World University News: EUROPE: A better life for EU researchers?
The 27 European Union governments have moved to improve the working conditions and career prospects of their researchers by approving measures designed to provide them with “real social recognition and a satisfactory standard of living”.
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Posted in Working conditions
Detroit Free Press: Teachers back from strike, but some students boycott
Wayne-Westland Community Schools reopened Friday after a four-day teacher strike, but some high school students boycotted classes and there were questions about whether some parents were holding children home in support of teachers.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Philadelphia Inquirer: Temple offers faculty raise, but wants some tied to merit
Temple University has offered to its faculty raises equivalent to 17.3 percent over four years and has backed off a proposal to tie all of the raise to performance, officials said yesterday.
The administration, however, still wants a significant portion to be based on merit – more than in the current contract – although officials would not be specific.
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
Columbia Tribune: Dissident faculty concerned about grievance revisions
The University of Missouri chapter of the American Association of University Professors focused the bulk of a meeting yesterday on how to dissuade fellow faculty members from voting to approve a modified grievance policy.
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Posted in Governance
Canadian Press: Striking Brandon University faculty against premier’s idea of binding arbitration
BRANDON, Man. – Brandon University’s faculty association is saying no to Premier Gary Doer’s suggestion of sending a labour dispute with the school to binding arbitration.
The strike and lockout over money and other issues has kept about 3,200 students out of classes since Sept. 29.
Bruce Forrest, a spokesman for the association, says they still believe the two sides can reach a settlement at the bargaining table.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
CJOB: University talks fail
Negotiations Friday between Brandon University and the Brandon University Faculty Association (BUFA) have failed to resolve the dispute between the two sides. No further talks are planned.
The Faculty Association rejected a proposal that would have seen a salary, increment and benefit increase to their members of 22.3% over three years. The salary portion of this proposed increase was 3% in each year of a three-year agreement, or over 9% over the life of the agreement.
Earlier the Faculty Association rejected proposed amendments to the teaching workload of professors from 18 credit hours per year to 15 credit hours.
Brandon University officials believe they have a fair and equitable financial proposal before the Faculty Association. They say it exceeds the packages accepted at other universities in Manitoba.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Chronicle: Zimbabwe’s Universities Stay Shuttered as Crisis Deepens
Zimbabwe’s higher-education system has shut down completely, and universities are likely to remain closed until next year, as a deal struck last month to end the country’s political crisis is in danger of unraveling, according to students, faculty members, and news reports. The University of Zimbabwe, the country’s top university, has been closed since the end of the 2007-8 academic year, in July.
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Posted in International
Mercury News: Elite students depend on public welfare for family medical care
Deciding on grad school? In addition to taking on six-figure loans, late nights and ramen dinners, would-be students now must add in another challenge: family health insurance.
Increasingly, universities are dropping family health insurance programs, saying soaring costs make them a money-losing option. That’s forcing more families onto government programs like Medi-Cal or Healthy Families while moms and dads earn their law degrees or doctorates.
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Posted in Students
Inside Higher Ed: Call to Arms for Adjuncts … From an Administrator
It’s not unheard of, at faculty gatherings, to hear colleges’ treatment of adjuncts compared to the way Wal-Mart treats its workers. On Monday, such a comparison was made at a most unlikely place: the annual meeting of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.
“Wal-Mart is a more honest employer of part-time employees than are most colleges and universities,” said A.G. Monaco, senior human resources official at the University of Akron, and yet academics are “the ones screaming about how bad Wal-Mart is.” Academics “have to stop lying” about the way non-tenure-track professors are treated, he said.
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Posted in Contingent labor
Seattle Times: WSU provost to return as professor — at $245,000 per year
Steven Hoch will not return to Washington State University as provost — but he will return to Pullman as perhaps one of the nation’s best-paid history professors.
Hoch has been at the center of mystery and controversy for two weeks at WSU’s Pullman campus. On Sept. 23, after just seven weeks as provost, he sent his staff a 3 a.m. e-mail announcing he was taking an open-ended leave. He returned to Lexington, Ky., on full pay.
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Posted in Administration
Daily News: Professor in Columbia noose sandal sues over firing for plagiarism
A former Columbia University psychology professor who found a noose dangling from her door and was later fired for plagiarism Friday sued the school, charging that she was unjustly ousted.
Madonna Constantine, who had been one of two black tenured professors at Teachers College, is seeking to undo her June firing on charges of academic plagiarism. Her dismissal came months after she found the racist symbol last fall at her office.
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Posted in Legal issues
The New York Times: Teachers Sue Over Right to Politic
The New York City teachers’ union filed a federal lawsuit on Friday claiming that a policy banning political pins and signs in schools violates teachers’ First Amendment rights by blocking them from political expression.
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Posted in Free speech
The Detroit News: Teachers ordered back to work
Judge tells Wayne-Westland officials not to discipline strikers; classes scheduled to resume this morning.
WESTLAND — Wayne-Westland students are scheduled to return to class this morning following a judge’s ruling Thursday ordering teachers back to work after a four-day strike.
It was unclear whether the ruling by Wayne County Circuit Judge Kathleen Macdonald, who also ordered the district not to discipline teachers for the strike, would restore peace in the 13,300-student district. With no contract, teachers continued to picket outside some schools Thursday afternoon after the ruling, and later angry parents demonstrated outside district headquarters in support of the teachers.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Seattle Times: Questions linger after WSU Provost Steven Hoch leaves
Washington State University Provost Steven Hoch left abruptly on paid leave two weeks ago, leaving students and facultywondering what happened. Sources say a power struggle and physical altercation preceded the departure.
At 3:13 in the morning — just seven weeks into his new job as provost of Washington State University — Steven Hoch dashed off an e-mail to his inner circle:
“Dear All, I have requested personal leave as Provost and Executive Vice President. President Floyd has approved my request. We have not established any expressed ending date for this leave. I should like you all to know how much I enjoy working with you. Cordially, Steve.”
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Posted in Administration
The Chronicle News Blog: President of Southwestern Oregon Community College Resigns Hastily
Judith M.L. Hansen, president of Southwestern Oregon Community College, resigned on Wednesday, effective immediately. The leader of the college’s governing board described Ms. Hansen’s abrupt departure as the result of a mutual agreement with the board, according to The World newspaper of Coos Bay.
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Posted in Administration
PageOneKentucky.com: Felner Investigation Spreads Across the Country
WHAS11’s Adam Walser just reported (at 5:30) that the Felner investigation has spread.
Federal agents have been in contact with the New York State Middle School Association and the Atlanta Public School System in connection with research studies that Robert Felner conducted there.
Atlanta Public Schools refused to provide documents to Walser because of the ongoing investigation.
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Posted in Corruption, Legal issues
San Diego Union Tribune: Colleges’ gay clubs clash with officials over name
SAN DIEGO – Members of gay and lesbian clubs at two San Diego community colleges say campus administrators have violated their free speech rights by repeatedly blocking attempts to advertise their shared acronym: FAGS.
Jason Frye, president of the clubs on both campuses, said San Diego City College administrators took down the club’s posters and instructed members to stop passing out fliers with the acronym. At San Diego Mesa College, Frye said, the club was told during Rush Week to remove a poster from its booth.
Frye stands by the use of the acronym for the club, whose full name is The Fellowship of Associated Gay Students & Straight Allies.
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Posted in Free speech
Montgomery Advertiser: AUM’s Faculty Senate censures leaders
The administration at Auburn Montgomery has been censured by the school’s Faculty Senate over the hiring of Mehmet Sahinoglu as professor/director of the new Informatics Institute.
AUM Chancellor John Veres and Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs Janet Warren both apologized to the faculty for how the hire was handled.
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Posted in Administration
Inside Higher Ed: Button controversy continues
The dispute over political buttons is not over at the University of Illinois. A memo from the university’s ethics office last month suggested that professors were barred by state regulations from wearing political buttons, among other activities. Responding to furious faculty members, who said their rights had been trampled, President B. Joseph White said that they could wear buttons. But White’s clarification said that professors could wear buttons only “provided that employees at that time are neither on duty nor in the workplace of the university.” On Wednesday, a committee of the Urbana-Champaign chapter of the American Association of University Professors wrote to White arguing that such limits were inappropriate and might be unconstitutional. The letter cited Supreme Court rulings on the free speech rights of public school employees and questioned what harm would come from a faculty member wearing a button to a departmental meeting or around campus.
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Posted in Free speech
Ohio: Your turn: Data point to unionization as ‘move backward’ for OU
The Post: Your turn: Data point to unionization as ‘move backward’ for OU
Ohio University Faculty Senate is contemplating a resolution for collective bargaining. Pro-union faculty suggest collective bargaining will benefit faculty long-term. Unfortunately, data do not support this argument. Institutional Research Salary Study data demonstrate that 5-year cumulative salary increases at non-union schools are higher than union schools for all faculty ranks: Professors, 16 percent non-union versus 11 percent union; Associate Professors 13 percent union versus 10 percent union; Assistant Professors, 16 percent non-union versus 14 percent union. Faculty salary increases (%) at Ohio University often equal or exceed the salary increases (%) at other non-union universities in Ohio.
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Posted in Commentary