Published: Jan. 16, 2020

The CU Boulder campus will begin a yearlong campus dialogue on academic freedom with a Feb. 19 panel discussion titled “Faculty and Academic Freedom: Exploring meaning and application.” A follow-up event will be hosted next fall focusing on how students experience and benefit from academic freedom.

The yearlong dialogue and the panel discussion are both co-sponsored by Provost Russell Moore and Vice Provost and Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Affairs Michele Moses. 

Moore said he is sponsoring the campus dialogue and all its activities because “in the current moment, where issues of freedom of speech on campus are often in the news, issues of academic freedom sometimes get subsumed and muddied.” The panel discussion on Feb. 19 will be moderated by Moore and Moses. 

“We will be looking at what academic freedom is and how it differs from freedom of speech and expression,” said Moses. “We will be asking questions such as what does the First Amendment protect—and not protect—and how is that related to and different from academic freedom? Who has academic freedom and what does academic freedom mean for faculty members as teachers, researchers and artists? Also, what does it mean for students?”

Moore gave further context on the purpose of the panel.

“We hope this panel will provide our campus community with an opportunity for dialogue and reflection about the rights and responsibilities academic freedom requires for faculty and the opportunities it affords students for rich experiences in the classroom, laboratory and studio,” Moore said.

For more information on the panel, visit the CU Boulder Events Calendar.

Faculty and Academic Freedom: Exploring meaning and application

What: A panel discussion on what academic freedom means for faculty members as teachers, researchers, and artists, and what their rights and responsibilities are under its tenets.

When: 5 to 6:30 p.m., Feb. 19

Where: Hale Science, room 270

Panelists:

  • Sarah Fahmy, president of UGGS, PhD student and graduate part-time instructor in theatre and performance studies, Department of Theatre and Dance, Arts & Sciences
  • Alexander Lloyd, senior assistant university counsel, CU Boulder
  • Helen Norton, professor, Colorado Law
  • Anand E. Sokhey, associate professor of political science, Arts and Sciences

Moderators:

  • Russell Moore, provost
  • Michele Moses, vice provost and associate vice chancellor for faculty affairs