Author Archives: E Wayne Ross

New York: Plan to expand role of universities in K-12

Posted on October 31, 2007 | Comments Off on New York: Plan to expand role of universities in K-12

Inside Higher Ed: A special panel reviewing higher education in New York State is preparing a plan that would call for radically increased role for colleges in working with elementary and secondary schools. In what appears to be a trial balloon, parts of the plan were revealed to The New York Sun, which reported that “education empowerment zones” would be created in which college faculty members would play more of a role in helping with the curriculum, and colleges might set up “early college high schools” and other links between higher ed and K-12. A preliminary report from the panel — appointed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer — is expected by December 1. Sources familiar with the panel’s deliberations told Inside Higher Ed that the emphasis described in the Sun article was correct, but that references to a huge infusion of funds for higher education were not, given the state’s overall budget picture.

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Posted in K-12 issues

Florida: Tasered Student Avoids Criminal Charges

Posted on October 31, 2007 | Comments Off on Florida: Tasered Student Avoids Criminal Charges

AP: Tasered Student Avoids Criminal Charges

A University of Florida student who was shocked with a Taser after persistently questioning Sen. John Kerry will avoid criminal charges by apologizing and complying with terms of a voluntary 18-month probation, authorities said Tuesday.

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Posted in Legal issues

Live From Ohio: Rock Stars and the RIAA

Posted on October 31, 2007 | Comments Off on Live From Ohio: Rock Stars and the RIAA

Inside Higher Ed: Live From Ohio: Rock Stars and the RIAA

Ohio University played host on Tuesday to a panel that hit close to home as music experts, critics of and sympathizers to illegal downloading, and a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer discussed the finer points of peer-to-peer file sharing.

The debate is hardly theoretical at a campus that has received 100 pre-litigation letters this year from the Recording Industry Association of America as part of the group’s controversial tactic of forcing college administrators into a reluctant enforcer role against illegal downloading. Partially as a result, Ohio University announced an unusually strict policy of blocking all peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic earlier this year. To provide a legal alternative, the institution has since joined Ruckus, a subscription-based music service that is currently free to students.

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Posted in Open access

New York: Lay faculty union to vote on contract Tuesday

Posted on October 31, 2007 | Comments Off on New York: Lay faculty union to vote on contract Tuesday

Poughkeepsie Journal: Lay faculty union to vote on contract Tuesday

Some teachers at Our Lady of Lourdes High School may be preparing for a strike.

New York Lay Faculty Association, the union representing 435 non-religious teachers, guidance counselors and other faculty in Catholic schools in New York, will vote Tuesday whether to accept a contract proposal from the Archdiocese of New York.

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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts, K-12 issues

Manitoba: U of M appeals labour board decision

Posted on October 31, 2007 | Comments Off on Manitoba: U of M appeals labour board decision

The Winnipeg Free Press: U of M appeals labour board decision

The University of Manitoba has asked the Manitoba Labour Board to review its decision in a case between the university, its faculty union and six coaches of university sports teams.

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Posted in Unions

India: Med faculty strike hits routine work

Posted on October 31, 2007 | Comments Off on India: Med faculty strike hits routine work

Times of India: Med faculty strike hits routine work

Post-graduate teaching at the B.J. Medical College (BJMC) suffered on Monday after medical teachers resorted to a day-long mass casual leave in protest against non-fulfilment of their demands.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

New Jersey: Union, Rider administrators make last-minute deal

Posted on October 31, 2007 | Comments Off on New Jersey: Union, Rider administrators make last-minute deal

The Rider News:Union, administrators make last-minute deal

Representatives of the administration and the Rider faculty union reached a tentative four-year agreement after a last-ditch negotiating session on Monday afternoon.

Although union officials said that many of the changes to the contract were small and technical, among the more notable results were a lack of significant changes to academic governance and a salary increase of 4 percent for the first year.

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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts

Washington: Faculty at CWU say they’re underpaid

Posted on October 31, 2007 | Comments Off on Washington: Faculty at CWU say they’re underpaid

Yakima Herald Republic: Faculty at CWU say they’re underpaid

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Faculty members at Central Washington University argue that they’re underpaid compared with their peers at other schools, and have asked their union bargaining team to continue pushing the school administration for better pay

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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits

Ontario: Union delays walkout

Posted on October 31, 2007 | Comments Off on Ontario: Union delays walkout

Star Phoenix: Union delays walkout

The union that gave strike notice for its 2,400 university workers in the province says there will not be a walkout today.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 1975 gave legal notice Friday that workers at both the University of Saskatchewan and University of Regina would be in a strike position as early as this afternoon.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

New York: Governor To Bet Billions on SUNY

Posted on October 30, 2007 | Comments Off on New York: Governor To Bet Billions on SUNY

New York Sun: Governor To Bet Billions on SUNY
Colleges Eyed for Role in High Schools

Envisioning a dramatically greater role for universities and colleges in the remedial education of secondary students, the Spitzer administration is planning to pump billions of additional dollars into the State University of New York and the rest of New York’s higher education system, sources said.

A higher education commission appointed by Governor Spitzer in May is discussing a concept called “education empowerment zones,” which would provide financial incentives for colleges and universities to collaborate with public high schools and middle schools.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Animal-Rights Militants Vandalize UCLA Researcher’s House

Posted on October 30, 2007 | Comments Off on Animal-Rights Militants Vandalize UCLA Researcher’s House

The Chronicle: Animal-Rights Militants Vandalize UCLA Researcher’s House

A house owned by a researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles was vandalized last week by the Animal Liberation Front, in yet another militant act against a UCLA faculty member who performs research on primates and other animals.

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Posted in Protests

A Haven for Minority Scholars

Posted on October 30, 2007 | Comments Off on A Haven for Minority Scholars

Inside Higher Ed: A Haven for Minority Scholars

The number of black, Hispanic and American Indian recipients of Ph.D.’s has been edging higher in recent years, but members of those groups are still significantly underrepresented in the proportion of all doctorates earned.

So it’s hardly surprising that at most of the academic meetings that a black graduate student like La Tonya M. Green goes to, such as those in her discipline of urban studies and planning, she feels like “a speck in a room,” as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral student put it at the Compact for Faculty Diversity’s Institute on Teaching and Mentoring in Washington last weekend.

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Posted in Diversity

American University in Turkey Says It Will Not Enforce Head-Scarf Ban

Posted on October 30, 2007 | Comments Off on American University in Turkey Says It Will Not Enforce Head-Scarf Ban

The Chronicle News Blog: American University in Turkey Says It Will Not Enforce Head-Scarf Ban

An American university is courting controversy in Turkey by allowing female students at its newly opened Istanbul campus to wear head scarves, a public expression of their Islamic faith that is forbidden at universities and government offices throughout the country.

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Posted in International

New Hampshire: Angry Academic Acquitted After Attack Against Administrator

Posted on October 29, 2007 | Comments Off on New Hampshire: Angry Academic Acquitted After Attack Against Administrator

Union Leader: UNH professor not guilty of stalking

A University of New Hampshire professor accused of going on an angry, expletive-filled diatribe against a colleague in June has been acquitted of all criminal charges stemming from the incident.

John Collins, 57, of Lee, was found not guilty of stalking, a misdemeanor, and disorderly conduct, a violation, at a trial Tuesday in Durham District Court.

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Posted in Legal issues

Report Assails Canadian Program Aimed at Drawing Foreign Students

Posted on October 29, 2007 | Comments Off on Report Assails Canadian Program Aimed at Drawing Foreign Students

The Chronicle News Blog: Report Assails Canadian Program Aimed at Drawing Foreign Students

International students in Canada are so disillusioned by the nation’s after-graduation job program that many move to the United States or other countries to work after they obtain their degrees. A report, commissioned by the Canadian Bureau for International Education and scheduled to be released on Tuesday, will recommend that the
government create a national strategy on international students and take a hard look at how other countries, such as Australia, handle the issue.

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Posted in Students

A Labor Union Plants a Flag for Academic Freedom in an Era of Fewer Tenured Positions

Posted on October 29, 2007 | Comments Off on A Labor Union Plants a Flag for Academic Freedom in an Era of Fewer Tenured Positions

The Chronicle: A Labor Union Plants a Flag for Academic Freedom in an Era of Fewer Tenured Positions

One of academe’s largest labor unions, the American Federation of Teachers, released today its first comprehensive statement on academic freedom— a fresh indication that the worries of today’s academics run deeper than salaries and benefits.

The statement, called “Academic Freedom in the 21st-Century College and University,” is an attempt to frame the issues of academic freedom for an era when the system of tenure— once the bedrock principle of scholarly free exchange— is breaking down. According to the union, 70 percent of university instructors work off the tenure track.

Hence, the statement’s rhetoric aims to shore up the standing of all university instructors, tenured or not, by emphasizing their status as professionals.

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Posted in Academic freedom

Florida: Students protest for second amendment rights

Posted on October 29, 2007 | Comments Off on Florida: Students protest for second amendment rights

FSUNews.com: Students protest for second amendment rights

This week Florida State University students are taking part in a protest of state laws that prohibit students from carrying guns on campus as a part of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC). Students participating in the rally are wearing empty holsters on their belts all week.

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Posted in Protests, Students

Maryland: Smoking Ban Linked to Bathroom Vandalism

Posted on October 29, 2007 | Comments Off on Maryland: Smoking Ban Linked to Bathroom Vandalism

AP: Smoking Ban Linked to Bathroom Vandalism

Vandals suspected of stealing toilet paper and trashing men’s bathrooms at Frederick Community College have given school administrators an ultimatum: lift the campus smoking ban and the vandalism will stop.

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Posted in Protests

Donovan aims to put students on higher plane

Posted on October 29, 2007 | Comments Off on Donovan aims to put students on higher plane

The Guardian: Donovan aims to put students on higher plane

· Meditation to underpin university’s curriculum
· David Lynch backs singer’s proposal for institution

Many undergraduates already spend their days listening to psychedelic tunes, watching strange films and trying to reach a transcendental plane. But now, thanks to an unlikely alliance between folk singer Donovan and film director David Lynch, all of the above will be on the curriculum.

The Invincible Donovan University will provide the traditional university subjects, but students will also undergo training in transcendental meditation – the technique practised by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and popularised by the Beatles. Donovan, whose hits include Hurdy Gurdy Man and Mellow Yellow, said he would open the university in either Glasgow or Edinburgh, bringing the hippy dream of world peace to his home country of Scotland.

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Posted in Academics, International

Furor Over Anti-Islam Speaker

Posted on October 29, 2007 | Comments Off on Furor Over Anti-Islam Speaker

Inside Higher Ed: Furor Over Anti-Islam Speaker

The president of Iran isn’t the only Holocaust denier to win a platform on an American college campus.

At Michigan State University Friday, Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party who was convicted in 1998 for incitement of racial hatred over material denying the Holocaust, was brought to campus for a speech denouncing Islam. Griffin acknowledges having been a Holocaust denier, but says he no longer is one. His party is on record opposing black-white marriages, believing that black people are less intelligent than white people, and saying that ethnic minorities should be limited to 2-3 percent of the population of any given area in Britain.

Griffin was invited to Michigan State by the campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. He was supposed to give a one-hour talk about Islam and then answer questions for an hour, but audience members started shouting at him shortly after he started his talk and he shifted to Q&A format so he could answer what was being shouted at him.

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Posted in Free speech