Detroit News: Oakland University negotiators still at table
President’s ’08 pay hike, then freezes, at issue
Faculty negotiations at Oakland University are beginning to heat up as the professors’ Aug. 14 contract is set to expire.
And if history is any indication, negotiations will likely come down to the last minute, possibly narrowly averting a professor strike hours before students begin fall classes, similar to the last contract talks in 2006.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged Oakland U, Salary/Economic Benefits, University presidents
Daily Tribune: Pay freeze irks OU faculty, employees
Executive administration received salary increases last year.
An Oakland University press release regarding salary freezes has shocked university faculty and employees in light of recent information they gathered concerning sizable executive administrative salary increases in 2008.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged Oakland U, pay freeze
The Chronicle Review: The Faculty of the Future:
Leaner, Meaner, More Innovative, Less Secure
The faculty workplace has changed significantly in the last 20 years: More women, minority professors, and adjuncts have joined the professoriate. Information technology has led to new opportunities and expectations. The economic crisis has complicated long-term planning for scholars and institutions alike. We asked seven scholars from several fields and generations how they think the academic workplace — and, in particular, the job satisfaction and expectations of a faculty career — will change over the next 20 years.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Faculty, Working conditions
The Narcosphere: The Teachers Union Won’t Return to Classes Until Zelaya is Back in Office; Street Protests Continue
With the death of 19-year-old Obed Murillo allegedly at the hands of Honduran security forces at Tegucigalpa airport yesterday while President Manuel Zelaya was attempting to land there, the coup government demonstrated its willingness to resort to lethal force to maintain its power.
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Posted in Protests
Tagged coup, Honduras, K-12 issues, Protests, Strikes & Labor Disputes
Inside Higher Ed: Rights for Some People
Should someone who teaches human rights back human rights for all people?
That’s the question being raised by some students at New York University’s law school, who are upset that a visiting professor in the fall semester, slated to teach human rights law, is Thio Li-ann of the National University of Singapore, an outspoken opponent of gay rights. Thio has argued repeatedly and graphically that her country should continue to criminalize gay sexual acts.
Inside Higher Ed: Ward Churchill Gets Nothing
The University of Colorado won just about everything it wanted, and Ward Churchill lost just about everything he wanted, in a ruling Tuesday by a state judge in Colorado.
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Posted in Uncategorized
The Chronicle: Judge Rejects Ward Churchill’s Plea for Reinstatement, Vacates Verdict in His Favor
A state court judge on Tuesday not only denied Ward Churchill everything he sought in his long-running battle with the University of Colorado system, but also negated the one victory the controversial scholar had won so far: a jury verdict holding that system officials had violated his First Amendment rights by firing him from a job as a tenured ethnic-studies professor in response to statements he had made.
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Posted in Uncategorized
AFP: French woman detained on spy charges in Iran: ministry
PARIS (AFP) — A French woman was detained in Iran last week on spying charges, France’s foreign ministry said Monday, demanding her release.
“France firmly condemns the July 1 arrest and detention by Iran of a French academic,” the ministry said in a statement, without revealing the name of the woman or the university she was linked to.
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Posted in Government
Denver Post: No job, no money for Churchill
A judge has ruled that the University of Colorado doesn’t have to give controversial former professor Ward Churchill his job back, even though a jury found he was improperly fired.
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Posted in Legal issues
Tagged Legal issues, Ward Churchill
FACE/AFT: Margaret West Reinstated at Edmonds CC
Some of you may remember that about a year ago, fellow FACT Talk blogger Phil Ray Jack started telling the story of Margaret West, who, after 21 years of service at Edmonds Community College in Washington State, had been “non-renewed.” Not so coincidentally, West was also about to become the first part-time faculty member at Edmonds to assume the role of president of the faculty union at Edmonds. In response to Phil’s first post, a commenter asked what the union was doing in response and what others could do as well. Phil pointed out that the union was taking action on several fronts and encouraged others to offer their support.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged adjuncts, Termination, Working conditions
Chicago Breaking News: U. of I. chancellor: Fix admissions system
The University of Illinois’ favoritism toward students backed by powerful sponsors must come to an end, the principal enforcer of the campus’ secret admissions system testified today.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Admissions, Scandal
The Chronicle: Phoenix Risen
How a history professor became the pioneer of the for-profit revolution
John G. Sperling, as he often reminds those around him, is running out of time. At 88, he is in relatively good health, despite a weak kidney and back problems. He still walks the dog, drives himself to meetings, and seems to have no shortage of nervous energy: Forced to sit still for any length of time, he twirls his cellphone between two fingers or distractedly peels the label from a bottle of water, leaving it in shreds on the table.
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Posted in Corporate University
Tagged Corporate University, U of Phoenix
Times Higher Education: Edict curtailing freedom to work at home ‘appals’ staff
Lecturers should be on campus for community and students, university says. Rebecca Attwood reports
Lecturers have reacted with dismay to a policy requiring them to spend the full 35 hours of the working week on campus unless they obtain formal permission to work off site.
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Posted in Working conditions
Inside Higher Ed: 2 Scholarly Groups Issue Statements on Iranian Crackdown
Two scholarly associations last week issued statements about the Iranian government’s crackdown on students and professors at the nation’s universities. The Middle East Studies Association sent a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expressing “serious concern over the murders, mass arrests, brutal beatings, and widespread harassment of Iranian university students.” A statement from the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association said: “Recognizing with alarm the implications for freedom of thought and expression and in the light of its particular responsibility for the humanities in higher education, the Modern Language Association deplores the attacks on Iranian universities, which endanger students, faculty members, and staff members. We express our hope that the government of Iran will refrain from using violence or other repressive measures in these revered centers of learning and teaching.”
Inside Higher Ed: Gender Bias at SUNY-Buffalo?
Earning tenure is never a sure thing, but Janet Shucard thought that she had done everything right.
She and her husband joined the State University of New York at Buffalo as instructors in the neurology department in 1985. By 1998, the year she entered the tenure track, she had served as associate director of the department’s division of development and behavioral neuroscience, head of the department of neurology medical psychotherapy service and assistant professor of neurology. She had published dozens of articles in prominent science journals. And she had pulled in research funding, most recently grants from the National Institutes of Health.
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Posted in Equity
Tagged Equity, gender bias, SUNY-Buffalo
Inside Higher Ed: The Next Open Source Movement
While the open source movement has taken off in course management systems, with Moodle and Sakai as alternatives to the dominant Blackboard, the administrative side of the house has been almost entirely corporate. While some colleges use home-grown systems, the norm has been to use any of a number of vendors for systems that allow colleges to manage and report on budgets, billing and many other functions crucial to running a college. These administrative software systems cost millions of dollars to install and manage, and any malfunctions can be hugely frustrating to institutions.
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Posted in Open access
Tagged Administration, course management, Open access, open source
Inside Higher Ed: So Sue Me
Contracts be damned. Kenneth A. Yowell, president of Edison Community College, in Ohio, believes he need not follow a union contract in deciding whose jobs to eliminate. Now, amid protest from faculty who already disapprove of his leadership, he is picking a fight with the local union to try to prove that he is well within his rights.
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Posted in Administration
Tagged Contracts, Unions, University presidents
Chicago Tribune: Giannoulias aide put kid on clout list for priest
Greek Orthodox leader who vouched for girl helped treasurer raise campaign cash
When a politically connected Greek Orthodox priest wanted help getting the daughter of a family friend into the University of Illinois, he reached out to a campaign adviser to state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias.
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Posted in Administration
Tagged Admissions, Scandal, U of Illinois
Labor Notes: LA Teacher Cuts Prompt Walkouts, Arrests, Hunger Strike
Each year around budget time, Californians hear a familiar story from Sacramento: There’s another stalemate, because state law caps property tax rates and requires two-thirds of legislators to approve tax hikes.
The state’s inability to make budgets continues to mean less money for California public schools, which are funded at well below the national average, 46th in the nation in per-pupil spending. This time, Governor Schwarzenegger wants $10 billion in cuts from the state’s $45 billion yearly education fund.
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Posted in Protests
Tagged arrests, Budgets & Funding, hunger strike, K-12 issues, Los Angeles, Strikes & Labor Disputes, UTLA, walkouts
The Flint Journal: Economic conditions affect jobs of teachers across county
GENESEE COUNTY, Michigan — Local districts are clinging to their teachers and trying to avoid layoffs as enrollment numbers and funding lag.
While the Flint School District is taking a big hit, laying off 257 teachers in April, most local school systems are trying to avoid cutting instructors.
In Flint, the layoffs were intended to help avoid a $20-million budget deficit. On June 17, the Flint Board of education called back 73 teachers.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Job cuts, jobs, K-12 issues, Layoffs, Michigan
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