In a 17-page report released on May 4, 2016, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) made it clear that recent decisions made at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York violated its own Faculty Manual (and therefore contracts) and shared governance documents. These decisions included the elimination of 28 undergraduate and graduate academic programs and giving 12 months' layoff notice to 23 tenured and tenure-track professors.
The response by Saint Rose officials was to declare that "the College has not adopted the AAUP regulations in its Faculty Manual, so the AAUP regulations do not apply to the College." The report, however, details more than violations of the AAUP's own regulations. According to Saint Rose professor Dr. Angela Ledford, the College "repeatedly violated, very clearly violated, based on evidence, our own faculty manual and our own governance document." The report documents these violations with input from over 30 faculty members, a dozen students, two past administrators, and publicly available information about the issues of academic freedom and tenure at the College.
The report will be helpful to members of the national AAUP who will vote to decide whether or not to place Saint Rose on its list of censured institutions on June 18, 2016 at their annual meeting. Similar events to those that caused this inquiry at Saint Rose happened at Felician College, which received AAUP censure in 2015.
The report also documents the College's attempts to stifle faculty's efforts to unionize, a trend affecting various colleges around the US where faculty are losing meaningful tenure and academic freedom. College and university administrative officers and contracted management make the most money from students' tuition payments, and without adhering to shared governance, force professors to abandon their educational values, despite their expertise within their fields.
The College of Saint Rose is not legally bound to follow regulations by the AAUP. However, these recent events and issues have led to 35 of the College's faculty filing a complaint with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), the College's accreditor. If the MSCHE deems it necessary, the actions of the administration and board of trustees at the College of Saint Rose will lead to intervention by the MSCHE. Actions may need to be taken to change the decisions leading to this conflict in order to protect the accreditation of the institution.
