Author Archives: E Wayne Ross

For-Profit Colleges Capitalize on Pell Grant Revenue

Posted on January 6, 2010 | Comments Off on For-Profit Colleges Capitalize on Pell Grant Revenue

The Chronicle: For-Profit Colleges Capitalize on Pell Grant Revenue

Proprietary colleges top a list of postsecondary institutions whose students received the most Pell Grants in 2008-9.

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Posted in Corporate University

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U. of Illinois to Furlough 11,000 Employees and Freeze Hiring

Posted on January 5, 2010 | Comments Off on U. of Illinois to Furlough 11,000 Employees and Freeze Hiring

The Chronicle: U. of Illinois to Furlough 11,000 Employees and Freeze Hiring

The University of Illinois, facing a $400-million budget shortfall, will require administrators to take 10-day furloughs and other staff members to take four unpaid days off in the first half of 2010, in a move that will affect 11,000 employees, the university’s interim president announced today. The university has also instituted a freeze on hiring and salary increases, effective immediately. The state’s budget crisis, which has caused the university’s shortfall, is compounding an already difficult academic year for the university, which is still recovering from an admissions scandal last year that led to the departure of its president.

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Posted in Budgets & Funding

U. of Hawaii Faculty Union Files Grievance Over Pay Cuts

Posted on January 5, 2010 | Comments Off on U. of Hawaii Faculty Union Files Grievance Over Pay Cuts

The Chronicle: U. of Hawaii Faculty Union Files Grievance Over Pay Cuts

The union for faculty members at the University of Hawaii hand-delivered a grievance to the system’s president, M.R.C. Greenwood, on Monday, demanding that she retract a letter she wrote last week to tell professors their pay would be cut by 6.7 percent.

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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits

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Robert Felner to plead guilty to siphoning millions from Louisville, Rhode Island universities

Posted on January 5, 2010 | Comments Off on Robert Felner to plead guilty to siphoning millions from Louisville, Rhode Island universities

Courier-Journal: Attorney: Robert Felner to plead guilty to siphoning millions from Louisville, Rhode Island universities

Former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner will plead guilty Friday in a case in which he and a colleague are accused of defrauding U of L and another university out of $2.3 million, his attorney said.

Attorney Scott C. Cox said Monday the plea is part of an agreement Felner made with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He would not disclose any terms of the deal, including which charges Felner would plead guilty to or how much jail time he may receive. Felner was not available for comment.

…

While not part of the criminal case, Felner’s treatment of faculty and staff at U of L’s College of Education and Human Development — and grievances against him — came to light during the investigation. Former faculty accused Felner of being vindictive, manipulative and threatening. As a result of those claims, the university revamped its grievance process, reviewed its faculty governance procedures and established an Ombuds Office to address faculty concerns and complaints.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Monday that it would have no comment until Felner formally enters his plea — he is accused of funneling millions of dollars through non-profit centers he helped create, then using the money to buy private property and make other personal expenditures.

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Posted in Corruption, Crime, Legal issues

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American Colleges Lag in Meeting Labor Needs

Posted on January 4, 2010 | Comments Off on American Colleges Lag in Meeting Labor Needs

The Chronicle: American Colleges Lag in Meeting Labor Needs

Despite calls to more closely link higher education with job needs in the United States, American colleges are only “moderately responsive” to changes in the labor markets, according to a new working paper by three economists.

The study, whose preliminary results were presented on Monday at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association, found that some academic programs, such as computer science, appear to be highly responsive to labor-market trends, while others, like medicine and dentistry, are largely unaffected by changes in employment opportunities.

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Posted in Uncategorized

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The job crisis for faculty jobs — especially for new Ph.D.’s looking for tenure-track jobs — is spreading

Posted on January 4, 2010 | Comments Off on The job crisis for faculty jobs — especially for new Ph.D.’s looking for tenure-track jobs — is spreading

Inside Higher Ed: No Entry

The job crisis for faculty jobs — especially for new Ph.D.’s looking for tenure-track jobs — is spreading.

Data being released this week by the American Historical Association and the American Economic Association reveal sharp drops in the number of available positions in their respective disciplines. Coming just weeks after the Modern Language Association revealed historic drops in the availability of jobs for English and foreign language professors, the data show that while new English and foreign language Ph.D.’s may have a particularly tough time finding employment, they are by no means alone.

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Posted in Job market

Violence and the University: An Open Letter regarding the Friday Night Events at UC Berkeley by Daniel Perlstein

Posted on January 2, 2010 | Comments Off on Violence and the University: An Open Letter regarding the Friday Night Events at UC Berkeley by Daniel Perlstein

From Reclamations:

Violence and the University: An Open Letter regarding the Friday Night Events at UC Berkeley

By: Daniel Perlstein

Beyond any wider implications, acts of violence necessarily diminish the university, discouraging the free exchange of ideas, which ought to be our defining characteristic. Nevertheless questions of proportion and degree matter. While all acts of violence diminish the university, differences in how and how much they do so ought to influence our responses.

With many people having little more than news reports of events at the Chancellor’s residence on which to base their impressions, I realize that my comments might seem to indicate a lack of common decency or at least an incredibly bad sense of timing, but as I will try to explain, I believe that the university administration not only set the stage for a violent turn in protests by acts which have repeatedly raised tensions and undermined belief in its good will, but actually engaged in most of the violence that has occurred.

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Posted in Protests

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CA community colleges may offer bachelor’s degrees

Posted on December 23, 2009 | Comments Off on CA community colleges may offer bachelor’s degrees

Contra Costa Times: Community colleges may offer bachelor’s degrees

With tens of thousands being turned away from state universities, California lawmakers likely will consider granting community colleges the right to offer a limited number of bachelor’s degrees.
The shift, which has occurred in 17 other states in the past decade or so, would represent a major philosophical change in California, where the three state higher-education systems have clearly defined roles.

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Posted in Academics, Budgets & Funding

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Bucknell professor gets death sentence from Ethiopia

Posted on December 23, 2009 | Comments Off on Bucknell professor gets death sentence from Ethiopia

Philadelphia Inquirer: Bucknell professor gets death sentence from Ethiopia

A Bucknell University professor was sentenced yesterday to death in absentia by an Ethiopian court that convicted him of plotting to assassinate government officials.

Berhanu Nega, of Lewisburg, an associate professor of economics at the Union County school, was one of five people to receive death sentences for planning the attack in 2005 when nearly 200 people were killed in postelection violence.

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Posted in Legal issues

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Faculty Speech Rights Rejected

Posted on December 23, 2009 | Comments Off on Faculty Speech Rights Rejected

Inside Higher Ed: Faculty Speech Rights Rejected

A bitter dispute over a tenured professor fired by Idaho State University has become the latest case in which a court has suggested that faculty members at public colleges and universities do not have First Amendment protection when criticizing their administrations.

While the individual case of Habib Sadid continues to be much debated at the university, the way the judge ruled in the case has advocates for faculty members concerned.

The language in the decision “eviscerates the identity and role that a faculty member plays” in public higher education, said Rachel Levinson, senior counsel for the American Association of University Professors. The decision applies to a higher education context several court cases that the AAUP believes should not be applied to higher education, and one case involving higher education that the AAUP believes was wrongly decided because of reliance on the other cases. In many respects, the ruling in Sadid represents an extreme form of a legal pattern the AAUP recently warned was eroding faculty rights at public colleges.

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Posted in Free speech

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University of Cincinnati music dean under fire from faculty

Posted on December 23, 2009 | Comments Off on University of Cincinnati music dean under fire from faculty

Cincinnati Enquirer: University of Cincinnati music dean under fire from faculty

Douglas Knehans, dean of the University of Cincinnati’s acclaimed College-Conservatory of Music, is under fire from the college’s professors to the point that he could be replaced.

The committee representing more than 100 CCM professors has written to Provost Tony Perzigian, UC’s top academic officer, telling him that relations with Knehans “have reached an irreparable end.”

“No dean can function without the trust and respect of his faculty, and Douglas Knehans has neither,” said the Nov. 24 letter, obtained by The Enquirer under an Ohio Open Records Law request.

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Posted in Administration

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Montgomery College president ran up $65,000 in expenses

Posted on December 23, 2009 | Comments Off on Montgomery College president ran up $65,000 in expenses

Washington Post: Montgomery College president ran up $65,000 in expenses

Brian K. Johnson, accused by faculty leaders of excessive spending while president of Montgomery College, reported about $65,000 in airfare, lodgings, meals and other work-related expenses in the two full fiscal years he was on the job, according to financial documents released by the school under public records laws.

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Posted in Administration

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IUP president hit with overwhelming no-confidence vote

Posted on December 23, 2009 | Comments Off on IUP president hit with overwhelming no-confidence vote

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: IUP president hit with overwhelming no-confidence vote

INDIANA, Pa. — Faculty at Pennsylvania’s largest state-owned university returned an overwhelming vote of no confidence in the leadership of Indiana University of Pennsyvlania president Tony Atwater.

Results of three days of balloting by the campus chapter of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties was announced by a union vice-president during this afternoon’s Indiana Council of Trustees meeting.

A total of 777 individuals, from full-time tenured faculty to part-time adjunct instructors, were eligible to vote. Of that, 672 did.

“Of those who voted, more than 84 percent voted that they no longer have confidence in President Atwater’s leadership,” said Francisco Alarcon, a math professor and vice-president of the union’s campus chapter. The union later released numbers on the vote: 568 expressed no confidence; 64 expressed confidence, and 40 abstained from voting on the resolution.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09352/1021995-100.stm#ixzz0aYbGEjJM

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Posted in Administration

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AUUP investigates Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Posted on December 23, 2009 | Comments Off on AUUP investigates Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

AAUP: Investigation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The AAUP general secretary has authorized an investigation into key issues of shared governance at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The investigation, which will be carried out by a committee of AAUP members with no previous involvement in the situation, will focus on issues of concern surrounding the ongoing suspension of Rensselaer’s faculty senate. (12/18)

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Posted in Governance, Unions

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Parents in California Start to Mobilize Against Tuition Hikes

Posted on December 23, 2009 | Comments Off on Parents in California Start to Mobilize Against Tuition Hikes

Los Angeles Time: Parents in California Start to Mobilize Against Tuition Hikes

The budget crisis afflicting California State University could not have come at a worse time for Berenice Vite and Rafael Curiel, whose son Alonso is a sophomore at Cal State Long Beach. As the university was imposing a 32% student fee hike this year, Curiel underwent two shoulder surgeries and lost his job at a medical equipment firm.

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Posted in Budgets & Funding, Organizing

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Interview: The AAUP’s Cary Nelson Goes to War

Posted on December 17, 2009 | Comments Off on Interview: The AAUP’s Cary Nelson Goes to War

The Chronicle: The AAUP’s Cary Nelson Goes to War

It is an understatement to say Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, sees the nation’s faculty members as on the defensive. In No University Is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom, scheduled for publication by New York University Press in January, he argues that academic freedom verges on being a lost cause, shared governance is in retreat, and the professoriate is in danger of losing any semblance of job security in a work force dominated by underpaid adjunct faculty members. His response is to call for an all-out effort to win not just battles but the hearts and minds of other college employees—even students.

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Posted in Unions

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Job Slump Worsens for Language and Literature Scholars

Posted on December 17, 2009 | Comments Off on Job Slump Worsens for Language and Literature Scholars

Inside Higher Ed: Disappearing Jobs

The job picture in the humanities is going from bad to worse.

The Modern Language Association’s annual forecast on job listings, being released today, predicts that positions in English language and literature will drop 35 percent from last year, while positions in languages other than English are expected to fall 39 percent this year. Given that both categories saw decreases last year, the two-year decline in available positions is 51 percent in English and 55 percent in foreign languages.

The Chronicle: Job Slump Worsens for Language and Literature Scholars

The job market for language and literature scholars, already weak before the recession hit, is likely to leave job seekers chasing a rapidly shrinking pool of jobs for the next several years.

A new analysis of employment advertising conducted by the Modern Language Association, to be released on Thursday, projects a 37-percent drop in faculty positions advertised in the association’s electronic job list this academic year, compared with last yea

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Posted in Job market

Civil-Rights Panel Names 19 Colleges It Will Investigate for Gender Bias in Admissions

Posted on December 16, 2009 | Comments Off on Civil-Rights Panel Names 19 Colleges It Will Investigate for Gender Bias in Admissions

The Chronicle: Civil-Rights Panel Names 19 Colleges It Will Investigate for Gender Bias in Admissions

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights today approved a list of 19 colleges and universities that it will examine for evidence of gender discrimination in undergraduate admissions.

The commission aims to find out if the institutions—a mix of public, private, religious, secular, and historically black colleges and universities—are giving admissions preferences to men as the number of female applicants rises. Title IX, the federal gender-equity law best known for opening up opportunities for women in sports, prohibits educational institutions that receive federal funds from discriminating against applicants based on gender.

The institutions to be subpoenaed are Georgetown, Howard, Johns Hopkins, Lincoln (Pa.), Shepherd, and Virginia Union Universities; Gettysburg, Goldey-Beacom, Goucher, Messiah, and Washington Colleges; the Catholic University of America; Loyola University Maryland; Shippensburg and York Universities of Pennsylvania; and the Universities of Delaware, of Maryland-Baltimore County, of Maryland-Eastern Shore, and of Richmond.

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Posted in Equity

U Texas football coach’s $5 million salary deemed “unseemly”

Posted on December 16, 2009 | Comments Off on U Texas football coach’s $5 million salary deemed “unseemly”

Austin American Statesman: Mack Brown’s salary deemed ‘unseemly’
Vote at UT Faculty Council meeting was unofficial.

A resolution criticizing the $5 million pay package for University of Texas football coach Mack Brown as “unseemly and inappropriate” was approved in an unofficial vote at a Faculty Council meeting Monday despite an impassioned defense of the package by UT’s president.

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Posted in Athletics, Salary/Economic Benefits

First Amendment in the Classroom

Posted on December 16, 2009 | Comments Off on First Amendment in the Classroom

Inside Higher Ed: First Amendment in the Classroom

At a time when faculty groups are increasingly worried that a Supreme Court ruling is being used to limit the free speech rights of public college professors, a federal judge has declined a college’s request to do just that.

The judge’s ruling keeps alive First Amendment claims in a lawsuit by June Sheldon, who in 2007 lost an adjunct science teaching job (and the offer of courses to teach the following semester) at San Jose City College. Sheldon lost her job following a student complaint about comments she is alleged to have made during a class discussion of the “nature vs. nurture” debate with regard to why some people are gay.

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Posted in Free speech

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