howtheuniversityworks.com: Excellence in America: The Epidemiology of Wal-mart
Unless you’re currently afflicted by the GI bug that my family just survived, you’ll want to play this shockwave data visualization of, as LumpenProf puts it, “how quickly the Wal-Mart pandemic has spread from a single outbreak in Arkansas in 1962.”
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Posted in Corporate University
The Chronicle News Blog: California Universities to Freeze Top Administrator Salaries as Budget Crisis Worsens
San Francisco — California’s two public-university systems announced today that they would freeze the salaries of top administrators, one of many steps the systems are taking to cut costs during the state’s most severe fiscal crisis in decades.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
The Chronicle News Blog: Academic-Freedom Debate Prompts Offer to Unite in Fighting Speech Codes
Washington — Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, generally does not see eye-to-eye with critics of college campuses as hotbeds of political correctness and liberal indoctrination. When he debated Peter Wood, executive director of the National Association of Scholars, over the meaning of academic freedom, on Friday at the group’s annual conference, both predictably came out swinging.
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Posted in Academic freedom
The Eagle: A&M bases bonus on student input
The head of the Texas A&M University System wants to give faculty members bonuses, but many are saying no thanks.
“I’ve never had so much trouble giving away a million dollars,” Chancellor Mike McKinney said, laughing.
That’s because he’s never spent it like this. McKinney plans to give up to $10,000 bonuses to instructors based on anonymous student evaluations.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
The Chronicle News Blog: Professor in Plagiarism Scandal Is Allowed to Proceed With Lawsuit Against Ohio U.
A federal appeals court has given a professor embroiled in a 2006 plagiarism scandal at Ohio University the go-ahead to proceed with a lawsuit against the university.
Jay S. Gunasekera, a professor and former chairman of the department of mechanical engineering at Ohio, sued two university officials — Provost Kathy Krendl and the engineering school’s dean, Dennis Irwin — in 2006, after the university suspended his graduate-faculty status over allegations that he had been negligent in preventing plagiarism among graduate students he was advising.
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Posted in Legal issues
Inside Higher Ed: For profit purchases
It’s been a busy week for for-profit acquisitions in higher education. Rockbridge Growth Equity announced the purchase of Northcentral University, an online institution with 7,500 students in undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Kaplan Inc. meanwhile announced the purchase of companies that provide English language training in Vietnam and in Britain.
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Posted in Corporate University
The Chronicle: Canadian University Apparently Tries to Oust Professor Over Grading Policy
Canada’s main faculty association has set up an independent committee to investigate a series of clashes between the University of Ottawa and a senior tenured professor who was suspended last month and barred from the campus, apparently because of a grading dispute in which he gave all students…
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Posted in Faculty
The Chronicle News Blog: MLA Contemplates Taking a Stand in Support of Scholars of Palestine
The Modern Language Association’s executive council is considering whether the organization should vote on a resolution expressing solidarity with scholars of Palestinian literature and culture.
The MLA’s Delegate Assembly overwhelmingly passed the resolution at the group’s annual meeting last week, following a debate in which it rejected an alternative measure that would have expressed support for both Israeli and Palestinian scholars and called for the organization to remain neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Posted in Protests
The Chronicle News Blog: Liberal-Education Group Discourages Reliance on Tests to Hold Colleges Accountable
The Association of American Colleges and Universities today released a statement arguing that efforts to hold colleges accountable should measure student learning broadly, and not rely too heavily on standardized tests.
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Posted in Accountability
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Auto dealer on Board of Regents didn’t report $869,000 in sales to state
State universities and colleges in 2007 paid at least $869,000 to companies owned by Ford dealer Allan Vigil, who is one of 18 University System regents overseeing Georgia’s universities and colleges.
But when he filed his most recent financial disclosure statement with the state, Vigil listed 2007 state payments to his businesses as “$0.00.”
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Posted in Ethics
Jordan Times: University students demand severing of Jordanian-Israeli ties
AMMAN – Thousands of university students marched to the Parliament building on Sunday, calling for the government to end diplomatic relations with Israel as violence in the Gaza Stip escalated with the ground invasion of Israeli forces.
From the southern town of Muta to Irbid, Amman and Salt, university students converged on Parliament to participate in the first demonstration since the onset of the Israeli ground offensive.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Toronto Star: York University, union to continue talks today
Mediator joins third attempt at bargaining to help both sides reach deal, end strike that began Nov. 6
York University and the union representing its striking workers have still not reached an agreement, but it’s a good sign that talks haven’t broken down, said a union member.
“Talks are still going on – that’s a very good thing,” said Christina Rousseau, chair of CUPE 3903.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
National Post: Ontario union calls for ban on Israeli professors
Ontario’s largest university workers’ union is proposing a ban on Israeli academics teaching in the province’s universities, in a move that echoes previous attempts to boycott goods and services from the Jewish state.
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Posted in Unions
The Ledger: Sansom Quits State School Job
Florida House speaker seeks to move on from issue of funding at college where he’s VP.
TALLAHASSEE | Seeking a sudden end to a growing controversy, House Speaker Ray Sansom on Monday quit his $110,000 vice president’s position with a state-run school.
As one of the state’s most powerful political leaders, Sansom had helped Northwest Florida State College receive $25.5 million for building this fiscal year – well over the $1 million requested by the school and more than any other community college in the state.
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Posted in Ethics
WLKY.com: Attorney’s Office Wants More Time In Felner Case
Robert Felner Faces Fraud Charges
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The U.S. attorney’s office said it needs more time to prepare its case against a former University of Louisville dean accused of fraud.
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Posted in Legal issues
Tagged Robert Felner
The Chronicle: Ties to Hamas Raise Questions About the Role of Bombed University in Gaza
Israel’s bombing last week of three buildings at the Islamic University of Gaza has provoked outrage among many academics.
Israeli officials and security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas insist that the university, which makes no secret of its close ties to Hamas, also serves as an operational center for the Hamas terrorist wing, the Qassam Brigades, making it a legitimate military target. (Mr. Abbas leads the Fatah movement, which has had its own struggles with Hamas in recent years.)
But students and lecturers flatly deny that the university is involved in military activities, arguing that it turns out 3,000 graduates each year from its 10 schools, including those in engineering and Islamic law.
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Posted in International
LA Times: Academia feeling the economic pinch
SAN FRANCISCO — Shakespeare, Edith Wharton and Internet poetry were supposed to be among the main topics of discussion at the largest gathering of humanities professors in the nation. But the sour economy and shrunken job market for academics proved to be more dramatic than any novel or play
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
The Globe and Mail: Ontario union wants ban on Israeli academics
A proposed resolution by a major Ontario union to ban Israeli academics at the province’s universities has sparked a bitter debate between leaders on both sides over an Israeli attack on a Gaza university.
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Posted in Unions
The Chronicle News Blog: Union at Ontario Universities Proposes Boycott of Israeli Professors
The Canadian Union of Public Employees in Ontario, the largest labor union representing staff members at the province’s universities, plans to introduce a resolution at its conference next month to ban Israeli academics from teaching, speaking, or doing research at Ontario universities if they do not first condemn Israeli actions in Gaza.
The union, which represents teaching and research assistants and other members of the support staff at many universities, says the proposal is a response to the bombing on December 29 that damaged the Islamic University of Gaza. An Israeli army spokeswoman said the bombed buildings had been used as “a research and development center for Hamas weapons,” referring to the terrorist group that governs the Gaza Strip.
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Posted in Unions
The Adjunct’s Mandate
Inside Higher Ed: The Adjuncts’ Mandate
By Gregory Zobel
The recent reports on academic labor by the American Federation of Teachers and Modern Language Association are great news. The great news is not the information the reports present. They offer little that is new or heartening. Instead, they echo what most adjuncts and many academic labor activists already know: Exploitation of contingent academic laborers is growing in scale. Activists, organizers, and administrators can and will jockey over exact percentages in pay difference, whether or not graduate student labor counts as just-in-time labor, and the precise impact adjunct exploitation has upon pay rates, tenure, and the quality of learning at colleges and universities. Exact percentages are important, but they are not vital. Most essential — the larger picture — is that more adjuncts are being hired, exploited, and abused at more community colleges and universities around the United States than ever before. The great news is the presence, timing, and potential application of these reports.
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Posted in Commentary, Contingent labor