2.1 Academic Freedom

Refer to INST 010 Academic Freedom in CWI Instruction Policies.

CWI encourages an environment that supports independent thinking and open dissemination of knowledge. Thus, CWI takes responsibility to protect faculty and students from inappropriate influences or pressures. Academic freedom is essential to protect the rights of the faculty member in teaching and the student in learning.

Academic freedom carries with it responsibilities as well as rights. Those with teaching responsibilities are expected to present scholarship objectively and fairly. They are to reveal sources of intellectual property and identify personal opinions when they voice them. Membership in the academic community imposes on administrators, faculty members, other institutional employees, and students an obligation to respect the dignity of others, to acknowledge the right of others to express differing opinions, and to foster and defend intellectual honesty, freedom of inquiry and instruction, and free expression on and off the CWI campus.

Each CWI faculty member is a citizen, a member of a learned profession, and a representative of CWI. When speaking or writing as a citizen, the faculty member should be free from institutional censorship or discipline. However, as a member of the academic community and a representative of CWI, the faculty member should at all times be accurate, exercise appropriate restraint, show respect for the opinions of others, and make every effort to indicate that he or she is not an official spokesperson for CWI. Furthermore, each faculty member must refrain from using institutional resources to further his or her interests or activities which are not a part of his/her assigned responsibilities to the institution.