Consequently, questions of intellectual property rights, such as who owns the courses that are designed and taught, have become increasingly important. The very nature of the professional status of faculty is put in question by such realities. Being alert to such challenges is the only way to control them. The Political Climate . Overall, higher education enjoys a great deal of support from public opinion.
Higher education is viewed as a gateway to good jobs, respect and a middle class life style.
Despite attacks on faculty in a spate of books like Profscam and Tenured Radicals , opinion surveys continue to demonstrate community respect for higher education and faculty's role in society. Still, there are a number of education-related initiatives around the nation that merit concern. Rooted in very legitimate worries about the costs of higher education, these initiatives seek to more directly regulate faculty workloads and research. The Ohio Supreme Court, for example, has ruled constitutional a state law supported by the governor which allows state universities to determine faculty teaching loads independently of what is stipulated in collective bargaining. In a related matter, some members of the U.S. Congress plan to link a university's ability to qualify for federal funds to that university's adoption of greater teaching loads.