Use institutional e-mail for AAUP communications!

BY KEVIN L. COPE | AUGUST 15, 2020 Kevin L. Cope is the Robert and Rita Wetta Adams Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He served for ten years as president of the LSU Faculty Senate and of the LSU Council of Faculty Advisors and serves as the vice-president of the Association of Louisiana Faculty Senates. A former member of the AAUP national Council, he is treasurer of the Louisiana AAUP conference and chair of its Committee A. Anyone engaged in activism sends and receives a lot of email.  Many of these letters might be considered confidential or provocative or controversial or just plain “hot,” for most colleagues doing a cold call on an experienced faculty leader are burning mad about something, whether bad policy or administrative persecution or workplace problems.  A very large number of the agitated letters that I receive ask, encourage, or occasionally (politely) order me either to reply to a private, non-university address or even to use such an address myself.  This request usually originates in a belief that a private email address is exempt from scanning by vindictive administrators who, the party believes, routinely reconnoiter faculty email.  Whether…