Category Archives: Faculty

The Morning Call: Kutztown president faces union test
University faculty is considering a vote of no confidence.

Faculty union leaders at Kutztown University are moving toward taking a vote of no confidence in President F. Javier Cevallos, saying the quality of education has eroded and the state school’s status has declined since he took the helm in 2002.

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Inside Higher Ed: Integrating International Faculty

For all the talk about getting visas for foreign scholars to teach at American campuses, there’s relatively little attention to how they fit in once they arrive.

“People on campus generally aren’t talking about international faculty,” said Rebecca Theobald, of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s geography department. She recently completed her dissertation on “Foreign-Born Early-Career Faculty in American Higher Education.”

“Many of the deans and chairs I interviewed said, ‘Why are you doing this?’”

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The New York Sun: Arsenal Is Found at Home of Columbia Professor

An arsenal of weapons and explosive devices was found in the Brooklyn Heights apartment of a Columbia University professor yesterday morning after the professor’s roommate accidentally shot himself, police said.

Police said they removed seven homemade pipe bombs, a 9 mm handgun, a rifle, a crossbow and arrows, a machete, ammunition, gun silencers, and several bulletproof vests from a small one-bedroom apartment at 58 Remsen St. that neighbors say is owned by Michael Clatts, an AIDS researcher at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and the National Development and Research Institutes.

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The Washington Post: A Growing College Rivalry: The Fight for Faculty Star

George Mason University officials could not shout loud enough when economist Vernon L. Smith won the Nobel Prize in 2002. Smith’s recruitment a year earlier had shone a welcome light on the school, and the award was a crowning bonus.

Today, GMU is quiet, as Smith has slipped away for a job in California, lured by the same administrator who brought him to GMU.

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ABQJournal.com: College of Santa Fe Trying To Solve Financial Woes

he College of Santa Fe board plans to discuss a move that would allow more faculty to be fired in an effort to cut costs at the school, which has been struggling with budget deficits for several years.

The board is to meet Jan. 25 to consider filing for financial exigency — the equivalent of bankruptcy, college President Stuart Kirk said. Exigency would allow administrators to take whatever steps are necessary to fix the school’s financial woes.

College administrators have been restructuring curriculum and trimming spending.

The school already offered severance packages to 13 faculty members, and said all but two have accepted the offer. Those two qualify for retirement and are considering their options, said Marcia Sullivan, vice president of administration and communication.

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The Chronicle New Blog: Pope Cancels University Visit in Wake of Protests

Rome — Pope Benedict XVI, who got a firsthand look at sometimes-violent student activism as a German university professor in the late 1960s, evidently has no wish to repeat the experience.

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Inside Higher Ed: Civility Code or Loyalty Oath?

In the full knowledge of the commitment that I am freely willing to undertake as a student, I promise to respect each and every member of the college community without regard to race, creed, political ideology, lifestyle orientation, gender, or social status sparing no effort to preserve the dignity of those I will come in contact with as a member of the college community. I promise to Bergen Community College that I will follow this code of responsibility.

1. Honesty, integrity, and respect for all will guide my personal conduct.
2. I will embrace and celebrate differing perspectives intellectually.
3. I will build an inclusive community enriched by diversity.
4. I am willing to respect and assist those individuals who are less fortunate.
5. I promise my commitment to civic engagement and to serve the needs of the community to the best of my ability.

The draft policy above — prepared to promote civility and to respond to a series of racial incidents — has led to an intense (and civil) debate at Bergen Community College, in New Jersey. Many professors are aghast at the draft, comparing it to a loyalty oath, and saying that it would make it a punishable offense for a conservative student not to “embrace and celebrate” the ideas of Michael Moore or for a liberal student not to do the same with Ann Coulter. Like loyalty oaths, one idea was to have students sign it (and some feared professors would have to sign too).

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The Missoulian: University of Montana: Potential hire under scrutiny

An American professor who teaches Islamic law and the Quran is at the center of a brewing tempest at the University of Montana, which is considering hiring him for an unexpected, unadvertised, unplanned-for job.

Several issues are at play, but they all spring from a single, thorny topic for universities called “spousal accommodation.”

The awkward phrase essentially means this: To get the best person for a job, a university will often help find suitable campus employment for the candidate’s spouse or partner.

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The Daily Campus: As Tenured Professors Become Less Common, Some Question How Students Are Affected

Stephen L. Ross, an economics professor at UConn, received tenure just over eight years ago, joining increasingly exclusive company.

According to statistics from the Federal Education Department, about 70 percent of teaching faculty at colleges and universities nationwide are either untenured or on a non-tenure track. The American Association of University Professors has said that 30 years ago, that figure was closer to 40 percent.

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The New York Times: Spitzer Wants to Endow State’s Public Colleges

In his annual address to the Legislature on Wednesday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer will propose establishing an endowment for the state’s higher education system and adding 2,000 faculty members, according to a person with knowledge of the speech.

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The Chronicle News Blog: Historical Association Welcomes Bolivian Scholar at Center of Visa Dispute

Washington — A special session on scholars and visa troubles at the annual meeting here of the American Historical Association featured a speaker who wouldn’t have been able to attend last year.

Waskar T. Ari Chachaki, a Bolivian scholar who had been hired by the University of Nebraska at Lincoln but was denied a visa by the Department of Homeland Security, appeared on the panel on Friday to talk about his experience.

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Inside Higher Ed: ABC Thinks You’re Rich; ‘U.S. News’ Says Your Job Is Cushy

It turns out that college administrators and professors should stop complaining about their pay and working conditions, at least according to U.S. News & World Report and ABC News.

On Saturday night, Charlie Gibson, the ABC anchor, was introducing a question in the Democratic presidential debate about proposed tax increases for wealthy Americans and his example of those who might be affected: college professors at a liberal arts college.

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Inside Higher Ed: (Alleged) Crime and (Delayed) Punishment?

Acting on the recommendation of the administration, the St. Louis Community College Board of Trustees voted last week to terminate a music professor accused of sexually abusing a high school student before he came to the college. Denise R. Chachere, the board’s vice president, said that members were unanimous in their decision.

The board had suspended Larry Stukenholtz — a college employee since 2001 and an associate professor of music at the two-year institution’s Meramec campus — in November, pending an investigation of allegations that he had sexually abused a student of his at Mater Dei High School in California in the 1990s. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) began putting pressure on the college to fire him in 2006 when Stukenholtz’s former student, Sarah Gray, filed a civil suit alleging that he had abused his authority in luring her into a sexual relationship when she was under 18 (Stukenholtz is not a priest, but the alleged abuse happened while he taught at a Catholic high school).

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The Chronicle: Language Professors Appear to Be in Demand, English Professors Less So

The Modern Language Association projected that the number of open foreign-language faculty positions will jump by 4.3 percent for this academic year over last year, while the number of jobs for English professors will decline.

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The Chronicle: Professors Could Take Performance-Enhancing Drugs for the Mind

While caffeine reigns as the supreme drug of the professoriate, some university faculty members have started popping “smart” pills to enhance their mental energy and ability to work long hours, according to two University of Cambridge scientists who polled some of their colleagues about their use of cognitive-enhancing drugs.

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