Hillsborough Community College ensures adequate procedures for safeguarding and protecting the academic freedom of faculty and students. HCC accomplishes this through administrative rule, formal agreement with faculty, the HCC Student Bill of Rights, and formal faculty and student grievance procedures.

Faculty

Hillsborough Community College protects and safeguards academic freedom for our faculty members as is evident in the HCC Administrative Rule 6HX-10-4.13 Academic Freedom and the Agreement between the HCC District Board of Trustees and the Faculty United Service Association (FUSA Contract Article 6.2, p. 13). Faculty members, whether tenured or not, are entitled to academic freedom as follows: 1) A faculty member is entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to adequate performance of their other academic duties; 2) A faculty member is entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing his/her subject, in devising and selecting teaching strategies and educational materials and in using them to present his/her subject.

Hillsborough Community College further protects and safeguards academic freedom by providing grievance procedures as defined in the Agreement Between the HCC District Board of Trustees and the FUSA (FUSA Contract Article 11, p. 72-76) and HCC Administrative Rule regarding grievance resolution for employees not covered by collective bargaining unit (HCC Administrative Rule 6HX-10-3.17).  The Grievance Procedure Form is available to the College community through HCC's intranet. To date, no grievances pertaining to an allegation of suppressed academic freedom or the like have been filed by any faculty member to date (Grievance records are kept in Human Resources office).

Students

Hillsborough Community College ensures academic freedom for our students as outlined in the HCC Students Bill of Rights, as published in the HCC Student Handbook & Academic Planner (HCC Student Handbook & Academic Planner 2005-2006, pp. 51-52). As stated in the handbook “Instructors will encourage free discussion, expression and inquiry, both in the classroom and in conference. Student performance will be evaluated solely on an academic basis, not on opinion or matters unrelated to academic standards.” Further, the handbook states “students will be free to take reasoned exception to the data or views offered in any course of study and to reserve judgment about matters of opinion expressed during a course of study,” and “students will be protected against prejudicial or capricious academic evaluation.”

HCC provides grievance procedures for students through the Administrative Rule on Student Grievance (HCC Administrative Rule 6HX-10-5.16) and the Administrative Procedure regarding Student Academic Grievance (HCC Administrative Procedure 5.17). These grievance procedures are also published and disseminated in the HCC Student Handbook and Academic Planner (HCC Student Handbook and Academic Planner 2005-2006, pp. 60-67).