professor of Law and Dean of the Yale Law School. AAUP President Cary Nelson offered these words about Dean Post’s distinguished service as a long-time member of the national AAUP Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure: “Those of us who have been lucky enough to have worked with Robert on the AAUP’s legendary Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure know how many of our fundamental documents and policy statements have benefited from the refining fire of his extraordinary  intelligence. They also know that his uncompromising intellect is combined with matchless civility and good will. While we are now jealous that Yale has more of his time, we also know that faculty all over the country benefit daily from the work he has done for the profession as a whole.”

Jordan Kurland, AAUP Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance Associate General  Secretary, summarizes Post’s AAUP activities, particularly with respect to Committee A:

They date back to the late 1980s, when he participated in subcommittee work that led to the 1990 statement “Academic Freedom and Artistic Expression,” published in our Redbook. He was one of four eminent law professors and university attorneys who contributed to “The University Counsel: A roundtable Discussion” (AcademeNovember-December 2001). A major controversy at the University
of California over a graduate student instructor’s course description of his section of a course in basic reading and writing skills led the Berkeley Chancellor to invite him to provide advice on the issues of academic freedom and governance in the controversy. His response, “Academic Freedom and the ‘Intifada Curriculum,’” was published in the May-June 2003 issue of Academe. He played the leading role in formulating the 2004 Redbook statement “Verification and Trust: Background Investigations Preceding Faculty Appointment.” His final publication before leaving Committee A to commence the Yale deanship is the widely acclaimed 2009 book For the Common Good: Principles of Academic Freedom, co-authored with former Committee A chair Matthew Finkin and based extensively on AAUP-investigated Committee A cases.

Leading American legal scholar and author Robert C. Post will speak on issues developed in his new book Democracy, Expertise, Academic Freedom: A First Amendment Jurisprudence for the Modern State. The book offers “a new and useful account of constitutional doctrines of academic freedom. These doctrines depend both upon freed expression and the necessity of the kinds of professional judgment that universities exercise when they grant or deny tenure or that professional journals exercise when they accept or reject submissions.” Dean Post is an exceptionally eloquent speaker, and his comments will be thought-provoking.

Robert Bard, EmeritusProfessor, University of Connecticut School of Law, was an outspoken champion of academic freedom and due process. He was tireless in his advocacy for members deprived of basic professional rights embodied in AAUP tenets, and offered his counsel and considerable expertise unstintingly. He assisted in the creation of the Connecticut State Conference-AAUP, served with distinction as chair of the CSC-AAUP Committee A for many years, and continued to pursue violations of academic freedom until his death on July 10, 2011.

The May Connecticut State Conference-AAUP meeting draws a large and diverse audience of active and emeritus faculty from the state’s public and private two- and four-year institutions. CSC-AAUP’s officers are from collective-bargaining and advocacy campuses, and many serve in local, state, and national AAUP official capacities.