/Institutions/Vernon-College/json/2020-2021/Employee-Handbook-2020-2021-local.json

/Institutions/Vernon-College/json/2020-2021/Employee-Handbook-2020-2021.json

Academic Freedom

The Board of Vernon College believes that it is essential that the faculty have freedom in teaching, research, and publication. Faculty members are free from the fear that others might threaten their professional careers due to differences of opinion regarding such scholarly matters. To this end, the college has adopted the following mission statement on academic freedom and responsibility:

Vernon College, like all other institutions of higher education, serves the common good, which depends upon an uninhibited search for truth and its open expression. The points enumerated below constitute its position on academic freedom:

1. Faculty members at Vernon College are appointed to impart to their students and to their communities the truth as they see it in their respective disciplines. The teacher’s right to teach preserves the student’s right to learn.
2. The mastery of a subject makes a faculty member a qualified authority in that discipline and competent to choose how to present its information and conclusions to students. The following are among the freedoms and responsibilities which should reside primarily with the faculty, with the advice and consent of the Vice-President of Instructional Services: Planning and revising curricula, selecting textbooks and readings, selecting classroom videos and other teaching materials, choosing instructional methodologies, assigning grades, and maintaining classroom discipline.
3. Faculty members of Vernon College are citizens, and, therefore, possess the rights of citizens to speak freely outside the classroom on matters of public concern and to participate in lawful political activities.
4. Prior restraint or sanctions should not be imposed upon faculty members of Vernon College in the exercise of their rights as citizens or duties as teachers. Nor should faculty members fear reprisals for exercising their civic rights and academic freedom.
5. Faculty members of Vernon College have a right to expect the Board and the college’s administrators to uphold vigorously the principles of academic freedom and to protect the faculty from harassment, censorship, or interference from outside groups and individuals. See Policy Manual, EJA (LOCAL)