NICOLE RANGEL

This study investigates to what extent activist-scholars in U.S. public universities are reassured by the safeguard of academic freedom when considering whether to express their politics publicly. Drawing from 31 in-depth interviews with a diverse pool of faculty from multiple institutions, this study interrogates activists-scholars' sense of academic freedom protection as it intersects with their race and gender as well as their academic rank. This article argues that in order to ensure the effectiveness of academic freedom policies, not only is it necessary to assess the moments where academic freedom is overtly violated, academic freedom also must be assessed and reassessed constantly within its sociopolitical and economic context. The participants' narratives reveal that academic freedom-the ostensible bedrock of the U.S. university system-is in fact a stratified freedom drawn across academic-rank lines, reflecting the racial and gender hierarchies of larger society, and that the culture of the academy encourages conformity rather than ethical risk-taking. In addition to advancing our understanding of how academic freedom operates, this study aims to inform institutional policies and practices contributing to higher education accountability efforts by elucidating ways of reinforcing the academy's social mission.

The university is often celebrated as a site for critique where intellectual
laborers, protected by academic freedom, may address the pressing social
issues of their time and thus contribute to public opinion and to the
advancement of knowledge. As the public university increasingly adopts
neoliberal practices, however, such as shifting its governing power to private funders and by emphasizing its marketable versus non-marketable benefits to wider society, critical university studies (CUS) argues that academic freedom—the bedrock of the U.S. university system—is under threat. This project contributes to CUS scholarship by examining how academics who are committed to advancing social justice and who actively engage with broad audiences, experience the protection of academic freedom while employed at U.S. public universities. Are faculty members who publicly critique systemic injustice protected by academic freedom? More specifically, using in-depth interviews, I inquire: 1) What are the motivations for, and experiences of scholars when exercising their academic freedom in politically controversial ways? 2) To what extent do economic, racial and gendered politics, as well as faculty members’ institutional status impact public universities’ commitment to academic freedom? I draw on 31 in-depth interviews with publicly-engaged
scholars from three Research One public universities who reflect a diverse range of academic ranks and disciplines as well as racial and gender positionalities in order to better understand what it is like for those who consistently take stands on controversial political issues. This project reveals that, in general, academic freedom is a stratified freedom drawn across academic-rank lines, reflecting the racial and gender hierarchies of larger society. This research argues that while the culture of the academy encourages conformity rather than ethical risk-taking, the university is still a space of edifying possibilities. By examining the effectiveness of academic freedom and the commendable dissidence of activistscholars, this dissertation aims to contribute to higher education accountability
efforts that seek to reinforce the academy’s connection to, and responsibility for the public that it is tasked to serve.

Play is a popular teaching practice used in early childhood education due to its well-known effects on cognitive and social development. Although human development is a lifelong process, this paper argues that post-childhood education fails to utilize the inherent power of what the author calls transformative play—a praxis that is guided by an awoken imagination and that facilitates the innovation and connection needed in realizing a more just world. This failure is due, in part, to the dominance of Western conceptions of play that emphasize competition rather than connection, and promote conquest instead of co-creation. In this theoretical paper, play is discussed not merely as activity, but as ideology. This discussion is animated through an analysis of the ideological and material implications of finite/agonistic play versus transformative play, particularly in the realm of education. A pedagogy of play extends critical and holistic approaches to education by centering transformative play, which requires respect for the other, connecting mind, body, and spirit, as well as an openness to liberatory possibilities for personal and social transformation.

This article is concerned with the epidemic of alienation created by colonization and the ideologies that maintain systems of domination. More specifically, it argues that a decolonizing holistic peda- gogy can help address the root of our individual and collective alienation to facilitate healing. This position is supported by the findings of an ethnographic study, conducted in 2013–2014, highlighting Poetry for the People (P4P), an arts/activism course started by poet-activist-professor, June Jordan, at UC Berkeley. The article opens with a theoretical framework that centers healing and love as decolo- nial priorities and pedagogical imperatives, and speaks to the mindbodyspirit labor, restoration, and creativity involved in decolonizing education. Emphasizing the need for decolonizing epistemolo- gies to inform classroom dialogue, this article points to the power inherent in those dialogues for creating connections that mend alienation and for generating apertures for personal and social trans- formation. However, it is the voices of the P4P participants interviewed that give testimony to the effectiveness of a decolonizing holistic pedagogy to foster rigorous investigation of self and society, authentic community-building across difference, as well as the healing power of writing, sharing, and witnessing others share personal/political poetry.