The Chronicle: Marketization and Nationalization in Britain?
U.K. higher education is certainly going through challenging times. They are not as difficult as some overseas commentators have suggested. It is not like California. Home and E.U. students of all stripes will still have access to loans and no one will have to pay up front. Students from less well-off families will be better off. The science and research budget has been protected. And so on.
Comments Off on Marketization and Nationalization in Britain?
Posted in Budgets & Funding
Tagged Budgets & Funding, UK
The Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW), a widespread group of academic associations in the United States, is conducting an extensive survey on the salaries, benefits, working conditions of contract faculty in North America. Although the welcome page suggests that the survey is aimed at contract faculty working in the U.S., CAW is also clearly interested in data from Canada.
The survey takes less than ten minutes to complete about is open until Tuesday, November 30, and can be accessed at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VNNNRVS
Comments Off on Survey on Contract Faculty closes November 30
Posted in Contingent labor, Working conditions
Tagged adjuncts, Contingent labor, survey, Working conditions
Denver Post: Ward Churchill loses appeal of his firing
The Colorado Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court decision denying University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill’s effort to get his job back.
The court ruled that Denver District Judge Larry Naves was right to direct a verdict in favor of the university and to find that the university was entitled to “quasi-judicial immunity.”
Comments Off on Ward Churchill loses appeal of his firing
Posted in Academic freedom, Legal issues
Tagged Legal issues, Termination, Ward Churchill
The New York Times: Binghamton Coach Gets $1.2 Million to Resign
The tumultuous tenure of Kevin Broadus, the coach who oversaw the Binghamton basketball program’s first N.C.A.A. tournament berth and also its subsequent implosion, has ended.
On Thursday, the university announced that Broadus had received a $1.2 million settlement to resign from the university. Binghamton’s president, C. Peter Magrath, said that Broadus would receive $819,115 from the Binghamton athletic department and that $380,884 would be paid by the State University of New York.
Comments Off on Binghamton U Coach Gets $1.2 Million to Resign
Posted in Athletics, Budgets & Funding
Tagged Athletics, resignations, SUNY Binghamton
The Chronicle: Labor Board Gives NYU Graduate Students Another Shot at Union Vote
The National Labor Relations Board this week reversed a regional director’s decision that had stymied efforts by graduate teaching and research assistants at New York University to vote on union representation.
Monday’s 2-to-1 decision does not give the graduate assistants the green light to engage in collective bargaining, but it does say that they deserve a full hearing on their request for a union vote. The regional director had rejected that request in June without a hearing, citing a 2004 decision by the national board that halted unionization of teaching assistants at private colleges on the grounds that they were students, not workers.
Comments Off on Labor Board Gives NYU Graduate Students Another Shot at Union Vote
Posted in Organizing, Students, Unions
Tagged graduate students, NLRB, NYU, Organizing
Comments Off on SO YOU WANT TO GET A PHD IN THE HUMANITIES
Posted in Faculty, Job market, Students, Working conditions
Tagged Faculty, funny, graduate school, Job market, Students, video, Working conditions
The Chronicle: Fitting In: U. of Scranton Revamps One-Third of Its Faculty
A wave of early retirements and the creation of new positions for fast-growing programs had, in large part, given Scranton the chance to revamp a major proportion of its faculty.
But hiring what turned out to be 82 professors in a five-year period—about one-third of the institution’s tenured or tenure-track faculty—was not without its own risks. It had the potential to trigger generational conflict, compromise the university’s Jesuit identity, and water down its commitment to undergraduate teaching. Faculty members right out of graduate school “might be more passionate about their research agenda rather than teaching,” says Father Pilarz.
Comments Off on Faculty makeover at U of Scranton
Posted in Faculty
Tagged Faculty, hiring, U of Scranton
AAUP Academic Freedom and Tenure: Bethune Cookman
An Association investigating committee report on Bethune-Cookman University in Florida deals with the 2009 dismissal of four professors and the termination of the services of three additional faculty members. The stated reasons for these actions ranged from charges of sexual harassment of students to claims of insufficient academic credentials to the purported need to reduce the size of the faculty for financial reasons. The report concludes that, in each case, the professors were denied virtually all AAUP-supported protections of academic due process. It further concludes that the administration’s reliance in the dismissals on outside investigators, consultants, and attorneys to deal with matters for which the faculty should have responsibility speaks poorly for the climate of shared governance at the institution.
Read the report (.pdf).
Comments Off on Academic Freedom and Tenure: Bethune Cookman
Posted in Academic freedom, Faculty, Tenure & Promotion, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged AAUP, Academic freedom, Bethune-Cookman U, reports, tenure, terminations
The Chronicle: AAUP Accuses Bethune-Cookman U. of Denying Due Process to 7 Dismissed Professors
An investigative panel of the American Association of University Professors has accused Bethune-Cookman University of denying due process to seven dismissed professors, including four men who, the panel says, were fired for sexual harassment based mainly on hearsay and on complaints from unnamed students relayed to administrators by a consultant.
In a report issued on Friday, the AAUP panel broadly characterized Bethune-Cookman, a historically black college in Daytona Beach, Fla., of being “repressive of academic freedom.”
“A pervasive atmosphere currently exists at Bethune-Cookman University in which the administration supports favorites and ignores or punishes those who fall out of favor or who question, contend, or appeal,” the report says. “No adequate mechanism or procedure exists for the impartial or balanced hearing of grievances.”
Officials at Bethune-Cookman said on Monday that they planned to respond to the AAUP report, but were not yet prepared to do so.
Comments Off on AAUP Accuses Bethune-Cookman U. of Denying Due Process to 7 Dismissed Professors
Posted in Tenure & Promotion, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged AAUP, Academic freedom, Bethune-Cookman U, due process, Faculty, terminations, Unions
The Chronicle: Program Cuts Loom at 4 Public Universities
Financially strapped public colleges and universities are living in the shadow of the ax this semester, enduring a renewed stream of announcements of potential or actual faculty layoffs and program closures.
Comments Off on Program Cuts Loom at 4 Public Universities – SUNY, Missouri, Illinois, Louisiana
Posted in Budgets & Funding
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Job cuts, LSU, program cuts, SUNY, U of Illinois, U of Missouri
The Chronicle: A Common Higher-Education Framework for the Americas Is Envisioned, but Some Wonder Who Might Lose Out
Some 700 university representatives from 40 countries have gathered here this week to work toward the creation of a common higher-education space of the Americas, similar to the Bologna agreement in Europe. Yet few of those attending have a clear idea of what such a system would entail, and some even question whether it is really desirable.
Proponents argue that greater regional integration is both inevitable and necessary. “We have to build this space, not to copy Europe, but for our own survival,” said Raúl Arias Lovillo, president of the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education, one of three hosts of the first Conference of the Americas on International Education.
Comments Off on Visions of a Bologna-Type Agreement Across the Americas
Posted in Corporate University, Economics, Governance, Government, International
Times Higher Education: Fears made flesh: only STEM teaching grants spared CSR scythe
Government funding for higher education is to be cut by 40 per cent over four years, suggesting that public funding for teaching in the arts, humanities and social sciences may come to an end.
The Comprehensive Spending Review unveiled today includes a reduction in the higher education budget of £2.9 billion – from £7.1 billion to £4.2 billion – by 2014-15.
The Treasury says in a statement that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which oversees higher education, will “continue to fund teaching for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects”.
However, no mention is made of other subjects.
Comments Off on UK: Gov’t funding for higher ed cut 40%; arts, humanities, social sciences threatened
Posted in Uncategorized
The Chronicle: British Universities to See Budgets Slashed
Higher education will suffer major budget cuts under a comprehensive spending review released on Wednesday by the British government.
The much-anticipated—and dreaded—report outlines the coalition government’s plans to address the largest budget deficit Britain has faced outside of wartime. Almost all government departments, excluding health and overseas aid, will see their budgets cut by an average of 19 percent over four years, according to the so-called spending review. Cuts of 83 billion pounds (about $131-billion) are expected to result in the elimination of 490,000 public-sector jobs.
The news for British universities is particularly bad: Excluding research support, which will remain flat, the amount of money going to higher education will decline by 40 percent over the next four years, from 7.1 billion pounds (about $11-billion) to 4.2 billion pounds (about $6.6-billion).
Comments Off on British Universities to See Budgets Slashed
Posted in Budgets & Funding
Tagged Budgets & Funding, UK
The Chronicle: At Rallies Across the Country, Students Turn Out in Defense of Public Education
Less than a month before midterm elections, students, faculty members, and advocacy groups held rallies on campuses across the country on Thursday to show elected officials their support for public higher education.
At Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, for example, several hundred people gathered on the campus’s parade grounds for a jazz-inspired “funeral” for higher education. Some participants, dressed in black carried a coffin labeled “education,” while others carried flags representing language programs that the university has cut to cope with shrinking state appropriations.
Comments Off on At Rallies Across the Country, Students Turn Out in Defense of Public Education
Posted in Protests
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Protests, Students
ZSpace: Pakistan’s Universities
September 27, 2010 By Pervez Hoodbhoy
Upset by drastic budget cuts imposed by the finance ministry, the vice-chancellors of 71 public sector universities are threatening to resign en-bloc. They rightly say that development projects are grounded, bills unpaid, and some buildings only half-constructed. Paying teacher salaries is also at risk. But a cash-strapped government retorts that its number-one priority is dealing with the flood devastation. It says it cannot afford the inflated budgets of previous years.
Of course, sooner or later a limited bailout and some compromises will be worked out. But one thing is certain – the party is now over. For years, money had rained down from the skies and been foolishly squandered. The Higher Education Commission’s profligacy and abuse of resources meant that, floods or no floods, disaster was in the making. But it simply chose not to look at red flags along the way.
Critical Education has just published its latest issue at http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/criticaled. We invite you to review the Table of Contents here and then visit our web site to review articles and items of interest.
This issue launches the Critical Education article series A Return to Educational Apartheid? Critical Examinations of Race, Schools, and Segregation, edited by Adam Renner and Doug Selwyn.
Thanks for the continuing interest in our work,
Sandra Mathison, Co-Editor
E. Wayne Ross, Co-Editor
Critical Education
University of British Columbia
wayne.ross@ubc.ca
Critical Education
Vol 1, No 7 (2010)
Table of Contents
http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/18
Articles
——–
A Return to Educational Apartheid?
Adam Renner, Doug Selwyn
A Separate Education: The Segregation of American Students and Teachers
Erica Frankenberg, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley
Comments Off on A Return to Educational Apartheid? Critical Examinations of Race, Schools, and Segregation.
Posted in Diversity, Faculty, K-12 issues, Publications, Students
Tagged Critical Education, Journals, K-12 issues, Publications, Research, resegregation, segregation, Students, teachers
Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor No 17 (2010):
Working In, and Against, the Neo-Liberal State: Global Perspectives on K-12 Teacher Unions
Table of Contents
http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/workplace/issue/view/8
Articles
——–
Working In, and Against, the Neo-Liberal State: Global Perspectives on K-12 Teacher Unions: Special Issue Introduction
Howard Stevenson
Terminating the Teaching Profession: Neoliberal Reform, Resistance and the Assault on Teachers in Chile
Jill Pinkney Pastrana
Social Justice Teacher Unionism in a Canadian Context: Linking Local and Global efforts
Cindy Rottmann
Australian Education Unionism in the Age of Neoliberalism: Education as a Public Good, Not a Private Benefit
Jeff Garsed, John Williamson
“What’s Best for Kids” vs. Teacher Unions: How Teach For America Blames Teacher Unions for the Problems of Urban Schools
Heidi Katherine Pitzer
Gramsci, Embryonic Organic Intellectuals, and Scottish Teacher Learning Representatives: Alternatives to Neoliberal Approaches to Professional Development in the K-12 Sector
Alex Alexandrou
Pedagogy of Liminality? The Case of Turkish Teachers’ Union Egitim-Sen
Duygun Gokturk
Book Reviews
——–
Review of Industrial Relations in Education: Transforming the School Workforce
Merryn Hutchings
A Portrait of Authenticity: A Review of Carl Mirra’s (2010) The AdmirableRadical: Staughton Lynd and Cold War Dissent, 1945-1970. Kent, OH: Kent University Press
Adam Renner
Review of Union Learning Representatives: Challenges and Opportunities
Becky Wright
Review of How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation
Marisa Huerta
Review of Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic-Industrial Complex
Leah Schweitzer
The Sociopathology of Everyday Business: A Review of The University Against Itself: The NYU Strike and the Future of the Academic Workplace
Jim Rovira
Review of The Rich World and the Impoverishment of Education: Diminishing Democracy, Equity and Workers’ Rights
Paul Orlowski
Technology and (Human) Rights: A Review of Human Rights in the Global Information Society
Stephen Petrina
Review of The Developing World and State Education: Neoliberal Depredation and Egalitarian Alternatives
Steven L. Strauss
Miscellany
——–
Connecting Teacher Unions and Teacher Union Research
AERA Teachers’ Work/Teacher Unions SIG
Comments Off on Workplace No 17 (2010): Working In, and Against, the Neo-Liberal State: Global Perspectives on K-12 Teacher Unions
Posted in Publications, Unions
Tagged Publications, Unions, Workplace
University Lecturers (adjunct professors in US terms) of Korea Sit-in 960 Days –
Revise the Higher Education Act of Korea to Restore the Status of Teachers (educator)!
Why are university lecturers committing suicide in Korea?
Very similar to more than half of Korean workers who are irregular workers, university lecturers who have no tenure (permanent status) are ‘irregular’ (without formal affiliation and benefits) and in constant job insecurity. Seven lecturers have committed suicide since 1998, facing hardship and humiliation after obtaining their PhDs with sacrifice and many hopes. For the sake of the lecturers, the university students and their parents, and a just and high quality education system, is time to reverse this and restore to lecturers and irregular professors the status of teacher (or educator).
What are the working conditions of the lecturers?
Lecturers are only part-time workers and are not considered ‘teachers’ with all the benefits of teachers under Korean law. Most lecturers are doing self-censorship to keep their affiliation and have the chance to be employed as full-time professors. Full-time professors and lecturers can not cooperate in research and education, the former work is heavy. Lecturers lecture half of all subjects taught but the salary is 5-10% of regular professors.
Universities have laid off 1,219 lecturers, in fact, out of 5,000 ~ 10,000 lecturers in 2009. One lecturer from Chung-Ang University, Jin Jungkwon, criticized the University president’s sexually harassing words to a girl student and was fired. Lecturers can be fired virtually without cause or hesitation. They cannot easily be active in unions or speak out about their exploitation for fear of job loss. Lecturers are often fired with a phone call or text message – it is so simple and easy to dismiss them.
The number of lecturers is 85,000 in Korea, while total number of irregular professors is 135,000. Yet the number of regular professors is 55,000.
Since 1998, seven lecturers have wanted to change the lecturer system and have committed suicide in their sorrow and frustration.
Dr. Han Kyoungseon of Keonkook University went to University of Texas at Austin and committed suicide, leaving her will to be carried out by KBS TV. Similarly, professor of physics Lee Seongik of Sogang University professor committed suicide in 2010.
How did this situation start?
Originally lecturers were recognized as teachers, under the Korean Constitution. However the ruling dictator, Park Chung-hee, in the 1970s, had wanted to keep the presidency permanently and kicked out the faculties and students who demanded democracy out of college.
He deprived the status of teacher (which has certain work benefits and title) from young lecturers who were critical of the dictatorship and taught students about democracy in 1977. This is same as in the Philippines under Marcos, or Indonesia under Suharto. This system is a major cause of the corruption of the university.
Three ruling and opposition party members have submitted bills to revise the Higher Education Act to get back status of teacher to lecturers in the 17th session of National Assembly. But due to lobbying and oppression by the Korean Council for University Education and Korea government’s irresponsibility, the same bills still have not been voted on in the current 18th legislative session.
Only two elderly lecturers are continuing to do 960 days of sit-in in a small tent in front of the National Assembly since 7 September 2007. Lecturers, students, parents and citizens are doing solidarity demonstrations at 12 places nationwide.
What is the impact on Korean society?
Korea has entered into society of knowledge after industrialization. The college entrance rate is 84 percent of high school graduates. 80% of all universities are privately owned. Universities in Korea use people’s high ambition for education in a commercial way. The fees of university as high as second in the world after the United States.
The university uses education based on memorization, a method of an industrial society. Students only seek credits and achievements. In this way, students are unmotivated to work hard to learn good things for the community and the value of sustainability in a knowledg-based society.
Kim Yeseul, a junior of Korea University, said she couldn’t any longer learn at the university that dropped to the status of a puppet of capital and industry, and she quit the school in 2010. Universities of Korea are on the eve of a ‘68 Revolution of Paris, where students demanded jobs and boycotted a memorization-based education.
This problem could be solved by revision of Higher Education Act that get back the status of teacher to lecturers. This is way of Korean students to learn and practice democracy, conscience, sharing and solidarity to the neighboring countries and people.
“Return Our Professors Who Got Laid Off! We Condemn the mass layoff of 88 Irregular Professors!”
The proportion of college students from Korea in the USA and of American university PhD graduates in South Korea universities is very high. The number of Korean students registered in the United States is 108,396 in 2010. They are second highest number of all nationalities of people who study in USA.
Among the foreign universities with the highest number of doctoral degrees between 1999 ~ 2003, the second is Korea’s Seoul National University’s 1,655 members, the 5th is Yonsei University’s 720 members, 8th is Korea University’s 445 members.
50.5 percent of full-time faculties of Seoul National University had received their PhD in the United States in 2005, and that of the social sciences is 82%. In comparison, only 4.8% of the full-time faculty of the University of Tokyo had received their PhD in the US.
From the standpoint of international universities, South Korea is a ‘doctor’s grave’ to students returning home. Many students come to the universities of South Korea from abroad to study. However they learn from lecturers who are deprived of the status of teacher, so they cannot easily receive the spirit of critical, collaborative, creative and sustainable learning.
So the revision of the Higher Education Act in South Korea to get back the status of teacher to lecturers is required internationally.
Show your support for a group of workers who can not easily speak out for fear of their future careers – lecturers and irregular professors!
Take a step to support workers, fulfill the education rights of students, and restore integrity and hope to the education system in Korea!
Please send an email to the persons as below with the letter of “Help to pass the bill of Higher Education Act in the Korean National Assembly to get back the status of teachers to university lecturers in Korea”.
President of Republic of Korea, Lee Myung-bak, webmaster@president.go.kr
Head of the Committee for Education and Science & Technology of Korean National Assembly, Lee Jong-kul, anyang21@hanmail.net
Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Ahn Byung-man, webmaster@mest.go.kr
Head of Korean Council for University Education & President of Korea University, Lee Ki-su, e-kisu@korea.ac.kr
We want the solidarity of the UN, ILO and all supporting people in the world to this issue.
Attention: Ms. Kim Dongay
Center to Get Back Status of Teacher for Lecturer & Normalization of University Education
Visit our website: http://stip.or.kr
Mobile: +82-10-9100-1824
Address: Youngdeungpokoo Sindorimdong 186-5, 2F. Nodongnet. 150-832. Seoul Korea
Donations: Post Office, 014027-02-051521
To contact us for more information:
Address: Youngdeungpokoo Sindorimdong 186-5, 2F. Nodongnet. 150-832. Seoul Korea
Donations: Post Office, 014027-02-051521
Comments Off on University Lecturers (adjunct professors in US terms) of Korea Sit-in 960 Days
Posted in Contingent labor
Tagged adjuncts, Contingent labor, Korea
Police to probe ‘dirty deals’ for professorship at universities
Police will investigate allegations raised in a suicide note by an hourly lecturer who accused some universities of having requested kickbacks in exchange for professor jobs.
Gwangju Seobu Police Station said Thursday that its officers are trying to verify the contents of the five-page suicide note left by a 45-year-old hourly university lecturer at Chosun University, identified only by his surname Seo, who died from carbon monoxide poisoning.
The note is reportedly addressed to President Lee Myung-bak.
Seo also alleged that he was forced to write a number of academic papers on behalf of his supervising professor, insisting all the papers were published in the professor’s name. Investigators are currently questioning his family members and colleagues at the university to find out what drove him to end his life.
With Seo’s bereaved family members moving to take legal action against those implicated, the police will likely soon start an investigation into Seo’s allegations that he was asked to provide tens of millions of won by some universities in return for a permanent teaching position.
It is a widely-known secret that many universities here, particularly financially troubled private schools, demand large sums of money in return for a teaching position.
According to the police, Seo said in his note that he was offered the chance to buy a faculty position at a private university in South Jeolla Province for 60 million won two years ago. In March this year, he was also asked to donate 100 million for professorship by a private university in Gyeonggi Province.
Seo alleged that Chosun University was trying to kick him out, saying he had no choice but to kill himself under the mounting stress. “The country should do something for part-time lecturers. We also must do something to change the increasingly corrupt Korean society. I want an investigation into what I went through,’’ he was quoted as saying by the police.
The dead lecturer also claimed that he wrote a total of 54 thesis and other academic papers for his supervising professor and they were all published in the professor’s name, demanding investigation into the matter.
After receiving a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Seoul, he enrolled in graduate school at Chosun University and received a Masters degree and Ph.D. in English literature. Since 2000, he has been working as a lecturer at the university.
Police suspect that after failing to gain a permanent position two months ago, he became extremely disheartened and decided to take his own life.
Meanwhile, part-time lecturers at Chosun University plan to set up a memorial altar on the campus to pay tribute to him and organize a rally to demand law enforcement authorities get to the bottom of the corruption allegations raised by Seo.
Comments Off on Police to probe ‘dirty deals’ for professorship at Korean universities
Posted in Contingent labor
Tagged Contingent labor, Korea
Follow
