BBC: Poor still shunning universities
Universities say they do try to draw in a wider range of students
The government has given universities £392m to get more working class youngsters in England to attend but progress has been slow, MPs say.
The Commons public accounts committee says it is “dismayed” the government seems to have little idea what they have done with the money.
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Posted in Government
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Government, Working class
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Feds probing Emory, professor on research grants
Federal officials are investigating Emory University and one of its prominent researchers to determine if either misled government agencies about the psychiatrist’s high-paying work with drug companies, officials said.
U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, who pressed for the investigation, sent a letter Tuesday to the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services outlining his concerns. He said Dr. Charles Nemeroff, an internationaly prominent psychiatrist, may have violated conflict of interest rules surrounding several grants that Emory received from the National Institutes of Health. Grassley’s letter also noted that Emory is required to report such conflicts to the NIH.
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Posted in Government
Tagged Faculty, Fraud, Investigations, Research
Haaretz: Canada schools blasted for ban on anti-Israel ‘apartheid’ poster
Two Canadian universities came under criticism this week for banning a poster which is seen to be depicting Israelis as child-killers and accusing Israel of apartheid. Brazilian politicians and scholars, meanwhile, lambasted a recent student exchange accord between Tel Aviv University and a Catholic academy from Sao Paulo.
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Posted in Protests
Tagged Free speech, Israel, Middle East, Politics, Protests
Tallahassee Democrat: Florida State students plan to raise $100K for faculty salaries
A volunteer group of Florida State University students has launched a fundraising campaign called “Protect Our Professors” to save faculty who are in danger of being laid off.
The students’ goal is to raise $100,000 by mid-April, according to student body president Laymon Hicks.
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Posted in Students
Tagged Faculty, Salary/Economic Benefits, Students
Globe and Mail: Middle East tensions flare at universities
Tensions over the conflict in the Middle East are igniting a fierce debate at Canadian universities, raising questions about freedom of speech and the rights of students to feel welcome and safe on campus.
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Posted in Protests
Tagged Free speech, Middle East, Protests
southcoasttoday.com: UMass hikes fees amid student uproar
DARTMOUTH — Ignoring the signs, persistent chanting and occasional outbursts of about 150 student protesters, the UMass Board of Trustees overwhelmingly voted Friday to raise student fees by $1,500 for the next school year.
The 12-4 vote during a meeting on the Dartmouth campus raises the annual cost for a full-time, in-state undergraduate at UMass Dartmouth to $10,358, a jump of 17 percent. System-wide, tuition and fees for in-state undergrads will rise, on average, from $9,548 this year to $11,048 in the upcoming academic year.
Austin American-Statesman: ACC administrators’ raises stir concern
Salary increases for all employees could be delayed or eliminated in next budget.
Administrators at Austin Community College have received salary increases of up to 33 percent in the current school year, prompting criticism from some faculty and staff members and questions about a plan to delay or eliminate raises for all employees in the coming year.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
WCCO.com: Minn. State University Faculty OKs Salary Freeze
Faculty members at Minnesota’s seven state universities have voted to skip any salary increases for the next two years as a way to avoid layoffs.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Crain’s Cleveland Business: Kent State University reaches three-year contract with key union
Kent State University and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 153 have agreed on a new, three-year contract.
Under the contract, 376 Kent State employees will receive 3% raises in each of the contract’s three years, which will cost the university about $900,000 over the life of the contract. The salary increases are retroactive to Oct. 1, 2008.
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
Courier-Journal: Schroeder may seek to split his case from Felner’s
The attorney for Thomas Schroeder, the Illinois man named as co-defendant in the criminal case against former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner, has filed a motion protecting his client’s right to request his case be tried separately from Felner’s.
Felner and Schroeder are accused of fraudulently obtaining nearly $2.3 million in grant and contract money from the universities of Louisville and Rhode Island.
Felner, 58, is facing 10 counts of mail fraud, money-laundering, conspiracy and income-tax evasion; a federal grand jury indicted him in October.
Schroeder, 51, of Fort Byron, Ill., also is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud the IRS.
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Posted in Legal issues
Tagged Administration, Ethics, Fraud, Legal issues, Robert Felner
BBC: Teachers demand 10% pay increase
Teachers’ strike
Teachers staged a one-day strike last year over pay
The biggest teachers’ union in England and Wales is calling for a 10% pay rise – and says the economic downturn should not be an “excuse” for low pay rises.
The National Union of Teachers has submitted its demand to the profession’s pay review body.
A government spokesman says the current recommended 2.3% offer represents a “good deal” for teaching staff.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes
Workers World: On the picket line
Workers march for jobs in Illinois
Over 5,500 workers and their supporters stretched more than eight blocks during a “Put America Back to Work” march in Granite City, Ill., on Feb. 10. They included laid-off steelworkers in Granite City and laid-off auto workers from Decatur and Fenton, Mo. More than 2,500 members of Steel Workers Local 1899 were laid off from U.S. Steel-Granite City Works in December. The march, sponsored by local and state labor unions and several community groups, was held to support passage of the federal stimulus bill. The workers, whose output is between 30 and 35 percent construction-grade steel, supported the bill because they hope it will help them get back to work. In its report on the march, the St. Louis Suburban Journals noted that “‘shovel-ready’ infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and schools could begin within 90 to 120 days” after the bill is signed into law and “each billion dollars spent on infrastructure generates $6 billion in economic activity and provides 34,000 ‘good-paying’ jobs.” (Feb. 10) Imagine if there were marches of laid-off workers demanding jobs all over this country. Better yet in Washington, D.C.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Strikes & Labor Disputes
Irish Times: Unions to discuss next move after huge Dublin protest
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BALLOTS ON strike action are expected to be on the agenda when the executive council of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) meets tomorrow to consider its next move following Saturday’s massive protest march in Dublin.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Protests, Strikes & Labor Disputes
newzimbabwe.com: Unions call end to teachers’ strike
ZIMBABWE’S teachers are ending their strike action and returning to classrooms starting Monday, union leaders announced.
Teachers have been on strike for the greater part of the last year in a dispute over pay. Exams from as far back as June 2008 remain unmarked and aid agencies say “a generation is at risk” unless urgent reforms are made to stop the rot in the education system.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Strikes & Labor Disputes
Ma’an News Agency: Palestinian teachers’ union to submit demands by weekend
Date: 16 / 02 / 2009 Time: 10:58
Bethlehem – Ma’an – The secretary-general of a Palestinian teachers’ union told Ma’an on Sunday the union would submit a list of demands to the Palestinian Authority by Thursday.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Strikes & Labor Disputes
IHT: Warning strike by civil servants
The Associated Press
Published: February 15, 2009
RAMALLAH, West Bank: Thousands of civil servants in the West Bank are observing a one-day warning strike because their salaries are two weeks overdue.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Strikes & Labor Disputes
Vancouver Sun: Teachers want top court to quash strike definition
Appeal to be sought over ‘political protest’ rulings
Published: Saturday, February 14, 2009
The B.C. Teachers’ Federation will seek an appeal of a court decision that ruled the union’s one-day walkout in 2002 was an illegal strike, while the teachers saw it as a political protest.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Sun: DPA lauds Lagos House for averting teachers’ strike
Lagos chapter of the Democratic Peoples’ Alliance (DPA) has commended the House of Assembly for averting a teachers’ strike in the state by intervening in the face-off between the State Ministry of Education and the Nigerian Teachers Union (NUT).
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Strikes & Labor Disputes
Inside Higher Ed: Academic Freedom, Christian Context
March 2, 2009
Academic freedom at religious institutions has always been a vexed and complex subject. Many religious colleges assert that they have academic freedom, while also requiring professors to sign statements of faith in which they subscribe to a certain worldview — and there is not necessarily a public attempt to reconcile these principles.
One evangelical Christian college has tried to change the conversation – reframing limitations on inquiry implied by signing a statement of faith, for instance, as opportunities.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Tagged Academic freedom
The Chronicle Review: No Tenure? No Problem.
How to make $100,000 a year as an adjunct English instructor
By DOUGLAS W. TEXTER
I recently defended my dissertation in English at a land-grant institution in the Midwest. Our department’s national reputation plunges every year as the new hires get weirder and their expertise more esoteric. Ph.D. degrees from our department, unless you’re female or a minority, don’t provide much value in the marketplace. Even if you do fit into one of those desirable categories, you’re probably screwed and headed to a $40,000-a-year job — much less if you get one of those stunningly low-paid, visiting-professor gigs.
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Posted in Contingent labor
Tagged adjuncts, Contingent labor, Salary/Economic Benefits, Tenure & Promotion
