Special Funds

The Academic Freedom Fund supports academic freedom through research, publications, and direct assistance to faculty members.

The Contingent Faculty Fund supports work on issues relating to non-tenure-track faculty appointments through research, publication, leadership development, and other assistance.

The Legal Defense Fund has helped professors across the country in lawsuits involving legal issues of national significance in higher education.

The Moses and Dorothy Passer Legal Defense Fund supports legal cases that promote the important role of science and scientific research in society.

The AAUP Foundation’s Konheim Travel Fund helps chapters send members to the AAUP biennial conference.

Upon the retirement of former General Secretary Mary Burgan in 2004, the Mary Burgan Fund was established by the predecessor AAUP for the purpose of subsidizing travel by AAUP staff or members to conferences relevant to AAUP issues and in compliance with AAUP Foundation’s mission as a 501(c)(3) organization. The Burgan Fund Guidelines are attached here.

In December 2000, a group of dismissed faculty members reached a financial settlement with Bennington College. They designated a portion of the settlement to establish the Glick, Rappaport, Tristman Memorial Fund. Professor Rappaport, one of three plaintiffs who died during the extended legal battle, had been at the forefront of the dispute with the college. The memorial fund is administered by the AAUP Foundation and is used to support lectures on academic freedom and shared governance at AAUP conferences.