Category Archives: Uncategorized

D’Ho! Scott McLemee takes Horowitz 101

Inside Higher Ed: D’Ho!

The groves of academe now echo with howls of outrage over The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America —a new book from Regnery Publishing, a conservative press, by David Horowitz. All over the country, scholars have turned its pages with mounting fury, indignant at not being listed. One prof even did a podcast just to (in his words) “spit n’cuss about being left ou

Indian Scientist Finally Gets a U.S. Visa, After ‘Degrading Experience’ in American Consulate

The Chronicle: Indian Scientist Finally Gets a U.S. Visa, After ‘Degrading Experience’ in American Consulate

The federal government has taken “exceptional measures” to grant a visa to a prominent Indian scientist whose difficulties in obtaining a visa this month caused outrage in India. U.S. officials scrambled to resolve the dispute before President Bush’s first trip to India, which begins next week.

Supreme Court denies student journalists’ appeal

The Chronicle

* THE U.S. SUPREME COURT declined this morning to hear the
appeal of student journalists whose dean had insisted on
reviewing their newspaper before publication — a move that
defenders of press freedoms portrayed as a blow to student
journalism.

–> SEE http://chronicle.com/free/2006/02/2006022105n.htm

Lawrence H. Summers resigns as Harvard’s president; Bok returns as interim president

The Chronicle

* HARVARD UNIVERSITY’S EMBATTLED PRESIDENT, Lawrence H. Summers,
resigned this afternoon and will be replaced, on an interim
basis, by Derek C. Bok, who was president of Harvard from 1970
to 1990. Mr. Bok would be expected to “clean up the mess and
make conditions right for the next president,” according to a
senior professor with knowledge of the tumultuous events of
today in Cambridge, Mass.
–> SEE http://chronicle.com/free/2006/02/2006022106n.htm http://chronicle.com/free/2006/02/2006022106n.htm

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Lawrence Summers Quits as Harvard President in Advance of New No-Confidence Vote; Derek Bok to Step In

By ROBIN WILSON and PAUL FAIN

Harvard University’s embattled president, Lawrence H. Summers, resigned this afternoon and will be replaced, on an interim basis, by Derek C. Bok, who was president of Harvard from 1971 to 1991. Mr. Bok was chosen to “clean up the mess and make conditions right for the next president,” said a senior professor with knowledge of the tumultuous events of today in Cambridge, Mass.

Mr. Summers, who had been buffeted by controversy for more than a year, was expected to resign on Monday, the professor said, and this morning’s Wall Street Journal said his resignation was imminent.

In a public letter, Mr. Summers said his resignation would be effective on June 30. “I have reluctantly concluded,” he wrote, “that the rifts between me and segments of the arts-and-sciences faculty make it infeasible for me to advance the agenda of renewal that I see as crucial to Harvard’s future. I believe, therefore, that it is best for the university to have new leadership.”

In a message of reply, Harvard’s governing board saluted Mr. Summers for his work despite the controversy that has surrounded his presidency. “While this past year has been a difficult and sometimes wrenching one in the life of the university,” the board wrote, “we look back on the past five years with appreciation for all that has been accomplished and for the charting of a sound and ambitious forward course.”

In its message, the board said that after a sabbatical, Mr. Summers would return to the Harvard faculty as a “University Professor,” a distinguished post held by only a handful of Harvard professors.

The key fact pushing the pace of events this week, according to the senior professor, is that today is the last day the agenda can be changed for next Tuesday’s meeting of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. At that meeting, faculty members had planned to vote on a motion of no confidence in Mr. Summers’s leadership. The faculty, which includes Harvard’s undergraduate and graduate divisions and is the largest academic unit on the campus, passed a similar no-confidence measure last March.

Next Tuesday’s meeting could have proved exceptionally embarrassing to Harvard and to the Harvard Corporation, its seven-member governing board, the professor said, because of other items on the agenda.

Chief among them was to be a motion to censure Mr. Summers for his role in what has become known as the “Shleifer affair,” the professor said. Andrei Shleifer, a prominent Harvard economist and personal friend of Mr. Summers, was a defendant in a lawsuit alleging that he and a former staff member had defrauded the U.S. government through a program intended to help Russia make the transition to a market economy.

Harvard defended Mr. Shleifer throughout the litigation and last August agreed to settle the case by paying a $26.5-million penalty. Mr. Shleifer has never been disciplined by Harvard, and in fact was awarded a new chair during the litigation, said the professor who spoke to The Chronicle. As a result, Mr. Shleifer’s relationship with Mr. Summers has drawn increasing criticism. The professor said the combination of the penalty and legal fees had cost Harvard $44-million.

Another motion to have been offered at the faculty meeting would have assailed the governing board for inadequate governance, the professor said, and would have singled out members of the Harvard Corporation by name for criticism.

The professor said the information came from conversations with current and former administrators at Harvard and with members of the Harvard Corporation.

Neither Mr. Summers nor members of the Harvard Corporation were available for immediate comment beyond their published statements.

Mr. Summers, a former U.S. secretary of the treasury and chief economics adviser to President Bill Clinton, has had several highly publicized clashes with Harvard faculty members, most notably over his comments at a conference in January 2005, when he said women might be underrepresented in the top tiers of science and mathematics because of innate differences in their abilities from those of men.

Mr. Summers also had a bitter dispute with Cornel West, a leading scholar of religion and African-American studies, who subsequently left for Princeton University.

Members of the Harvard Corporation had supported Mr. Summers, with the exception of Conrad K. Harper, a corporation member who resigned last July, citing concerns over the president’s leadership.

The recent turbulence at the university was exacerbated by the departure of the dean of arts and sciences, William C. Kirby, who last month announced that he would step down. Several faculty members have angrily asserted that Mr. Summers pushed the dean out.

In his letter, Mr. Summers did not admit to making any mistakes, but he seemed to acknowledge missteps in his leadership. “I have sought for the last five years to prod and challenge the university to reach for the most ambitious goals in creative ways,” he said. “There surely have been times when I could have done this in wiser or more respectful ways.”

Copyright © 2006 by The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Myth of the Mainstream

The Chronicle: The myth of the mainstream

By KENJI YOSHINO

When I began teaching law, in 1998, I was warned off writing about gay subjects. Well-meaning colleagues told me that writing on sexual orientation as a gay man would raise questions about my objectivity. I could see the force of that argument, both substantively and strategically. When I looked to those who wrote about their identities, I saw their work routinely discounted as “mesearch.”

Helping American Colleges Confront Foreign Competition Is Crucial to National Security, Warner Says

The Chronicle: Helping American Colleges Confront Foreign Competition Is Crucial to National Security, Warner Says

The increasing international competition faced by American higher education should be described as a matter of national security, Mark R. Warner, a former governor of Virginia and a presumed candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, told college administrators on Monday at the American Council on Education’s annual meeting.

In Mysterious Case, U.S. Withholds Visa From Bolivian Scholar Hired to Teach at U. of Nebraska

The Chronicle: U.S. Withholds Visa From Bolivian Scholar Hired to Teach at U. of Nebraska

A Bolivian scholar hired by the University of Nebraska at Lincoln has been unable to take up his post because the federal government has withheld his visa. The case has again raised concerns of what critics have described as the arbitrary use of government power to keep foreign academics out of the United States.

Waskar T. Ari, a member of Bolivia’s largest indigenous group, earned a Ph.D. in history from Georgetown University in 2005 and was hired by Nebraska as an assistant professor of history and ethnic studies. His job was to have begun last August.

Barbara S. Weinstein, a history professor at the University of Maryland at College Park, called the situation “very disturbing.” Ms. Weinstein is president-elect of the American Historical Association, which has spoken out in behalf of Mr. Ari.

The government’s reason for not issuing the visa, she speculated, seems related to his ethnicity. “He has certainly never been a member of any movement that would be of a security concern to the U.S. government,” she said.

Administrators’ Salaries Are Up 3.5%

Inside Higher Ed: Administrators’ Salaries Are Up 3.5%

Administrators’ raises are getting larger again. The median salary increased by 3.5 percent during this academic year, compared to a 3.3 percent last year and a 2.5 percent increase the previous year. The 3.5 percent increase equals that of 2002-3.

AAUP Postpones Meeting on Academic Boycotts After Accidentally Distributing Anti-Semitic Articl

The Chronicle: AAUP Postpones Meeting

The American Association of University Professors has postponed an international meeting on academic boycotts that was set for next week after inadvertently distributing an anti-Semitic article to those planning to attend. Sponsors had raised concerns that the incident undermined the meeting’s credibility.

When it comes to rating professors the cure for bad information is better information.

Inside Higher Ed: How To Fight RateMyProfessors.com

By James D. Miller

The cure for bad information is better information.

There’s a lot of unhappiness among college faculty members about RateMyProfessors.com, a Web site containing student ratings of professors. Many college students use it to help pick their classes. Unfortunately, the site’s evaluations are usually drawn from a small and biased sample of students. But since students usually don’t have access to higher-quality data, the students are rational to use RateMyProfessors.com. Colleges, however, should eliminate students’ reliance on RateMyProfessors.com by publishing college-administered student evaluations.

Is Higher Education Like Thoroughbred Wagering?

The Yorktown Patriot: Is Higher Education Like Thoroughbred Wagering?

Sports columnist and thoroughbred racing analyst, Andrew Beyer, writes in today’s Washington Post about the revolution in computer-based wagering and its implications for thoroughbred racing:

“If racetracks have not responded to this challenge, it is partly because their grandstands are still populated by an aging clientele that is not computer-savvy and has grown up with the habit of going to a track to bet horses. But if American racing is going to attract new fans, they will be members a generation accustomed to shopping, banking, investing and playing poker online. As the quality of streaming video has improved, making horse racing a viable game for the computer, Hasson said, “The fastest growing segment of our business is 21- to 28-year-olds, the younger generation that has adopted technology.”

The color of power

The Chronicle: Top Jobs in College Sports Still Go to White Males, Study Find

White men continue to hold the vast majority of the most powerful jobs in college sports, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, at the University of Central Florida.

Conservative Group Ends Offer to Pay Students to Monitor Courses

A conservative alumni group at the University of California at Los Angeles on Monday withdrew its offer to pay students $100 to file tapes and notes on what professors say during courses. A statement from the group’s founder, Andrew Jones, said that debate over the offer had become “a distraction from the real problem, which is classroom indoctrination.” Professors at UCLA and elsewhere have criticized the tactic of paying students as unethical and a violation of professors’ intellectual property rights.

CJR on David Horowitz

Columbia Journalism Review: On Balance

David Horowitz, author of the controversial “academic bill of rights,” has yet to build “a lay-down-the-cards case for the existence of bias at professional schools,” writes Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

N.Y. Reins In For-Profit Colleges

Inside Higher Ed: N.Y. Reins In For-Profit Colleges

New York State has put a moratorium on the establishment of new programs by for-profit colleges while officials examine perceived abuses and the state’s existing policies to combat them. The step is the latest in a string of actions suggesting that states and other regulators are ratcheting up their scrutiny of, and turning up the heat on, commercial colleges.

Katrina Blog at Tulane U. Provides a Venue for Reflection and Memor

The Chronicle: Katrina Blog at Tulane U. Provides a Venue for Reflection and Memory

As they settle back into their work and study routines, the students and employees of Tulane University have somewhere to go when they want to talk about Katrina. It’s a silent conversation taking place in cyberspace on a new blog.

The site, Katrina Stories, describes itself as “a living journal for those who survived” and as “a memorial to the places, family, and friends we have lost.”

Oklahoma Christian Withdraws Divorce Policy (Sort of)

Inside Higher Ed: Oklahoma Christian Withdraws Divorce Policy (Sort of)

Oklahoma Christian University employees who get divorced need not fear getting fired — at least not because of a written policy.

The university has withdrawn a draft policy that formally stated that divorce could be grounds for dismissal and that administrators would need to investigate divorces to see if they violated the beliefs of the university, which is affiliated with the Churches of Christ.

The growing higher ed workforce

Inside Higher ed: A Growing Higher Ed Workforce

The number of people who work in higher education grew by about 4.4 percent from 2003 to 2004, to a total of more than 3.3 million, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Most of the growth occurred at public universities and at for-profit colleges, and much of it came among employees who provide instruction rather than among administrators.

Report From Education Department Offers More Comprehensive Look at Faculty Salaries in 2004-5

The Chronicle: Report From Education Department Offers More Comprehensive Look at Faculty Salaries in 2004-5

The averages reported by the Education Department are a bit lower than the AAUP averages, probably because the department’s statistics are more comprehensive and include many smaller colleges that do not participate in the AAUP survey. For example, the average salary of a full professor is $87,634 according to the new report and $91,548 according to the AAUP. Both reports exclude medical faculty members, whose higher pay tends to skew the national averages.

The new report also contains data on the number of faculty members with varying degrees of tenure, at different types of institutions. And it offers statistics on what colleges spend on fringe benefits for faculty members. The largest such benefit for full-timers at nonprofit colleges are retirement plans. The biggest benefit for their counterparts in the for-profit sector are medical and dental plans.

Stand on workers rights

The Chronicle: U. of Wisconsin at Madison to Require Union-Friendly Factories Among Its Licensed Apparel Makers

The University of Wisconsin at Madison plans to require the companies licensed to make apparel bearing its name or logo to have at least 25 percent of the goods produced at factories where workers are allowed to form unions.

The “designated suppliers” program will begin this fall for all 150 licensees who produce Madison apparel.

The pilot program, which will run for 18 months, is in response to a recent proposal by United Students Against Sweatshops calling for similar action to protect the rights of workers in the global garment industry.