The Chronicle: Labor Leaders Call for Collective Efforts to Reduce Reliance on Adjuncts
The strain on university budgets from the economic crisis should serve as a catalyst for faculty unions and college administrators to build more mutual trust so they work together to reverse higher education’s reliance on adjunct labor, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said here on Monday.
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Posted in Contingent labor
Inside Higher Ed: More ‘No Confidence’ Votes in Board That Killed Tenure
A handful of faculty and staff boards have passed votes of “no confidence” in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System’s Board of Regents following its controversial decision last month to eliminate tenure for all new faculty hires. April 16, the Executive Council of Kentucky Community College Faculty and Staff Alliance (KCCFSA) – a labor group associated with the American Federation of Teachers – unanimously censured the board. The next day, four faculty councils overwhelmingly passed “no confidence” votes in the Michael B. McCall, system president, and the regents. These votes took place at Mayville, Elizabethtown, Hopkinsville and Bluegrass Community Colleges. These votes follow a vote two weeks ago by the faculty of Southeast Kentucky Community College. Now, 5 of the system’s 16 colleges have passed “no confidence” resolutions. Faculty advocates say votes at even more institutions are planned for this Friday. Barbara Ashley, KCCFSA executive director, said these resolutions mark the first time since the founding of the Kentucky system that any votes of “no confidence” have been taken against the governing board or a system administrator. McCall and the regents have offered no response to these recent votes.
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Posted in Governance
Tagged Governance, Kentucky, no confidence vote, tenure
Dallas Morning News: Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research sues state over denial of its master’s program
The Institute for Creation Research has taken its fight to train future science teachers to the federal courthouse.
The Dallas-based group alleges that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board violated its civil rights by denying the institute’s request to offer a master’s degree in science education.
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Posted in Academics
Tagged creationism, evolution, Legal issues, Texas
Inside Higher Ed: AAUP Backs Notre Dame in Commencement Controversy
The Indiana Conference of the American Association of University Professors has weighed in on the controversy surrounding President Obama’s upcoming commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, which some Roman Catholics oppose due to the president’s support for abortion rights. In its statement, the AAUP chapter expresses support for Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, for standing by the invitation, and expresses concern about “the efforts of external groups to prevent President Obama or any other invited guest from speaking on campus. … Notre Dame has a worthy tradition of inviting new presidents to speak at commencement even though none agree with all aspects of Catholic dogma. To disinvite a commencement speaker over public policy disagreements is an anathema to open discourse.” President Obama will be the ninth U.S. president to be awarded an honorary degree at Notre Dame, and the sixth to be commencement speaker.
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Posted in Politics
Tagged AAUP, abortion, Obama, University of Notre Dame
Herald.ie: Teachers’ union warns 1,000 jobs face the chop
THERE will be a huge reduction in the number of teachers in secondary level schools this year.
As many as 1,000 temporary or part-time secondary teachers are facing the chop, according to the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI).
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
Jerusalem Post: The Open University… is closed for now
The Open University in Ra’anana – the country’s largest university in terms of enrollment – was indefinitely closed on Sunday, after the academic staff went on strike following a four month long labor dispute over working conditions.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Israel, Open University, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Chronicle News Blog: 9 Tenured Faculty Members Are Laid Off at San Francisco Art Institute
The San Francisco Art Institute has laid off nine tenured faculty members in the latest in a series of cutbacks aimed at stemming the institute’s cash-flow problems.
The financial crisis and credit crunch have hit the institute particularly hard, said Bob Gamboa, a spokesman. Lenders have been stingy since 30 percent of its endowment disappeared last fall in the stock-market crash. Since then, the institute has taken a number of belt-tightening measures, including a blanket salary freeze for nonunion faculty and staff members, compulsory furloughs during semester breaks, and a 25-percent pay cut for senior administrators.
Haaretz: Open University closed by strike
Teaching staff at the Open University will begin an open-ended strike today, following a decision Thursday by its junior faculty union. This will be the first time an institution-wide strike has been held at the university, Israel?s largest in terms of student enrollment.?
Cincinnati Enquirer: Hebrew Union could face closure
Tough economic times and multimillion-dollar debt might force Hebrew Union College, the nation’s oldest Jewish educational institution, to shut down its Clifton campus.
The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is facing an $8 million debt – in part because of flat fundraising, pension liabilities, and endowment and other revenue declines that have hit the institute harder than at any other time in its history, Rabbi David Ellenson, the college-institute’s president, told stakeholders in an e-mail.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
Tagged Budgets & Funding, debt, economic crisis, Institution closures
London Free Press: Job losses, fee hikes expected in budget
Tuition fees at UWO will rise an average 4.5% and there’ll be unknown job cuts under a budget recommended by the school’s senate after heated debate yesterday.
The budget must still be approved by UWO’s board of governors, but some faculty and staff members accused the university of unnecessary spending as job losses loom.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Job cuts
Boston Globe: Alleged racial incident stuns Tufts
Allegations of racism are roiling the Tufts University campus after an allegedly drunk freshman and members of a Korean student group got into fisticuffs earlier this month in a dorm lounge.
News 14: Greensboro College cuts jobs, wages
GREENSBORO – Economic stresses have forced another Triad college to make some hard financial choices. Greensboro College administrators said they were forced to make some budget cuts.
Word of cuts spread quickly around campus.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
Tagged Greensboro College, Job cuts, North Carolina, Salary/Economic Benefits
Inside Higher Ed: Fla. Community College President Indicted
When allegations first surfaced last year about possible conflicts of interest involving state funds earmarked for Northwest Florida State College and its award of a job to a prominent state legislator who arranged for the money, the college’s president, Bob Richburg, angrily distinguished the situation from recent scandals in Alabama’s community college system that had led to resignations and even criminal charges.
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Posted in Legal issues
Tagged Florida, indictment, Legal issues, legislature, University presidents
Inside Higher Ed: David Horowitz Wins a Round
For all the controversy over the “Academic Bill of Rights”, David Horowitz’s statement of his views of academic freedom, the document has been adopted rarely. But on Thursday, the board of the College of DuPage, a community college outside Chicago, adopted as official policy a statement based on the Horowitz document.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Tagged Academic freedom, David Horowitz
AP: Thousands protest arrests in coup plot
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Thousands of people marched to the mausoleum of secular Turkey’s founder on Saturday to protest the arrests of university professors and other secularists accused of involvement in an alleged plot to topple the Islamic-rooted government.
More than 5,000 people, including students and university teachers in academic robes, waved Turkish flags, carried posters of Turkey’s late leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and chanted: “Turkey is secular and will remain secular!”
Chicago Tribune: Chicago State’s student newspaper, Tempo, is back on stands as controversy lingers
Chicago State students delivered the first new issue of Tempo in weeks as the editor in chief and the newspaper’s former faculty adviser remain embroiled in a lawsuit against the school
The student editor carted stacks of newspapers across the Chicago State University campus, filling newsstands that have been empty for two months.
Passersby tried to read the cover of Tempo before it hit the stands this week, missing it since it stopped publishing amid battles with university administrators.
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Posted in Legal issues
Tagged Chicago State, Free speech, Lawsuit, Student newspapers
The New York Times: Hiring of Thomas Angers Faculty at Florida International
The former Knicks coach Isiah Thomas will be greeted in his new job at Florida International University with a reminder of his past.
Laurie Shrage, the director of women’s studies and a philosophy professor at the university, said she and some of her colleagues planned to hand-deliver to Thomas a copy of the university’s sexual harassment policy.
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Tagged Athletics, Florida International U, Isiah Thomas, New York Knicks, sexual harassment
Inside Higher Ed: A River Runs Alongside It
This is Steven W. Shirley’s first year as Valley City State University president; he’s 36. “Although I felt a lot older after some of the sand bagging I was doing over the last few days.”
It’s a first year with an unusual end. Valley City on Wednesday announced it would move all instruction online for the remainder of the semester, as the Sheyenne River rose to record levels and officials called for an evacuation of the city’s flood plain (where much of the university is located). According to Mayor Mary Lee Nielson’s statement, the river’s elevation had never before exceeded 20 feet; a crest at 22 feet or higher is expected and, “additionally, the Corps of Engineers also predicts that we will likely remain at this elevated level for up to two weeks, adding additional strain to our dike system.”
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Posted in Safety & Security
Tagged flooding, natural disasters, Online, Valley City State University
Inside Higher Ed: Gun Fight
Legislation that would allow guns on college campuses is moving forward in Texas and Missouri, but the history of other such fights suggests the issue won’t be put to rest with the passage of a bill.
University officials in Utah allowed concealed weapons on campus only after protracted battles in court and the Legislature. As for Colorado, the fight over firearms continues to this day. Well after the passage of a 2003 law that many argue allows for guns on college campuses, most universities have yet to lift bans.
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Posted in Safety & Security
Tagged Guns, Safety & Security, Working conditions
