Dive Brief:

• Columbia University faculty and graduate students are protesting the firing of two professors whom they say are victims of unrealistic funding obligations.
• The protesters are circulating petitions on behalf of the former Columbia University School of Public Health professors, Carole S. Vance and Kim Hopper. According to their supporters, the non-tenure-track professors are stars in their field—medical anthropology—and were both with Columbia for more than 25 years.
• Non-tenure-track professors at the school have been told that they face termination if they don’t raise 80% of their salaries from external grants.

Dive Insight:

The protesters are asking the university to reconsider how if finances the public health school. Columbia recently completed a $6.1 billion capital campaign, the biggest in history for an Ivy League school, although it was for the entire university and not necessarily for the public health school. Following the ouster of the distinguished professors, their supporters say, other professors face pressure to seek large grants, which are typically aimed at mainstream issues and not academic work.