[Plsfaculty] Academic Freedom Revisited

[Kenneth Feldmann]

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 Definition 
of 
Academic Freedom
Line
Approved by the UA Faculty Senate, September 14, 2009
Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure
Academic Freedom at the University of Arizona
Academic freedom is one of the primary ideals upon which The University of
Arizona was founded and continues to be a core value. The major premise of
academic freedom is that open inquiry and expression by faculty and students
is essential to the University's mission. Academic freedom shall be
understood to include, but not be limited to, the following: 
Academic freedom protects faculty from any and all arbitrary interferences
with their ability to carry out their missions in research, creative
activities, teaching, service and outreach.
Academic freedom is essential to the fundamental mission of discovering and
advancing knowledge and disseminating it to students and the society at
large. 
Academic freedom enables faculty members to foster in their students a
mature 
independence of mind, and this purpose cannot be achieved unless students
and faculty are free within the laboratory, classroom, and elsewhere to
express the widest range of viewpoints in accord with standards of scholarly
inquiry.
Academic freedom extends to expressing opinions concerning matters of shared
governance, leadership, or the functioning of the University and the units
within.
An essential component of academic freedom is the right of faculty members
to be free from any adverse action resulting in whole or in part from the
exercise of freedom of speech, belief, or conscience in any venue, to the
maximum extent consistent with the fulfillment of clearly defined teaching,
creative activity, research, service or clinical obligations.
A core aspect of academic freedom is the right to due process sufficient to
minimize the risk that adverse actions are taken, even in part, as a result
of the faculty member's exercise of academic freedom.
Academic freedom includes the right to criticize existing institutions
(including leadership, professions, paradigms and orthodoxies).
 
 
Kenneth A. Feldmann
Director and Professor
School of Plant Sciences
The University of Arizona
P.O. Box 210036
Tucson, Arizona 85721
Telephone: 520.621.1945
Fax: 520.621.7186
Email:  <mailto:feldmann at cals.arizona.edu> feldmann at cals.arizona.edu
 
Visit our School website at  <http://www.cals.arizona.edu/pls>
www.cals.arizona.edu/pls
 
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