American Association of University Professors Records

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) was founded in 1915 at Johns Hopkins University to protect academic freedom, which was being threatened on some campuses by overzealous administrators. The University of North Dakota (UND) became a charter chapter in AAUP after John M. Gillette, UND professor of sociology, traveled to New York to attend an organizational meeting for the association. UND's chapter of AAUP was among the largest of the initial chapters and the only chapter west of Minneapolis in the Midwest, according to Louis G. Geiger's University of the Northern Plains. Since its inception, the AAUP at UND served to promote recognition and just treatment of the university faculty. The organization was concerned with academic and economic issues including, but not limited to, faculty responsibility, salary, student rights, academic freedom, tenure, retirement, insurance and status of women. According to its website, the mission of the national AAUP is "to advance academic freedom and shared governance, to define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education, and to ensure higher education's contribution to the common good." The UND chapter is now dissolved.

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