The American Association of University Professors was founded in 1915 to defend the academic freedom and general professional standing of college and university faculty members. It is widely recognized as the authoritative voice on questions of academic freedom at all levels of higher education in the U.S. In the early 1970s the AAUP embraced trade union representation and today about 3/4 of its 50,000 members are in union chapters. The AAUP's 1915 and 1940 statements on academic freedom and tenure have been endorsed by nearly 300 academic organizations and are integrated into the policies of hundreds of colleges and universities, public and private. The AAUP's annual report on the economic status of the profession, with detailed salary figures for over 1,000 institutions is widely used. Professor Reichman, a retired historian of Russia and the Soviet Union, is First Vice-President of the AAUP and Chair of its Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure. He will speak about the history of the AAUP and about current challenges facing the academic profession and academic freedom in the U.S.
Hank Reichman - Professor Emeritus in History, California State University, East Bay. First Vice-President, American Association of University Professors.
Education: B.A., Columbia University, 1969; Ph.D (Russian/European History) University of California, Berkeley, 1977.
Academic Employment: University of California, San Diego, 1978; Northwestern University, 1979-80; IREX Scholar, Leningrad, USSR, 1981-82; Memphis State University, 1983-89; College of Alameda, 1989; University of California, Davis, 1989; Mills College, 1989-90: CSUEB, 1989- present.
Honors: CSUEB Outstanding Professor Award, 1998; CSUEB Faculty Service Award, 2005.
Other Employment: Assistant Director, Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association (ALA), 1980-81; Editor, ALA Newsletter on IntellectualFreedom, 1982-present.
Publications: Railwaymen and Revolution: Russia, 1905 (U. of California Press, 1987);Censorship and Selection: Issues and Answers for Schools (ALA, 1988, 1993, 2001); articles and reviews in, among others,Russian History, Russian Review, Slavic Review, Theory and Society.