AP: Lawsuit Seeks To Force UW To Allow Ayers Speech
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) ― A lawsuit filed in federal court seeks a court order allowing former 1960s radical William Ayers to speak on the University of Wyoming campus.
The case filed Thursday is being brought by Ayers and UW student Meg Lanker. It contends the university violated their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly.
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Posted in Free speech
Tagged Bill Ayers, Legal issues, U of Wyoming
Inside Higher Ed: Closing Argument
With her nearly 20-year presidency at the State University of New York at Binghamton besmirched by a basketball scandal in recent months, Lois DeFleur is taking some subtle steps to answer critics and, perhaps, shore up her legacy.
DeFleur announced in January that she’ll retire in July, and the rocky past few months at Binghamton have appended a troubling coda to what many regard as an otherwise successful presidency. A scandal in Binghamton’s men’s basketball program came with high doses of nearly every undesirable element one could imagine: Charges of off-court drug use by players, claims of heavy pressure by coaches to admit unqualified students, and allegations that an athletics fund raiser was tarted up as a sexual “plaything” for donors.
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Posted in Administration, Athletics
Tagged Scandal, SUNY Binghamton, University presidents
Inside Higher Ed: Who Really Failed?
Dominique G. Homberger won’t apologize for setting high expectations for her students.
The biology professor at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge gives brief quizzes at the beginning of every class, to assure attendance and to make sure students are doing the reading. On her tests, she doesn’t use a curve, as she believes that students must achieve mastery of the subject matter, not just achieve more mastery than the worst students in the course. For multiple choice questions, she gives 10 possible answers, not the expected 4, as she doesn’t want students to get very far with guessing.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Tagged Academic freedom, Faculty, grading, LSU
The State: SC keeps lone black trustee on university board
COLUMBIA, S.C. — State lawmakers voted to retain the only black member of the University of South Carolina’s board of trustees Wednesday in a vote that drew attention to the board’s lack of diversity and threatened the school’s football recruiting.
Leah Moody, an attorney, was elected by an 80-77 vote to continue to represent York and Union counties. She defeated Alton Hyatt, a white pharmacist and lawyer who was considered a favorite last month before black lawmakers decried the prospect of losing Moody.
Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2010/04/14/1243066/legislators-could-elect-all-white.html#ixzz0lBQZbXfu
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Posted in Administration, Diversity, Governance
Tagged Athletics, Governance, trustees, U of South Carolina
Lansing State Journal: Michigan State Ends Retiree Health Benefits for New HIres
EAST LANSING — Michigan State University will not offer retiree health benefits to any new faculty or staff beginning this summer, the university announced today.
According to a statement issued this afternoon, the change will not affect faculty and staff hired before July 1, 2010, and commitments already made to new hires will be honored.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged Michigan, Michigan State U, new hires, retirees, Salary/Economic Benefits
The Advocate: Professor’s removal irks group
LSU faculty and a national professors association are upset about LSU removing a professor from teaching a class in the middle of the semester for allegedly grading too harshly.
The LSU chapter of the American Association of University Professors approved sending a written complaint Monday to LSU System President John Lombardi alleging a “violation of academic freedom and faculty rights” for changing student grades after the professor was unseated.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Tagged AAUP, Academic freedom, Faculty, grading, LSU
Santa Cruz Sentinel: UC-Santa Cruz Hits 36 Students With $34,000 in Fines for Damage at Sit-In
SANTA CRUZ — UC Santa Cruz is charging 36 students $944 each in restitution for their involvement in November’s occupation of the main campus administration building, officials confirmed Monday.
Of the 45 students investigated, 36 were found to have played some role in the protest over student fee hikes, an incident that caused nearly $34,000 in damage, spokesman Jim Burns said. The cost of the repairs was split evenly among the students.
Washington Post: Beating of University of Maryland student by police probed by county prosecutors
Prince George’s prosecutors have begun a criminal investigation of three county police officers who beat an unarmed University of Maryland student with their batons after a basketball game last month in an incident that was caught on video and surfaced publicly Monday, authorities said.
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Posted in Crime, Uncategorized, Violence
Tagged police violence, Students, U of Maryland
CBC: University of Montreal reaches deal with faculty
The University of Montreal has reached an agreement in principle with its striking faculty members.
About 2,400 members of the teaching staff at the francophone university have been on strike since Feb. 24 over job security, class size and salaries.
Union members will vote on the new collective agreement Sunday morning. The negotiation committee will recommend that they accept the deal.
In a news release, the university said students would head back to classes April 12. The semester will be extended to May 9, and as a result, the summer semester will start later.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/04/08/university-of-montreal-deal.html#ixzz0l0DUMbjm
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
San Diego Union-Tribune: ‘Activist’ UCSD professor facing unusual scrutiny
UCSD Professor Ricardo Dominguez works in the field of electronic civil disobedience, and has become the target of two investigations related to his work, including scrutiny from three conservative congressmen from San Diego County who question his work helping illegal border crossers find water stations in the desert.
UCSD professor Ricardo Dominguez is facing unusual scrutiny from campus police and auditors for his involvement in two divisive projects — one that helps migrants find water stored along the border and another that disrupted the UC president’s Web site through a virtual sit-in.
Dominguez, 50, is a self-described activist and new media artist who is accustomed to stirring up controversy. But he said he’s troubled that his tenured status may be revoked for work that promotes his academic specialty of electronic civil disobedience.
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Tagged activism, Advocacy, border crossers, civil disobedience, Ricardo Dominguez, UCSD
Orlando Sentinel: 10 years in, ‘One Florida’ posts mixed results for minorities at universities
Then-Gov. Jeb Bush pushed plan as ‘race-neutral’ replacement for affirmative action
Ten years after Florida banned affirmative-action admissions, minority enrollment in the State University System hasn’t kept pace with the number of minorities graduating from high school, an Orlando Sentinel analysis has found.
In 1999, a bit more than 20 percent of the state’s high-school graduates were black, as were 17.5 percent of university freshmen. By 2008, the last year for which a racial breakdown is available, blacks accounted for 19.5 percent of high-school graduates — but only 14.9 percent of university freshmen.
Similarly, in 1999, Hispanics made up 14.7 percent of high-school graduates and 13.8 percent of university freshmen. By 2008, Hispanics were 21.4 percent of graduates and 19.1 percent of the freshmen class, a wider gap.
By contrast, white and Asian students were overrepresented among college freshmen in 1999 — and still were in 2008, according to the Sentinel’s analysis. For example, white students comprised roughly 60 percent of high-school graduates and university freshmen in 1999; by 2008, they were 54 percent of high-school graduates — and 58 percent of university freshmen.
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Posted in Diversity
Tagged affirmative action, Diversity, Florida, Students
Idaho State Journal: ISU faculty no-confidence vote goes against Provost Gary Olson
POCATELLO — Nearly 70 percent of the faculty members who participated in an advisory vote on Idaho State University Provost Gary Olson have no confidence in him, according to vote results released by the ISU Faculty Senate Friday evening. Of the 431 faculty members who cast ballots this week, 295 expressed no confidence in Olson. Ninety-five faculty members have confidence in the provost while 41 voted to abstain.
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Posted in Administration
Tagged Idaho State U, no confidence vote
Inside Higher Ed: The Worst Salary Year
The average salary of a full-time faculty member in 2009-10 is only 1.2 percent higher than it was a year ago, the lowest year-to-year change in the 50 years that salary data have been collected by the American Association of University Professors. The association released its annual survey of faculty salaries today.
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Posted in Faculty, Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged AAUP, Faculty, Salary/Economic Benefits
Richmond Times-Dispatch: JMU president assails weekend block party
An off-campus block party that erupted into violence Saturday when police tried to disperse a crowd of about 8,000 is an embarrassment to James Madison University, the school’s president said in an e-mail to students.
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Posted in Students
The Chronicle: Missouri State U. Faculty Members Can Now Be Reassigned Without Their Consent
Defying the wishes of faculty leaders and a standing committee established by their institution’s provost, the Board of Governors of Missouri State University has altered its policies to state that faculty members there—including those with tenure—can be temporarily reassigned to other duties without their consent.
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Posted in Working conditions
Tagged Faculty, Missouri State U
The Chronicle: Faculty-Union Allies, Hopeful About Obama’s Labor Board, Hear From Its Leader
It’s only a matter of time before the National Labor Relations Board is faced with a challenge to a 2004 ruling that says graduate students at private institutions aren’t employees and therefore don’t have bargaining rights, its leader told attendees at a labor conference here on Monday.
“This is not an issue that we’ll bring up, but I have heard there are cases out there in the works,” said Wilma B. Liebman, the opening speaker at the conference, held at the City University of New York’s Baruch College.
San Francisco Chronicle: UC Berkeley bloated, wasteful, consultants say
For a world-class university studded with Nobel laureates and innovative research, UC Berkeley manages its finances a bit like a sloppy undergrad, a new report suggests.
The campus could save about $75 million a year by streamlining purchases, concentrating job duties and laying off “redundant” managers, according to consultants hired last fall to help the school become a leaner operation
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/12/BAIH1CTI5M.DTL#ixzz0kzxgNagR
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Posted in Academics
Tagged managerial waste, U of California
AP: Lawyer threatens suit over canceled Ayers speech
LARAMIE, Wyo. — A Denver lawyer says he’ll sue the University of Wyoming unless it lets former 1960s radical William Ayers speak on campus.
David Lane sent the school a letter Monday saying he had been retained by student Meg Lanker. He contends the university violated the First Amendment when it canceled a speech Ayers was scheduled to give in March.
He gave the university until noon Wednesday to respond.
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Posted in Legal issues
World University News: EGYPT: Academics threaten pay strikes
A recent admission by Egypt’s Minister of Higher Education that the salaries of lecturers at public universities are “paltry” has not mollified them. Indeed, academics are angrier than before and have threatened more protests to pressure the government to substantially increase their salaries.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Egypt, Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes
SW Radio Africa News: Over 33 students arrested during countrywide demos
Around 33 students were arrested countrywide on Monday after they staged a series of demonstrations protesting high tuition fees and the political deadlock in the country. The protests were held in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru and Masvingo in what the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) said was also a way to commemorate the March 2008 elections which ‘marked Zimbabwe’s closest ever shot at democracy.
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