2.6 Academic Freedom

How often have you heard the phrase Academic Freedom used to avoid scrutiny and influence when it comes to teaching. Without going into the history of the original intent, a current view can be found in Encyclopedia Britannica:


• Academic freedom, the freedom of teachers and students to teach, study, and pursue knowledge and research without unreasonable interference or restriction from law, institutional regulations, or public pressure. Its basic elements include the freedom of teachers to inquire into any subject that evokes their intellectual concern; to present their findings to their students, colleagues, and others; to publish their data and conclusions without control or censorship; and to teach in the manner they consider professionally appropriate.

There are many ways to phrase this, but this paragraph seems to capture today’s interpretation.

There are some interesting tidbits in this definition: without unreasonable interference or restriction, without control, and professionally appropriate. The issue comes down to what is unreasonable, control, and professional. Let’s consider these tidbits. An academic does not have 100% freedom or control. Academics are not entitled to do anything they want, how they want. An academic does not have the freedom to be unprofessional.

Key points...

• There is material that must be taught in a program. For example, when a program is approved, accredited. Or when an instructor charged with teaching an algebra course in a math program cannot simply choose to ‘not teach’ algebra and instead teach film making, anatomy, neuroscience, or ethnographic methods. No 100% freedom here. The instructor can augment the requirements of course, but there are expectations for what should be taught in a course and the level of mastery that the students should be reasonably able to achieve.
• As a professional, one should know what level the students are at before entering a course - what pre-requisite knowledge do those students have - and when setting outcomes one should know where students have to be both on their journey with regard to being practitioners of their discipline, but also with regard to any courses for which the course one is teaching is a pre-req. Talk to your colleagues about what is being taught!!! This is not something that is to be taken 'under consideration'.
• If one is going to make a judgement call about what is to be taught, or not, one should have knowledge of the field. This covers basic content, ties to theory, research, etc. As part of the openness with regard to peer review of teaching, just as with sending something to a peer reviewed publication, an instructor should be happy to have peer review of content. Essentially, the course must fit in and make sense, driven by the program and program's learning outcomes. This is also something that should not thought of as 'under consideration'.
• Research involving humans is controlled. A researcher cannot do whatever they want with subjects and human research is tightly regulated and monitored. No 100% freedom here either. Researchers are not allowed to put subjects at risk and the subjects must be dealt with in ethically and professional ways. If a researcher without the training in human researcher wants to do such research, they must figure it out to a satisfactory level before the research is done. They can study the material themselves or collaborate with others; whatever it takes.
• There are standards and controls over what is actually published and used when disseminating research. We expect to have our research peer reviewed, graduate work reviewed and approved by committees before degrees conferred. We do not allow plagiarism, data falsification, or other such acts. There are different levels of quality within any field. The top journals, the most coveted outlets. An academic can publish whatever they want, wherever they want using the Academic Freedom banner, but if they actually are playing the game, and hope to be retained and promoted, they will acquiesce to the controls and regulations within their department, faculty, and institution. Hence, there is no 100% freedom in research either. Furthermore, to get grant money for student supervision and research, there is also vetting, standards, and control. Academics are not usually told, ‘ask for what you want and we will give it to you’. There are controls.

Other observations…

• Given the above, we are puzzled by the many instructors we know that get upset when someone suggests any kind of control and oversight over the teaching. To us, it is reasonable to have expectations and minimum standards. It is unreasonable to think otherwise. We are getting paid to instruct and there should be expectations about high quality instruction given the compensation that is being given.
• Control and oversight does not mean that innovation is stifled. But, it does mean that innovation must be managed and a process put in place for change management. There are not infinite resources and as a responsible institution, waste should be avoided.
• This gets us back to the professional phrasing. If you are not a ‘professional’, you need to defer to those who are, seek guidance from them, and use it until you have developed sufficient skill and expertise to be worthy of the title.
• Someone just graduating with their advance degree is not yet an expert in teaching and learning. Even if you have a degree in teaching or learning.
• A new instructor should not have 100% freedom to decide what goes into their course, how the course is delivered, or how the desired mastery is assessed. Furthermore, someone without any serious training in teaching, learning, or change management should not be allowed to change courses in significant ways that will put students at risk.
• The institution, faculty, and departments should have the ability to establish sound teaching guidelines for a minimum level of quality that takes into account differences in the academic topic, levels of Bloom’s taxonomy being strived for, and so forth.
• If your institution, faculty, department (and yourself) claim to value and deliver high quality learning to the student body, it is expensive and it is resource intensive. It is easy to make such claims, but harder to deliver. Institutions need to put their money where their mouth is and ante up. There is no handwaving or magic solution; especially those that simply generate activities without added value to the improvement of learning (e.g., expecting someone to be an expert in teaching and learning with less than a ¼ of an undergraduate course of study).

Suggestions…

• Any new course offering should include the oversight and participation of the institution’s center for teaching.
• Any major course re-design and overhaul should include the oversight and participation of the institution’s center of teaching.
• Any proposed change in methodology or process that is innovative within the department, faculty or institution should include the participation of the institution’s center of teaching.
• If an instructor has used a method in the past with success, the oversight and participation can be minimal; to make sure that the method makes sense in the proposed context.
• Courses should be on a schedule for peer review that includes multiple in-class observation points, assisted by the institution’s center for teaching. See the notes on course evaluations.

Further reading

• https://www.britannica.com/topic/academic-freedom
• https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/dispatches-academic-freedom/first-dispatch-academic-freedom-and-the-mission-of-the-university/