Academic Freedom
North Central Texas College ensures adequate procedures for safeguarding and protecting academic freedom. That faculty have freedom in teaching, research and publication is essential to the collegiate culture that rests upon the belief that institutions of higher education serve the common good, which depends upon a free search for truth and its free expression without intent to do personal harm. The college’s stance on academic freedom and its protection is clearly stated in Board Policy EJA (Local) – Miscellaneous Instructional Policies: Academic Freedom.
Each faculty member is entitled to full freedom in the classroom in discussing the subject which he/she teaches. Limitations to this basic statement exist only within the bounds of common decency and good taste. Each faculty member is also entitled to speak or to write as a citizen of the nation, state, and community without fear of institutional censorship or discipline.
The concept of academic freedom must be accompanied by an equally demanding concept of responsibility shared by the Board, administration, and faculty. The fundamental responsibilities of faculty as teachers and scholars include a maintenance of competence in their field of specialization and the exhibition of such competence in lectures and discussions. Although publishing is not a fundamental responsibility of a faculty member, it is encouraged by the college.
Exercise of professional integrity by a faculty member includes recognition that the public will judge the profession and the institution by his/her statements both in public and in private life. Therefore, he/she should strive to be accurate, to exercise appropriate restraint, to show respect for the opinions of others and to avoid creating the impression that he/she speaks or acts for his/her College when he/she speaks or acts as a private person.
A faculty member should be selective in the use of controversial material in the classroom and should introduce such material only as it has clear relationship to the subject field.