Abstract
“Quality” refers nominatively to a standard of performance. Quality is the central idea that differentiates speech protected by academic freedom (the right to worthwhile utterances) from constitutionally protected speech (the right to say anything at all). Extant documents and discussions state that professional peers determine quality based on norms of a field. But professional peers deem utterances and activities as consonant with quality only in reference to criteria that establish meaning of the term. In the absence of articulation, these criteria are ambiguous. Consequently, there exists recurrent confusion about what faculty members have a defensible right to say and do. This article develops an ontology of quality in reference to higher education teaching, a component of academic careers generally not subject to extensive peer review and where instructors thereby exercise considerable autonomy. The ontology identifies three criteria that bound quality: constraint, context, and amplitude. Boundedness exists only insofar as boundaries are controlled. The article examines two types of problems in professional control that affect quality: slippage and overreach. Both are instances of organizational deviance and abrogation of professional ethics. It is argued that the patterns threaten the structural integrity and public confidence of faculty, fields, and higher education institutions.
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Notes
The autonomy of higher education instructors varies by national context and within national contexts as a function of institutional type (Hermanowicz, 2018). The article is informed by the U.S. higher education context where generally instructors are highly autonomous.
For other ways to conceptualize quality (i.e., robustness) in teaching, see Tyler’s ([1949] 2013) classic statement, which speaks to evaluation and assessment.
The Statement of Principles, crafted in 1940 and modified in 1970, is a revised and elaborated version of the original Declaration of Principles, developed in 1915. For both documents, see American Association of University Professors (2015a).
Academic freedom protections vary by nation, to the degree that national systems of higher education recognize academic freedom as a principle of academic work (Hermanowicz, 2018). It is important to note that academic freedom protections in the U.S. are neither codified in law nor ratified by federal legislation, as is the case, for example, in many European higher education systems.
There exist “faculty handbooks” at institutions, which largely describe policies, procedures, and resources in the realm of “faculty work life” as opposed to ethics in teaching (e.g., faculty must submit an annual report of activities; information about teaching centers and credit unions; awards available at the institution, etc.). There also exist separate policies governing specific activities (for example, travel, leaves of absences, course buy-outs, etc.), but again no elaborate policies are generally found about teaching. Further, codes of ethics of professional societies speak largely to norms governing publication, authorship, and research integrity.
Note again the stress on utterances and activities pertaining to education and the furtherance of knowledge. Utterances and activities on behalf of education are in a class of behavior distinct from crimes against laws, such as assault and misuse of funds, or violations of explicit institutional rules (sometimes codified as law), such as illicit drug use, workplace intoxication, and sexual harassment. Though behavior in these other classes of behavior also require a consideration of context to understand what happened, they exist outside the province of academic freedom.
Knowledge is only knowledge when codified socially by expert members of a group (Mannheim, 1952). There is no such thing as “individually codified knowledge.” That is a grandiose expression for unsystematized lay talk. Further, we might think of the medium of sharing expertise in which the instructor invites outside speakers to share their expertise with students. The instructor performs a role of “organizer.” Is this a substantial furtherance of knowledge? It may be only insofar as a course is specifically designed for that purpose given its particular subject matter. Otherwise, such a course consists of an instructor eschewing work—an inconsistency with academic freedom.
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Acknowledgements
A version of this paper was presented on the panel, “Universities and Their Challenges,” at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science, Honolulu, Hawaii. The author acknowledges detailed comments and suggestions provided by John M. Braxton, Erika T. Hermanowicz, and Hans-Joerg Tiede on prior drafts of this article. Responsibility for content is solely the author’s.
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Hermanowicz, J.C. Interrogating the Meaning of ‘Quality’ in Utterances and Activities Protected by Academic Freedom. J Acad Ethics (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-024-09512-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-024-09512-z