Author Archives: E Wayne Ross

Kentucky community colleges eliminate tenure

Posted on March 19, 2009 | Comments Off on Kentucky community colleges eliminate tenure

Inside Higher Ed: Read Their Lips: No New Tenure

In a one-sided vote, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System’s Board of Regents decided Friday to eliminate tenure for all new faculty hires. Though top system officials lauded the move, many faculty groups pledged to take fight to the state Legislature.

The 14-member board is made up of eight gubernatorial appointees and six representatives elected by the system’s faculty, staff and students. The appointed members have full votes and elected members have half a vote. By a vote of 8.5 to 2.5, the Regents approved a revision of the system’s employment policy that eliminates the possibility of tenure for all new faculty hires.

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Posted in Tenure & Promotion

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Univ. of MO Press laying off nearly half of its staff

Posted on March 19, 2009 | Comments Off on Univ. of MO Press laying off nearly half of its staff

St Louis Post-Dispatch: Univ. of MO Press laying off nearly half of its staff

The University of Missouri Press notified 7 of its 18 staff members today that they are being laid off. The layoffs will not take effect for at least a couple of weeks.

The layoffs come in the wake of growing financial losses for the press. Other university presses have also been struggling in recent years. In addition to the staff reductions, the press will also be refocusing its efforts, but the specific changes have not yet been hashed out, said university system spokeswoman Jennifer Hollingshead.

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Posted in Budgets & Funding

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California: Win for Anti-Bias Rules

Posted on March 18, 2009 | Comments Off on California: Win for Anti-Bias Rules

Inside Higher Ed: Win for Anti-Bias Rules

A federal appeals court on Tuesday gave a major win to public universities and advocates for gay rights who have wanted to preserve in full the institutional anti-bias policies that bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled — in a two-sentence decision — that the Hastings College of Law of the University of California was within its rights to deny recognition to a branch of the Christian Legal Society. Hastings said that the student group’s ban on members who engage in “unrepentant homosexual conduct” violated the law school’s anti-bias policies. In turn, the Christian Legal Society argued that its First Amendment rights were being violated by the law school in that it was forcing the law students in the society to abandon their religious beliefs in return for recognition.

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Posted in Legal issues

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Judge rejects suit in firing of Alabama university president

Posted on March 18, 2009 | Comments Off on Judge rejects suit in firing of Alabama university president

The Huntsville Times: Judge rejects Jennings suit in A&M firing

School’s trustees had argued forboard’s immunity

An Etowah County circuit judge has dismissed the lawsuit filed in July by former Alabama A&M University President Robert R. Jennings against the university’s board of trustees.

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Posted in Legal issues

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California: Christian law group loses fight with Hastings

Posted on March 18, 2009 | Comments Off on California: Christian law group loses fight with Hastings

San Francisco Chronicle: Christian law group loses fight with Hastings

SAN FRANCISCO — UC Hastings College of the Law can deny recognition and funding to a Christian student group because it excludes gays, lesbians and non-Christians, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

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Posted in Legal issues

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Rhode Island: Ex-RWU dean faces stalking charge for letters sent to faculty members.

Posted on March 17, 2009 | Comments Off on Rhode Island: Ex-RWU dean faces stalking charge for letters sent to faculty members.

Providence Journal: Ex-RWU dean faces stalking charge for letters sent to faculty members.

After John Dawson was fired from his post as the associate dean of continuing studies at Roger Williams University in 2000, he began a furious postcard and letter writing campaign to faculty members at the university.

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Posted in Legal issues

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Mississippi: Jackson State U. Faculty Votes No Confidence in President

Posted on March 17, 2009 | Comments Off on Mississippi: Jackson State U. Faculty Votes No Confidence in President

The Chronicle News Blog: Jackson State U. Faculty Votes No Confidence in President

Faculty leaders at Jackson State University voted no confidence last week in Ronald Mason Jr., the Mississippi university’s president. The resolution, which was published by The Clarion-Ledger, a newspaper in Jackson, Miss., criticized Mr. Mason for his alleged lack of transparency and for the growing salaries of an increasing number of administrators.

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Posted in Governance

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Critiquing, Defending Academic BS

Posted on March 17, 2009 | Comments Off on Critiquing, Defending Academic BS

Inside Higher Ed: Critiquing, Defending Academic BS

SAN FRANCISCO — A much discussed essay in the journal College Composition and Communication last year was titled “A Kind Word for Bullshit: The Problem of Academic Writing.” In the essay, Philip Eubanks and John D. Schaeffer — both on the English faculty at Northern Illinois University — acknowledge that much writing by professors, especially in the humanities, is seen as bull by many others.

“For many non-academics, academic writing is not just bullshit but bullshit of the worst kind,” they write. “When non-academics call academic writing bullshit, they mean that it uses jargon, words whose meanings are so abstract and vague as to seem unrelated to anyone’s experience. Such jargon seems to contribute nothing to the reader except confusion and serves only to enhance the ethos of the speaker, a strategy that the general public dislikes precisely because they suspect that academics are taken in by it.”

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Posted in Academics

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Most Colleges Knowingly Admit Illegal Immigrants as Students, Survey Finds

Posted on March 17, 2009 | Comments Off on Most Colleges Knowingly Admit Illegal Immigrants as Students, Survey Finds

The Chronicle News Blog: Most Colleges Knowingly Admit Illegal Immigrants as Students, Survey Finds

More than half of the colleges that responded to a recent survey said they knowingly admit illegal immigrants to degree or diploma programs under certain circumstances, according to findings released on Monday by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

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Posted in Students

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Canadian Minister for Science and Technology won’t confirm belief in evolution

Posted on March 17, 2009 | Comments Off on Canadian Minister for Science and Technology won’t confirm belief in evolution

Globe and Mail: Minister won’t confirm belief in evolution
Researchers aghast that key figure in funding controversy invokes religion in science discussion

Canada’s science minister, the man at the centre of the controversy over federal funding cuts to researchers, won’t say if he believes in evolution.

“I’m not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don’t think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate,” Gary Goodyear, the federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

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Posted in Government

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Popular University of Michigan-Flint professor dies in classroom

Posted on March 17, 2009 | Comments Off on Popular University of Michigan-Flint professor dies in classroom

Flint Journal: Popular University of Michigan-Flint professor dies in classroom

FLINT, Michigan — A popular University of Michigan-Flint professor collapsed mid-sentence and died on Monday afternoon while teaching an honors English class.

Associate Professor of Foreign Languages Matthew Hilton-Watson, 40, was remembered as a wonderful professor who served as a mentor and friend to students.

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Posted in Faculty

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Guadeloupe: General strike scores victory, spreads to other colonies

Posted on March 16, 2009 | Comments Off on Guadeloupe: General strike scores victory, spreads to other colonies

Green Left: Guadeloupe: General strike scores victory, spreads to other colonies

The general strike in the French Caribbean colony of Guadeloupe, which began on January 20, ended March 4, when an accord was signed between the Collective Against Super-Exploitation (LKP) strike collective and the local governments, the employers’ federation and the French government.

The agreement granted the strikers their top 20 immediate demands and provided for continued negotiations on the remaining 126 mid-term and long-term demands. The LKP is a coalition of 49 unions and grassroots organisations.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

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England: Strikes planned over dress code; teacher sacked over shoe choice

Posted on March 16, 2009 | Comments Off on England: Strikes planned over dress code; teacher sacked over shoe choice

BBC: Strikes plan for trainers teacher

Staff plan to strike at a school that refused to reinstate a teacher it sacked for wearing trainers in class.

Adrian Swain was fired for refusing to follow an unofficial staff dress code at St Paul’s Way Community School in Tower Hamlets in east London.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

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Ireland: Teachers to stage one-day strike

Posted on March 16, 2009 | Comments Off on Ireland: Teachers to stage one-day strike

RTE News: Teachers to stage one-day strike
Friday, 13 March 2009 22:18

The three main teaching unions have voted to join other unions and take strike action on 30 March, closing thousands of schools.

The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, the Irish National Teachers Organisation and the Teachers’ Union of Ireland decided to join the Irish Congress of Trade Unions day of action in protest at public sector cuts.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

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Nigeria: Lagos Teachers Suspend Strike

Posted on March 16, 2009 | Comments Off on Nigeria: Lagos Teachers Suspend Strike

This Day: Lagos Teachers Suspend Strike

The Lagos State wing of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has suspended the indefinite strike it embarked on to protest the state government’s non-implementation of the Teachers’ Salary Structure (TSS), as agreed by the Governors’ Forum and the union last year.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

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Ontario: Teachers, province play nice; But union hints at work action

Posted on March 16, 2009 | Comments Off on Ontario: Teachers, province play nice; But union hints at work action

Toronto Sun: Teachers, province play nice; But union hints at work action

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne was given a rousing welcome by the province’s educators yesterday, even though she refused to be dragged into a looming work showdown involving high school teachers.

Wynne ducked questions about possible work action by 6,500 members of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, whose contract talks with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) broke off last month.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

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India: Teachers’ union demands suspended DAV professors be reinstated

Posted on March 16, 2009 | Comments Off on India: Teachers’ union demands suspended DAV professors be reinstated

IndianExpress.com: Teachers’ union demands suspended DAV professors be reinstated

Chandigarh: The Chandigarh District Council of Punjab and Chandigarh College Teachers’ Union (PCCTU) organised a dharna in Sector 17 on Saturday in support of the suspended office-bearers of the DAV College Teachers’ Union: president A Taneja, secretary Anil Sarwal and staff secretary Avanindra Chopra.

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Posted in Unions

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Kentucky: Glaring Error in the Robert Felner Audit at UofL

Posted on March 16, 2009 | Comments Off on Kentucky: Glaring Error in the Robert Felner Audit at UofL

PageOneKentucky.com: Glaring Error in the Robert Felner Audit at UofL

In an email to the University of Louisville’s General Counsel, Provost Shirley Willihnganz and others on October 27, 2008, Larry Owsley wrote:

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Posted in Legal issues

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Nebraska: UNO To Appeal Faculty Raises & Insurance

Posted on March 16, 2009 | Comments Off on Nebraska: UNO To Appeal Faculty Raises & Insurance

WOWT: UNO To Appeal Faculty Raises & Insurance

The University of Nebraska announced Friday it will appeal salary increases and a new insurance benefit awarded to faculty members at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. At issue is a contract for faculty members represented by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits

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Florida: USF prez sets the model for AIG

Posted on March 16, 2009 | Comments Off on Florida: USF prez sets the model for AIG

Tampa Tribune: Cringing at USF bonuses

University of South Florida president Judy Genshaft must know that appearances can be as important as reality. Surely, she knew this when she handed out hefty bonuses to four top staff members — after the university had slashed millions from the budget, frozen salaries and ordered big layoffs. Three of those staff members report directly to the president. During these hard economic times, everyone at USF should share the pain. Genshaft, along with her advisers, deserve all the criticism they are getting for this insensitive move.

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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits

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