Category Archives: Administration

Diverse: Issues in Higher Education: 600 Instructors Have Not Been Paid in 2007 at Florida A&M U., Report Says

Due to financial and administrative problems at Florida A&M University, adjunct professors and graduate teaching assistants haven’t been compensated in 2007, according to school sources. Diverse has confirmed that journalism teaching assistants have not been paid, but an estimated 600 employees falling under the former two job categories may also be affected at the 13,000-student school.

The New York Times: A ‘Rebellious Daughter’ to Lead Harvard

Recalling her coming of age as the only girl in a privileged, tradition-bound family in Virginia horse country, Drew Gilpin Faust, 59, has often spoken of her “continued confrontations” with her mother “about the requirements of what she usually called femininity.” Her mother, Catharine, she has said, told her repeatedly, “It’s a man’s world, sweetie, and the sooner you learn that the better off you’ll be.”

USA Today: Report: ‘Major turnover’ of college presidents on way

College presidents have gotten older and have been in their positions longer than at any time in the past 20 years, indicating an upcoming wave of turnover at the top.

The Boston Globe: Reports: Harvard expected to name Faust president

-Harvard University could be about to name its first female president, as the governing board charged with vetting candidates has narrowed its search to a single one, historian Drew Gilpin Faust, according to published reports.

East Valley Tribune: Maricopa Community Colleges Investigation

The embattled chancellor of Maricopa community colleges Wednesday fired two college presidents, saying he has lost “confidence” in their leadership as a fraud scandal has enveloped the system.

Globe and Mail: Trio of resignations shock university system

Wanted: people with outstanding scholarship records, strong management expertise and proven abilities for fundraising. Just don’t count on any job security.

The top positions at three Canadian universities have opened up in the past three months after their presidents abruptly resigned, two of them leaving shortly after they were hired.

David Atkinson left Carleton University and Robert Hawkins stepped down as head of the University of Regina, only 15 months into their respective six- and five-year terms. Both said they did not see eye to eye with their boards of governors. And Roch Denis, rector at the University of Quebec at Montreal, resigned after a $40-million overrun in construction costs for a new science complex.

The News-Press: Ex-president leaves FGCU with $811,000

Former FGCU President William “Bill” Merwin’s landing will be softened by more than $811,000 in money from a severance settlement, an annuity and other benefits.
The largest segment of the money will amount to the $398,000 Florida Gulf Coast University trustees OK’d Wednesday to settle Merwin’s contract.

Merwin, who resigned two weeks ago over an affair with a faculty member, told The News-Press he likely will sign the deal.

The Chronicle: Alabama Board Adopts Rules to Prevent Nepotism in Scandal-Plagued Community-College System

The Alabama Board of Education adopted an anti-nepotism policy last week that significantly restricts the hiring of relatives of top officials in the state’s system of two-year colleges.

Tallahassee Democrat: Bachelor’s-only plan met with little enthusiasm

The idea of turning four to six state universities into colleges granting only bachelor’s degrees provoked an intellectual food fight at the Florida Board of Governors meeting Wednesday in Boca Raton.

“It’s going to take one hell of carrot for an institution sitting at the adult table to sit at the children’s table,” said University of West Florida President John Cavanaugh.

The Boston Globe: Carter film maker faults Brandeis

Academy-Awarding winning director Jonathan Demme had hoped that filming Jimmy Carter’s speech at Brandeis University next week would become the powerful ending for his documentary on the former president. But Brandeis has refused to allow Demme to film Carter’s speech or his interaction with the university’s students Tuesday.

Inside Higher Ed: Holding Trustees Accountable

This has been a challenging couple of years for university and other nonprofit governing boards. The Enron-style corporate governance scandals have undoubtedly had a spillover effect into the nonprofit world, even if the Sarbanes-Oxley law designed to clean up those problem doesn’t technically apply to most colleges and universities. Nonprofit groups and colleges in particular have had their own set of governance and conflict-of-interest controversies as well, prompting a Congressional review into American University’s compensation for its former president. And all of this has come at a time when the performance and effectiveness of higher education as a whole is under scrutiny of its own, from governments and the public.

To try to guide trustees in such a turbulent climate — and, its leaders hope, to send a reassuring signal to the public and to policy makers — the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges has released a statement aimed at better defining to whom, and for what, board members are accountable. In broad strokes, the areas on which the “AGB Statement on Board Accountability” seeks to focus trustees’ responsibilities may seem unsurprising: the fiscal integrity of their institutions, how boards conduct their own business, the educational quality of the institutions, and oversight of the president.

Las Vegas Sun: Five days that rocked higher education system

University system Regent James Dean Leavitt says he thought his phone call last Wednesday was innocent enough, putting a few basic questions to Jim Rogers, the businessman-turned-chancellor of Nevada’s system of higher education.

Leavitt, one of 13 regents, wanted to ask Rogers about the person he had just hired to lobby for his pet project, an academic health science system.

Rogers exploded, according to both men. He felt his integrity was being challenged – and a battle was joined.

The New York Times: As College Grows, a City Is Asking, ‘Who Will Pay?’

For most of the last 40 years, this eclectic seaside city and its University of California campus have lived in relative harmony. With its beaches, bistros and relaxed intellectual vibe, Santa Cruz has long held an allure for those seeking a mellower college experience, a place where hiking trails, yoga mats and surfboards are as common as backpacks filled with books.

St. Petersburg Times: Consultant: University system is in shambles

A consultant hired to evaluate Florida’s higher education system says it is haphazard and poorly funded, with its core mission of educating undergraduates lost as universities compete with each other for national status.

Las Vegas Sun: Nevada university chancellor rescinds resignation, agrees to stay

evada Chancellor Jim Rogers has rescinded his resignation, agreeing to remain as head of the state’s higher education system.

“I hereby withdraw my resignation,” Rogers wrote in a Monday night memorandum to University and Community College System of Nevada regents.

Rogers sent the letter after a restaurant meeting with James Dean Leavitt, one of two regents who called for Rogers’ resignation on Friday.

Rogers responded Sunday with a terse two-word note reading, “I quit.”

Daily Egyptian: Southern Illinois U. Professor Demands Apology for ‘Academic Terrorist’ Label

Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump weren’t the only public figures feuding in recent weeks.

At the monthly SIU Board of Trustees meeting Thursday, Linguistics Professor Joan Friedenberg blasted back at SIU President Glenn Poshard after he allegedly said the professor was among a group of “academic terrorists” who “lay in the weeds and throw bombs at everybody” during a Nov. 30 SIUC Graduate Council meeting.

Poshard was purportedly referring to the actions of an anonymous committee known as Alumni and Faculty Against Corruption at SIU (AFAC) that reported claims of alleged plagiarism among faculty and administrators throughout the SIU system to the Chronicle of Higher Education and other media outlets.

“Las Vegas Sun: Rogers quits as chancellor of Nevada System of Higher Education

Jim Rogers, chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, resigned on Sunday after a battle for control of the system’s Board of Regents.

Rogers resigned in a two-word letter to the board, according to chair Bret Whipple.

“He sent the full board a letter. Two words: ‘I quit,'” Whipple said. “I’m extraordinarily saddened by this.”

The New York Times: At Universities, Plum Post at Top Is Now Shaky

David A. Caputo, the president of Pace University, has ricocheted from one crisis to another.

Freshman enrollment this fall at his sprawling, six-campus university in Manhattan and Westchester County plunged after a big tuition increase. That led to a sizable deficit, a hiring freeze, demonstrations, the threat of a no-confidence vote by the faculty, and attacks on his annual compensation of nearly $700,000.