2 October 2018
Alex Dant
UCCS is hosting a speaking event in the Kraemer Family Library with Hans-Joerg Tiede, a professor who has worked with the American Association of University Professors on issues of campus reform and the context of faculty and administration interactions.
During the Oct. 4 event titled “Just Talk: Academic Freedom in Troubled Times,” students and faculty will get the opportunity to learn about issues that directly affect the UCCS community.
Tiede is focusing this panel on academic freedom.
“This [event] grew out of last year’s Campus Diversity Summit, where we talked about free expression and academic freedom and there was a lot more interest in that conversation,” said Martin Garnar, dean of the Kraemer Family Library. “It’s a topic that continues to be of great interest because we want to make sure that as part of the educational process, we understand the framework that we’re in and that we also understand what it means to critically examine topics in a way where it’s not just a shouting match.”
Garnar said that learning to balance academic freedom of both students and faculty is important when parties may be resistant to that conversation for ideological reasons. Garner added an inability to get over ideological differences makes the process harder.
Garner said that the AAUP has been around for over a century and works to define and explore matters important to American faculty members at universities.
According to the AAUP’s website, Tiede has been one of the AAUP’s new senior program officers in the department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance since January of 2016, and now he will be coming to speak to UCCS faculty and staff on the subject of what academic freedom is, what kind of attacks there have been in the past on academic freedom and how students and faculty can protect it.
The panel will take place from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the third floor apse of the Kraemer Family Library.