New Academe Faculty Editor Appointed

The AAUP has named Aaron Barlow, an associate professor of English at the New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York, the new faculty editor of Academe. As editor, Barlow will retain his faculty position while working with the AAUP’s editorial staff and the Academe advisory board to solicit feature articles and edit the magazine. 

Barlow brings varied experience to the Academe editorship. A specialist in cultural studies with an emphasis on the intersection of technology and culture, he has written widely on new media. His most recent books are Beyond the Blogosphere: Information and Its Children, a volume he coauthored with Robert Leston, and One Hand Does Not Catch a Buffalo, a collection of essays on Peace Corps service in Africa that he edited. Before taking a faculty position at the College of Technology in 2006, he operated Shakespeare’s Sister, a café, gallery, and gift store in Brooklyn, New York, that he cofounded. Barlow spent four years in West Africa in the 1980s, the first two as a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and the second two as a Peace Corps volunteer working with animal traction (plowing using oxen) in Togo. He has also worked as a reporter and an environmental journalist.

In addition to teaching, Barlow serves as the director of liberal arts and arts advisement at the College of Technology and is a member of the academic freedom committee of his AAUP-affiliated union, the Professional Staff Congress–CUNY. He blogs at http://audsandens.blogspot.com/ and (as the new Academe editor) at academeblog.org.

Barlow will replace Cat Warren, an associate professor of English at North Carolina State University, whose three-year appointment as faculty editor concludes with this issue of Academe. During Warren’s term as editor, Academe focused new attention on such topics as conflicts of interest in academic research, graduate student unionization, and media coverage of higher education; it also began publishing original journalism and underwent a complete redesign.

“Cat had an ambitious agenda and achieved a remarkable amount as editor,” said Martin D. Snyder, the AAUP’s senior associate general secretary. “Academe has benefited immensely from her creativity, wit, and hard work.”