The LMU-AAUP is excited to announced our next discussion in a series with academic leaders and organizers! We will be hosting Prof. Isaac Kamola of Trinity College on Friday Oct. 2nd (Noon, PST).
Prof. Kamola is currently the President of the Trinity College AAUP Chapter, and he was one of its co-founders. Trinity College’s AAUP chapter is relatively young, founded in 2016-17 by faculty at Trinity specifically to support DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) students on their campus and to ensure that the college would do everything they could to protect those students from deportation.
The chapter grew quickly, but was thrown into the national spotlight as they had to come to the defense of one of their faculty members, Johnny Williams, came under national attack for extra-mural speech. They successfully fought for Dr. Williams’ academic freedom rights, and in the process revealed deeply troubling questions about university governance as Trinity. You can learn more about that case and the work that their chapter was able to do by already being organized here.
And they have been leaders on their campus in laying out principles for faculty governance during Covid-19 and ensuring that their students and their faculty are well supported during this crisis.
Prof. Kamola is Associate Professor of Political Science at Trinity, and an expert not only in international political economy, but also in critical higher education studies. He has published widely on the various crises facing universities today, with a focus on how the political economy of higher education shapes and forms university’s commitments to principles like academic freedom.
All of which is to say: we can learn a lot from Prof. Kamola and the work of the Trinity College AAUP, and we hope you can take the time to join us this Friday, Oct. 2 at Noon to speak with him!