In October 2015 IAMCR conducted an online survey of its members. The survey covered a wide range of topics but two questions in particular sought to gauge members' interest in the association taking a more active role to defend academic freedom and promote better employment standards in the field. The surprisingly high level of support, 75% of respondents valued IAMCR's involvement in these issues either very or fairly highly in both cases, makes the relaunch of IAMCR's Committee for the Improvement of Academic Life, with a mandate to work on these issues both timely and important.
Anthony Moretti, the committee's new chair, has reviewed its mandate and developed a plan for activating the committee. The renewed mandate foresees an active committee "assessing and replying forcefully to the deterioration of academic labour rights and violations of academic freedom or labour rights" while also "analyzing the quality of academic environments" and "liaising with human rights [and other] organisations".
IAMCR members interested in joining the committee are encouraged to contact Anthony Moretti.
Responses to the questions in the IAMCR membership survey of October 2015
How highly would you value IAMCR undertaking advocacy efforts aimed at government or institutions on behalf of impacted members in cases of unjust dismissal, budget cutbacks, labour action, etc.?
- Very valuable 40%
- Fairly valuable 35%
- Neutral 20%
- Not very valuable 4%
- Not at all valuable 1%
How highly would you value IAMCR taking a more active role in promoting better employment standards for communication educators and researchers?
- Very highly 35%
- Fairly highly 40%
- Neutral 22%
- Not very highly 3%
- Not all all 0%