The AAUP Foundation supports faculty engagement in shared governance, academic conferences, and other professional opportunities.

Governance of higher education institutions traditionally has been a responsibility shared by faculty, administrators, and trustees. The AAUP has long emphasized the importance of faculty involvement in personnel decisions, selection of administrators, preparation of the budget, and determination of educational policies. The AAUP Foundation supports work that increases the understanding and efficacy of shared governance in colleges and universities, as well as opportunities for faculty to participate in conferences and workshops on a variety of topics.

Recent Faculty Engagement Grants

• Supported travel costs related to the AAUP's presentation at the South by Southwest Conference and Festival in Austin, Texas. AAUP president Irene Mulvey, AAUP Council member Glinda Rawls, and AAUP members David Rabban and Jennifer Ruth provided an overview of educational gag orders being considered or passed in state legislatures around the country, as part of a coordinated effort to impose restrictions on teaching about race and racism, and discussed the work higher education faculty members are doing to resist such legislation. (2023)
• Supported initiative to encourage the creation of guides by and for adjunct faculty members. Caprice Lawless of Front Range Community College will develop programming to teach AAUP adjunct activists how to make guides like the Adjunct's Guide to Working in the Colorado Community College System. (2022)
• Provided funding for staff professional development, including costs for attendance at conferences, workshops, and training. AAUP research department director Hans-Joerg Tiede attended the virtual University of Michigan Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques, the virtual World Association of Public Opinion Research annual conference, and the virtual American Association of Colleges and Universities annual meeting, and will attend the meeting of the American Association of Public Opinion Research in May 2022. (2021, 2022) Tiede also attended the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System training in Appleton, Wisconsin, and will participate in August 2022 Data Matters workshops of the National Consortium for Data Science. (2020, 2022) AAUP senior researcher Glenn Colby and research assistant Ziyan Bai will attend the April 2022 meeting of the American Educational Research Association. (2022) Bai also attended the virtual Research and Policy Conference of the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology. (2021) AAUP senior legal counsel Aaron Nisenson attended virtual and in-person conferences of the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA) and a NACUA continuing-education workshop on dismantling racism. (2018, 2019, 2021)
• Covered registration and travel costs for members participating in an AAC&U panel. AAUP Committee A member Emily Houh and AAUP member Juan Gonzalez participated in a panel on “Academic Freedom and the Challenge of Diversity” panel at the Association of American Colleges and Universities annual meeting. (2020)
• Supported travel costs to attend the AAUP annual meeting and the associated higher education conference for members of chapters engaged in advancing the Beatrice G. Konheim Award criteria. Steven Alan Carr of the Purdue University Fort Wayne chapter received support for the 2019 meeting. A member of the Missouri State University AAUP chapter and Michael Behrent, of the Appalachian State University chapter and the North Carolina state AAUP conference, received support for the 2018 meeting. Carolyn Fridley of the Southeastern Oklahoma State University AAUP Chapter and Tommy Lucas of the Saint Louis University AAUP Chapter received support for the 2016 annual meeting. David Nalbone of the Purdue University, Calumet, AAUP chapter, Elizabeth Brannon of the University of Rhode Island Graduate Student Association, and Eve Raimon of the University of Southern Maine AAUP chapter received support for the 2015 annual meeting. (2015-19)
• Covered the cost of registration for the 2019 and 2018 AAUP annual meetings for up to five faculty members with contingent appointments. (2018, 2019)
• Supported production costs for videos about the impact of contingent faculty employment. The Colorado Conference of the AAUP is producing three videos about how low pay for adjunct faculty negatively affects the quality of education for students attending Colorado community colleges. (2018–19)
• Covered registration and travel costs for AAUP representatives to present at conference on collective bargaining. AAUP general counsel Risa Lieberwitz, Committee A member Donna Young, and Committee on Women in the Academic Profession chair Rana Jaleel presented on the AAUP's report, The History, Uses and Abuses of Title IX, at the annual conference of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education at Hunter College in New York, NY. (2019) AAUP staff and leaders also made presentations at a virtual version of the annual conference. (2020)
• Provided support for travel costs for AAUP representative to participate on a panel on academic labor at a regional professional meeting. AAUP Council member Mary Ann Mahony presented on the AAUP's policies on contingency and the profession at the presidential panel at the 2019 New England regional meeting of the Society on Biblical Literature/American Academy of Religion. (2019)
• Covered registration and travel costs for two AAUP representatives at Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor conference. AAUP East Coast organizer David Kociemba and Caprice Lawless, chair of the AAUP's Committee on Contingency and the Profession attended the 2018 COCAL meeting in San Jose, California. (2018)
• Covered costs for selected Summer Institute presenters on AAUP policies and principles of shared governance. Funds supported travel to the University of New Hampshire and accommodation costs for presenters of workshops specifically focused on shared governance. (2018)
• Provided funding for costs related to plenary presentation at the AAUP annual conference. Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains, was the speaker at the plenary luncheon for the AAUP's 2018 conference. (2018)
• Provided a grant to reimburse lost income for a dismissed faculty member. Nathanial Bork was dismissed by the Community College of Aurora (Colorado) after he criticized the college's new curriculum. (2018)
• Supported the development of a report intended to prevent private donors from being able to buy undue academic influence. UnKoch My Campus received a grant to cover costs related to a report detailing policy recommendations regarding donations to colleges and universities. (2018)
• Covered costs for a staff member's travel to present on the topic of targeted harassment of faculty. The AAUP received a grant for travel costs associated with a presentation by senior program officer Hans-Joerg Tiede at the American Sociological Association's August 2018 meeting in Philadelphia, PA. (2018) 
• Covered costs for two events at the 2017 AAUP Annual Conference highlighting the 1967 Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students. The grant supports a plenary presentation by National Book Award winner Professor Ibram X. Kendi and a showing of A Time to Stir, a documentary film about the 1968 student strike at Columbia University, with a panel discussion to follow. (2017)
• Supported costs of planning and holding the 2016 AAUP Shared Governance Conference and Workshops and its plenary Neil Rappaport Lecture by Risa Lieberwitz.  The conference was attended by 200 people from over 100 institutions. (2016; 2015)
• Provided scholarships to cover registration costs for the 2016 AAUP Shared Governance Conference and Workshops for faculty likely to broaden the diversity of shared governance on their campuses. Scholarships supported Leah Akins of Dutchess Community College, Kristin Cook-Gailloud of Johns Hopkins University, and Pamela Petrease Felder of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. (2016)
• Sponsored the 2015 Neil Rappaport Lecture at the AAUP's 2015 Annual Conference on the State of Higher Education. Professor Larry Gerber delivered the opening plenary lecture about the history of the faculty’s role in governance. (2015)
• Supported registration, travel, or accommodation costs of attending the 2016 AAUP annual meeting for faculty members with contingent appointments. Five scholarships were given to support contingent faculty members who would otherwise find conference costs prohibitive. (2016)
• Supported travel costs for members attending their first AAUP annual meeting. John Wood of the University of Central Oklahoma and Steve Anthony of Georgia State University were nominated by their state conferences to receive support for attending the 2016 annual meeting. Kathryn Kuhn of St. Louis University and Troy Smith of Tennessee Tech University were nominated by their state conferences to receive support for attending the 2015 annual meeting. (2016; 2015)
• Supported registration and travel costs for faculty from the University of Wisconsin and Sweet Briar College to attend the 2015 AAUP/AAUP-CBC Summer Institute. Making Summer Institute workshops available to faculty from these institutions was a priority because the challenges to academic freedom, due process, and shared governance they have faced could become models for a national restructuring of higher education. (2015)