Academic Freedom Policy

Policy Adopted in: 2011

Last Updated in: 2022

Application

This policy applies to all staff and students

Purpose

To ensure a teaching and learning environment that supports academic freedom.

Policy

The faculty and students have rights and privileges to engage in independent thinking and expression without any hindrance or without facing any non-academic constraint to pursue avenues of suggestion for academic enrichment and to engage in full and unrestricted consideration of any opinion or line of research. These rights, however, also entail that they have the duty and responsibility to use that freedom in a way that is consistent with the scholarly pursuit for truth, knowledge and understanding. These rights and privileges must be used as per University policies & law of the land. Academic freedom includes the right(s) to:

• Be free in teaching and discussion.
• Have freedom in carrying out research without commercial or political interference.
• Freedom to disseminate and publish one's research findings.
• Have freedom from institutional censorship, including the right to express one's opinion publicly about the institution or the education system in which one works.
• Have freedom to participate in professional and representative academic bodies the right to contribute to social change through free expression of opinion on matters of public interest.

ACADEMIC RESPONSIBILITY 

GU expects its entire teaching and non-teaching staff to respect national laws and university regulations, guidelines and rules formulated from time to time. The guarantee of academic freedom for an Academic Faculty member must be accompanied by an equal acceptance of responsibility.

1. The basic responsibility of a Faculty member as a teacher and scholar is to maintain professional competence as demonstrated in teaching, research, lectures, discussions, and publications, institutional development or other professional activities.
2. A Faculty member should refrain from using controversial material which has no relation to his/her subject / area.
3. A Faculty member should recognize that the public may judge his/her profession and his/her university/institution by his/her statements and his/her actions. Therefore, he/she should strive to be accurate, exercise appropriate restraint, respect those with differing views, and to avoid creating the impression when he/she speaks or acts as a private person that he/she is speaking or acting for GU
4. As a matter of professional self-discipline, tenured members of the faculty are responsible to themselves and to their colleagues for continuing to meet all reasonable expectations of academic performance. The department is the primary locus of this responsibility, although it may not be exclusive.

GU asserts that the involvement of academic faculty and support staff is crucial in the examination of course curriculum, benchmarking, learning outcomes, assessment tools, standards, and research priorities. Academic freedom, in this context, entails faculty participation in various academic bodies within the institution, in accordance with the GU Act, Statutes, Ordinances, and Regulations. Institutional decision-making should cover areas such as curricula, research, administration, outreach, community work, and resource allocation.

The freedom for academic and academic-related staff to critique and publish should be safeguarded, with no threat to job security. Academic freedom hinges on ensuring proper employment conditions for faculty and staff, as outlined in the University Service Regulations.