A. ACADEMIC FREEDOM

The parties endorse the principles and standards of academic freedom and academic responsibility as generally and traditionally accepted in institutions of higher education. The parties agree to promote public understanding and support of academic freedom and agreement upon procedures to assure academic freedom in colleges and universities. Institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good and not to further the interests of either the individual teacher or the institution as a whole. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition. Academic freedom is essential to these purposes and applies to both teaching and research.

Academic freedom is the right of scholars in institutions of higher education freely to study, discuss, investigate, teach, exhibit, perform and publish. Freedom in research is fundamental to the advancement of truth. Academic freedom in its teaching aspect is fundamental for the protection of the rights of the teacher in teaching and of the student in learning.

The teacher is entitled to full freedom in research and in the exhibition, performance and publication of the results of his/her research, and to full freedom in the classroom in discussing his/her subject, most specifically in the selection of his/her classroom materials including selection of texts. The teacher is entitled to discuss controversial issues. As both a teacher and scholar he/she recognizes his/her professional obligation to present various scholarly opinions and to avoid presenting totally unrelated materials, that being fundamental to the advancement of truth.

A faculty member has the right to determine the amount and character of the work and other activities he/she pursues outside the College provided such work and other activities do not interfere with the discharge of his/her responsibilities under the terms of this Agreement.

Academic freedom carries with it correlative responsibilities.

The faculty member has the responsibility to his/her colleagues and the College community to preserve intellectual honesty in his/her teaching and his/her research. He/she respects the free inquiry of his/her associates and avoids interference in their work.

The parties recognize that adherence to the complementary concepts of academic freedom and academic responsibility will most nearly ensure that the greatest contributions to the several colleges will be made by their most valuable resource, the faculty. The college or university teacher is a citizen and a member of a learned profession affiliated with an educational institution. When he/she speaks, writes, or expresses himself/herself in any other fashion as a citizen, he/she should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but his/her special position in the community imposes special obligations. As a person of learning, affiliated with an educational institution, he/she should remember that the public may judge his/her profession and his/her institution by his/her utterances. Hence he/she should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate when he/she is not an institutional spokesman.

Institutions of higher education are committed to the search for truth and knowledge and to contribution to the solution of problems and controversies.