Inside Higher Ed: After the Fall at WVU
The Friday resignation of West Virginia University President Mike Garrison had the appearance of the final act of an academic scandal that had plagued the university community for months. But Garrison, a longtime lobbyist who became president a year ago despite faculty objections, could stick around campus beyond his declared September resignation date, according to the chairman of the university’s governing board.
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Posted in Academic freedom
The Chronicle: Colleges Explore New Ways to Manage Retirements
An English professor leans forward, looking as if she is about to step through a magical door. A music professor in a white bow tie and black tails faces a video camera and an admiring audience as he talks about his career. Some smiling, gray-haired men at a barbecue grasp their sodas and beers.
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Posted in Faculty
San Francisco Chronicle: EEOC sues over alleged age bias at S.F. State
San Francisco State University violated federal age discrimination laws by passing over an older teacher with a doctorate for an assistant professorship position in favor of a lesser qualified but young applicant, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
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Posted in Equity, Legal issues
The Chronicle: Political-Science Association Rallies Behind Saudi Professor
The American Political Science Association has appealed to the government of Saudi Arabia to release Matrouk al-Faleh, a political scientist and one of the country’s leading human-rights activists, who was arrested in Riyadh on May 19.
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Posted in Faculty, Government
The Chronicle: West Virginia U. President Will Resign to End Degree Controversy
Michael S. Garrison, the embattled president of West Virginia University who endured repeated calls for his ouster over a degree improperly awarded to a politically connected figure, announced this morning that he would resign, effective September 1.
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Posted in Administration
AP: Turkish court upholds college head scarf ban
By SUZAN FRASER – Jun 5, 2008
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s top court ruled Thursday that Islamic head scarves violate secularism and cannot be allowed at universities, deepening a divide between the country’s Islamic-oriented government and secular institutions.
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Posted in Diversity, International
Cincinnati Enquirer: Retired professor sues UC
After 40 years teaching architecture at the University of Cincinnati, David Niland felt he earned the right to criticize UC over changes to its curriculum.
But after he took that criticism to faculty meetings and student sessions, UC told Niland, in unusually blunt terms, to stay away from the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) where the program is housed.
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Posted in Faculty, Legal issues
The Chronicle News Blog: Adjunct Professors Vote to Unionize at Maryland’s Montgomery College
Part-time faculty members at Montgomery College, in Maryland, have voted overwhelmingly in favor of union representation by the Service Employees International Union Local 500.
The 365-to-105 vote was a first for part-time instructors in the state, the union said in a news release. About 1,000 adjuncts teach about half of all courses offered at Montgomery College, the union said.
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Posted in Contingent labor, Unions
Inside Higher Ed: Sit-in Over a Student Group’s Suspension
Members of Students for a Democratic Society occupy building at Evergreen State after college officials punished the group. Students claim a violation of free speech; administrators cite violations of rules.
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Posted in Protests
Inside Higher Ed: A new letter from human rights and academic groups is calling for the U.S. government to take stronger steps to assure that students in Gaza are permitted by Israel to leave for education elsewhere. The letter was sent to Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, by Human Rights Watch, the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association, and the Committee for Human Rights of the American Anthropological Association. “Gaza’s students need to have access to higher education abroad,” the letter says. “Opportunities in the Gaza Strip are currently quite limited. Many degrees are not at all available in the four universities there. For instance, there are no undergraduate degrees in languages other than Arabic, English, and French, and no master’s degrees in law, journalism, and information technology. Doctoral degrees are not offered at all. Israel rarely permits professors and lecturers from outside Gaza to enter to teach there.”
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Posted in Students
The Chronicle: Universities Should Spend More of Their Own Money on Young Researchers, American Academy Says
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Posted in Working conditions
The Chronicle: Reinstated Instructor at Cal State-Fullerton Reflects on Encounter With ‘Loyalty Oath’
Wendy Gonaver, a lecturer in American studies at California State University at Fullerton, won a major victory on Monday, when she and the university agreed on the conditions under which she would sign a “loyalty oath” required under California law.
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Posted in Working conditions
Chicago Sun-Times: 6 years of Ph.D. work denied, so he sues
UIC | Says profs showered him with praise, then dropped bomb
June 2, 2008
Peter Beckway spent six years working toward a Ph.D. in English literature, racking up nearly all A’s, winning a prestigious teaching assistantship, and earning a 3.88 grade-point average.
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Posted in Legal issues
Inside Higher Ed: The Union Impact and Non-Impact
One of the major growth areas for academic unions in recent years has been among adjunct professors. More of them are forming unions – either in their own units or with their tenure-track counterparts. In recent weeks, adjunct unions have won recognition at Henry Ford Community College. As this movement has grown, all three major faculty unions in the United States have adopted a goal of seeing colleges create more tenure-track lines and of reversing the “casualization” of the faculty.
The trends together raise an obvious question, especially since the union movement in higher education is far more successful in some areas than others: Does the presence of unions minimize or even prevent the erosion of tenure-track faculty?
The answer of two University of Michigan social scientists — who are themselves active in the labor movement — is No. An article they have published in the new issue of Labor Studies Journal (abstract available here) compared the faculty make-up in Canada and the United States (the former being far more unionized) and among unionized and non-unionized colleges in the United States. The scholars found “to our surprise and disappointment” that unionization doesn’t seem to protect the tenure track.
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Posted in Unions
The Chronicle: Cal State-Fullerton and Lecturer Reach Agreement Over State Loyalty Oath
A simmering dispute over whether a lecturer at California State University at Fullerton could teach there without signing a loyalty oath required of state employees by the California Constitution has been taken off the boil by an agreement announced on Monday.
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Posted in Working conditions
Times of India: Talks hope fades, 2 more Gujjars killed
SAWAI MADHOPUR: Just when everyone thought the 8-day-old Gujjar agitation would be resolved, the whole thing took a turn for the worse with the talks process collapsing even before it got off the blocks and two more Gujjars being killed in police firing.
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Posted in Protests
The Press Association: Lecturer’s deportation on hold
May 31, 2008
The deportation of a university worker who was arrested under the Terrorism Act has been put on hold.
Lawyers acting for Hicham Yezza, who was due to be returned to Algeria on Sunday, said the Home Office had cancelled his deportation after a judicial review was sought at the High Court in London.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Los Angeles Times: Budget protest takes L.A. teachers out of classrooms
In a one-hour demonstration at the beginning of the day, instructors pick
et outside schools. Many parents join in. The district reports no safety problems.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding, K-12 issues, Protests
The New York Times: Norway: Teachers and Health Workers Strike
Nearly 5,000 Norwegian teachers and health workers walked off the job, joining 3,300 others who had been on strike since Monday in a dispute over pay. What began as a narrowly focused action is likely to escalate further next week, according to Anders Folkestad, head of the Confederation of Unions for Professionals, about half of whose 270,000 members are teachers. The teachers’ strike has already affected nearly 30,000 students.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Cyprus Observer: Strike cancelled; lessons started
With the end of the strike by the Cyprus Turkish Secondary Education Teachers’ Union (CTSETU) lessons in secondary schools started after 11 school days.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
