Author Archives: E Wayne Ross

French Student Protesters Disrupt Paris’s Academic Core and Seize Presidents’ Offices Elsewhere

Posted on April 8, 2009 | Comments Off on French Student Protesters Disrupt Paris’s Academic Core and Seize Presidents’ Offices Elsewhere

The Chronicle News Blog: French Student Protesters Disrupt Paris’s Academic Core and Seize Presidents’ Offices Elsewhere

On the eve of the two-week Easter holiday, French university students and academic staff members staged another mass demonstration in Paris today, blocking a major boulevard in the Latin Quarter, the historic core of academic life in the city, and shouting slogans evoking the mass protests that convulsed the country in May 1968, the news agency Reuters reported. Elsewhere in France, protesters this week appeared to step up their tactics, occupying administrative offices at two universities and “sequestering” their presidents.

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Globe and Mail: Tuition attrition? Reposition

At Guelph, students are protesting because the university has cut women’s studies and ecology. At the University of Toronto, they’re outraged because the downtown campus is about to charge full-time fees for lighter course loads. York University has just survived a brutal strike by teaching assistants and contract faculty. And as everyone freezes hiring, PhDs have become a glut on the market.

This is just a taste of things to come. As endowment and pension funds shrivel up, Canada’s universities are facing a challenge they haven’t had since the mid-1990s: budget cuts. “It’s a perfect storm,” says education consultant Alex Usher, who figures that endowment funds alone have taken a $2-billion hit.

For the past few years, the postsecondary sector has enjoyed automatic funding increases of 5 per cent to 10 per cent a year. Now, some places will have to cut back 15 per cent over the next three years.

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Posted in Budgets & Funding

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Tuition backers vow to press on in Colorado

Posted on April 8, 2009 | Comments Off on Tuition backers vow to press on in Colorado

Denver Post: Tuition backers vow to press on

The fight over whether to allow in-state tuition for high school students whose parents came to the United States illegally isn’t over; it’s just beginning.

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Posted in Students

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Free-tuition proposal advances in Texas Legislature

Posted on April 8, 2009 | Comments Off on Free-tuition proposal advances in Texas Legislature

Star-Telegram: Free-tuition proposal advances in Texas Legislature

AUSTIN — The House approved an amendment to a bill Tuesday that would give free tuition to children of military personnel when one or both of their parents are deployed in combat overseas.

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Posted in Budgets & Funding

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Ohio State to allow posts on Facebook page

Posted on April 8, 2009 | Comments Off on Ohio State to allow posts on Facebook page

AP: OSU to allow posts on Facebook page

University changes direction after removing comments about Gee

COLUMBUS: Ohio State University said Monday it will allow postings on its Facebook page that don’t always paint the university in a positive light.

Last week, the university deleted comments by a graduate student who asked about OSU President E. Gordon Gee’s service on the board of an energy company criticized by environmentalists.

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Posted in Corporate University

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‘Tuning’ College Degrees

Posted on April 8, 2009 | Comments Off on ‘Tuning’ College Degrees

Inside Higher Ed: ‘Tuning’ College Degrees

In a major new effort to assure rigor and relevance for college degrees at various levels, three states are today formally launching a project aimed at “tuning” academic programs in six fields of study.

“Tuning,” borrowed from Europe’s Bologna Process, involves research and surveys of faculty members, students and employers, and consultation with business and government leaders, to determine exactly what a degree in a given field stands for in terms of students’ learning and competencies. Europe embarked on tuning as part of an effort to make degrees across the continent interchangeable, so that a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in Italy would mean roughly the same as one in the Netherlands, and that graduate programs and employers could thus know what a given degree would represent.

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Posted in Academics

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Nigeria: NUT Suspends Strike in Sokoto

Posted on April 7, 2009 | Comments Off on Nigeria: NUT Suspends Strike in Sokoto

This Day: NUT Suspends Strike in Sokoto

Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) Sokoto State chapter has announced the suspension of a three day strike embarked by primary school teachers on Wednesday which has paralyzed academic activities in the state.

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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits

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Nigeria: TSS: Oyo teachers call off 37-day-old strike

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The Punch: TSS: Oyo teachers call off 37-day-old strike

The leadership of the Oyo State wing of the Nigeria Union of Teachers has suspended its 37-day-old industrial action following an agreement reached with the state government on the implementation of the new salary structure.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

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The big debate: Layoff notices at TUSD

Posted on April 7, 2009 | Comments Off on The big debate: Layoff notices at TUSD

Tucson Citizen: The big debate: Layoff notices at TUSD

‘I do not understand why teachers have not yet stormed the state capitol. They should be . . . throwing rocks through the windows to get (Gov.) Jan Brewer’s attention.’ – Franklin

The story: Anticipating a large cut in funding from our deficit-plagued state, Tucson Unified School District says it will notify 560 employees, most of them untenured teachers, that they might be laid off at the end of the school year. Some of the employees likely will be called back to work, but many won’t.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

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Not worth a strike

Posted on April 7, 2009 | Comments Off on Not worth a strike

Toronto Star: Not worth a strike

The union representing Toronto’s public high school teachers wants us to believe education would suffer if their members had to supervise students in the hallways for an average of another 20 minutes a week.

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Caption gaffe: Apostates, instead of Apostles ‘worst possible mistake’

Posted on April 7, 2009 | Comments Off on Caption gaffe: Apostates, instead of Apostles ‘worst possible mistake’

The Salt Lake Tribune: Caption gaffe: Apostates, instead of Apostles ‘worst possible mistake’
Newspaper » BYU reprints issues of The Daily Universe due to front page typo.

Provo » The phone call Rich Evans got Monday morning wasn’t good news.

It was an employee at Brigham Young University’s The Daily Universe , where Evans is the editorial manager. There was a typo on the front page.

“It was the worst possible mistake,” Evans recalled.

The error? A caption on a photo from this weekend’s LDS General Conference stated that “Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostates and other general authorities raise their hands in a sustaining vote Saturday morning. …”

The newspaper staff retrieved as many of the 18,500 copies of the paper as possible and reprinted them with the correction. And it issued an apology to the apostles. The staff also explained how it happened: an error in spell-checking.

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Canada: Cash-strapped universities looking at cancelling small classes, programs, charging flat tuition

Posted on April 7, 2009 | Comments Off on Canada: Cash-strapped universities looking at cancelling small classes, programs, charging flat tuition

Globe and Mail: A whole new meaning to cutting classes

Cash-strapped universities looking at cancelling small classes, programs, charging flat tuition

As the last grim signs of winter fade from Canadian campuses, the spring rite of cutting classes is taking on a whole new meaning.

Course calendars across the country are under the microscope as universities, trying to do more with less, are taking a hard look at programs and class sizes. The end result will likely be fewer choices for undergraduates and larger classes in September – another symptom of the financial squeeze on higher education

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Posted in Budgets & Funding

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More students + less money = no diplomas

Posted on April 7, 2009 | Comments Off on More students + less money = no diplomas

The Guardian: More students + less money = no diplomas

The government’s decision to cut sixth-form funding has stunned schools and colleges

Brian Rossiter is struggling to come to terms with a government decision to cut funding for what was supposed to be one of its biggest priorities in education. Rossiter is head of an 11-18 comprehensive and was told last week that funding for its thriving sixth form – which has grown by 28% in just two years as teenagers have been persuaded of the value of further study – is to be reduced by nearly 4% from September.

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Posted in Budgets & Funding

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Widow loses lawsuit over UC Irvine’s willed body program

Posted on April 7, 2009 | Comments Off on Widow loses lawsuit over UC Irvine’s willed body program

Los Angeles Times: Widow loses lawsuit over UC Irvine’s willed body program

Evelyn Conroy sued after the university lost track of James Conroy’s body. The California Supreme Court says she failed to prove that the university violated its donation agreement with her husband.

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Quake ‘Practically Destroys’ University in Italy, With Some Students Trapped or Killed

Posted on April 7, 2009 | Comments Off on Quake ‘Practically Destroys’ University in Italy, With Some Students Trapped or Killed

The Chronicle: Quake ‘Practically Destroys’ University in Italy, With Some Students Trapped or Killed

A powerful earthquake that struck central Italy early Monday caused catastrophic damage at the University of L’Aquila, possibly killing one student and leaving more than half a dozen others trapped in the rubble of a collapsed dormitory.

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Posted in Safety & Security

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Plane Stolen From Canadian College Leads U.S. Fighter Jets on Chase

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AP: Plane Stolen From Canadian College Leads U.S. Fighter Jets on Chase

Man nabbed after plane taken from Canada to Mo.

WAUSAU, Wis. – A single-engine airplane flown away from an airport in Canada by a student pilot Monday was intercepted by jet fighters over Wisconsin but kept flying south through two more states. It finally landed on a road in southeastern Missouri and the pilot was apprehended.

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Oregon: Is MHCC cutting its faculty?

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Oregon: Is MHCC cutting its faculty?

The Advocate: Is MHCC cutting its faculty?

Budget cuts face college administration; 16 faculty receive tentative layoff notice

After notification this week of tentative layoffs of 16 full-time faculty members, MHCC instructors are wondering if this is the only solution.

“If we’re trying to grow, this is one of the worst ways to do it,” political science instructor Janet Campbell said Wednesday at a town hall meeting Wednesday afternoon in the Visual Arts Theater.

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Posted in Budgets & Funding

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India: Students, faculty support FTII staff’s demand

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on India: Students, faculty support FTII staff’s demand

The Times of India: Students, faculty support FTII staff’s demand

Members of the staff association of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), students and faculty all stood in solidarity demanding the resignation of FTII registrar S K Thakur on Saturday. The peaceful protest was held after the registrar failed to clear the arrears of the FTII staff following the sixth pay commission hike in August 2008. “Since September we have been asking the registrar to clear our due4s, but all along we have been given no concrete answer. The registrar kept saying the money hasn’t arrived yet,” said P A Mahajan, president of FTII’s staff association.

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U Nebraska removes half of hallway lights on campus to save energy costs

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on U Nebraska removes half of hallway lights on campus to save energy costs

Net Nebraska: UNL budget cuts make students, professors wary

Anyone strolling campus hallways these days has noticed some visible evidence of the nation’s economic woes arriving at UNL: saloon lighting.

Jay Jackson, of building maintenance, is busy removing half the remaining bulbs from hallway fixtures across campus – more than 4,000 so far – as part of UNL’s effort to reduce energy costs.

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Vermont: UVM faculty plan budget-cut protest

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Vermont: UVM faculty plan budget-cut protest

Fox 44: UVM faculty plan budget-cut protest

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – University of Vermont faculty members who say a starvation diet is being imposed on the school’s academic programs are planning a “Let Them Eat Gruel?” budget-cut protest.

United Academics, the union representing most UVM faculty, says President Daniel Fogel’s plan to reduce staffing will result in an English department without courses on Charles Dickens, a Political Science department without courses in international politics and a civil and environmental engineering program at risk of losing accreditation.

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