this week on "q&a" there cary nelson discusses his latest book, "no university is an island: saving academic freedom." he is also the president of the association of university professors. >> professor cary nelson, what is the american association of

university professors? >> it is a distinguished organization established in 1915. we're coming upon our 100th anniversary. it was established as an organization to articulate principles and to monitor universities around the country. the week defined tenure in the united states. we wrote the best statement on the student right in united states. we represent all disciplines. it is a very serious enterprise. it is only possible by burning a cross people. >> how long have you been the president? >> i am in the beginning of my sixth year. i am term limited. i will not be president anymore. i may be pasturing folks. i was an english professor by

training. out of experience, in the 1970's, higher education began to be under a lot of financial stress. many of my students were not getting jobs, getting good jobs at least. there is a lot of stress. i began to feel that being a poetry specialist was not enough. i had to address issues that affected higher education generally. i began to right about higher education and published books on it. some people who had been active for a long time said maybe you want to come around and see what the organization can do. i was impressed by the quality of the work we did. we are relentlessly devoted to perfection. it has been a place where i could be active. it is a broader scene.

last year when british petroleum thbegan to issue contracts to graduate student under the gulf oil spill, we were concerned that they were issuing contracts that said that the results of research had to be kept secret by the company for three years. the federal standards or a company keeping research secret for two months. that is vs three years. we thought it was a serious structure of academic freedom. i issue a statement about it. it was picked up by outlets around the world. i would see chinese and then in parentheses cary nelson. it is an opportunity to reach out to people across the country and around the world about

issues that are important. >> how long have you been at the university of illinois? >> justhe fall of 1970. i went to college in ohio. it was a wonderful school that was very progressive. it had a really unique program where you went to school have a year and he worked at the year. even though i was in ohio, i spent six months as an assistant teacher at in harlem. i worked in office in new york. i worked in hospital. you got very academic training were sent out into the world to discover what work is. i could not take orders from anybody. i had to be under my own control. that left me with being a professor. >> worded to be your ph.d.?

>> the university of rochester. >> your name came up in the last episode. the name of the book is other reasons why cannot get the college education you pay for. i want to run a clip from her interview. >> the head of the association was asked to comment on my book. he said that left him speechless. i was happy to take credit for that. he was very angry. i think what most professors disagree with is my argument about tenure connection to academic freedom. >> talking about you. >> there was a slight mist identification. i was not angry. i was somewhat sardonic.

for one thing, a tin ear has to be understood as part of the system. -- tenure has to be understood as a part of the system. you cannot understand tenure unless you see how it relates to the other things. she makes the argument that in many things that faculty members teach, you do not need academic freedom. you can teach calculus without saying anything controversy. i will not say anything about that. 10 year create an atmosphere where people can speak freely not just in their teaching but also in terms of university government. if you do not like a term the president makes, you can speak freely about it. that shared governance speech is

what it protect. without that, you do not have the expertise and faculty available to you. you do not have people speaking forthrightly about this. if you do not have what higher education great. it is in many institutions disappearing. aboutst significant fact tenure, in 1975, at 2/3 of american faculty members were either tenure or eligible for tenure. 30 years later, at the figures have exactly flipped. 2/3 were no longer eligible. only 1/3 were. at our best schools -- harvard is not going to give it up. many schools are hiring part-

time faculty. it is not disappearing across the country. the percentage of faculty members who have tenure is vastly reduced. >> i want to run in other clip. she talks about your position. i will be you to respond to it. >> there are professors are of cooking who have tenure now. when pressed, they will say we need someone to have tenure and security so they can talk about immigration even though it is controversial. studies in nutritional ma can say something about obesity. there is no limit to the number of controversial things. in my opinion, the bounds of

freedom has been pushed too far. >> that doesn't leave me close to speechless. nutritional studies seems a perfect example of why it is necessary. how many programs are supported by grants from food producing companies? how many faculty members, if they speak out against the practices, are going to have the jobs threatened if there universities are getting a lot of money from that company? nutritional studies is an area that involves enterprise in united states. large companies make food products. some are not terrible healthy for people. -- terribly healthy for people. some and of causing diabetes. these are political matters.

they require forthright speech. there are many corporations that invest in higher education. not all are ideal corporations. the much striking example are the tobacco companies -- the most striking examples are the tobacco companies. i have been to be convinced that tobacco is injurious to your help. did they cannot have their job security -- helpful. and they cannot have their job security threatened. >> how often do you see a member of the academics once -- the research money is there. >> most human beings rationalize what they can do.

when i of the back in the '50s and '60s when faculty members were testifying that tobacco was not harmful, i suppose it is possible they believed it. it is difficult to imagine it. perhaps they did. there is a deeper way are now to go for the money. they want to see faculty members bring in and as much funding as they can pe. they can pursue the research they believe is most important. money can become more powerful.

>> how did the tenure process work for you? >> he said i should be fired. it twas for insubordination. i said the claim was correct but the punishment was incorrect. i got tenure the following year. what it has meant is that i could speak freely. i have often taken issue with things that my own institution has done. some administrators to not like me very much. others think when i disagree

with my own institution it is because i care about what the future is. they have given me the freedom to speak freely. it has given me the freedom to challenge my students which is essential. i teach courses that students find upsetting. i have to work carefully with them to be able to deal with the material. i teach a course on the holocaust regularly. it places a lot of strain on students. tenure has let me work hard to bring out the best in most students and challenge them. give me the job protection i need. >> do you think you still have a job if you did not have tenure? >> i gave it up a few years ago. >> what? >> tenure.

>> how does that work? >> i wanted to teach less so that i could do more national work. it has enabled me to do a lot of rot and visit a lot of campuses. -- do a lot abroad and visit a lot of campuses. i had to give it up so i would teach us. i cannot say i enjoyed that part of it. i would have done the same thing all over again. it has not been without the unpleasantness. you become more vulnerable. i have experienced some of that

vulnerability. >> in your book, 2010, "no university is an island" you take on the university of illinois were you make your living, academic administrators, why? why you have this approach? >> taking on the aaup comes out a tremendous respect for the organization. i've been there for 16 years. i stressed throughout the book -- i stress throughout the book that it is essential to education. sometimes it feels. it failed most dramatically during world war i one when it

supported the notion of criticizing the draft and that they should not have that kind of freedom. some of us are still haunted by that failure. it failed again during the mccarthy period. we did not do investigations of unjust firing. the leadership was afraid. eventually, we decided to go back and do those investigations. they have a mess stepped -- misstepped over time. we can do better. i have tried to say how we can do better. theerms of my own campus khm,

world of higher education has changed. there is more pressure on faculty members to bring money in. like so many campuses, for many years, the key administrators have the approach that every discipline should be as good as it could be. we wanted excellence across the board. i deeply believe in that spirit i worked closely with many administrators who were terrific -- i deeply believed in that. i worked closely with administrators who were terrific. they bring in money in mainly one form, a tuition. they do not bring in grants or corporate contracts. we're seeing humanities program s close. we see social science

departments being closed once a week. we're very worried about that trend. i have seen it in own institution. -- in my own institution. i am nostalgic for the days when we wanted to do everything well. >> what do you think of billions of dollars that goes from the taxpayer through the federal government to all of these research universities? >> first of all, there is a lot of press who decries the amount of research that universities do. the reality is that the overwhelming majority of faculty members in united states are devoted almost exclusively to teaching. 10% of the universities of in united states have major research commitments. some of them are large institutions. it is only about 10%. many faculty members teach full-

time. that is all they do. the system as a whole depends upon the research that a limited number of people do that keeps the disciplines current, and that correct historical errors. i have seen so many historical errors corrected and my own discipline. i now know that i will never know the field and completely. if it's reborn and rediscovered. the documents read the new documents are discovered. -- it is reborn and rediscovered. new documents are discovered. you need new research to fill current. everyone benefits. the small people that do research helps the work everyone does. i think federal investment is part of what makes this country

a leading force in some many areas of life. >> where in the united states did you go up? >> philadelphia. we moved out to the county to a suburb. there were sheep and horses in field behind my house. the last time i returned, it was a parking lot for the supermarket. it was a great place to grow up. 5000 students. the college prep classes had very high standards. i had to do 30-50 pages typed pages. you were allowed to three spelling errors and then you failed. my father was an activist.

i haheard speeches by people lie norman thomas. he was a famous socialists. a huge demand in cds. it seemed like his body was held together by wire. he staggered up to the podium. a powerful voice came out. i was inspired by the anti- nuclear speakers that i heard. the civil-rights speakers that i heard. ? a strong part of my upbringing. >> the knock on professors is

that they come from the right side of the political system. >> at the university of illinois, you visit the college of engineering, a fair percentage of them to vote democratically. to call them on the left would be a stretch. even in own department, in english, there are some colleagues that voted for ronald reagan and george bush. they make no secret of it. it is the most progressive discipline around. it is not universally on the left. what people need to understand is that people's political identification with the democratic or republican party does not say much about what they do in the classroom. if an engineer votes democratic are republican, it doesn't matter if it affects classroom

behavior. >> if you are a tenure professor and you go in a classroom, should the professor had a right to say anything they want to say and profit rise for any -- and proselytize for any party? >> if it is not a proper it to the subject, and he or she should not do it. i did a statement called "freed in in classroom." we try to argue that is when someone is in a clash accommodation make any connection that comes up, any comparison or contras that is related to the subject matter. not just classroom -- professors the students. -- not just the professors but

also the students. it can be different subject matters. he can also be political if they are relevant to what you're talking about. there are times in in american life when things happen that faculty members and students have to talk about. the morning after 9/11, classes were canceled across the united states. if you were teaching the 8:00 a.m. class, it might well still have been meeting. a lot of the class is, neither the students or teachers were willing to talk about chemistry or biology. something had happened of a political nature. they had to talk about it. same thing happened when martin luther king was around. people say the next day they said i will not talk about chemistry today. i cannot talk about anything

than the assassination of martin luther king. when catastrophic events happen in the world, they need to be able to set aside the official course subject matter and confront something that has affected them so deeply. i did meet a faculty member, very elderly, who said the day after pearl harbor my philosophy class talked about philosophy. we did not mention pearl harbor. i am proud of it. i said that is academic freedom. you chose not to mention pearl harbor the day after the japanese attacked. i suspect there were a lot of glasses -- classes that set aside their said it and talked about it. i think those are the two things. interruption by historical events that force all of us to

confront them and classroom thinking that makes connections and comparisons. sometimes a very different subjects. >> naomi riley was asked about the business of academics and publishing. >> i do not know the last time you picked up an academic publication. even harvard university press said the average circulation of one of their academic publications was 250 books. a lot of the books are actually just purchased automatically by libraries. that is harvard university. when you think about the smaller university presses, by the way,

and the expense of the books. students complain, too. somebody write a paper where they said that the academic publication industry was driven by the producer and not the consumer. i think that says it all. >> academic publishing is in a crisis. when i published my first book in 1973, i was and on no faculty member. i could count on selling 2000 -- i was an unknown faculty member. i could count on selling 2000. now i can only count on selling 250. they're moving on line. i almost never look at an academic journal library any more. i access and online. and it from my house.

it is convenient. these reduced sales reflect lower budgets for libraries. my library has astonishing resources online. i can search hundreds of thousands of 19th century newspaper's online. it would have taken a life time to look through. i doubt them up. -- i look them up. i can access books from all over the world. libraries have put a lot of money into the online resources. they are extraordinary. they can make it possible to do research. this has meant less money to put into buying books. libraries are sharing books more. our libraries lebnd out books.

to linda 50 copies is not mean only to wonder if it deep -- 250 copies is not mean only 250 people read them. the economics of publishing is threatened by this reduced sales. the fact that the seals are reduced does not mean that none of the books are being read. >> you are paying entirely too much for what you are getting, professors published in a narrow audience and do not teach in the classroom, that tenure means you get to keep your job and no matter how bad you are, and most professors are liberals. why do you think the

university's think this way? -- universities think this way? >> i have seen faculty members lose their jobs for a variety of reasons. i have seen many taken out of the caster and assigned to administrative duties. if your students complain about your teaching, you are endangered. if your students are satisfied, a tenured does protect you. did the most dangerous thing that can happen -- the most dangerous thing that can happen is have a student complained. i've seen a number faculty members have to receive due process. the committee has to review the place. it takes some time. they end up doing something else. >> who determines whether or not a professor is pulled out of

the university? the percentages are not very high on tenure. >> they are not tied but i can come up with in the years i have been at illinois, a dozen of people. the human reality is real. some of them were removed. a committee of their peers judges the evidence. they have to have a chance to respond. they have to confront their accusers. it may take six or nine months. it may take months like that to be really thorough and fair. tenure faculty members do lose their jobs. this is not widely and knowledge. there were not enough candidates for faculty jobs.

hiring could be very selective. as we get to 1970, there began to be vastly more candidates for a job. i have been on searches where we had 10000 more candidates from one job. hiring has been able to be very selective. when i arrived in in 1970, 25% of my colleagues were not first- rate. we had a merit system for salaries. i took money from them. now we have about 60 faculty members. the hiring system is a brutal. the competition is brutal.

every single faculty member is meritorious. because of the hiring pattern, those folks are now dead. the ones that are not, they are gone. the quality of the 10 yeatenure professoriate has declined. the competition for the few jobs could hardly be more intense. >> how many professors are there in united states? >> 300,000. i am sorry. over a million. a lot year than we what are in the association. >> a year ago it was 100,000.

the commitment and identity change. if they joined out of this broad commitment to the mission. this seems like enough. it was not enough. they should have joined. we have remained an organization with a great deal of influence does my urging despite the smaller numbers. we get $40,000 a year.

if you're earning $60,000 or less, you will not pay more than $50 or $60 a year. if you're earning close to $200,000 a year, you will pay 10 $200 a year. >> what would you say is the average salary for a college professor that has been in it for 25 years? >> we have a meaningless figure. the we do the calculations. you have to distinguish whether between is a research institution. you have to look at the field. starting salary for an english professor around the country is probably under $60,000. in some places, $50,000. starting salary for a beginning business professor may be 125,000.

it may be twice as much. you look at different disciplines to see how it plays out. 2/3 faculty members are now [inaudible] i have been interviewing them for 25 years. >> what do you mean contingent? >> there hired year by year or semester by semester. they have no way of knowing whether they will have a job next year. many of them are earning less than minimum wage. 2/3 of the professoriate are earning less than $60,000 a year. many of them less than $30,000 a year on the part time or non- renewed guaranteed appointment. a lot of the professoriate is

not exactly comfortable. i meet members to teach who have no health care. they have no investment in a retirement system. e rough lives. that is the story. >> why go ahead of inflation that's correct more than half the undergraduates at in united states are in community colleges. did they pay $30 a credit. there are some families for which that is a stretch. more than half the graduates are paying low tuition.

tuition has certainly risen. it is still $5,000 a year or less. that is a group of institutions were tuition is not high. tuition is obscenely high at the elite schools. if the university were to only somtake the money out of the endowment, it endowment would still grow. free tuition they still have more money in the bank and they did at the beginning. why's tuition so high? in part because they can. there is an identification of excellence. this is a country believe if they pay a lot for something it is valuable. most irritants do not overpay. a cigna began subset -- most

students do not overpay. a significant subset do. a lot of schools spend money on things they should not. they build buildings they do not need. they hire more administrators than the means. the growth in number of administrators has a vastly exceeded the growth of teachers. those things, unnecessary growth and unnecessary capital projects, have affected the growth of tuition. and there are some wonderful liberal arts colleges where administrators do not earn half a million dollars. where the football coach does not earn $4 million. a lot of liberal arts colleges or the president earned

$200,000. there are places that are not committed to overpaying people. these things have played an on ferrol and tuition prices. -- unfair role in tuition prices. >> do they pay you? >> they pay me through release of the courses i would normally teach. >> but you do not get a salary for being president? >> no. . it is an elected position. >> you have been president since 2006. what have you learned? what surprised you?

>> more than anything else, and the huge diversity of colleges in united states. i visited quite a few before i became president. when you're visiting 30 a year and going across the country, i've been too small religious schools where the character of campus life is wildly different. i have been to historically black colleges. where campus life and campus concerns are very different. i have visited community colleges, private colleges, public institutions. the diversity of higher education is the great strength. you do not find it in other countries in the world. it also means that some faculty members work under conditions

that they should not. i have seen campuses where shared governance is not good. academic freedom is in jeopardy. i teach at a school where academic freedom is really not jeopardized except in certain narrow ways. i have been too many institutions where free speech really does not obtain. >> can you give us an example? >> i usually do not name them. >> you get into the middle of the controversies sometimes. >> you got arrested at new york university. why did that happen? >> that was because the graduate student at new york university had filed a for union representation. if they were represented by the united auto workers. they negotiated a contract.

the labor board is the political character. they changed it. they said graduate students cannot be guaranteed the right to vote for a union. the new york university with a jew recognition. that is unusual -- withdrew recognition. that is unusual. that was a protest on washington square in new york. i was taken to a paddy wagon by a couple of new york policemen. they said keep up the good work. the policemen are also organize a in union. they applauded what we had done.

that was part of the experience that really mattered to me. graduate student at a place like and why you -- nyu cannot negotiate individually. faculty members can argue with the dean. if they feel they're not earning a living wage or there are dangerous working conditions in lab, all they can really do is have a union negotiate better working conditions for them. it is important for them to be able to organize if they want to. i have been involved in the graduate student union movement for 25 years. i believe that they should earn enough to be able to get by. graduate students have the same teaching load the faculty members do. they do not earn what a member does, but what ever the living wages, they ought to earn that.

in some places, and they do not. graduate students to work in a lab need to have a third party and negotiate grievances about hours and be able to negotiate so that the lab conditions are safe. the union can really do that. >> let's go back to the perception on the part of some parents. they spend lots of money to send their children to college. the kid gets there and they are taught in a teaching assistant. sometimes they do not speak very good english. because they are an international student and they get a ph.d. the parent get exercised about that. how often does that happen? iis it a fair criticism that it is not being taught by a

professor. >> i have audited a lot of classes of teaching assistants. my department has a good training program. the first year they teach their glasses that are visited a lot. they get a lot of feedback. i have seen some really terrific teaching. one of my graduate students just got a job in wisconsin. every time i leave town on a trip, i asked him to take over the class. i know he will teach a better than i do. there are stagnant -- there are really passionate teachings by graduate students. a lot of faculty members cannot do this with enthusiasm for 30 years. they can often teach the courses

with great compassion and commitment. they struggled with their teaching philosophy. did they think hard about their assignments. i think it is done by graduate students. i have more problems with the kind of teaching that is almost impossible to do well. that is teaching by part-time faculty to teach three or four or five or six courses through different universities across the city. if they meet their students next to their car. the office is in the trunk. there's plenty of that in washington, d.c. they go from campus to campus and not have enough time to meet with their students. they may be teaching so much they do not have enough time to keep up with it. that is the teaching i have a problem with. the circumstances of their work prevents them from doing

a first-rate job. they are earning $1,500 a course. i asked a reporter how much it takes to live in manhattan. you really cannot get by on less than $40,000 a year. $1,600 a course, how many do you have to teach to earn that. if you're going to go from campus to campus, what are the odds you can do that job well? the reduction in number of faculty members is something that they should be angry about. if their teachers are exploited, and they may not be getting their money's worth. >> talking about the contingent

teachers, can you get tenure without dp to de? -- a key aide to deep? >> and not typically. -- a phd? >> and not typically. a creative writer could get it without a ph.d. it is not expected. >> no. e talk about transparency -- when we talk about transparency -- >> there's not a lot of examination of what goes on. they want to talk about government ethics. there's not a lot of talk about what goes on. the lack of transparency is one of the biggest problems. >> i think the academy needs

more transparency. in needs the financing. they should know how every dollar on campus is spent. it should not be secret. higher education is a community. every campus is a community. everyone should be part did the decision making. i have seen schools making budget cuts where everyone has been put in how to deal. they become unified communities. everyone has an investment. that is the first part of transparency. i do not know the faculty members are any less inclined

to work. faculty members reflect on what their students are doing and evaluate the success. i evaluated per year. i expected to be 10 years after i graduate. i asked myself, what influence have i had? it helps bring out this. and faculty members teach freshman courses. when they see them graduate, they look at the senior projects and say how much did the course in able them to do well for years later? they reflect on their on success and failure. what they do not do is reflect on their goals.

they need to think more about the overall purpose of the institution. did that is what we need more of. -- that is what we need more of. >> how would you feel about 10 year than? president.ecome you want to make a difference. you want to clean out all the dead wood. you say you want to do the same thing with these professors. >> i do not find it deadwood any

more. whether it is dead wood or people that are not excellent. they pretty much disappeared. it is not a serious problem anymore. what i do know is that one of the things tenure does is give people the possibility of devoting themselves to an institution for their whole life. it is so thoroughly dedicated to the life of the institution. it is almost a calling beyond education. without it, you would not see that kind of commitment. if i were a university president, i would want people that can give 110%. i see a lot of that. at sometime after the probationary time, people with

him themselves when not commit themselves as wholeheartedly as they do. 10 year is what american campuses places where compassionial and castane debate have gone. >> should also side with corporations? >> there are other kinds of work that deserves greater job security. if i had to take one example of another kind of job that i believe greater job -- i believe deserves greater job security is investigative reporting. newspapers are learning large numbers of investigative reporters. they have to do work that can be critical a powerful interest in the country. this would be one example where

some form of increased job security would benefit the country. >> how much of those reporters ticking off their bosses is the reason for fewer reporters? >> if large scale advertisers are angry at the kinds of stories that reporters are doing, it puts them at risk. >> of that became a problem, they put them in a corner. the hatch report on something else. >> there are other factors. this is not the lack of interest.

i do not tell myself an expert in reporting. some kind of job security might be helpful. this is one i would pick. it is essential to democracy. what i can say is that when i meet faculty members who have no job security, i often meet faculty members who are afraid of being frank. they said i would teach this

book but i thought some of my students or their parents may get angry about it. i do not know if i'll have a job next semester. >> we're going to have to shut it down. it is necessary to explain to the audience that the last couple of minutes or a little unusual. on the date of this was recorded, august 23, we had an earthquake. that is why we heard the removing a round. we vacated the studio. now we only have three minutes to go. have you ever been through an earthquake before? >> no. i have never been there when they actually physically took place. >> if you do not think it was anything you said? >> i will have to listen to the tape again. correct it could be something someone said in washington, d.c.

that is possible. >> we have been talking about your book. your book is "no university is an island." after you have been the head of the american association of university professors since 2006, where do you think it is all going to go based on watching your career? what is ahead? >> i am worried that the trends that are unmistakable in american higher education, given that the -- i said that none could 2005 2/3 of faculty members were contingent with their job is. it is now over 70%. that trend seems to be

continuing. the trend of state legislature did funding -- defunding legislation is now a 25 year trend. they do not always come to an end quickly. the future for state funding is not great. both of those things do not bode well for maintaining the high quality. i think i would recommend that the federal government pay for higher education and make it free for all americans. $63 billion a year could make public higher education this good. without some fundamental