Professors are increasingly feeling watched in their classrooms, whether because of state laws encouraging student complaints, campus policies allowing for classroom recordings, or social media campaigns being used to build public outrage. This panel will dive into the intersections of virality, teaching, surveillance, and the current political moment, including practical guidance for educators alongside broader cultural context.
Participants
Isaac Kamola, Director, AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom
Isaac Kamola is professor of political science at Trinity College, Hartford, CT. He is author of Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing a Campus Culture War (with Ralph Wilson, 2021) and Making the World Global: US Universities and the Production of the Global Imaginary (2019), and currently directs the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom.
Sarah Sobieraj, Professor of Sociology, Tufts University
Sarah Sobieraj is a media sociologist with expertise in US political culture, extreme incivility, digital abuse and harassment, and the mediated information environment. Her most recent is Credible Threat: Attacks Against Women Online and the Future of Democracy. She is a member of the National Institute for Civil Discourse’s Research Network and is a faculty associate with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.
Heather Akou, President-Elect, Bloomington Faculty Council at Indiana University, Bloomington
Dr. Heather Akou is a Professor of Fashion Studies at Indiana University. She is currently serving as President-Elect of the Bloomington Faculty Council and regularly engages with the state legislature through the University Alliance for Racial Justice, a statewide organization that advocates for equity, inclusiveness, and accessibility in higher education.
Sarah Brown, Moderator
Sarah Brown is the Chronicle of Higher Education’s news editor. In more than six years as a reporter, Sarah wrote about free speech, sexual assault and harassment, racial-justice activism, mental health, and other campus-culture topics. Sarah’s bylines have appeared in The New York Times and other newspapers, and she studied journalism and political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.