EDITORS' CORNER
Key Takeaways
- Auburn University's Board of Trustees disbanded the Faculty Senate, assuming full control over academic matters such as curriculum and degree requirements, despite criticism that this undermines faculty governance.
- The board established a new body, the Presidential Academic Advisory Council, to provide a faculty perspective, but its composition has raised concerns about the loss of genuine faculty input and shared governance.
- Critics, including the AAUP and faculty members, argue that the changes threaten academic freedom and collaboration, citing fears of reduced trust and engagement among faculty.
The Auburn University Board of Trustees disbanded the Faculty Senate on Friday and took full authority over the school’s academic matters.
The board unanimously approved the two changes with no debate and will now control “course offerings, curriculum, degree requirements and academic credentials,” according to Inside Higher Ed.
This mimics a new Alabama law that limits faculty senates to an advisory-only role, even though the new law doesn’t technically apply to the school as a land-grant institution.
Further, the board is replacing the Faculty Senate with a new group, called the Presidential Academic Advisory Council, which will create “a direct, structured and professionally responsible channel for faculty perspective to the president, provost and senior academic leadership,” according to the Board of Trustees’ memorandum.
The council will include “one elected faculty member from each academic college, selected by a vote of the faculty member’s respective college” and “one faculty member from each academic college appointed by the President.”
The decision has drawn criticism from faculty and the school’s American Association of University Professors chapter.
AAUP Senior Program Officer Mark Criley told Inside Higher Ed the changes represent the “end of shared governance” at Auburn.
“If you’re designing that body and selecting half of its membership, then you’re losing the frank, candid, informed judgment of the faculty,” Criley said.
He also expressed concern that faculty members who ask difficult questions or challenge authority may not be selected to the council.
In a statement, the AAUP chapter wrote, “Faculty are not employees in a corporate structure to be managed through top-down authority.”
“They are experts entrusted with educating students and advancing knowledge, and that work depends on collaboration, shared governance, and strong academic freedom protections,” it wrote.
Auburn educational leadership Professor Lisa Kensler also criticised the changes in an open letter published by The Auburn Plainsman.
“Faculty have not simply lost shared governance structures; they have lost their primary mechanism for collective voice,” she wrote.
She also wrote that “when people lose meaningful avenues for collective participation, organizations become more vulnerable to diminished trust, reduced ownership, cynicism, disengagement and costly turnover.”
In a statement to the Plainsman, Provost Vini Nathan said, “Auburn is strengthened by faculty whose expertise, dedication and scholarship sustain the excellence of our teaching, research and service to students.”
“As this work moves forward, it will be guided by academic quality, intellectual rigor, educational excellence and clear communication so that the resulting processes reflect both institutional purpose and the values that have long shaped auburn’s academic community,” he said.
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