Canadian Press: Fire hits University of Manitoba; evacuations ordered
Updated Sat. Mar. 28 2009 4:54 PM ET
WINNIPEG — Students and staff at the University of Manitoba were ordered to leave the campus Saturday after a fire broke out in one of the buildings.
Thick smoke could be seen pouring from the upper floors of the Duff Roblin building, which houses the university’s Psychology Department and zoology labs.
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Posted in Safety & Security
Tagged Safety
Inside Higher Ed: Banned in Boston
The norm for protests over a William Ayers appearance on campus these days is for conservative critics to say that the University of Illinois at Chicago professor shouldn’t be given a forum to speak because of the past violence of the Weather Underground, of which he was once a leader.
At Boston College, the debate has taken a new twist — with the college calling off a talk by Ayers planned for tonight and citing a police killing that has never been definitively linked to the Weather Underground and that Ayers and others insist his group had nothing to do with. Nonetheless, that 1970 police killing is still associated by many in Boston with the Weather Underground and remains a political flashpoint — as became clear on Friday.
Michael Graham, a local talk radio host, started calling on Boston College to revoke the invitation to Ayers, and he encouraged alumni, donors and others to call the college to demand that it deny Ayers a forum. Graham repeatedly linked Ayers and the Weather Underground to the 1970 killing of Walter Schroeder, the police officer, who was responding to a bank robbery by a group of radical students. Schroeder left a wife and nine children. His killing is periodically back in the news, and last received extensive coverage in 1993, when Katherine Ann Power — one of those involved in the incident, who had evaded capture and lived under another name — turned herself in.
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Posted in Free speech
Tagged Bill Ayers, Boston College, Free speech
Unionbook.org: Update on Iraqi teachers’ struggle
The Iraqi teachers Union (ITU) held its second national protest on 28 March 2009 with over 500 protesters. The ITU protest attracted Iraqi media, and support from Iraqi trade unions and civil society organisations such as the Association of Political Prisoners (victims of former regime).
The ITU protest carried the following slogans:
*Respect the Iraqi constitution.
*The ITU reject the Iraqi government interference in the internal affairs of the union and call on it to cease its undemocratic attempts to take control of the ITU.
*The union shall hold elections only under its internal rules and in the presence of judge
*Support civil society organisations. Allow them to do their job to strength democracy.
The ITU (please see statement below) is struggling along side the people of Iraq and other Iraqi sister unions to consolidate the principles foundation of democratic culture and thus is working to galvanizing and shape Iraqi public opinion against any breach or deviation from the Iraqi constitution and the rule of law. The union will stand firm against all attempts to turn the unions into tools in the hands of the executive and the ruling political power which are inspired from the culture of authoritarian regime that is still rooted in the heart and mind of the ‘champions’ of the current crisis facing the ITU.
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Posted in K-12 issues
Tagged Iraq, K-12 issues, Protests, Teacher unions, Unions
World University News: UK: Pay boost for university leaders
Many British vice-chancellors are paid as much if not more than the Prime Minister. But not, of course, as much as Premier League footballers – or failed bankers. Latest figures collated and audited by accountants Grant Thornton on behalf of Times Higher Education show the average university head earned £193,970 (US$282,000) (including benefits but not pension contributions) in 2007-08, a 9% increase on the previous year, and a steeper rise than in the previous two years. Gordon Brown was paid £194,250 last year for running the country.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged Pay raises, Salary/Economic Benefits, University presidents
World University News: CHINA: Imprisoned historian released but refused travel
Tohti Tunyaz, a Uighur historian and writer from China, was released last month after spending 11 years in prison. Tohti was sentenced for “illegally acquiring state secrets” after receiving a copy of a list of documents relating to the second East Turkestan Independence Movement and pre-1949 Xinjiang history. He was also convicted of “instigating national disunity” after allegedly publishing a book in Japan titled The Inside Story of the Silk Road that was claimed to promote ethnic separatism.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Tagged Academic freedom, China
World University News: FRANCE: Strikes continue despite teacher-training concession
Striking lecturers and researchers are continuing their eight-week stoppage, despite a further concession by Education Minister Xavier Darcos over teacher-training reform. The biggest higher education union also rejected an amended decree modifying academics’ job status at a meeting with Higher Education and Research Minister Valérie Pécresse.
Up to 30,000 protesting lecturers, researchers and students – joined by two university presidents – demonstrated on Tuesday in Paris and other major towns, while during the week individual institutions continued organising protest actions such as holding lectures in public places, local demonstrations and boycotting administrative duties.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Academics, France, Strikes & Labor Disputes, teacher education
Courier-Journal: Court hears Felner’s interview
Defense seeks to block its use
During a six-hour-plus interview with federal investigators last summer, former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner went from being described as confident by investigators and a colleague to saying he was “freaked” and asking if he could go to jail.
“I’m starting to feel like I’m getting thrown under the bus,” Felner said in a tape-recorded conversation with investigators that was played in court today during a hearing to decide if comments he made during the interview can be used against him in a criminal trial.
Felner, 58, faces 10 counts of mail fraud, money-laundering conspiracy and income-tax evasion after a federal grand jury indicted him in October.
A colleague, Thomas Schroeder, 51, of Port Byron, Ill., also is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service.
The indictment accuses the two of fraudulently obtaining nearly $2.3million in grant and contract money from UofL and the University of Rhode Island. Both pleaded not guilty in October and were released on unsecured bonds.
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Posted in Legal issues
Tagged Legal issues, Robert Felner
Newsday: Adelphi pays $300G to settle sex discrimination suit
Adelphi University has agreed to salary hikes and payments totaling more than $300,000 to several female professors as part of a settlement of a federal gender discrimination lawsuit, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced Tuesday.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Advocate: SU president’s contract not renewed
The Southern University Board of Supervisors voted 11-5 not to renew Southern President Ralph Slaughter’s contract. Though the board found Slaughter’s job performance satisfactory, they decided to meet again on April 15 to determine if he would be put on administrative leave until his contract expires on June 30.
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Posted in Administration
Tagged Termination, University presidents
The Chronicle: One Man’s War on the Taliban
A retired Canadian judge announced last month that he was “retaliating” against the Taliban by seeking to prevent students of “Islamic background” from receiving scholarships endowed in his name.
Paul I.B. Staniszewski told the television network CTV that he had asked the University of Windsor and York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School to make such students ineligible for his scholarships.
The Chronicle: Economic Downturn Limits Conference Travel
Attendance is down at many academic and professional conferences in higher education this year, and next year’s numbers are expected to be far worse, as campus budgets take further beatings. With many colleges limiting travel to professors or administrators who are speaking at events they’re attending, will anyone be left in the audience?
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Conferences, travel
CAUT Bulletin: Ogden Case Settled, CAUT Ends Inquiry
CAUT’s inquiry in the case of criminologist Russel Ogden of Kwantlen Polytechnic University came to an end in January when a mutually agreeable settlement was reached by Ogden, the university and the Kwantlen faculty association.
CAUT set up a special committee of inquiry last June after the university notified Ogden that he was to stop his research on suicide and assisted suicide, even though the research had been approved by Kwantlen’s research ethics board. Ogden was told not to engage “in any illegal activity, including attending at an assisted death.” Ogden disputed the claim that his research involved illegal conduct.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Tagged Academic freedom, British Columbia, Research, Unions
Inside Higher Ed: Settlement in Dispute on Academic Freedom and Assisted Suicide
Russel Ogden will be able to resume his research on assisted suicide, according to a settlement announced by the Canadian Association of University Teachers. Ogden, a sociologist at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, has written about assisted suicides and observed many of them. An ethics review board at his university had approved the research, but Kwantlen ordered him to stop any studies that involved observing suicides. While suicide is not illegal in Canada, assisting a suicide is illegal, and the university has equated Ogden’s proposal to observe assisted suicides with assisting suicides himself. Many professors in Canada backed him, arguing that observing something is not the same as endorsing or participating in it — and noting that many sociology studies involve observing illegal activities. The Canadian Association of University Teachers set up a committee to study the matter last year. The association’s announcement of a settlement in the case said that Ogden is now permitted to engage in the research approved by the university’s ethics review board.
This poster for Israeli Apartheid Week was taken down by staff at Carleton University & the University of Ottawa.
CAUT Bulletin: Universities Are Betraying Their Central Mission
Over the past few weeks, CAUT has become aware of a number of disturbing cases in which university administrations have limited or suppressed debate on controversial issues. Whether it is banning posters or noisy demonstrations, we believe such heavy-handed actions constitute a clear threat to the purpose of post-secondary education.
Not surprisingly, the failures involve bitterly contentious issues. One is Middle East politics. Last month Carleton University and the University of Ottawa banned a student organization poster for Israeli Apartheid Week because the universities felt it too provocative. The poster, by noted political cartoonist Carlos Latuff, shows a stylized Israeli warplane firing a missile at a child holding a teddy bear and standing on ground emblazoned with the word “Gaza.” York University has gone even farther, invoking a noise policy to justify handing club suspensions and fines to student organizations that held counter-protests for and against Israeli
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Posted in Free speech
Tagged Canada, CAUT, Free speech, Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Guardian: What if all the students dry up?
The economy, climate change and virtual learning could leave university buildings standing empty
Let us suppose that instead of the UK being a net importer of students, this situation were reversed. What would happen to our universities over the next 20 years if the flow of young people coming to study from overseas dried up and increasing numbers of home students chose to go abroad for their higher education?
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Posted in Students
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Economy, Students
Globe and Mail: Black days for those dreaming of the ivory tower
Graduate students hoping for tenure-track positions face bleak prospects as universities cut budgets and freeze hiring
McGill graduate student Ashley Burgoyne has one word to sum up the outlook this spring for freshly minted PhDs with dreams of getting on the tenure track. Scary.
McGill graduate student Ashley Burgoyne, an expert in music technology, worries that he won’t find full-time work at a university. (John Morstad for The Globe and Mail)
McGill graduate student Ashley Burgoyne, an expert in music technology, worries that he won’t find full-time work at a university.
The economic crisis that has gripped the globe is hitting campuses across the country. Universities are cutting budgets, and for many schools that means putting hiring plans into deep freeze. Add to that federal cuts to research funding, a new reluctance by senior faculty to retire, and dwindling endowment funds to support scholars, and the picture grows grim.
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Posted in Job market
Tagged Job cuts, Job market, Job searches
Detroit News: Bill Ayers protested at Oakland University event
Co-founder of group that bombed federal buildings shares education reform views.
ROCHESTER — Bill Ayers came to Michigan to talk about the future of education reform in the United States, but the anti-war activist, who participated in a campaign of bombing public buildings during the 1960s and ’70s, could not escape his past.
A line of 20 protesters with signs filled the back wall of a lecture hall at Oakland University on Tuesday as Ayers gave a brief talk on democracy and education.
Some booed when Ayers entered the room, while about 170 OU students, faculty and alumni applauded the college professor who discussed what he termed “savage inequities” in education that affect minorities, women and gays.
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Posted in Protests
Tagged Bill Ayers, Protests
Globe and Mail: Having kids costly for educated moms
Highly educated women face a much more severe loss of earning power when they have children compared to mothers with less education, says a report published yesterday by Statistics Canada.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged Gender, Salary/Economic Benefits
The Calgary Sun: Anti-abortion activists defy university
Potential new trespassing charges didn’t scare away anti-abortion crusaders who are back at the University of Calgary campus with their controversial display.
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Posted in Free speech
Tagged Free speech, Protests
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Take that Jim Calhoun!
The Chronicle Review: March Money Madness: The Coaches vs. the Professors
Commentary
Thomas Cottle: In March Money Madness, It’s Coaches vs. Professors
College basketball’s March Madness has come at a time when one prominent coach’s salary has been held up for inspection. Apparently, the fact that the $1.6-million annual income of the University of Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun makes him the highest-paid public employee in his state has rankled some people. Or are they more upset that he was caught off guard at a postgame news conference and appeared somewhat haughty?
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Posted in Commentary
Tagged Athletics, Coaches, Salary/Economic Benefits