Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) – Association of University Professors (AAUP)

An open letter from the IUB AAUP Executive Committee to Chancellor Reingold

July 26, 2025

Dear Chancellor Reingold and IU Bloomington Community,

The American Association of University Professors is the largest and oldest academic organization representing the US academic profession as a whole. As the Executive Committee of the IUB chapter of the AAUP, we have been elected to represent the membership of our campus chapter in upholding the principle of education for the common good as established by our organization. 

As advocates for academic freedom and shared governance, as well as stakeholders in the success of IUB, we welcome your acknowledgment of the threat posed by HEA 1001 to IUB’s central disciplines and its distinct academic strengths. We likewise applaud your recognition of the faculty’s intellectual expertise in these disciplines and its indispensable role in shaping the curriculum and academic mission of the university. 

We are committed to being partners with the administration in upholding the policies of shared governance at IUB and the principles of the Constitution of the Bloomington Faculty (BL-ACA-D8), which assigns the faculty “legislative authority regarding… academic matters … including campus curriculum.” 

We look, moreover, to the guidance of our policies regarding the “Creation, Reorganization, Elimination and Merger of Academic Units and Programs”—as established both in the campus (BL-ACA-D16) and in the individual schools (e.g. the College). 

Regardless of the mandates of HEA 1001, we trust that these tested and deliberated policies will continue to serve as “best practices” for faculty to provide its good counsel and pedagogical expertise to the administration and we call upon the administration voluntarily to respect this rules-based process.

At a moment when the principles of a well-rounded education on which American higher education stands are being called into question by state and federal intervention and ideologically motivated attacks, the IUB-AAUP leadership sees no better path forward than fidelity to the processes established in our policies and honoring the careful deliberation of expert faculty in individual departments. 

We call upon all department chairs and academic deans, as well as the upper administration, to acknowledge their faculty’s preeminent authority in the delivery of educational content and to respect the deliberative processes—ranging from department meetings to CREM procedures—that will ensure that all stakeholders move together with the best interests of IUB in mind. We recognize and emphasize that such processes take time and will come to a successful issue only on the faculty’s considered timeline.

Sincerely,

IUB AAUP Executive Committee

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Full PDF of statement below: