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Academic freedom—the institutional autonomy of scientific, research and teaching institutions, and the freedom of individual scholars and researchers to pursue controversial research and publish controversial opinions—is a cornerstone of any free society.  Today this freedom is under attack from the state in many countries—Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, Hungary, China—but it is also under question from within academe. Bitter disputes have erupted on American campuses, for example, about the limits of free speech and about whether liberal academic freedoms have degenerated into a form of coercive political correctness. Beyond the academy itself, among the general public, academic freedom is contested ground. As Robert Post of Yale Law School has put it, academic freedom is "the price the public must pay in return for the social good of advancing knowledge." Populist currents of political opinion are questioning the price a society pays for the freedom of its 'experts' and professors.

Faculties is a call to action, a sourcebook, and a how-to guide for academic colleagues who want to contribute to the administrative and educational decisions being made about the future of our institutions. There is no going back to the version of US higher education that existed a couple of decades or even a couple of years ago. Cathy N. Davidson and Jody Greene encourage faculty and allies to incite and participate in change, offering models of successful, constructive collaboration at a destructive and demoralizing time for higher education. Presented in the form of dialogues between Davidson and Greene, two of higher education’s most innovative leaders, Faculties focuses on the urgency of coalition building, providing data and analyses of the structural, financial, ideological, and organizational circumstances that can support or inhibit productive change in colleges, universities, and research institutions. Faculties retains a welcoming, conversational tone while incorporating extensive references and citations and addressing drastic changes to higher education, offering the evidence and inspiration needed to enact institutional transformation now.

On June 20,1938, the trustees of the City Colleges of New York changed the by-laws on the governance of the colleges. The transformation of New York City's colleges from autocratic to democratic rule virtually overnight was a revolutionary event in American higher education within the context of the 1930s. Abraham Edel writes of this revolution as an active participant and as an eminent philosopher who has experienced more than a half century of educational reform. The book focuses on the meaning and import of democratic organization in the governance of universities, but, at the same time, the author's personal reflections make it an intellectual memoir that charts the evolution of an idea. Labor unionism, the Great Depression, and the rise of fascism shaped the political, social, economic, and intellectual climate of the 1930s. Edel relates this milieu to the authoritarian system of governance in the City Colleges. He describes the growth of a college teachers union, a sit-down strike by students, and the controversy, agitation, and organizing that hurled the teaching staff into political action. He identifies the pioneering significance of this revolution--this experiment in democracy at a time when dictatorship was viewed as more efficient--and examines the lessons learned by sudden rather than piecemeal reform, by human responses to institutional change, and by the relation of ideas to social movements. After tracing the history of this transformation, Edel works toward a philosophy of democratic governance by evaluating the variety of claims for participation in terms of the ultimate mission of the university. Admitting a preference for democratic forms, Edel examines current issues in academic governance and the often acrimonious debate over participation by various groups.