SIGNATURE WORK
CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION 2022

By exploring the gap between the academic freedom that is protected on campus and an emerging culture of self-censorship by both students and faculty, this study aims to identify the expectations and experiences regarding academic freedom at DKU. The research design used survey-based results from two separate groups: students and faculty in order to ask specific questions about experiences teaching at learning at DKU. The results were surprising, with some of the questions having very similar responses between the two survey groups and some having very different results. The data analysis raises very important questions, among them whether this phenomenon is unique to DKU, whether it is a fixable issue, and if the research itself is oversimplified and overgeneralized. The research concludes that some portion of the current culture of self-censorship can be overcome with implementing a variety of official processes and through developing an information guide to academic freedom at DKU. Together, these might push back the culture of censorship and hesitation at DKU and be an important vehicle to propel DKU forward as a world-class higher education institute.