Author Archives: E Wayne Ross

Budget Woes Take Their Toll on Cal State University System

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Budget Woes Take Their Toll on Cal State University System

Wall Street Journal: Budget Woes Take Their Toll on Cal State University System

SAN FRANCISCO — Relentless budget cutting by California lawmakers is taking some of the luster off the California State University system, one of the state’s most prized institutions.

Once regarded as a national model, the 23-campus system is reeling from more than $500 million in budget cuts and underfunding over the past two years. As a result, CSU officials for the first time are dropping the policy of accepting all qualified applicants to schools of their choice in a system now brimming with more than 450,000 students.

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Posted in Budgets & Funding

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Union president says professor’s dismissal first in 25 years

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Union president says professor’s dismissal first in 25 years

Calgary Herald: Union president says professor’s dismissal first in 25 years

OTTAWA — Denis Rancourt is the first tenured professor fired by the University of Ottawa in at least 25 years, according to the president of the university’s professors’ union.

“To my recollection, it generally doesn’t happen at the university,” said Atef Fatim, president of the Association of Professors at the University of Ottawa.

Rancourt, a physics professor and self-described anarchist, was suspended by the university in December after attracting national media attention for his unorthodox teaching methods, which included giving an A-plus to every student in an upper-year physics class.

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Posted in Faculty

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Florida: Faculty complaint exposes unrest at Chipola College

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Florida: Faculty complaint exposes unrest at Chipola College

Tallahassee Democrat: Faculty complaint exposes unrest at Chipola College

MARIANNA — An obscure labor-law complaint filed by nursing professors at Chipola College has exposed simmering unrest among faculty members at the little campus in the tall-pine country of Florida’s Panhandle.

“They used to get paid the same for doing the same work,” said Tom Brooks, a Tallahassee attorney for the United Faculty of Florida. “Now they have to work a lot more to earn the same.”

Chipola faculty representatives say there’s “an ol’ boy network” that pays handsome salaries to an influential current state legislator and another former lawmaker who serve as roving ambassadors for the college president.

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Posted in Legal issues

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L.A. school board chief meets with teachers willing to accept pay cuts

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on L.A. school board chief meets with teachers willing to accept pay cuts

Los Angeles Times: L.A. school board chief meets with teachers willing to accept pay cuts

A top Los Angeles school district official is meeting this morning with teachers who are breaking with their union to support pay cuts as a way to avoid layoffs.

Board of Education President Monica Garcia will huddle with teachers from Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, just west of downtown, where more than 30 young or less experienced faculty members have received notice that they might lose their jobs at the end of the year. Delegations from other schools also are expected to attend.

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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits

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Profs blast lazy first-year students

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Profs blast lazy first-year students

Toronto Star: Profs blast lazy first-year students

Wikipedia generation is lazy and unprepared for university’s rigours, survey of faculty says

University professors feel their first-year students are less mature, rely too much on Wikipedia and “expect success without the requisite effort,” says a province-wide survey to be released today.

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Posted in Students

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Greece: Youth, anarchists occupy Aristotle U

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Greece: Youth, anarchists occupy Aristotle U

World University News: GREECE: Under attack from within

For more than two weeks, the administration headquarters of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the largest in the country, has been occupied by youths, members of non-parliamentary leftwing organisations and sundry other anarchist groups. They have prevented staff from carrying out their duties and are causing serious disruption in the management of the institution.

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Posted in Protests

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KENYA: Violent protests close Kenyatta indefinitely

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World University News: KENYA: Violent protests close Kenyatta indefinitely

Kenyatta University in Kenya was closed indefinitely last Monday after students went on the rampage, destroying property worth millions of shillings hardly three days after its re-opening. One student died and several were injured after riot police were called in.

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Posted in Protests

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NIGER: Teacher strike threatens to reverse MDG gains

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IRIN News: NIGER: Teacher strike threatens to reverse MDG gains

NIAMEY, 26 March 2009 (IRIN) – An ongoing three-month strike by 37,000 contract teachers in Niger threatens recent gains toward meeting the country’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of providing universal primary education, according to union leaders.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

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Nigeria: Delta NUT vows to sustain strike

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Nigeria: Delta NUT vows to sustain strike

Daily Sun: Salary: Delta NUT vows to sustain strike

In spite of assurances by the Delta State Education Commissioner, Dr. (Mrs.) Elizabeth Uvo- Gardner that the strike action by teachers in the state would soon be called off as government has commenced the desk payment of the teachers’ salaries which is a major point in the dispute, there are indications that the two-week-old strike action embarked upon by the teachers would not be called off.
This is coming on the heels of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) Delta State chapter vowing to sustain the strike until their February 2009 salary is paid.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

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Hamas wins teachers union elections for UN schools in Gaza

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Jerusalem Post: Hamas wins teachers union elections for UN schools in Gaza

Hamas supporters scored a victory in elections for the school teachers’ union of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that were held in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
Palestinians pick up bags of…

Palestinians pick up bags of flour at a United Nations food aid distribution center in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip.
Photo: AP
SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World

However, the rival PLO list won a majority of votes for two other UNRWA workers groups: the employees’ and the services’ unions.

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Posted in Unions

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Churchill $1 award result of one juror

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Churchill $1 award result of one juror

Denver Post: Churchill $1 award result of one juror
Five on the six-person jury wanted to give the fired professor more.

Five of six jurors favored awarding fired University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill as much as $110,000 or more — while a single juror insisted he get nothing, a juror and Churchill’s attorney said Friday.

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Posted in Legal issues

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China: Exam cheaters jailed on state secret charges

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on China: Exam cheaters jailed on state secret charges

Reuters: Exam cheaters jailed on state secret charges

BEIJING (Reuters) – Eight Chinese who used high-tech communications equipment, including mobile phones and wireless earpieces, to help their children cheat at university entrance exams have been jailed on state secret charges, local media said.

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Posted in Academics

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Ontario campus employee wages at top of class

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Ontario campus employee wages at top of class

Globe and Mail: Ontario campus employee wages at top of class

U of T investment manager was paid more than $550,000 last year, making him highest-paid university executive

The highest paid university employee in the province is not a campus leader, but the man responsible for managing investments at the University of Toronto.

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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits

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Ottawa professor fired over perfect grades

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Ottawa professor fired over perfect grades

National Post: Ottawa professor fired over perfect grades

OTTAWA — The University of Ottawa has fired its controversial physics professor, Denis Rancourt.

He was suspended in December after he attracted national attention for his teaching methods, including giving a grade of A-plus to every student in an advanced physics class.

Rancourt plans to grieve the dismissal with his union, which in turn will take it to court, he said.

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Posted in Academics

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Hundreds of courses dropped in Scottish schools

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Hundreds of courses dropped in Scottish schools

The Herald: Hundreds of courses dropped in Scottish schools

Hundreds of courses have been scrapped at schools around the country in recent years, new figures have revealed.

Data obtained by the Conservatives show that 289 Higher and Advanced Higher courses have been cut since 2006.

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Posted in Academics

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Ward Churchill Redux

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Ward Churchill Redux

The New York Times: Ward Churchill Redux

By Stanley Fish

Last Thursday, a jury in Denver ruled that the termination of activist-teacher Ward Churchill by the University of Colorado had been wrongful (a term of art) even though a committee of his faculty peers had found him guilty of a variety of sins.

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Posted in Commentary

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Cambridge University Press: dons step in as digital age threatens jobs at world’s oldest publisher

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Cambridge University Press: dons step in as digital age threatens jobs at world’s oldest publisher

The Guardian: Cambridge University Press: dons step in as digital age threatens jobs at world’s oldest publisher

• Unions take their case to university’s Syndicate
• Management says press was losing £2m a year

College dons have become embroiled in a bitter row over plans to axe more than 150 jobs at Cambridge University Press – the oldest continually operating book publisher in the world.

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Posted in Budgets & Funding

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Arab professor says booted from eatery over bartender’s ‘racist’ T-shirt

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Arab professor says booted from eatery over bartender’s ‘racist’ T-shirt

Haaretz: Arab professor says booted from eatery over bartender’s ‘racist’ T-shirt

An Arab psychology professor at the University of Haifa said Sunday he was booted out of a restaurant over the weekend after complaining that the bartender was wearing a shirt advocating killing Palestinian children.

Restaurant owner Khaled Hajaj, who is also Arab, said he did not kick out Professor Ramzi Suleiman, though he did tell him he didn’t care if Suleiman took his money to a different restaurant.

“It hurts my feelings and the feelings of Arab customers,” said Suleiman. “I’m not willing to accept such shirts. It’s like the reaction of Jews who see people wearing shirts with a cross.”

The bartender at the Haifa restaurant was wearing a shirt with a drawing of a rifle sight and the words, in Hebrew, “Institution for special-ed children.”

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Posted in Faculty

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UCSF draws the line at $75 bottles of wine

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on UCSF draws the line at $75 bottles of wine

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF draws the line at $75 bottles of wine

UC San Francisco has issued new rules on how much money its medical faculty and staff may spend for wine at recruitment dinners and other University of California functions.

The maximum reimbursement: $75 per bottle of wine, or $15 per glass.

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Posted in Budgets & Funding

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Parsons Faculty Is Cut Amid Protests by Artists

Posted on April 6, 2009 | Comments Off on Parsons Faculty Is Cut Amid Protests by Artists

The New York Times: Parsons Faculty Is Cut Amid Protests by Artists

A dozen members of the fine-arts faculty at Parsons the New School for Design have been told that they will not be teaching in the department in the fall. The move has ignited further conflict at the New School, whose embattled president, Bob Kerrey, received an overwhelming no-confidence vote from the university’s full-time faculty in December.

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Posted in Contingent labor

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