Professor Ronald G. Ehrenberg will guide the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) as it examines funding conditions that some say threaten higher education.

Ehrenberg, the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics and director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute, is a nationally recognized expert on the economics of higher education.

The subcommittee Ehrenberg will serve on is scheduled to meet April 11 in Washington, D.C. It will discuss "Financial Exigency" and "Discontinuance of Program or Department Not Mandated by Financial Exigency" -- key portions of the association's Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

Pennsylvania State University's Michael Bérubé, chair of the subcommittee, said the regulations "make provision for program closings and terminations of appointments when universities face 'financial exigency.'

"'Exigency,' however, is defined as 'an imminent financial crisis that threatens the survival of the institution as a whole and that cannot be alleviated by less drastic means.' It is becoming increasingly clear that the financial crises faced by many American colleges and universities are not 'imminent' in this sense, and do not threaten 'the survival of the institution as a whole.'"

Rather, he said, universities, especially publicly funded institutions, are experiencing "slow bleeds."

The subcommittee, Bérubé said, "is devoted to the question of how the AAUP can best respond to program closings and terminations under such conditions, conditions that may not threaten entire institutions with imminent bankruptcy but which do threaten to transform American higher education as a whole."

Based in Washington, D.C., AAUP, a nonprofit charitable and educational organization, has more than 48,000 members at colleges and universities throughout the United States.

Mary Catt is assistant director of communications at the ILR School.