John Hope Franklin, 1915-2009
The eminent historian John Hope Franklin died yesterday at the age of 94, according to reports by the Associated Press and Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. Duke University has set up a special web site dedicated to his life and work.
Inside Higher Ed: Undercover Student at Liberty U.
A new book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University, details the experience of Kevin Roose at Liberty University. Roose was an unlikely Liberty student because he was there on leave from Brown University to explore an institution with different values. As detailed in The Daily Beast, Liberty — known under its founder, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, for taking on critics — is taking a mellow response to the book. University officials have no plans to promote the book, nor to ban it.
Boston Globe: Ethics event spawns a tussle at Tufts
Speaker is out; now organizer is, too
Tufts University has withdrawn an invitation for a top aide to US Senator Charles E. Grassley to give the keynote speech at a conference on conflicts of interest in medicine and research, leading one conference organizer to pull out and question the university’s commitment to academic freedom.
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Posted in Ethics
Tagged Academic freedom, Conflict-of-interests, Congress, Ethics, Research
San Francisco Chronicle: Even in recession, UC spends big on top brass
The University of California’s worst financial crisis in years has not prevented the hiring of high-salaried administrative talent or the awarding of pay raises, promotions and perks to a dozen executives, university records show.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged Administration, Budgets & Funding, California, Equity, Salary/Economic Benefits
The Galveston County Daily News: UTMB faculty members fight for old jobs
GALVESTON — Hearings have begun for about 30 University of Texas Medical Branch faculty members who are fighting for jobs lost in mass layoffs after Hurricane Ike.
The 30 are among 127 faculty members dismissed after the Sept. 13 storm flooded more than 1 million square feet of buildings on the island campus, knocking John Sealy Hospital, its main revenue maker, out of commission for months.
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Posted in Legal issues
Tagged Job cuts, Termination, Texas
Gotham Schools: Second set of KIPP teachers strike back, separating from union
Teachers at two New York City KIPP charter schools today asked state labor officials to sever their ties from the city teachers union, in petitions signed by every single teacher at the two schools. The move is a powerful response to efforts by teachers at another KIPP school in Brooklyn, KIPP AMP, who in the past few months have sought to join the politically powerful union, the United Federation of Teachers.
Teachers at KIPP Infinity and KIPP Academy charter schools, considered the two premier members of the high-profile charter network’s New York City branch, sent the petitions. The schools’ affiliations with the union were loose to begin with: KIPP Academy is represented by the union only because it was one of the city’s original charter schools, and it could only transition to charter status on the condition that it remained represented by the teachers union, and KIPP Infinity teachers are represented by the union only in order to get health benefits through the union’s services, KIPP leaders have told me.
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Posted in Unions
Tagged Charter schools, K-12 issues, New York City, Teacher unions, Unions
Green Left: France: General strike shakes government
21 March 2009
On March 19, record numbers of people took to the streets as part of a general strike against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s anti-worker economic policies, a British Guardian article said the following day.
The demonstrations, involving more than 3 million people, followed a general strike called by the union movement on January 29, which involved 2.4 million workers.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged France, General Strike, Government, Strikes & Labor Disputes
Press Association: France hit by national strike
More than a million people have marched in cities and towns across France to back calls for President Nicolas Sarkozy to do more to alleviate the economic crisis.
Police estimated that 1.2m supported the action, with nearly 100,000 marching through Paris, while trade union organisers claimed up to three million attended 200 rallies nationwide.
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Posted in K-12 issues, Strikes & Labor Disputes
IRIN News: GUINEA-BISSAU: Teachers strike over non-pay; Children have missed four months of schooling in the 2008-09 academic year
BISSAU, 20 March 2009 (IRIN) – Intermittent teacher strikes that have disrupted the school year since October 2008 are on again as most of the country’s teachers went on strike on 19 March over salary arrears, according to the Union of Teachers.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Guinea-Bissau, K-12 issues, Pay raises, Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Zimbabwe Telegraph: Teachers threaten return to strike
Zimbabwe cannot guarantee teachers will be paid this month, the new government’s education minister said triggering a call for another teachers strike which can make it harder to get Zimbabwe schools working again.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Strikes & Labor Disputes, Zimbabwe
CTV Toronto: Profs fret that quality of Ont. education falling
TORONTO — Students at Ontario’s universities are getting short-changed when it comes to their education as their schools struggle with larger class sizes, outdated facilities and less full-time hiring, according to a new report.
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Posted in Working conditions
Tagged adjuncts, class size, Contingent labor, Infrastructure
Chicago Tribune: Regents tell Iowa, ISU and UNI to freeze salaries
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – Iowa’s Board of Regents unanimously approved Thursday a resolution directing the state’s three public universities to freeze the salaries of non-union employees for 2009-2010.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged Iowa, Wage freeze
World University News: FRANCE: Academic and student anger grows
The nation’s universities continued to be disrupted by strikes and protests against proposed teacher training reforms last week, while university presidents called for a year’s delay in introducing the changes to allow time for reflection and consultation.
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Posted in Protests
Tagged France, Protests, Strikes, teacher education
World University News: KENYA: Riot after murder of former student leaders
Kenyan students rioted last week, demanding the resignation of the country’s police commissioner following the murder of two former student leaders in a suspected assassination by security agents. Outgoing chairman of Kenyatta University Students’ Association Martin KO Luther told University World News that the former students, who were shot dead in their car, had been involved in human rights work.
Inside Higher Ed: Protection for For-Profit Colleges
Arbitration clauses in contracts are designed to give parties a clear-cut and less expensive route to resolving potential disputes. But provisions that require parties to go through arbitration and relinquish their right to pursue other legal avenues have been controversial, particularly when one of the parties is viewed as being at a disadvantage to the other, as in the case of nursing homes and their clients.
Those issues took center stage in a decision issued Tuesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which reversed a lower court’s ruling last year forcing a for-profit college to defend itself in court against 38 students’ charges of fraudulent misrepresentation and negligence. In its ruling, a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit said that the arbitration clause contained in the enrollment agreement that students signed before entering High-Tech Institute, a vocational institution in Missouri, compels the student plaintiffs to enter arbitration before they can rightfully pursue their claims in state or federal court.
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Posted in Corporate University, Legal issues
Tagged Corporate University, For-profit colleges, Legal issues
Inside Higher Ed: Defeating Post-Tenure Review
Who reviews the performance of tenured faculty members? Can such reviews have teeth without interfering with the principles of tenure?
Those issues are central to discussions of post-tenure review, a process that exists in some form at many colleges and can be controversial. The University of Maryland at College Park found that out this month when the faculty considered a proposal that would have required annual reviews of tenured faculty performance, and would have allowed sanctions, including pay cuts for some professors who receive three consecutive years of negative reviews. The faculty overwhelmingly rejected the plan, seeing it as unnecessary, unfair and a diminishment of tenure.
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Posted in Tenure & Promotion
Tagged Post-tenure review, Tenure & Promotion, University of Maryland
The New York Times: Fired Colorado Professor Is Cross-Examined in Lawsuit
DENVER — A former University of Colorado professor spent nearly six hours defending his scholarly work on Tuesday during cross-examination in his lawsuit contending that he was fired for an essay he wrote about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The Chronicle News Blog: Ward Churchill Is Defiant in Second Day on Witness Stand
Ward Churchill acknowledged some flaws in his scholarship, but strenuously denied that any merited his 2007 dismissal by the University of Colorado, in testimony delivered today in a trial in which he is attempting to prove that his firing violated his First Amendment rights.
The Denver Post: Churchill: Plagiarism occurred: But it wasn’t he who lifted from another prof’s essay, he asserts.
A juror’s question, posed Tuesday after former professor Ward Churchill had been on the witness stand for more than seven hours, gave him the opening to argue — succinctly — that he was the victim of his controversial views, not his scholarship.
The Denver Post: 2nd day on stand for Churchill
The Colorado Daily: Regent testimony closes out the day
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Posted in Legal issues
Tagged Academic freedom, Fraud, Research, Tenure & Promotion, Ward Churchill
Press & Sun-Bulletin: Woman addresses filing of sex complaint
Misconduct case pursued for ‘people who have gone through this’
VESTAL — The woman who filed a sexual misconduct complaint against two members of Binghamton University’s athletic department said she came forward to show others they don’t have to be victims.
“I’m not doing this for me,” said Elizabeth Williams, a fund raiser for the athletic department. “There’s nothing about this that’s good for me, my family or my career. I’m doing this for all of the people who have gone through this and will continue to go through this.”
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Posted in Legal issues
Tagged sexual harassment
Press & Sun-Bulletin:
UPDATED: Sex complaint filed against BU
Fund raiser claims ‘egregious’ behavior by two athletics officials
Woman accuses BU athletic staff of sexual harassment
A woman who has been employed by Binghamton University for one year is accusing two members of the athletic staff of sexual harassment, according to a story on the New York Times Web site.
The New York Times said Elizabeth Williams, a major gifts officer for Binghamton athletics, began processing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on March 5 and formally filed it Tuesday. In it, she named Jason Siegel, a senior associate athletic director, and Chris Lewis, the assistant athletic director for development.
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Posted in Legal issues
Tagged sexual harassment
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France shifts from striking to marching
International Herald Tribune: France shifts from striking to marching
PARIS: French strikes aren’t what they used to be.
In December 1995 and November 2007, unions brought all transportation to a standstill across the country for more than a week. Thursday, in a one-day strike by the same eight unions, metros in Paris and Marseille ran normally, most Air France-KLM Group flights took off on time, and fewer people struck at French schools and government offices than in previous actions.
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Posted in Commentary
Tagged France, Strikes & Labor Disputes