IUB-AAUP Endorses Indiana AAUP State Conference Statement on SB448

The Indiana Conference of the AAUP (INAAUP) has issued a statement in opposition to Indiana Senate Bill 448, “Higher Education and Workforce Development Matters.” The statement notes that among other things, SB448 directs the Indiana Commission for Higher Education (ICHE) to review all existing degrees or programs at public campuses to identify programs for potential closure based on metrics that prioritize students' later career choices and rates of compensation. It gives ICHE even more control over programs on public campuses and allows it to cut programs that do not meet its metrics.

Read the INAAUP Statement

The Executive Committee endorses this statement. Weagrees that SB448 would do great harm to our public institutions of higher education by violating established principles of shared governance in public higher education, reducing well-being to economic achievement, imposing ill-designed and high-stakes assessment regimes that will reduce the richness of our curricula, and wasting resources on unnecessary bureaucracy. 

SB448 will be discussed in the Indiana House Education Committee on April 9. We encourage colleagues to contact their state representatives to convey their views on this bill. (You can locate your House and Senate representatives here.) Please also consider writing to Education Committee Chair, Rep. Robert Behning at H91@iga.in.gov or contacting his office at 317-232-9753.

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