On Wednesday, April 18th, the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education (CFHE) is organizing a National Day of Action to promote quality public higher education. APSCUF is a founding member of CFHE and has been instrumental in the early workings of the Campaign. APSCUF is proud to be involved with the movement, which has the theme “Invest in Higher Education: It’s the Right Course.” Pointedly, this slogan speaks to the current status of the state appropriation to PASSHE. “The Right Course” for the commonwealth is maintain its commitment to the citizens of Pennsylvania and fund the 14 state-owned universities.
CFHE was founded because faculty felt we needed a voice, and a national one, to counter the “reform” agendas of politicians, think tankers, and some academic administrators. We are all familiar with some pieces of their agenda: curtail programs, make online the normal pedagogy for post-secondary education, push employability, and push degree completion — with its potential involvement of the other three — as the main point of college. There’s little discussion of the actual value of being educated. We also wanted to counter the divestment in higher ed that has become the normal public policy in individual states and nationally.
When we began this discussion in 2010, faculty had almost no voice in any of this, and often state and local faculty leaders felt isolated confronting these large issues.
Now, we have a national Campaign that is pushing back. If you go to the CFHE web page, you can see all the organizations that have signed onto the Seven Principles of the Campaign. We hope that you will join the movement on Wednesday, April 18th.
In Solidarity,
Steve Hicks APSCUF President
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
To find out what campuses are doing, contact Lauren Gutshall at .