by | September 29, 2025 · 6:41 AM

Next AAUP-CSU General Meeting – Wednesday Oct. 1, 2025.

Our next AAUP general meeting will be on Wednesday, October 1, 4:30-5:30pm at Avo’s. Please join us and bring your colleagues, friends and family.

We are several weeks into the Fall Semester, and political attacks on university education are reaching critical levels of concern. This meeting will give us an opportunity to meet each other to build solidarity and gather our strength for actions in the short and long term.

Meeting Agenda
  1. Introductions for new and returning members.
  2. Overview of AAUP-CSU website and resources and membership drive [see post here].
  3. Updates on campaign to urge the CSU Board of Governors to protect Academic Freedom, Free Speech and Student Services [see post here].
  4. Updates on plans to attend and advocate for faculty and staff at the Oct. 9 Board of Governors meeting [see post here].
  5. Updates on legislative campaign to contact CO members of congress to Support Science, Research and the Arts [see post here].
  6. Planning for AAUP-CSU involvement in the Oct 18 No Kings protest [see post here].
  7. Discussion and open suggestions for future AAUP-CSU actions
  8. Other business

1 Comment

Filed under Event Announcement

by | September 28, 2025 · 9:51 AM

Act Now to Save Funding for Science, Research, and the Arts

President Trump’s attacks on funding for the arts and the humanities, as well as support for scientific and medical research, might well reach the level of an existential threat if his 2026 budget is approved by Congress. His draconian cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities last spring are being followed by proposals to eliminate these programs altogether. The budget put forward by the administration also includes a nearly 40% cut to the National Institutes of Health and an almost 50% reduction in funds for the National Science Foundation.

Eliminating or slashing support for these agencies would mean a return to the white-washed histories of last century, the erasure of art programs, and the exclusion of already disenfranchised groups from the creative and scientific life of this country. The loss of funding would end life-saving research projects, shutter labs, eliminate jobs, and cut graduate programs.

The American Association of University Professors is asking members in all states to call or write to their elected officials and urge them to protect research funding (https://www.aaup.org/about/programs/government-relations/fighting-science-and-research-funding) . While budget negotiations are currently stalled, and a partial federal shut-down looms, the Congressional budget process will eventually resume, and legislators will determine specific levels of funding – if any – for all these agencies.

Suggestions for what to include in your call or letter:

  • Maintain funding levels for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
  • Strengthen the legislative language and oversight efforts to ensure the Trump administration disburses federal grants in accordance with existing law and free from political interference.
  • Preserve the appropriations provision that prohibits the Trump administration from making unilateral changes to indirect costs – changing the formula for how grant funds are disbursed would seriously endanger key operations at colleges and universities.
  • Protect access to education by opposing cuts to Pell grants for students with financial need, the TRIO program supporting first generation college students, loan programs for graduate students, and income-based repayment plans that protect college graduates against default.

How to contact your legislators:

Colorado Senators

Colorado Representatives, Fort Collins area

Leave a comment

Filed under Action, Highlight

by | September 28, 2025 · 9:50 AM

Postcard Campaign for Free Speech, Academic Freedom, and Student Centers

In September, we launched a Postcard Campaign for Free Speech, Academic Freedom, and Student Centers.

AAUP@CSU is teaming up with ASCSU to help our community let the administrators of the CSU system know how we feel about attempts to undermine research and curricular independence, close student centers, curtail academic freedom, and constrain freedom of speech on our campus.

It’s important that the leaders of our system hear how faculty, students, and staff have been impacted, and how they, CSU alumni, and fellow Coloradoans would like our administration to respond to future threats.

We designed postcards on which any member of our community can tell their story and voice their concerns. We are currently collecting postcards to be delivered to the Board of Governors when they meet on our campus on October 9th. After that, postcards may be mailed directly to the CSU system office.

Image of the front of the postcard

We collected hundreds of postcards in two days of tabling on the Lory Student Center Plaza. Students, faculty, staff, and other members of the community voiced their concerns about new CSU restrictions on faculty and student speech, revoked federal grants, and federal pressure to alter our curriculum and close campus cultural centers.

We need your help to expand this effort! If you would like a set of blank postcards to share with colleagues, friends, neighbors, and family members—anyone in the CSU community or the state of Colorado is invited to fill out a postcard—contact Communications and Organizing Co-Chair Karrin Anderson.

Let Chancellor Tony Frank and the Board of Governors know that we want them to strongly oppose partisan attempts to undermine academic freedom.

The postcard campaign will be active through the end of the Fall 2025 semester.

6 Comments

Filed under Action

by | September 28, 2025 · 9:41 AM

Membership Drive

AAUP button

The AAUP@CSU is mobilizing to respond to threats aimed at higher education and changes faculty are experiencing on campus.

We want to grow our numbers and we need your help! Invite your colleagues and friends to connect with AAUP@CSU:

1 Comment

Filed under Support and Join, Uncategorized

by | September 28, 2025 · 9:29 AM

AAUP@CSU at No Kings October 18

No Kings rally logo

Join AAUP@CSU at the No Kings rally on Saturday, October 18, 9:00-11:30 a.m. in Civic Center Park, 201 Laporte Avenue in Fort Collins.

AAUP-CSU will also sponsor a Sign-Making party on Oct. 16, 4:30-6:30pm in LSC Room 386. Join us for music and shared sign-making supplies, and come prepare a sign to support science, research and the arts.

We want our northern Colorado neighbors to hear more about what’s happening on our campus.  Help us distribute postcards for our Postcard Campaign for Free Speech, Academic Freedom, and Student Centers, and recruit new members and supporters for AAUP@CSU.

Look for the tent with the red and white AAUP banner. We will have information about how you can get involved in the struggle to support university employees, retain academic freedom, protect free speech, and keep student support services in resistance against a run-away executive branch that appears to bent against higher education. Come join us to enjoy a day of solidarity and resistance!

2 Comments

Filed under Action

by | September 28, 2025 · 8:52 AM

Offer Public Comment at the Board of Governors Meeting

CSU System Logo

On Thursday, October 9, 2025, The CSU Board of Governors is meeting in the Longs Peak room on the CSU campus. The meeting will begin at 9:00 a.m. with a public comment period in which faculty, students, and staff may sign up to make short (~ 2 minutes) statements to the board.

AAUP@CSU will be there to make a statement and present the board with postcards from our Postcard Campaign for Free Speech, Academic Freedom, and Student Centers . We need you to stand with us!

Arrive between 8:00-9:00 a.m. to sign up. Commenters are allowed to speak on a first-come, first-served basis. Use your 2 minutes to share your views with the board on topics like the university budget, changes to the free speech and peaceful assembly policy, responding to pressure from the federal government and special interests, lost grant support, or other concerns.

Leave a comment

Filed under Action

by | September 27, 2025 · 8:14 PM

Opinion – Colorado’s colleges and universities need collective action to fight Trump administration policies

Opinion: Colorado’s colleges and universities need collective action to fight Trump administration policies

Co-presidents of the Colorado Conference of the AAUP, Aaron Schneider (Leo Block chair and professor of International Studies at Denver University) and Steve Mumme (Emeritus professor in the Colorado State University Department of Political Science) make a passionate case for all Colorado Universities to band together to form a mutual protection compact to protect Academic Freedom. “Colorado’s AAUP faculty believe it is time to pursue the path of institutional cooperation and mutual defense. The barrage mounted against our universities has just begun and more threats from government and private actors are sure to come.”

We need to unite today to defend our freedoms for tomorrow. Please join the AAUP mailing list and write you CSU Administration and the Board of Governors to voice your support for the AAUP Mutual Defense Compact for Colorado Institutes of Higher Education.

1 Comment

Filed under Issue Support

Tagged as ,

by | September 18, 2025 · 11:13 AM

Revised Free Speech Policy Alarms Faculty and Students

by the AAUP@CSU Executive Committee

The revised free speech policy announced by the CSU administration at the September 2, 2025 Faculty Council meeting threatens the right to free speech and peaceful assembly on campus. It was fast-tracked rather than brought to the floor of the Faculty Council to avoid public deliberation, an action that violates the norms of shared governance. Concerns about the new policy (read the new policy and tracked changes here: ) include the following (please click the arrows below to expand each section):

  1. The new policy is overly broad and often confusing.
2. The new policy adds unreasonable limitations on employee speech.

a. The policy mandates that “speech made in an employee’s official capacity may be subject to institutional oversight,” but does not specify which types of speech constitute “speaking in an official capacity” or what the institutional oversight would entail.

b. The policy contains a “Public Commentary” section that defines public commentary as employees’ “expressive activities as private citizens on matters of public interest.” This definition is broad enough to potentially encompass public scholarship, extension, or engagement work. This is a clear abrogation of academic freedom.

c. The policy states that “Employees may engage in Expressive Activities as private citizens on matters of public interest, so long as those activities do not pertain to or interrupt their official job duties and responsibilities.” This implies that the university has oversight of the free speech rights of private citizens, including any speech relating to education or education policy.

d. The policy appears to restrict faculty members’ use of their academic rank as a professional title.

3. The new policy infringes on students’ rights to free speech and peaceful demonstrations.

a. The new policy limits chalking on the plaza to publicity for programming by CSU units and student organizations, violating people’s right to free speech.

b. The policy puts limitations on the projection of messages on public buildings and surfaces. Symbolic protests that “block the audience’s view” or prevent participation in a university event are forbidden.

c. Camping and encampments” are broadly defined and tightly regulated in ways that violate the spirit of peaceful assembly.

4. The new policy radically redefines “peaceful” to exclude any “act or activity” that violates “applicable law or policy.”

a. This is an overly broad statement that, for example, would categorize non-promotional messages chalked on the LSC plaza as activity that is not peaceful.

Section E.8.2.f of the Faculty and Administrative Professional Manual states that “The major purpose of the University Administration is to provide an atmosphere conducive to teaching, research, extension, and service. Administrators, therefore, must protect, defend, and promote academic freedom as a necessary prelude to the free search for and exposition of truth and understanding.” AAUP@CSU believes that both the approval process for and the substance of the new policy violates one of the most fundamental administrative responsibilities articulated in the Manual.

4 Comments

Filed under Action, Highlight, Issue Support

Tagged as , ,

by | July 13, 2025 · 2:33 PM

AAUP Needs YOUR Help to Defend CSU

CSU needs your help now more than ever!

Like many universities across the country, CSU is facing unprecedented threats in the form of a disturbing, so-called “civil rights complaint” that has been brought against Colorado State University by a group known as America First Legal. This organization, which was founded by Stephen Miller and named after a KKK slogan, cares nothing about truth, education, or the Colorado State community. Their frivolous attack seeks only to intimidate us so that they may exert political control over our state and university.

AAUP-CSU needs your help to Stand up and Fight Back.

Write to CSU President Amy Parsons, Chancellor Tony Frank, and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and ask them to remain strong and to protect our students, faculty and staff.

The links below will open email drafts addressed to each of these officials*. Simply edit the email to explain why you stand with CSU. Then, sign it with your full name and Colorado city or county of residence, and hit send.

* Note — some browsers (e.g., Duck-Duck-Go) may cut off half of the message. If this occurs, you can copy and paste the full message from below.

Suggested Email Text (Please feel free to edit):

Dear CSU President Amy Parsons / CSU Chancellor Tony Frank / Attorney General Phil Weiser,

As a member of the northern Colorado community, I value the role that Colorado State University plays in our region: educating students, supporting community-based research, promoting economic growth, and serving as a hub for cultural, intellectual, and democratic engagement. I am writing about the disturbing federal complaint that America First Legal (AFL) has brought against Colorado State University.

America First Legal does not share Colorado values. In Colorado, we are proud that our community is diverse and welcoming. We believe that the university must  ensure that all students have equitable access to educational opportunities, and that programs should be in place to support students’ diverse needs. And we believe that college campuses should be places for open discussion, learning, and research, free of government censorship.

I am writing to ask you to stand firm and continue to ensure that CSU’s students, faculty, and staff can pursue the institution’s educational and research mission unimpeded. Please support AAUP-CSU’s proposed resolution to build a collaborative protection network among institutions in Colorado to defend these principles and empower our universities to: 

  • Keep our student centers open and resources available to all students–as they are now.
  • Do not agree to remove courses or requirements from the curriculum.
  • Do not allow infringements of free speech inside or outside of the classroom.
  • Fight every attempt to withdraw lawfully allocated research funding in court–don’t cave to political extortion.

Thank you for your leadership in this moment. Universities are being asked to make tough choices because they are a bulwark of democracy. Use the leverage that you have to ensure that CSU remains a vital community resource and an engine of healthy democracy. 

Sincerely,

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

by | July 4, 2025 · 6:18 AM

Join AAUP-CSU at the Good Trouble Lives ON protest, July 17, Fort Collins CO.

AAUP-CSU needs members and associates to join the Good Trouble Lives On protest to hand out flyers to support AAUP initiatives.  Please contact us at aaupcsu@gmail.com to obtain materials and instructions.

Good Trouble Lives On is a national day of nonviolent action to commemorate the life and Civil Rights work of Congressman John Lewis and to respond to the attacks posed on our civil and human rights by the Trump administration.

AAUP-CSU will join IndivisibleNOCO and other local progressive groups to line the streets of Fort Collins. Protesters will be picking location on College Ave. between Mulberry St. and Prospect St.

Join AAUP at this event to distribute flyers and build support to protect of affordable education and academic freedom in Colorado.

Add the event to your calendar: Google Calendar

Leave a comment

Filed under Action, Event Announcement